Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
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Jonah Ayers

• Jonah_Ayers (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Category:Wikipedia:Suspected sockpuppets of Jonah Ayers
• Wikipedia:Account suspensions/Sojambi Pinela (AKA Jonah Ayers)
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive40#Biff Rose-related sock puppets

This long time problem user has recently been making attacks by posting private information of other editors, in addition to his usual mayhem of sock puppetry and edit-warring at Biff Rose (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). (Though the information has been removed, admins SlimVirgin and Dan100 can confirm the attacks). This editor needs to be banned in all of his manifestations. I suppose that will require an ArbCom decision. I'll ask an ArbCom member to do a sockpuppet confirmation. -Willmcw 00:12, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

It seems very self involved for willmcw to be able to brand all those identities as mine without any real proof. I deny that any of those are my sockpuppets, and will say that I believe somehow willmcw is somehow related to User:Sojombi Pinola who is directly related to the article of note here, on Biff Rose.

i think it is a shame that when an editor has a disagreement with another editor that he can besmirch the other person, this is an administrator of wiki who is basically behving like a fascist using implication to fashion a noose around my neck. I demand retraction. he says I've done so many things, I have not!!! This most recent one is the worst. about the phone number. never!!!Jonah Ayers 21:40, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I've personally collated a list of 13 different idioms this controller uses to vandalise various aspects of Wikipedia and other works I am involved in. — HopeSeekr of xMule (Talk) 21:13, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

• This editor has been using a variety of sockpuppets to vandalize the article Biff Rose, then accusing editors who revert his vandalism of breaking the 3RR. He does not edit in good faith. A simple look at his comment of the Biff Rose talk page wil confirm this. Marcuse 22:41, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

no. not true. editing in good faith here. adding images, and readability to an article, even if it differs in subect matter, as long as it is sourced, is not vandalism, but a difference of opinion in stylistic matters. Wiki is a growing spot, and i should not be called vandal when I edit in good faith.Jonah Ayers 23:10, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Gibraltarian

I range blocked every IP he could possibly use, which is 212.120.224.0 - 212.120.231.255. We have no one else using any of those IPs. This is just for 48 hours. If it goes ok with no complaints, I'll make it longer. I know. It's drastic. But he just won't give up. We're up to 15-20 IPs he posted from. Just no other way. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 08:59, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Here is the list of IPs G has used and it's not even inclusive. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 09:07, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I note this probably means blocking all of Gibraltar. Now the pages in question are semi-protected is this needed? Morwen - Talk 10:55, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

If it does it is a little counterproductive. We do need the Gibraltar POV in articles.. Secretlondon 17:18, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

A locked out Gibraltar user comments:

I have politely explained twice to Woohookitty that the addresses he has blocked are part of a dynamic IP pool allocated to users of Gibtelecom, the largest of two ISP's in Gibraltar. This has been posted to the discussion part of his homepage, he deleted it without comment. He has locked out 2000 Gibraltar users unjustly.

He does not want to listen, and when he says "We have no one else using any of those IPs." he is simply not telling the truth, I normally use part of that IP block and I am certainly NOT the user he objects to.

Woohookitty seems to have a campaign against Gibraltarians as a whole and is unworthy of the privilige of being an administrator - I request that this block is removed quickly and that his status is reviewed.

I have been updating the pages on Gibraltar for some time (see record) - nobody has complained about my actions, and I have tried to deal with the Spanish user who wants to rewrite things his way politely. Woohookitty ignores this.--Gibnews 03:01, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

So, what solution do you propose to sort out the Gibraltarian problem? Have you also politely requested Gibraltarian to stop his disruptive behaviour (the real source of this problem)?

And BTW, I don't want to rewrite things my way, just introducing the Spanish POV, something that your compatriot Gibraltarian doesn't seem to even allow. Besides, your concept of being polite with "the Spanish user" is certainly rather strange: downright lies, lunatic [1], feel free to post as much false Spanish propaganda about Gibraltar as you like or I just rather hoped that there was an emerging intelligent generation in Spain who could treat Gibraltarians with respect and as friendly neigbours instead of wishing to engage in cultural genocide [2]. And last but not least, Woohookitty hasn't tried the IP range address (as the last resort) because "he has been upset by Gibraltarian calling him a fascist" (as you state in User talk:Gibnews#December_2005) or because "he have a campaign against Gibraltarians as a whole" but because Gibraltarian has proven that he's not able to work in a place like wikipedia (see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Gibraltarian/Evidence) --Ecemaml 08:30, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm alarmed that no Gibraltarian is now alowed to edit the Gibraltar page- unless he lives outside Gibraltar! While I agree user Gibraltarian has been rash, he's trying to make sure that the Spanish POV isn't dominant on a foreign page. Bearing in mind the hostile attitude some Spaniards have of Gibraltarians, no bad thing. Blocking all Gibraltarians is an over-reaction. I suggest it is lifted immediately, and a fairer way found. As a newcomer to WIKI, far for me to suggest what that is, but I'm sure you have more options than barring an entire country from editing their own pages. Rockeagle 20:27, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

No my friend, I'm afraid you're not totally right. Gibraltarian hasn't been rash, but definitely rude (you can see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Gibraltarian/Evidence) if you want more info. And no, he isn't preventing the Spanish POV from "being dominant". He's simply attempting to remove it. And in wikipedia there is no "own" or "foreign" articles. There are just articles that, as wikipedia clearly states, everybody may edit. And this is not a forum like those of www.xsorbit3.com, where simply shouting louder or using the most crude insult makes someone "win". There are quite precise rules and guidelines (WP:NPA, WP:NPOV, WP:NOT, WP:CITE and WP:V) that Gibraltarian routinely violates on the grounds of the "hostile attitude some Spaniards have of Gibraltarians", which, according to you, it's "no bad thing". That's the real problem. --Ecemaml 08:30, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Please Rant less, Quote more accurately, and remain on topic--Gibnews 11:33, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

being polite. --Ecemaml 12:32, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Ecemaml, please don't bait me. I was trying to be a dampening influence on some of the comments made here, so was deliberately understating. I'm not saying that Gibraltarian isn't being unreasonable, some of his comments are. However, some Spaniards have a very warped view of Gibraltarians, and Gibraltarians don't much like Spain, so care is needed to make sure it is a NPOV. I think we can agree on that much. Alternatively, we could try two sections: a UK/Gibraltar POV and a Spanish POV. However, I have been working on the History temp page, which I think is comprehensive and neutral, though maybe links to the Dispute page can be put in once we thrash out something for that page. If we can get the History page released, then perhaps we have made a start, and I can then focus on getting the dispute page into language we can both agree on, even if we don't like the points the other raises- because we probably won't. It IS a "dispute" page after all! So, are we going to edit, or just argue? Rockeagle 15:59, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm no longer doing anything involving these articles. You guys can revert Gibraltarian's comments yourself. Have fun you all! I did nothing wrong. Absolutely nothing. Not a single admin reverted what I did. Not a one. I don't even speak Spanish. I've never been outside of Wisconsin much less been in Gibraltar. I have no Spanish or Gibraltarian in my blood whatsoever. I've never read either of the articles this is about. But yeah. I have a grudge against people from Gibraltar. yeah. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 07:01, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

It's a hard work to be an administrator. Sure. --Ecemaml 09:28, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

yes its hard work, and with it must come responsibility. Blocking 95% of Gibraltar users from access is simply unjust. Bad behaviour by one does not justify it by another; Less is more, so all other comments as irrelevent.--Gibnews 11:33, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, fortunately Gibnews is here to tell us what is relevant and what is not. --Ecemaml 12:32, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

This is a discussion about blocking, not an excuse for a rant and as such it does not affect you, unless you want to silence everyone in Gibraltar.--Gibnews 23:07, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

There was nothing wrong with blocking that ip range for 48 hours. Gibraltarian has been constantly using ip addresses to vandalize, and this was meant to put an end to it. To claim that Woohookitty is partial to one side or the other is absolutely unjust—how long have you known him? Have you seen the disputes he works with? He is doing his best to be practical and deal with the situation according to policy. You are allowed to be critical of his actions, but to suggest that he is acting in bad faith is absurd, and I strongly suggest that you apologize. --Spangineer^es (háblame) 17:49, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm looking at the board, not the players and stand by my comments. if you have problems with one user thats what needs to be addressed.

I see a problem with an administrator; I also saw "If it goes ok with no complaints, I'll make it longer." The film '48 hours' had several sequels. There have been complaints.--Gibnews 23:07, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, you complained. So. I didn't do another range block. I saw one complaint in my email. I looked through the discussion board and my email. You complained once, not twice as you claim. If you can find the first complaint, let me know. And you know what? After you complained, I stopped. And I'd also like an apology from you. I want to see this bias I supposedly have against Gibraltar. Look at the entire web through google. Look up either Michael Lindeen or woohookitty. And also look at all 16,000+ of my edits on here and show me my bias against Gibraltar. The real issue here Gibnews is that, as you admitted on your talk page, you basically agree with Gibraltarian. It is you with the bias here, not me. You make a comment that unlike us, you can talk to the ISPs in Gibraltar to get him stopped. Then why haven't you? You haven't because you think G is just and correct in his attacks.

Another thing. Look at this page. It is a list of evidence against G. Notice that the vast majority of it is not from me? I am point this out because on your talk page, you said "It seems that someone called user:Woohookitty has now locked out 95% of the users in Gibraltar as he has been upset by user:Gibraltarian calling him a fascist." Um no. He was originally blocked for the 135 offenses on the evidence page I cited. 135. After he was blocked, he starting using sockpuppets, which is completely against policy. So then I started short range blocks, which didn't stop him. So I did the longer 48 hour one. ANY ADMIN COULD HAVE REVERSED ME. Any admin. Admins get reversed by other admins every day. If what I did was so biased, why didn't others stop me? Because they knew there wasn't much else to try.

And people wonder why I'm ready to leave the project. It's because people like gibnews can make wild accusations with no basis in fact and they get away with it. If he doesn't apologize, there isn't a damn thing I or anyone else can do. I have him accusing me of abusing power when he doesn't know a goddamn thing about me or my work here. I've been here for a year now. I have 16,000 edits. I've been an admin since June. Gibnews, yours is the FIRST complaint against me on this board. Doesn't that tell you something? There's no abusal of power here. I was trying to stop someone who has violated most of our rules from posting. I did the range block for 48 hours. You complained. I stopped. How the hell this has become "Woohookitty is abusing his powers" is really beyond me. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 08:40, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

There is no apology to someone who blocks the entire ADSL pool of Gibraltar wrongly.

You complain of abuse from ONE user of that pool, and slam 2000 IP's used by around 5000 users, including me.

I have told you the implication of a global block yet you ignore the advice.

I have offered to trace the user here in Gibraltar and resolve the problem locally, you do not reply to my email.

Despite which I have traced the user and am dealing with what you claim is a problem you cannot solve without killing everyone.

IF as you allege you have been subjected to repeated emails from the users, you can complain to the ISP or myself and it will be actioned but you do not.

You need to learn that with power comes responsibility and if you can't accept a polite and reasonable complaint against your abuse of authority, its time for you to consider your position.--Gibnews 19:44, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh please. Accusing an admin of bias and demanding his adminship is not polite. "I have traced the user and am dealing with what you claim is a problem" is patently absurd. This discussion has degenerated into an exercise in troll feeding and I suggest we end it here, and go work on the encyclopedia. Incidentally, I just blocked five Gibraltarian sockpuppets today... Dmcdevit·t 20:13, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Amen, Woohoo is one of the finest admins we have, get over yourself Gibnews, sometimes drastic action needs to be taken against determined banned users. The only thought that should come to Woohoo's mind when he considers his position should be absolute satisfaction with his role here. --kizzle 22:30, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Just to clarify something I said before, my decision on whether to stay with the project is not based on just this. It's been a long series of stuff that's got me dissatisifed with the project. Since December 2nd, I've had 163 headings on my talk page. It's just overload. And I'm being told every day that I'm things I'm not. In the last 2 weeks, I've been called power hungry, racist, a censor and everything else. I have a thick skin, but it gets to you after awhile. And then you have this. Gibnews, your first email to me was on the 2nd day of the 48 hour block. You completely avoided my question. Where are these other "warnings" and "complaints". I get up at about 4 am Wikitime. You wrote me the couple of emails you wrote me while I was sleeping. By the time I woke up, the block had expired. You make it sound as though you had been warning me for weeks. it's all just ridiculous. The block is OVER. Has been for 2 days now, as evidenced by Gibraltarian's socks. And "polite"? What do you consider polite. In your very first email to me, you told me that I should take time off and contemplate my role here. On a post on your talk page, you talked about how corrupted by power I was. How the heck is that polite? You don't even know me! You know how many admin things I do a day? 10-15. I do one thing that you consider wrong and suddenly, I'm just an awful, power hungry man. Again, where is this bias? Where are all of these other abuses of power? People make mistakes, gibnews. Anyway, I'm not saying anything else on this. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 01:46, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I've been on Wikipedia for a little while now (though less than a year, I admit), and I would like to put down a small observation on this. Woohookitty is a good admin. He has always attemped to be fair in dealing with those who would work contrary to what Wiki stands for; I've never seen Woohookitty act in a rude, condescending or otherwise inappropriate manner here. What we have is a single individual (Gibnews), who has felt apparently slighted and rushed to judgement without any thought to whether or not his accusations or demands were called for. They aren't, of course. Woohookitty did what he felt was neccesary in order to preserve the peace and sanity of everyone who contributes legitimately to the article in question. This is also why Woohoo's actions weren't overturned by higher authorities; because he acted appropriately. Gibnews has already (as was shown in this very thread) asked politely by other users to calm down and to discuss the matter rationally, but he merely seems interested in presenting his own side of things and not listening to what others have to say. It's extremely difficult to deal with an individual like that, because oftentimes rational logic will get thrown out the window in an effort to preserve "his side".

Woohookitty, please don't leave the project. Your contributions to Wikipedia have been remarkable and invaluable. I count you as one of the people that can be relied on to tirelessly, thanklessly work towards bettering the project despite seemingly constant attacks from individuals who don't get their way. I am asking you, please, don't let the small minority win. Don't leave.

Wiki needs you. Daniel Davis 04:36, 1 January 2006 (UTC) (Doom127)

Thank you, much appreciated! --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 05:01, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, 'people make mistakes' and one hopes they also learn from them. You scorn any assistance from me is solving a problem you have not been able to address. I suggest you wait and see.

There has been a long history of trouble between 'Gibraltarian' and the Spanish, resulting in him being blocked, and I believe the whole Gibraltar IP pool, from editing the Spanish pages, these still contain defamamatory comments. That will be addressed.

In the meantime, as others say you are doing good work, please carry on doing so. I also intend to do just that. Less is more so don't go on about things ad infinitum, there are more serious things to be done.--Gibnews 10:33, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Gibnews, you're beginning to resemble Gibraltarian too much, I'm afraid. Yes, the whole Gibraltar IP pool is blocked in es:. It's blocked in a week-period basis. We block for a week and wait for the new vandalizing from Gibraltarian. Last time it took less that a day to see the new vandalizing from him (Vandalizing? Yes, quite similar to what is currently being described in ). And as long as we don't implement the semiprotection feature (it's not automatic and is being voted in es:) the blocking will continue. The other possibility was blocking Gibraltar-related

Gibnews, you're right, the whole Gibraltar IP pool is blocked in es:. It's blocked in a week-by-week basis. We block for a week and wait for the new vandalizing from Gibraltarian. Last time it took less that a day after the expiration of the block to see the new vandalizing from him (Vandalizing? Yes, quite similar to what is currently being described in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Gibraltarian/Evidence. Besides, of course without any explanation, he violates the naming policy agreed on in es: with regard to place names, for example replacing Bahía de Algeciras with Bay of Gibraltar or Puerto Argentino/Stanley with Stanley; he's even funnier when he, not being a native speaker, intends to replace perfectly valid phrasing because he doesn't like it). And as long as we haven't implement the semiprotection feature yet (it's not automatic and is being voted in es:) the blocking will continue. The other possibility was blocking Gibraltar-related articles (and Falkland Islands-related, by the way) and, sorry, but it's not fair to block a set of articles only because of the vandalizing of a proved fanatic individual like this. Unfortunately, the measures that wikipedia may put in place to fight against people like this are quite limited, and administrators have to choose. I'm not keen to get burnout like Woohookitty (my sympathies, by the way) only because of people that doesn't understand wikipedia, people that doesn't love wikipedia as we do, people that come here only to continue with his offensive and rude insults they've got used to in places like xsorbit (you can see his messages there and verify whether he was a troll after or before posting in en:). And take it for sure, there is no possibility of removing such allegedly defamatory contents (I'd still like to know which of the current contents of the articles are "defammatory") for people that behave as Gibraltarian does. As far as I understand, there are only two possibilities with him: blocking the IP range (unfair) and semiprotecting all the articles he targets (more or less fine), but as long as he's publicly stated that he's determined to go on with his behaviour "for ever" I don't know what to do in the long term (semiprotection is not forever). I'd like to know whether there are other possibilities, but it doesn't seem so. --Ecemaml 08:41, 3 January 2006 (UTC) (administrator in es:)

I'm on extended break as of now. And again. It's not just this. Read my user page. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 12:56, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Everybody needs a holiday and a rest from things from time to time; If you are spammed or molested by any Gibraltar users, feel free to email me directly, otherwise I will leave you alone. My complaint here was about blocking Gibraltar not Gibraltarian but you have reverted the heading and really we have said enough on the topic. This is why I drew a line and hoped others would take the hint. No, I don't know you, but there again you don't know me either so perhaps we should start afresh when you are back.--Gibnews 00:59, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I'am a regular watcher of Spain and sometimes Gibraltar as well. I must testify that Gibraltarian is not a type of a user that listens or discusses. The user doesn't respect any policy of Wikipedia. He's been notified many times that the day of his indefinite banning was on the horizons. His actions are not acceptable in this place.

Back to the subject. As long as everybody agrees about the vandalism of the user, the solution to this problem is simply an sprotected tag. Let's go back to work! -- Cheers -- Szvest 09:04, 3 January 2006 (UTC) ^{Wiki me up™}

This is not really the place, but in the article Economía, it describes Gibraltar as a "paraíso fiscal" and then later correctly says the OECD states its not. Its one thing I agree with 'Gibraltarian' on.--Gibnews 09:47, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's not the place, but acording to the definition (in Spanish, see the authority on determining what things mean in Spanish here), Gibraltar is a "paraiso fiscal". We're not going to change things because a non-native speaker thinks that it should not be the definition in Spanish. BTW, see the article here on Tax havens. It (correctly, I suppose) lists Gibraltar as a tax haven (the usual translation of "paraíso fiscal"), so... where is the point? --Ecemaml 13:24, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Gibraltar is not a 'tax haven' according to the OECD who are the authority. Your article contradicts itself. Your comments about 'non-native speakers' views not counting are revealing.--Gibnews 22:30, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Gib! The point is that Gibraltarian acts against the policies. I may agree with him or not but I'd never tolerate their lack of respect of policies. If the problem is about "paraíso fiscal", it would have long been sorted out (as it is done in every article). The problem is beyond that and everybody should abide by the policies, starting w/ WP:NPA. Knowing in advance about the fact that playing with a large range of IP's would cause a disruption for all Gibraltarian users like you and many others and still keeping on playing the same tricks is a clear evidence that the user just don't care. Cheers -- Szvest 09:59, 3 January 2006 (UTC) ^{Wiki me up™}

Yes. Sort of human shields. --Ecemaml 13:24, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, ^{Wiki me up™} as the topic is Gibraltarian and I was discouraged from changing it to the wider issue of blocking Gibraltar IP's which was my actual complaint; I suggest you read the above intransigent exchange from Ecemaml and form your own opinion on why 'Gibraltarian' got frustrated and acted inappropriatly.

This discussion has also confirmed that the majority of Gibraltar users are locked out permenantly from editing the Spanish version of the pages on Gibraltar, and that our views don't count as we are not 'native speakers'. Yet we should also be locked out of editing the pages in English, so the Spanish version of reality can prevail there too. This mirrors the practice that our mobile telephones are blocked totally from operating in one particular country in the world.--Gibnews 22:58, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Nice try, Gibnews. But you are both distorting things coarsely and unfortunaly not telling the truth. Distorting things because there is nothing against not native speakers. There are plenty of them in es:. But what a non-native speaker may not do is changing the meaning of words in Spanish. If the Real Academia Española (the organism that defines what every word means in Spanish) gives a meaning to "paraíso fiscal" and such definition applies to Gibraltar, it seems weird that a non-native speaker claims that such a definition does not apply (BTW you can try the following searches "paraiso fiscal" +Gibraltar or "tax haven" +Gibraltar. The first search gives 17,000 hits. The second one 64,000. Moreover, if you go here to the article on Tax havens, you'll see that Gibraltar is listed as one of them. I don't see so much belligerence with regard to the article Tax haven. In fact, if you take the listing of the OECD, only three territories are listed as non-cooperative tax havens. And BTW, the presence of Gibraltar in the OECD reports is appropriately described.

And not telling the truth since the claim "the majority of Gibraltar users are locked out permenantly" is plainly wrong. At the moment, and as long as we haven't implemented semiprotection yet, blocking of the Gibraltar range is performed in a periodic basis (and we're forced to renew it once expires since it takes to Gibraltarian less than a day to go on with his vandalism). The problem, as you know, is your compatriot Gibraltarian that, according to their last editions (here) and quite defiantly, "will NEVER give up". We're still waiting for your solutions to the problems caused by him.

And Gibnews, again. I ask you to refrain from labelling people or their edits. Sometimes it seems that as long as you've suffered a lot you should be allowed to behave in the way you want, and that's not the case. The edits by Burgas00 may be right or wrong, but as long as he's a beginner, you could try and assume good faith and therefore, not label his editions as vandalism. It's not definitely polite. --Ecemaml 08:04, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Let me concisely respond.

1. Gibraltar is not a 'fiscal paradise' nor a 'tax haven'. The OECD is the body who determine that and your article says correctly they do not list it as such. it is not your call, nor that of a wiki or Google it is THEIR opinion which defines inclusion.

No, you're not right. And not in the specific case of Gibraltar, but in a wide sense. If you look to the ODCE list, you'll see that they define tax havens according to the transparency of their mechanisms and how cooperative they are. According to that, there are only three tax havens in the world! However, the article on tax havens here defines what in English language a tax haven is (regardless of being cooperative or not and not considering the definition of the ODCE). The same happens in es:. The definition of tax haven is applied. And although the precissions on what the ODCE considers a tax haven should be added (as an interesting aside to consider: sort of "legal definition"), they're not the authority to define what a tax haven is or not (by the way, the inclusion on the ODCE is described in the es:Gibraltar article). --Ecemaml 07:47, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

2. You are blocking my normal IP with a rollover lockout on the .es site. I am not complaining about that currently just observing the fact.

No, you were stating that there is a permanent blocking. There isn't. --Ecemaml 07:47, 5 January 2006 (UTC) PD: BTW, the semiprotection feature will be implemented on January 15th (once the voting ends) so that no need for further blockings will be needed.

3. The edits of Burgas00 amounted to vandalism, however as he had I now believe him to have been naieve rather than malevolent, so there is no further action required. if he persists he should get the treatment awarded to 'Gibraltarian' I have politely described with reasons for deletion in the appropriate place and you agree with me ... unless you really think Gibraltar is 'in Spain' :)

The fact that I think Gibraltar is in Spain or not is irrelevant (in fact, I do think it isn't), but again, the point here is wikipedia and its rules and guidelines. Wikipedia states "assume good faith" and "don't label other people editions". I agree with you that Burgas edition might be unaccurate and even offensive, but the wikipedia way is explaining what's going on (what you actually did), rework the edition by the other side, if necessary, wait and see. Being personally offensive with a newcomer (labelling his edition as "vandalism") is not the wikipedia way. For sure. --Ecemaml 07:47, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Lets not labour the point, its resolved and my comments on the discussion page are a model of politeness. Seeing five bad edits rang alarm bells. I'm glad you agree with me on geographical issues. Without wishing to get into that discussion, Brits died to remove the name Puerto Argentina, its not coming back. It should be treated as a historical curiosity and not given equal billing but at least we agree on the name of Gibraltar and that military intervention is not an option.--Gibnews 10:17, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Why shouldn't we agree on the current status of Gibraltar? In spite of what you can think about me, I'm not here to support the Spanish claims. Only to show that they exist. On the other hand, I understand that your mention to Puerto Argentino is related to the discussion that has taken place in es: (other of the usual vandalisms by Gibraltarian). So I'll try to explain it again in order to make it understandable. The first point is that the official toponym of a name is irrelevant in es: (well, in the same way as in any other wikipedia). That way, we have an entry named es:Londres and not London or es:Bruselas and not Bruxelles or es:Islas Malvinas and not es:Islas Falkland. The convention we follow is using the Spanish exonyms when available. From such a point of view, the conventions in es: were clear: the article should be under the title es:Puerto Argentino. However, there were two problems: the Spanish exonym was not "traditional" (it was created during the Falklands War) and it was not unanimous in the whole Spanish-speaking countries (in some countries Stanley was used while in others Puerto Argentino was more popular). That way, it was decided, after a two-week discussion, that the convention used to name Chilean-Argentinean lakes (lakes located in the frontier): using both names with a slash between them (and using an alphabetic order). That way, the name of the article is es:Puerto Argentino/Stanley. However, Gibraltarian, without considering the discussion or explaining anything just removed the agreed name and replaced it with Stanley. Very similar was the replacement of es:Bahía de Algeciras with Bay of Gibraltar, when the name in Spanish is the first one. Are they vandalisms or not? --Ecemaml 16:44, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I am sorry to hear that people from Gibraltar are blocked permanently from editing the Spanish wiki. That's not fair at all. However, I am not in a position to intervene on that matter as I am not an admin neither a user in the Spanish wiki. Regarding here, I also can't give a judgement about the editi warring as I am not familiar w/ the political issue. All my intervention is dealing with pesonal attacks and the lack of civility. And according to my experience, I only witnessed that to come only from one user as I explained above. Cheers -- Szvest 05:05, 4 January 2006 (UTC) ^{Wiki me up™}

Hi Fayssal. In fact I don't see the personal attacks as the main problem. The main problem is his inability to understand how wikipedia works. See for example this removal. It seems that he tries to manipulate the history to support his political point of view, removing what could be against his positions. What is rather strange is that a) I can't see how such removals support or not his position b) what is removed is appropriately sourced with British sources!!! (two books, the most widely references works on the topic; one of them being allegedly pro-Spanish, the other one by a very ex-Governor of Gibraltar, a militar and professional military historian). That's the real problem, I'm afraid. --Ecemaml 08:04, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

---

Guys, the size of this particular AN/I is growing beyond limits. Please continue any further discussion to the relevant articles' talk pages. Cheers -- Szvest 19:05, 5 January 2006 (UTC) ^{Wiki me up™}

Marsden Redux

Since the previous discussion has become hopelessly stupid, I am lifting the block on Marsden. If he continues the trolling behavior that got me to put the block up in the first place, I am reinstating it at indefinite. My reasoning in this will be simple - Marsden exhibits behavior that has gotten many people banned before. He exhibits this behavior unrepentantly. He is, in short, more or less certain to get himself banned. Given the choice between a drawn out process that will result in a circus as he rants about the Injustice of it All, or quietly shooting him as the foregone conclusion that it is, I pick the latter.

If and when I reblock Marsden, I invite any admin to undo the block PROVIDED that they can actually give a substantive reason why the block is in error. That is to say, I do not care if it is against procedure - I want to know what's wrong with it. Procedure is not and never has been an end in itself on Wikipedia. But perhaps Marsden will take a lesson from the fact that he is so very close to the edge,and change his behavior - we'll see. Phil Sandifer 16:52, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Phil, I suspect I speak for not a small number of Wikipedians when I ask, who exactly do you think you are? You seem to imagine that you are some sort of savior for Wikipedia, breaking all the rules in order to ... well, it's not clear exactly what you intend. Why shouldn't someone shoot you rather than me, Phil?

Your comment on unblocking me, Phil ("OK, let's give Marsden a happy 'one last chance' and then see what happens."), belies what I think is a perverted understanding of what Wikipedia is: ultimately, this is a charitable effort, manned by volunteers. "One last chance," Phil? There seems to be a corrupt attitude among a lot of Wikipedians, especially admins (and cerrtainly not just you, Phil), that it is punishment to ban someone from Wikipedia. How long do you think the Red Cross would tolerate a volunteer manager who insisted that some other volunteers were unworthy of stacking sandbags against a rising river? And yet, isn't this pretty much the role you have tried to carve out for yourself at Wikipedia?

Whenever Wikipedia drives away another editor of good faith, that ultimately is a loss for Wikipedia. Sometimes it no doubt is necessary, but to relish doing it, as you seem to do, frankly suggests some significant moral defects.

My participation in Wikipedia became relegated to trying to counter what I see as part of its systemic bias. This wasn't by choice, and anyone who thinks I enjoyed it should take a look at the early work I did make glacially paced changes at the Zionism article, and explain for themselves how anyone could enjoy that.

But in doing this, I encountered an obstruction of reliable methods of inquiry from a couple other editors here: circular objections to changes, and the revert warring that sadly is ultimately what decides what stays in Wikipedia. It was not me, between myself and the group of editors that I have had conflicts with, who first abandoned discussion and reason in deciding what should be in Wikipedia.

But the regime is very strong. I don't know the extent to which different editors are consciously promoting propaganda as opposed to just reflexively attacking any threat to an establishment that they see themselves as a part of, but at this point Wikipedia systemically makes unwelcome (to say the least) anyone who questions certain aspects of the project. That sort of attitude inevitably leads to a spiral descent.

User:Marsden

I smell jasmine in the air...ah, the sweet seductive scent of eternal optimism.  :-) Tomer^talk 17:42, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Marsden has been blocked indefinitely by Jimbo. User:Zoe|^(talk) 23:46, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

With the comment that "Snowspinner was right", but as far as I can see, no other contribution to the debate. Great - doesn't he have better things to do than randomly over-rule community discussions? And more generally, what broader conclusions do we draw if Snowspinner's actions were entirely 100% correct (including failure to notify anyone of an indefinite ban, never mind justify it with anything other than block summary "hopeless troll" and WP:AN remark "Wikipedia does not need trolls with nothing better to do than accuse Jimbo of stacking the arbcom with Zionist Randroids.")? How long before users can be banned permanently by any of 1000+ admins (not there yet, give it time) for being persistently annoying or strongly backing a POV an admin disagrees with? This is a dangerous precedent, IMO. It's a slippery slope when you prioritise ends over means; product (user getting banned for bad behaviour) over process (proving that behaviour was bad enough to deserve it, and that ban has nothing to do with content dispute). Frankly, in circumstances where the user accuses editors of bias, we should be more careful about process not less, for reasons that should be obvious. Rd232 ^talk 00:17, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Count yourself ahead, rd232. It's Wales' project, and no one has any right to demand anything from it. But now at least you have a better idea of what the deal is. User:Marsden

How long before users can be banned permanently by any of 1000+ admins (not there yet, give it time) for being persistently annoying. Hasten the day. User:Zoe|^(talk) 00:23, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

First, I am part of the community process, not overruling it, and acting in this instance perfectly in line with our longstanding norms and traditions. Second, I'm quite sympathetic with concerns about slippery slope problems and the importance of process over results.

In this case, in line with longstanding policy, Snowspinner made a block which not one of our hundreds of admins was willing to overturn -- to me, this suggests a very strong consensus that could be formalized with a poll or something but to be honest, why bother?

Indefinite in this case does not mean infinite. If you'd like to start a poll or something as to whether he should be let back in, or start an arbcom case requesting the arbcom to consider letting him back in, I won't stand in the way. But, I think you can guess what the result would be.

There's another slippery slope to worry about, and this is that good people, thoughtful admins who care about quality, are frequently burned out by our excessive tolerance of nutcases. This can lead to a tendency over time toward having increasing tolerance of trolls and increased influence of trolls over policy. A very important counter-measure towards this race to the bottom is for us all to step back now and then and say, right then, this kind of thing is simply not welcome here, end of story. If I had the time to really thoroughly investigate several pending cases, I'd indefinitely block at least 20 more like him tomorrow.--Jimbo Wales 23:00, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

1. "I am part of the community process, not overruling it" - AFAIK, you didn't contribute to the discussion prior to your action, which was what I was referring to when I said "over-rule community discussions" (not "process"). The result of those discussions was that Snowspinner changed his mind (albeit mostly to get shot of the issue) and gave Marsden one more chance, unblocking him. You then overruled Snowspinner's change of mind with the comment "Snowspinner was right", and no other explanation. Frankly that strikes me as an odd and illadvised thing to do, unless you saw something inappropriate in the single contribution (comment above) Marsden made in the intervening period.
2. "Snowspinner made a block which not one of our hundreds of admins was willing to overturn" is incorrect: after the ban was brought to community attention (a week after it was done), and some discussion, I overturned it in favour of a 1 month block, and after that was reversed another admin overturned it again in the same way. And I recall a comment that a third would have done it if he didn't have Arbitration issues to worry about.
3. "Indefinite in this case does not mean infinite.". Really? Then what is the process by which indefinite is turned into definite? Is appeal to Arbcom really the appropriate means for dealing with all such concerns? (If there's another means, what is it?)
4. If "tolerance of trolls" is a problem we should define banning policy in a way that possible trolls can be warned of behaviour to avoid, and that admins considering such bans can use as a reliable yardstick (or at least a guide). "Trolling" is far too subjective a notion for as large a community as ours to allow individual admins to ban people on the basis of accusations of trolling without any attempt to prove it or to gain second opinion from others to support that judgement. That doesn't require the formality of Arbcom, but it requires some kind of process.
5. Failure of other admins to overturn a ban doesn't constitute process, because (a) we don't know the number of admins we can plausibly expect to notice a ban (even when it's announced properly, which it wasn't in this case) (b) we don't know the number of admins who'll serious consider evaluating the case; (c) the respect admins generally pay to other admins' decisions, mostly for reasons of practical efficiency (we'll generally assume there are aspects of a complex case that aren't obvious, and rely on others' judgement). In other words, the failure of anyone to overturn a ban cannot reasonably be taken as an endorsement: only explicit statements of support can be counted on. Rd232 ^talk 21:05, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
6. "If I had the time to really thoroughly investigate several pending cases, I'd indefinitely block at least 20 more like him tomorrow." Which cuts to the heart of the problem: if we had a policy which was well-defined enough to deal with this sort of behaviour consistently, the risk of appearing to arbitrarily exercise these powers would be rather less. Perhaps you could suggest some changes to Wikipedia:banning policy to help clarify these kinds of situation in future. Rd232 ^talk 21:05, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Rd232, you distinguish between "process" and "discussion" somewhat disingenuously here, IMHO. Do you seriously expect that every time a user reads something on WP:AN or WP:ANI or anywhere else, for that matter, and agrees with a statement someone makes, that they should clutter up the page and the servers by saying "I agree!"? Do you seriously think that Jimbo doesn't have this page on his watchlist? Categorically, "indefinite...does not mean infinite". Look it up in a dictionary. Jimbo even said that he wouldn't stand in the way of an arbcom case regarding the matter, or even a poll. The argument that an arbcom case has already been brought and rejected out of hand isn't going to hack it in this case, since the arbcom case was horrendously written, accusing a number of parties of being involved in "the dispute" without any indication as to how they're involved. It's even a stretch to say I was involved, yet I'm listed as an involved party. Not only that, but there was never any evidence presented that the supposedly "involved parties" were ever informed of the RfAr. If you value "procedure" so highly, do a decent job of creating an RfAr and maybe your complaints will fall on more fertile ground. As for your claim that the ban was not announced properly, that's just plain wrong. The fact that Marsden's defenders didn't notice the announcement for a week is an indictment against them, not against the process you claim to hold in such high regard. As for your recommendation that Jimbo propose changes to the blocking policy, perhaps you should consider doing so as well, since you seem to feel that the policy there doesn't sufficiently protect Marsden [in this case] from abusive admins. Tomer^talk 05:41, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Groan. (I didn't want to rehash this again; and you don't seem to have read my and Jimbo's comments as carefully as you might.) Fine. 1. The distinction between process and discussion arose from Jimbo saying he was part of the community process, missing the point because I'd complained that he'd acted without taking part in the discussion. 2. This (users don't say "I agree!") is precisely my point: absence of evidence of disagreement is not evidence of existence of agreement. But when relying (implicitly or explicitly) on the "community patience" provision of banning policy, it would seem reasonable to require some evidence of agreement. 3. "indefinite...does not mean infinite". - see my point 3 above. 4. As I've said repeatedly, I didn't want an RfAr or anything like that; I just wanted a straight answer, with some evidence, on why Marsden deserved an indefinite block; or, failing that, a revision of the block. 5. The ban was not properly announced (here), because it omitted the rather crucial fact that the ban was indefinite. 6. I would suggest changes to blocking policy, but given the existence of Wikipedia:Controversial blocks, and Jimbo's endorsement of Snowspinner's action, it would seem pointless (or at any rate, low point-to-effort ratio). 7. If you multiply the Marsden case by 1000, allow for ever looser interpretation of policy and increasing number of admins, and you will soon have something resembling the "Wild West". Rd232 ^talk 11:09, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Rd232, you're confusing banning with blocking. Marsden is blocked indefinitely, in accordance with the blocking policy, for disruption and excessive personal attacks. As for your prioritizing process over product, you might want to consider being consistent in that regard, as you yourself recently blocked a user you were involved in a content dispute with, someone who thoroughly deserved the block, but had you been following process, you wouldn't have done it. [3] SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:46, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not confusing blocking with banning. Marsden is banned indefinitely from editing Wikipedia, which ban is enforced by an indefinite block. Rd232 ^talk 12:25, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I was not "in a content dispute". I came to the page via WP:RFC, made a remark agreeing with the majority, and participated in some discussion in an attempt to clarify the issue. I did not edit the article (except, after the block, to undo the excessive reversion after the user's severe violation of 3RR). Rd232 ^talk 12:25, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I notice that (above) you link (via a diff) to your comment on my user talk page, thereby excluding anybody who follows it from directly seeing the reply I'd already made there long before you posted the above comment - and which reply you'd evidently seen because you'd just replied to it. I'll assume that was just an oversight. Rd232 ^talk 12:33, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

The point I'm trying to make is that you seem to prioritize process when it suits you, but not when it doesn't. The blocking policy says that we can't block where we're involved in the content dispute. You made a comment on the talk page shortly before the block that directly opposed the position RJII was reverting over, thereby involving yourself in the dispute, so strictly speaking you should not have blocked him, especially when the first admin to deal with the violation had decided not to. That's my only point. I agree that process should not be prioritized over product, I agree that RJII deserved a block, and I personally have no problem with you doing it. I'm only asking for consistency. Just as you're asking people to trust your judgement as an admin regarding RJII (even if strictly speaking the block may have been a violation of the blocking policy), so other admins were asking you to trust their judgement regarding Marsden. We do have to trust each other's judgement, even on occasions where we may not agree with it. If we don't, the result is these very harmful block wars. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 12:42, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I've explained that I did not consider myself involved in the content dispute. (I've also explained - on my talk page discussion with you - why I took action when another admin didn't: inaction was driving editors away.) Now others may disagree as to whether I was involved or not, but I object to what amounts to an accusation of hypocrisy, that I will preach on process but ignore it myself. As to the block war: yes, that was exceedingly silly, since the discussion was ongoing and there were over two weeks left on the 1 month block I instituted: i.e. no pressing need for anyone to pre-empt ongoing discussion as to what the appropriate length was, and the resulting to-and-fro about indefinite or 1-month blocks. Rd232 ^talk 15:32, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Based on my actions and the criticism from some quarters it has gotten, I've decided to open an RFC about my actions. Thanks in advance for any comments. Talrias (t | e | c) 22:19, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Template:Help Wikiboxes

This template was created shortly after an WP:RFC was filled against adminstrator User:Kelly Martin over the issue of her deletion of Userboxes. While Kelly has been told of this RFC, I believe it is highly inappropriate for this template to be used in order for an RFC to take place. Not to mention, some of the wordings of the template have attacked Kelly and does not follow the RFC's rules of displaying a neutral report. I ask that this template should be seriously considered for speedy deletion under the guideline that its only purpose is to attack a user. Zach ^{(Smack Back)} 00:08, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Just want to add that I changed the text to a more neutral tone and it's been been reverted back to more alarmist and POV wording by several editors. Please watch and at least keep it neutral if nothing else. thanks Rx StrangeLove 00:11, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's at all possible to "keep it neutral" as it is a pure call to arms. Now nominated on WP:TFD. David | Talk 00:28, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I certainly agree and am glad to see it gone. Rx StrangeLove 07:47, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Speedy deleted on TFD, I tagged it as deletedpage. Zach ^{(Smack Back)} 05:48, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I have respeedied this as a horrific abuse of the template namespace, blocked all those involved in its creation, and closed the TfD. Phil Sandifer 16:56, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

• Both the deletion and the blocks are a gross violation of WP:BP and WP:DP. Firebug 17:02, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
  • That's nice. The template, on the other hand, is an abomination to everything that Wikipedia stands for, and that trumps pretty much everything you can come up with here. Phil Sandifer 17:03, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
    • I am certainly opposed to the blocks. Neither misusing the template namespace, nor soliciting assistannce with a silly problem, are blockable offenses. -- SCZenz 17:04, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
      • Ok, this is going to WP:RFC. Firebug 17:06, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
• As the deletion is clearly out of process (this is not an attack page, it discusses actions and invites comment), I have undelted. DES ^(talk) 17:08, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
  • how is Template:Help Wikiboxes not an attack page? It's clearly aimed at gathering a lynch mob. Rx StrangeLove 17:14, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I have unblocked two of the three users that Phil blocked; the third was already indef blocked for other (albeit related) reasons by another admin. I won't re-unblock, but I think some concrete explanation needs to be provided for blocking them. Using WP:IAR to delete inappropriate pages/templates is one thing—using it to block substantial contributors is quote another! -- SCZenz 17:11, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

• In my view they are they same thing -- totally inappropriate, and highly damaging to the project. But I do agree that out-of-process blocks are even more clearly against policy and more damaging to the project than out-of-process deletions. DES ^(talk) 17:15, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Process is a means to an ends. This template was an active attack on those ends. It is perfectly clear which of those needs to win out. Phil Sandifer 17:19, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Bullshit. I'm reinstating. We do not need a meticulous and exhaustive masturbatory discussion of this. Every part of this template is an insult to the community. It is a wholesale misunderstanding of everything that Wikipedia is. No policy, no rule, and no guideline exists that can possibly outweigh how monumentally bad this situation is. The message that this is wholly unacceptable needs to be clear and draconian. I am reinstating all the blocks and the deletion, and will continue to do so. Phil Sandifer 17:13, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I am willing to accept the deletion of the template. The blocks are grossly inappropriate; no justification other than "this is a bad situation" has been given. -- SCZenz 17:22, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

The justification is this - blocks are enacted when people do very bad things on Wikipedia. This template was more harmful than anything Willy on Wheels ever did. Ergo a 48 hour block for its creator and 24 for anyone who edited it to strengthen it is wholly appropriate. Because we construct electric fences with clear "Never do this again, EVER EVER EVER" messages when we have to. Phil Sandifer 17:27, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Agree this template should be deleted, but how on earth do you justify blocking those users? Martin 17:21, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

What other methods do you think were appropriate of notifying userbox contributors of the ongoing out-of-process deletions? There is no evidence that any of these deletions ever reflected community consensus, and, indeed, the comments at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Kelly Martin make it clear that most users did not want these boxes deleted. We have a perfectly clear process (WP:TFD) for deleting templates that are felt to be unneeded or destructive. These actions show contempt for this process, and for the Wikipedia community. Firebug 17:24, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Contempt for the process is increasingly well-deserved, as the entire aftermath of Kelly's actions demonstrates.

"The message that this is wholly unacceptable needs to be clear and draconian. I am reinstating all the blocks and the deletion, and will continue to do so. Phil Sandifer 17:13, 1 January 2006 (UTC)"

1. You're banning people permanantly from Wikipedia for linking to an RfC.
2. You're very much in support of Kelly Martin's abuse of admin

Bias much? Someone else should be handling this, not Snowspinner. And if Snowspinner's going to go on a personal vendetta against people that dare link to a valid RfC that happens to criticise his friends, maybe he needs his sysop privileges removed.. --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 17:26, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Kelly's my friend? Aww, man, I would have sent her a Christmas card! Phil Sandifer 17:41, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually they're only 24 (or maybe 48) hour blocks. -- SCZenz 17:29, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

hmm. Last time I looked it said "indefinite" - the blocks made by User:Cryptic and User:Neutrality

And in any case Snowspinner here just vowed to "continue to reinstate the blocks", presumably indefinitely. --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 17:39, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

So, Snowspinner, you think you should be able to delete anything you please, and community consensus be damned? If this is the case, it's clear that you can no longer be trusted with administrative powers. Firebug 17:29, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

So remove them. Phil Sandifer 17:41, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

And where exactly is Wikipedia:Request for de-adminship? AFAIK only an arbcom action or a decreee from jimbo or a self-request can de-admin anyone. It might be argued that that should not be the case, but so it is at present. if I am mistaken, please tell me. DES ^(talk) 17:47, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests_for_de-adminship. Mark¹ 17:53, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Template:Help Wikiboxes is clearly an attack page and anyone who continues to create them is blockable. We don't tolerate attack pages anywhere else, we shouldn't tolerate them in this case either. Rx StrangeLove 17:35, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

How is it an "attack page" to say that templates are being mass deleted out of process and advising users where to comment if they disagree with this? Firebug 17:38, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

They are clearly aiming to gather a lynch mob together, look at the various versions and the wordings. This is not an "advisement". It's aimed at gathering a group of like minded users to go to the RFC and attack a user whether by signing a view or by creating one of their own. Either way it's not a balanced and neutral message. When I tried to NOP it people kept reverting to a more alarmist version. That says it all right there. Rx StrangeLove 17:54, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

• I second Strangelove's words. Radiant_>|< 20:11, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Indefinite block of God of War

User:God of War was indefinitely blocked by User:Neutrality, who gave "trolling" as the reason. Certainly, some edits of God of War warrant a block, for example [4], but I question whether the block should be indefinite, and I don't see a pattern of warning edits on GoW's talk page leading up to the block. I have raised this on User talk:Neutrality but have not yet received a response.-gadfium 05:15, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

• I see that Neutrality has unblocked him. Never mind.-gadfium 05:21, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
• In my opinion, this comes close to warranting a {{usernameblock}}. Radiant_>|< 20:13, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Why would we block that and not block Mars (talk · contribs) and Ares (talk · contribs)? Uncle G 00:25, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Votestacking FAC sockpuppets: Hollow Wilerding

Sockpuppet suspicions against Hollow Wilerding expressed by Mel Etitis and Bunchofgrapes have now been confirmed through a CheckUser check by Kelly Martin.[5] The sock accounts, Winnermario and DrippingInk, have been used to support and argue for HW's WP:FAC nominations, creating a false impression of community support for her Featured Article candidates. The most recent such sock support is for The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, which became a Featured article on December 19; see Featured article candidates/The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. At her recent disastrous RFA, HW protests her innocence of the puppeteering allegations,[6] claiming that Winnermario is merely a friend from another website and DrippingInk a neighbor. From the discussion at the RFA, DrippingInk might alternatively be a meatpuppet sharing the same computer—something that's denied by HW, however. The socks have been elaborately buttressed by complimentary and apparently fake dialogue with HW on the respective talkpages and at FAC; compare this recent comment by Bunchofgrapes.
If nobody objects, I will ban the socks indefinitely and block Hollow Wilerding for two weeks for abuse of the FAC process. I'm also considering banning her indefinitely from FAC, since she has egregiously misused it. Any thoughts? Bishonen | talk 11:09, 1 January 2006 (UTC).

From a brief look at the archived discussion, Majora's Mask probably wouldn't have passed without the puppets' support. If we're satisfied that they are puppets, then something should be done about that (summary removal? FARC? probably best to enlist Raul). Mark¹ 11:33, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Sure. Raul has a nice link to this thread on his talkpage to start the new year with when he wakes up. As for satisfied, well, I don't rate a personal opinion, but if we trust CheckUser, it seems they are.[7] Anybody who's interested should also click on Bunchofgrapes' telling comment here. Bishonen | talk 12:00, 1 January 2006 (UTC).

I fully support blocking the two sockpuppets. :) Ambi 12:04, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Lucky Raul! I also support blocking the puppeteers immediately and indefinitely. [[Sam Korn]] 12:10, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

The puppets have to be excluded. On reflection, the block of Hollow for a week is at least a start. Geogre 13:44, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, yes, I have blocked the puppets indefinitely; the only question is the Hollow Wilerding account. Only a one-week block, say you, Geogre? Maybe that's enough. I hope to get Raul's input on the question of a FAC ban that I raised. Bishonen | talk 13:57, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Blocking the Hollow Wilerding account does raise the problem that AFAIK, blocks are intended to be for preventing harm rather than for punishment. I wouldn't shed too many tears for her, though. Mark¹ 14:22, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

You're right, we're not going to block in revenge for the harm she has done to the FAC process (even though besides the puppetry it includes general disruption, see comments and links at the RFA). Perhaps a ban from FAC, with blocks as appropriate in case the ban is ignored, would be enough. What a business, though. :-( I wonder if anybody has ever been banned from FAC before. Bishonen | talk 14:58, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I now understand that the entire community has been against me since the day I signed up here. This displeases me greatly. Okay, I have some stuff to tell you people. User:DrippingInk and User:Winnermario and myself, User:Hollow Wilerding all share the same computer. They are not sockpuppets of mine, they are merely a sibling and a friend who is living with me. If you choose not to believe this, that is your loss, and your problem. Not mine. I was hiding this from you because I believed that if it had been revealed then I would have been blocked for inappropriate usage of Wikipedia. User:Winnermario no longer accesses Wikipedia because she is busy — she is currently studying English literature, and User:DrippingInk logs on occasionally as he is an artist. I am mortified to know that the entire community has been against me because I am different, as some of my contributions have been truly genuine, especially Luxurious (song), Shakira, and The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. And no, Majora's Mask would have definitely passed even if they did not vote on the FAC, as it had five other support votes, and an object or two or something withdrawn. If I am blocked for misuse of Wikipedia, which actually is not misuse, I will be filing an RfC. It is not fair for us to be blocked because we feared we would be treated as sockpuppets of each other because we all share the same computer. That is why we kept it a secret. I apologize for any harm I've caused you, but this is the real me. I would appreciate it if I just edited the encyclopedia the way I want to — I'm disappointed, I must say though, as this is a ridiculous way to start the new year, but hey, this is Wikipedia. —Hollow Wilerding . . . (talk) 15:00, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

What makes the three of us so special? We were unable to edit on the Wikipedia community without several users lashing out at us. I did absolutely nothing to get to this position today. DrippingInk did not do anything either; Winnermario did, but we're going to exclude her from this conversation. I contribute to Wikipedia almost everyday, and have been attempting to elevate numerous articles to substantial quality. I do more than some users who have been on this site for two years have. Yet I am still treated as though we're all sockpuppets of each other. Have any of you read Wikipedia:Assume good faith? I was only doing my best to make some articles become excellent, and never intended to stir any controversy. Actually, if I might say, it was all of the other users who stirred the brew. —Hollow Wilerding . . . (talk) 15:11, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Hey, that's what I was looking for! This whole thing really is quite a shame, as you are such a good editor. Although HW has done some... questionable things, during her time here, I think this is the real deal guys and gals. If you talk to her only a little bit you'll find that all those quotes that are spread around of hers aren't an accurate representation of who she really is. And if her roomies do nothing but support her in everything she does on here, how is that any different than a lot of the voting that goes on in this place anyway? Search4LancerFile:Pennsylvania state flag.png 15:33, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I feel like for the first time on Wikipedia I can show my true colours now that everyone knows who DrippingInk and Winnermario are. If people want to see the real me, then User:Search4Lancer is right: I can do it now! Perhaps I should have announced this a little while ago. I was bottled up from the community because I feared for my life on this website (does that sound just a bit unusual to be saying)? I hereby request the unblocking of User:DrippingInk, as he did not do anything to deserve this. Actually, he currently is unaware that he is even blocked; User:Winnermario can remain blocked, as she no longer accesses Wikipedia, but please remove the notice saying that she is a sock puppet. She is not! I just want to help the community, but it seemed as though everyone was attempting to prevent this. I will ensure that DrippingInk no longer votes on any of the FACs I nominate. —Hollow Wilerding . . . (talk) 15:45, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Bishonen really despises me. I have been finding messages posted by him regarding User:Winnermario and myself in several places around Wikipedia. A grudge can only be held for so long. —Hollow Wilerding . . . (talk) 16:05, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I may just be more cynical than you, Lancer, but this was hardly a heat of the moment denial. Hollow and "DrippingInk"'s bogus conversations indicate a quite impressive level of deviousness. Mark¹ 16:09, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Bogus? No. Those conversations were the two of us socializing in an attempt that our IP addresses would not be discovered. You have to understand that we brought no harm to Wikipedia, as a matter of fact, it is you and the other group of Wikipedians inflicting the harm by throwing every specific detail at us, regardless of what it is to ensure our blocks. —Hollow Wilerding . . . (talk) 16:18, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

• I have been bold and stripped this article of its featured article status, since it achieved that status through outright fraud. Nandesuka 16:10, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

• Your effort is futile. It received enough votes to become featured, and I spent a lot of time on it to ensure it achieve featured article status. Should it be stripped, I will be taking extra measures. —Hollow Wilerding . . . (talk) 16:18, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
  • The article, discounting the two support votes from DrippingInk and Winnermario, received 6 support votes and three oppose votes, roughly 67% support. I'm not familiar with the percentage required to become a FA, but this seems borderline to me. There really aren't any "extra measures" you can take, AFAIK, except to resubmit it — which, if it is as good as you say it is, it should pass with little difficulties. Hermione1980 16:29, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Exactly! If the article is removed of its FA status, and I get blocked permanently, what kind of an example is Wikipedia setting? "You can accomplish something, however because you are afraid of an IP-sharing issue, we're going to remove your hard work, and remove you as well". —Hollow Wilerding . . . (talk) 16:35, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Such as what? Nandesuka 16:22, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
    • I will file an RfC. It is not fair to remove these pages of their statuses until this situation is resolved, because it makes the rest of Wikipedia look like a powerhouse that insists they are always right. The subject in general—me, in this case—looks helpless and has no chance of saving herself. Anyway, next case to ensure my block. —Hollow Wilerding . . . (talk) 16:32, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
      • OK. I have stripped The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask of it's featured article status, and posted a message on WP:AN indicating that I have done so, and why. You can go ahead and file an RFC if you wish. My personal opinion is that you would be better served by apologizing to the community and help the article pass the FAC process legitimately than by filing an RFC complaining that I have undone what you accomplished through fraud. But you have to make your own decisions. Nandesuka 16:36, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
        • Exactly! If the article is removed of its FA status, and I get blocked permanently, what kind of an example is Wikipedia setting? "You can accomplish something, however because you are afraid of an IP-sharing issue, we're going to remove your hard work, and remove you as well". —Hollow Wilerding . . . (talk) 16:35, 1 January 2006 (UTC).
        • I posted this message above your comment. As you stripped it of its FA status, I am going to be restoring it, as you have exhibited a disgusting attitude toward this website. Hermione1980 made a comment that it would have passed anyhow, and I have decided that it would be best for me to take serious actions. Never remove someone else's hard-earned work because they committed "fraud", which was not believed to be so. Wikipedia is going to be the end of itself since it has users who are arrogant due to a hierachy that was formed by the people who materialised the site; admins, which should not be existing on this site. Starting off the new year by hurting my presence on Wikipedia is going to be regretful. —Hollow Wilerding . . . (talk) 16:47, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
          • Please do not put words in my mouth. I never said that it would have passed anyway. I said that it was borderline. I also said I wasn't familiar with the guidelines for FAC. Hermione1980 16:50, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
        • Yes, you are right, and therefore, I apologize. Please forgive me. —Hollow Wilerding . . . (talk) 18:09, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
          • Apology accepted. No problem. Hermione1980 18:12, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I have restored the FA status of this article. The general rule has nothing to do with the number of support votes, and everything to do with whether objections are being met. Sockpuppeting in support of a FA is thus a kind of useless procedure - unless Raul has dramatically changed his evaluation procedure, what he does is look at the objections and see if they're actionable and substantial. If not, the article gets promoted. Phil Sandifer 16:46, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

• Mark this date down: I agree with Snowspinner 100% here. FAC is not a majority or supermajority case: it is a unanimity case. There can be no substantial objections. Thus, it possibly shouldn't have been promoted in the first place. Further the "extraordinary measures" threat, along with the "the whole site is organized against me" (should that have been "we?"), indicates some very unhelpful attitudes, attitudes that don't belong on Wikipedia. Deception is never a good policy, and achieving your goals by lying is evil. The blocks are in place for lying, at least three times, and attempting to avoid the first block by setting up a new account. Setting up yet another account, as appears to be taking place, is only going to result in wider blocks, as well as attempts to actually contact some of the people this user is pretending to be. Geogre 20:56, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

What strikes me about this mess is that, taking him at his word, from the get go, User:Hollow Wilerding was aware that the activities of himself, User:Winnermario and User:DrippingInk could be taken as sockpuppet activity, since they shared the same IP. And yet, instead of coming right out and saying, "Okay, we got three people here sharing the same computer - we are not sockpuppets, we are just two siblings and a roomie," they go to great lengths to actively conceal this information. Real conversations or no, those conversations were done in an effort to deceive. If the three of them had come clean from the beginning, and perhaps promised not to act on the same things to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, it could have been worked out. Instead, they opted for skullduggery. This does not engender trust at all.

My suggestions: Strip the article of FA status with leave to resubmit for FAC by someone else. Next, and this is the most generous thing we should do: remove the sockpupper notice from User:Winnermario and unblock both User:DrippingInk and User:Hollow Wilerding on the condition that the two agree not to vote on the same actions, or have their votes invalidated (and notices on their user pages to explain the shared IP situation). --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 16:47, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, we never told anyone because when you think about it, it isn't really any of your business. This is Wikipedia, and some of its users could be living in New Zealand or Europe or South America for all we know; we don't have to reveal our mundane identities. The article should remain with its status, and this account I am currently operating, User:Hollow Wilerding, is going to merge with User:DrippingInk so that the controversy can be placed aside. A new account, User:Siblings CW, is being created today for a fresh, clean slate. And also because today is the beginning of the new year. ;) —Hollow Wilerding . . . (talk) 18:09, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

To quote you above: "It is not fair for us to be blocked because we feared we would be treated as sockpuppets of each other because we all share the same computer. That is why we kept it a secret." (my emphasis) So to take you at your word, you hid this from everyone because you knew that sockpuppeting accusations would be leveled if people found out. And so they have. Like I said, the most sensible thing would have been to be upfront about it right at the start, but you chose badly, and have damaged your own credibility as a result, regardless of how good your edits are. I would suggest that User:Siblings CW have a notice on their user page about how it is a shared computer, and also stay away from voting on the same articles, or I fear that this will blow up again. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 19:39, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

A notice on their page saying it's a shared computer? What's the point of that? Plenty of us have let someone else use our computer from time to time, and you don't see us roaming around with such a sticker on our foreheads. And they can't bloody well vote on the same things now anyway, as they're now sharing a username. Search4LancerFile:Pennsylvania state flag.png 19:59, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I was speaking of User:Siblings CW, not the shared account. That will still appear to come from the same IP and look like a sock. My suggestion is to pre-empt further accusations in future, rather like the shared IP notice on various anon-IP pages. That is, if they want to prevent this periodically flaring up every now and then and go through all this again, they should be up front about this from the beginning. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 01:52, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Here's what we're going to do about the article. I am leaving it on the featured list for the time being, along with its featured tag. The FARC will continue, with the probable result being to remove its featured status. Assuming that happens, Hollow will then have the opportunity to renominate it to the FAC. Raul654 18:33, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

All right, here's what I'm going to do about the editor. I deduce from Raul's message that he's against banning HW from FAC; therefore, I will instead block the Hollow Wilerding account for one week for disruption, abusive sockpuppetry, and inveterate deception. I'm sorry, but User:DrippingInk will remain indefinitely blocked, since I can't postulate that HW has any credibility at all, after all her twists and turns, always with the word "honesty" in her mouth. I have also blocked the new sock account User:Siblings CW indefinitely. To Hollow Wilerding: if you have any interest in continuing to edit this site, don't evade this block by creating any new accounts whatsoever during the block. If you have any more sock accounts already established, don't use them while you're blocked. Note that during the block, you can still edit your own talk page, and people will be watching it. You can also e-mail any administrator, or e-mail the Wikipedia:Mailing list, if you wish to protest the block. I'm cross-posting this message to User talk:Hollow Wilerding. Any objections, comments? Bishonen | talk 22:33, 1 January 2006 (UTC).

Further input requested: Wikipedia is not a battleground

Well, I don't know, I really don't. HW's response on her talkpage to my block, see previous message, contains among other things a legal threat (though admittedly a pretty ridiculous one—" I may even go as far as suing the Wikipedia Foundation for misuse of allowing its users to block innocent victims") and a promise that "when I come back, it isn't going to be pretty. A new account is once again going to be established for DrippingInk and myself to use come our return." IOW, a new multiuser (that's not allowed) sock (not that, either) account to replace the one I blocked a few hours ago. Going by past edit warring on WP:FAC and recent activities (see her contribs for reversions of FAC, FARC, and sockpuppet templates today before she was blocked), I don't suppose it is going to be very pretty. I really don't know. Is there any point in keeping this user around at all? Wikipedia is not a battleground. She has always treated it as one, very much including when she edited as Winnermario. Should the present block be lengthened, in the hope of making the user more aware of realities before an RFAR becomes necessary? I won't do any further blocking myself, since, for one thing, HW is increasingly claiming the whole thing is a Bishonen grudgefest. Bishonen | talk 00:33, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I think a cooling off period for HW is definitely warranted. Raul654 00:39, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

One that's infinitely long, I hope. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:31, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Since input was requested... I think the whole thing is just weird, and agree that HW needs to cool off, and any new accounts created to eavde the block should be blocked. I don't really take the legal threat seriously here. Do agree strongly with WP:NOT a battleground, and would like to see constructive edits from HW afterward that take this into account. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 00:49, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Can we turn legal threats into grounds for permabanning?--Tznkai 01:20, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia's not a battleground? Tell them. On-topic, though: I think perhaps He/She/They should get to keep editing at one account, but make it their choice: if it's the new User:Siblings CW, so be it, as long as HW is then blocked indefinitely. If that lets him/her/they feel like it's a "fresh start", all the better. I feel like we already have all the evidence we need that this user should not be allowed to run multiple accounts, though. A corollary of that seems to be that as long as HW maintains that "a new account is once again going to be established for DrippingInk and myself to use come our return", the main account should remain blocked. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 00:51, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

No matter what side of that you fall on, 142kb of bitching is inexcusable--Tznkai 01:20, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Excellent trolling there! I give it an 8 out of 10, but I'm the East German judge on these things. Phil Sandifer 02:17, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll admit to slight confusion of what your definition of trolling is here. Care to explain?--Tznkai 02:28, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Bringing in a totally off-topic issue as an ad hominem attack. Phil Sandifer 03:54, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Tabling the impending discussion on whether accusing someone of trolling is an attack, ad hominem implies "against the person". Exactly who is being attacked here?--Tznkai 04:07, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, but that's not really helping anything either, you must admit.--Sean|Black 02:26, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Bunchofgrapes that this user shouldn't have more than one account. But I'm very much against the "sibling" account notion also, as confusing, and a bypass of the normal way of changing one's username (which is to ask a bureaucrat to... change one's username). It seems to me to be a blatant attempt to obfuscate the sockpuppet issue. And with (supposedly) two people using one account, which of them is accountable for what the account does? It's not desirable to provide problem editors with extra opportunities of blaming others for their actions, and that's why such accounts are discouraged. I've blocked User:Siblings CW and reverted the redirects to it of Hollow Wilerding's userpages. Any admin can unblock the siblings account, but I'd like to be on record that I'm against it. I won't unblock it. Bishonen | talk 02:11, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, since they've just been blocked for using two accounts under the same IP, it seems illogical to disallow one account for them. This way, at least vote-stacking or similar antics won't be a problem. Also, "accountability"? If there's any serious problem, we have no more hard facts than the IP anyway. When they share one, they just have to take the blame for each other's actions, but that's life. -- grm_wnr Esc 02:36, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Since when weren't sockpuppet accounts allowed? They are discouraged, but they certainly aren't disallowed. Furthermore, nowhere, absolutely NOWHERE does it say that you cannot have a multi-user account. Bishonen, you obviously have some reading up to do. You are pulling policies that don't exist out of your ass just to block HW, and that is completely unacceptable. Search4LancerFile:Pennsylvania state flag.png 02:19, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Search4Lancer, that's a lot of ignorance and bad faith you impute to me, and quite a tone you use to express your certainties in. Sockpuppet accounts used for votestacking or for creating an impression of greater support aren't "discouraged", they're outlawed by official policy: please see Wikipedia:Sock puppetry. Public accounts are disallowed. Bishonen | talk 03:20, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, sockpuppet accounts used for votestacking et al are not allowed, but that is not what you said. You said sockpuppet accounts aren't allowed. In addition, it says nowhere in the policies that public/shared accounts are not allowed. Fine and swell if you're going to point me to some other page, but if it's to be considered a policy, it needs to be on the policy page. Search4LancerFile:Pennsylvania state flag.png 07:18, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Public accounts are disallowed (that's an account where the password is broadcast or widely shared), but shared accounts do fall into a grey area: isn't User:Hydnjo two people? (I could be confused there.) There's no policy that I know against it, though it's not a good idea. As for holding such an account responsible, whatever one does, both are responsible for. All with a big grain of salt as far as believing that this actually is two people.

Bishonen is spot-on regarding both sockpuppet policy and Search4Lancer's incivility. There is absolutely no need whatsoever to be in any way rude here, and the only effect being rude is likely to have is to make other people discount your opinions. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 03:42, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Bunchofgrapes - It is very difficult to please everybody with 'civility' when such blatant idiocy is rampant. I really don't care one way or another what people think of me. Search4LancerFile:Pennsylvania state flag.png 07:18, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Hydnjo is, indeed, a husband-and-wife team of editors. While that's not made clear by any sort of disclaimer on their user page, the photo captioned as "Heidi & Joe" is probably sufficient... android79 03:46, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I think it's best we tread with caution. It is not impossible what Hollow's saying is true, so I will be unblocking the siblings account. Hollow still not use this account for the duration of the block against her main account, however. NSLE _(T+C+CVU) 02:21, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I have taken the following from User:Hollow Wilerding's user talk page:

...Wow. I am devastated. So multi-users are not allowed, are they? Then we have a huge issue. If multi-users are not allowed, why have User:DrippingInk and User:Winnermario been blocked? If we can't have a shared account, then we have no choice but to access individual accounts, and as it stands, that's going to be under the same IP address! Yet for some peculiar reason, both of the accounts in mention above have been blocked! That means both William and Mariah will have to create new accounts, yet I am positive User:Bishonen will block them again because (s)he will assume that they are sock puppets all over again! What a terrible issue this is! I hereby demand myself to be unblocked so that I can file the RfC right now. You seem to have cut a thread.

1. You never told me that a multi-user account was prohibited, so therefore, you call it "another sock puppet account".
2. You continue to believe that User:DrippingInk and User:Winnermario are sock puppets.
3. You have failed to register Wikipedia:Assume good faith.
4. It doesn't appear as though you read any of my responses and comments at the administrators' board. Does this indicate you wanted to ensure my block?
5. It was my decision not to tell the entire Wikipedia community that we shared a computer. Therefore, you cannot assume bad faith, yet you never assumed good faith either.
6. User:Bishonen has abused his/her sysop abilities, and should be stripped of them immediately.

—Hollow Wilerding . . . (talk) 01:19, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the user who has been blocked; 1) she seems to have been blocked in an attempt to exclude her from the conversation at the administrators' board in order for her to receive punishment without any objections or responses; 2) everyone believes the other accounts to be sock puppets which indicates that no one is following Wikipedia:Assume good faith; 3) is there a reason that User:Hollow Wilerding be punished for this in the first place? If there really are three separate users accessing the same computer, there is no reason to block all three of them because they did not want to speak the truth. This entire accusation is a form of abuse and also an example of over-powered admins whom have the ability to taunt oneself a bad name. Since no sysop has verifiable references or sources that User:Hollow Wilerding is one person, this block is unacceptable. After all, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. 64.231.128.57 14:58, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Hollow Wilerding's block extended for block evasion

64.231.128.57 immediately above is according to Kelly Martin's CheckUser check probably being used by Hollow Wilerding. It's in the same dynamic address range as the IP Hollow Wilerding posted from before she was blocked; it could theoretically have been used by another customer of the same ISP. But I don't believe that for a moment. (And no, assume good faith actually doesn't mean "pretend you're stupid"; it means assume good faith, and if the assumption is disproved, so be it.) Here are some curious coincidences besdies CheckUser:

1. The newbie anon is a wholehearted supporter of HW, which, not to put too fine a point on it, is a very unusual attitude outside of the small flock of users who live in HW's computer. No single user voted Support on HW's RFA.
2. HW has specifically expressed frustration at not being able to post to WP:ANI, and the anon has remedied that by moving a selected post from her talkpage here. The anon also actually raises the same point. Another similarity is that they share the same obsession with WP:AGF, perhaps the only policy "they" know the name of, yet probably not the first that most people would refer to in a case like this.
3. After posting here, 64.231.128.57 went on to edit several pop music articles, which is HW's great interest on Wikipedia. Please note especially that the anon edited two articles, Garlic and Mariah Carey, that have nothing in common except the special interest HW takes in bringing them to FAC quality, as shown on her talkpage (now deleted, but see the history).
4. 64.231.128.57 talks like HW. Some people may consider this a subtle point, but I'm confident they'll know what I mean if they've read HW's articles before copyediting, or her input on talkpages. HW's writing style is very characteristic. Consider for instance the anon's phrase "over-powered admins whom have the ability to taunt oneself a bad name".

IMO these points together easily amount to 100% certainty. I've blocked 64.231.128.57 for 8 hours only, on Kelly Martin's advice, to minimize any risk of collateral damage. I have also extended Hollow Wilerding's block to two weeks, starting now, for egregious block evasion and the attempt above to falsely insinuate support for her position as expressed on her talkpage (go read it, folks!). If any more IPs from the same range should appear to edit HW's special-interest articles and/or support her position, I encourage admins to block them on sight. Bishonen | talk 20:21, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Appears entirely conclusive to me. I support the actions. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 20:27, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Bunchofgrapes. Hollow Wilerding implicitly admits the deception in her reply to my block notification. Perhaps more startlingly, she vows to continue to evade her block: "I will continue to log on to separate IP addresses as long as I am capable of in order to boycott this notorious situation." I ask again: is this a user we want to keep around? Take a look at her talkpage for assorted vague threats ("Prepare yourselves for hell"). Bishonen | talk 23:29, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Getting worse: Concrete legal threat now [8]. Hollow is doing everything (s)he can to make sure the answer to Bishonen's last question is "no". —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 23:35, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

What's the appropriate response to persistent legal threats? Blocked indefinitely, and protect the talk page? Nandesuka 00:11, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't say who she's filing a lawsuit against, so can't be considered a legal threat, as you don't know. Maybe she got hit by a drunk earlier, and is filing a lawsuit against him for pain and suffering? You don't know. This is a good editor that you're just doing everything in your power to hammer away at. Search4LancerFile:Pennsylvania state flag.png 00:44, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Per Bishonen above, AGF =/= PYS (pretend you're stupid). [[Sam Korn]] 00:45, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Search4Lancer, you must be kidding. 23:18 1 Jan 2006: [9] Hollow Wilerding "may even go as far as suing the Wikipedia Foundation for misuse of allowing its users to block innocent victims". 00:09 2 Jan 2006: [10] You yourself tell her "Don't make legal threats. It's immature, and makes you look as such. Legal threats are also a good way to get oneself blocked forever." And now you want anyone to believe that today's [11] and [12] ("Legal action is commencing") might be about a separate matter? —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 01:18, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

All I'm saying is that it is a distinct possibility. A small one, but nonetheless. :-) Search4LancerFile:Pennsylvania state flag.png 01:36, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

On the user page for User:Empty Wallow she states, "My name is Mariah Wilerding (not Courtni; that was a pseudonym)." Well that's practically admitting the sockpuppetry isn't it? IMO, this user has issues with maintaining her personalities and should be given a one-way ticket to a wikivacation. Is a disruptive editor like this one the community wants to keep around? I would be concerned even if I found out that one of my children was assigned to her as a teacher. Fortunately she is in Canada, unless she's lying about that as well. --malber 22:42, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Bobblewik and User:Talrias

Would an uninvolved admin please review user:Talrias's blocks of Bobblewik (talk · contribs)? Talrias is involved in a content dispute with Bobblewik over the latter's delinking of stand-alone years (like 2006), and is arguably leading the opposition to it. He has also several times tried to delete the section of the MoS that Bobblewik is relying on; yet despite that involvement has blocked Bobblewik twice (the latest for a week) for following what the MoS currently says. I have unblocked Bobblewik because I feel Talrias is too involved. I did this only with a view to restoring the status quo ante, but in general I dislike undoing other admins' blocks and do it only rarely. I've also expressed a view on the Bobblewik issue and so feel uncomfortable being involved. It would be very helpful if someone could take a look with fresh eyes. I left a note for Talrias here. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:55, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Let's clean up a couple of misconceptions; I haven't blocked him twice for "what the MoS currently says", I have blocked him firstly for what I saw as bot edits despite not having permission to have a bot, and secondly for ignoring pleas to stop his edits given the significant opposition to them. Do you actually disagree with the reason for the block, or do you just disagree that I should have blocked him? If it was the former, you should not have removed it but asked me to explain my reasoning (which I would of course be happy to do), but if it was the latter, you should have unblocked him and reblocked him yourself. Talrias (t | e | c) 03:00, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I object to you blocking in order to gain the upper hand in a content dispute: not just a dispute you're involved in, but one that you are leading (and may even have started). I am tired of admins being accused of being "involved" over every irrelevant interaction with a user, and equally tired of admins undoing other people's blocks, so please believe me: this is uncharacteristic of me. However, this is a crystal clear case of an admin being directly and deeply involved in the very content dispute that triggered the block. Please don't block Bobblewik again over this particular issue. In fairness, I should add that I agree that it may be inappropriate to use a bot to make contentious edits. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:12, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Wow, I can't believe you figured out my (admittedly shallow) motives so quickly! I of course blocked him so I could gain advantage in a discussion, and not because he had previously ignored a number of requests to stop his edits, nor that there was significant opposition to the section of the MOS in question. Come on SlimVirgin, your accusations are ludicrous. Talrias (t | e | c) 03:18, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I've reblocked. There is a lot of dispute at the moment as to that section of the MOS, which was slipped in with minimal input; it's very clear that, at the least, there is no consensus about what do with linking dates. This means that someone should not be running unlinking them at rapid-fire speed with what amounts to a bot. Bobblewik has been asked to, at the very least, stop making mass edits until this is worked out, and had previously agreed to, before silently beginning them again this morning. If he wants, he can create a seperate account for his bot edits (or bot-like tool edits); else I feel we have little option than to block his main account until this is worked out. Ambi 03:05, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the word you were looking for is "option"--Tznkai 03:07, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Eeh, my grammar not so good this morning... Ambi 04:05, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm of the opinion that firstly, users should only ever make large quantities of style-based changes if it is absolutely necessary to do so, because really it would be best if they were fixed in the course of ordinary editing; moreover, making masses of changes to what are essentially minor wikisyntax issues, but cause a big difference in the method of page linking, seems to me to be an unwise thing to do. If there was consensus for both this change and Bobblewik's bot/bot-like tool, and he was using a separate account for the edits, then I suppose it would be OK. But he is using his main account, which is not generally in accordance with Wikipedia norms (Wikipedia:Bots etc.) and performing a change which does not have consensus. Thus Talrias was perfectly correct in blocking him, since he had been warned - as his talk page indicates - and had clearly not heeded the warnings given. Bots are quick to run, but a pain to revert, due to the large quantity of edits. There was thus no other approach that Talrias could have taken. In addition, the accusations of Talrias' involvement being the sole origin of his intervention is a non-sequitur at best, and an attempt to claim fault by impugning ethics and motives at worst. Regards, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 03:47, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, but I do think that Talrias was at least somewhat involved- not to the extent that s/he shouldn't have blocked Bobblewik, though.--Sean|Black 04:01, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to move that the term "involved" be banned from all discussions of admin conflict of interest. Can I get a second? :-P --Ryan Delaney ^talk 07:05, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Here you go. — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:13, 2 January 2006 (UTC) (who has not been following the discussion)

You've got a point, actually—but then everybody would say "in conflict", "connected", "currently married to", and so on :).--Sean|Black 07:16, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Random thoughts: I fully agree that it was right to block Bobblewik for making large-scale changes without consensus (when will people learn that others get pissed off by that?). However, users should not block those with whom they are currently engaged in an article-editing conflict. I've long felt the lack of a simple "request for help"-type page where we could call for assistance, without the rambling discussion that this page always fills up with. Mark¹ 22:56, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Brazil4Linux again

Looks like User:Brazil4Linux is avoiding his 1 month block for gaming his 3RR block with sockpuppetry. Can I get someone with Check User to verify that this is indeed one more sockpuppet? User in question is User:Dungeon Siege / Special:Contributions/Dungeon_Siege. I think if this is proven to be him going around his 1 month block I think its time to make it indef. Thanks in advance.  ALKIVAR™ 12:09, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh and while your at it could you also verify that these are definately him (they all had too much in common, but i'd like definitive confirmation).  ALKIVAR™ 12:12, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

If it's not a sock, he should be looked into anyways for repeatedly posting copyrighted material to HD DVD. (And, if you look at the history of HD DVD (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), you'll see some other IP's have also restored the copyrighted material; could also be him). —Locke Cole • t • c 15:58, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

My two cents- I am absolutely convinced that it's a sock, and the evidence that the others are socks too is overwhelming as well. It's just such an obvious pattern of behavior, especially with the individual's use of logged out IPs. Even if you remove the completely identical speech patterns, calling everyone else "vandals" and attacks against Microsoft and the US, we have the IP patterns-

User will make edits with his account. User uses up his 3RR or gets banned, which is when the user will follow up immediately with logged-out edits that directly enforce their page version. Those logged out edits trace right back to the veloxzone.com.br or dialuol.br ISPs that Brazil4Linux uses.

Brazil did it-

Brazil4Linux uses up his 3rd revision-

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ken_Kutaragi&oldid=30329737

02:48, 6 December 2005 Brazil4Linux

So he starts using IP 200.147.61.151 to enforce his version of the page against the group consensus. Repeatedly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ken_Kutaragi&oldid=30400785

200.147.61.151 traces to dialuol.com.br

Quackshot did it-

Quackshot uses up his 3rd revision-

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nintendo_Revolution&oldid=31623947

So he starts using 201.29.35.148 to enforce his version of the page against the group consensus. Repeatedly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nintendo_Revolution&oldid=31719324

201.29.35.148 traces to: user.veloxzone.com.br

ForeverWatch did it, Oddie did it, CoreSystem and BreakingRules did it (mostly to try and repeatedly replace my userpage with a picture of a donkey),

And now Dungeon Seige is doing it.

Dungeon Seige makes his last edit-

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Neowin&oldid=33584843

And he uses 201.29.59.5 to enforce his edit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Neowin&oldid=33602573

201.29.59.5 traces to: user.veloxzone.com.br

He's created himself a paper trail. Daniel Davis 18:49, 2 January 2006 (UTC) (Doom127)

On User Talk:Jimbo Wales#About the Personal Appeal User:Dungeon Siege complains about Wikipedia's abusiveness but all of his "proof" is about User:Brazil4Linux. Jedi6 22:45, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Dealing with vandalism

If you see any vandalism, copy it into here: User:Sunfazer/Vandalism

- and quote the user who did it! The page is an archive of various vandalism types, and is useful for the CVU. --Sunfazer 15:43, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

That is going to be a big page. If you're looking for a way to collect records of vandalism, you can collect a bunch quite quickly by watching Recent Changes for admin reverts. (Look for any edits with the summary Reverted edits by JoeBlow(talk) to last version by JohnSmith.) The preceding edit(s) are almost always vandalism or user tests; check to be sure. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:00, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

It's for the CVU to see examples of persistent vandals. --Sunfazer 17:59, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Try watching the block log, too—there's usually a good supply of vandals there. Running through the list of old ArbCom cases would also give you some hits. Are you looking for persistent vandals who haven't been blocked...? I'm curious about the ultimate purpose and use(fulness) of the list. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:30, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I think CVU should be able to recognise vandals by now. If not, one must wonder what on Earth they think they've been doing all this time ... fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 18:49, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh few examples are ok, hence the word example. You do not need to log all vandalism. There are plenty examples generated in the past 60 seconds at any given time. CVU ment to lure more people to RC patrol and assist them in identifying vandalism. --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 21:07, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

It's not for routine vandalism.... but wacky vandalism! --Sunfazer 21:26, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, you mean WP:BJAODN? fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 08:02, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for all the hard work

I, as a returning student trying to finish my degree, BA, have come to rely upon your web site for relevant info for topics of discussion at school,

               So A Big Thanks For All Your Hard Work!!!

What, may I inquire, is this doing here..? -MegamanZero|Talk 21:24, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

MARMOT (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Such behavior is generaly adequate for a block as it falls under trolling. Do not begin about it being 'minor'. Similar behavior is visible on his contributions. He is supposed to be on his best behaviour, he should be making an effort to at least try to be an exemplory editor for people like me to even consider "forgiving" his earlier behaviour.

He has shown great improvement over the time since he has been unblocked. We did not have vandal bots causing havoc. I guess one can call that improvement. People should write vandal bots and then be forgiven. No one minds their 'minnor' annoyance otherwise would get them blocked.

Why do wikipedians such as myself as well as many others have to tollerate the nonsense he posts here and there every so often?

--Cool Cat^Talk|@ 21:19, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

• You don't. Just don't read his comments. Quite simple, really. -MegamanZero|Talk 21:23, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
  • If his comments arent worth reading I do not see why he should be allowed to contribute, this guy vandalised my userpage over 400 times (nonstop with vnadalbots 5 waves) alove --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 21:39, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

That's where I draw the line. Such disregard for policy and overlying inconsideration for articles and pages is uttertly unacceptable. I recomend a 24 - 48 hour block right away. -MegamanZero|Talk 05:39, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

400 times..?!! Geez. -MegamanZero|Talk 18:14, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Bad article, undisputed because of big following - Sockpuppets? What to do?

Could somebody help me here? I found an article that seems to defy any definition of a "good article" (it's extremely biased, outragious claims are made, and the sources used to back up those claims consist largely out of tiny newspaper snippets that are blown up out of proportion to make the subject sound like the second coming of the christ). So far, so easy, but there is a devoted following of wikipedia users that seems to prevent any sensible editing or removal of the article. What should I do? Article here: Aladin. Is there a way to look for sockpuppets in the article history and the currently running vote for deletion (here)? Any help (and votes) would be greatly appreciated, thank you. Peter S. 21:28, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, you've listed it in AfD here, and an overwhelming number of editors, with no prior relation with the editing of the article, have voted for Strong keep (10 keep and strong keeps vs your single delete vote). Just because you have been thoroughly defeated in your nomination doesn't mean you have to go after the voters. And also, I strongly object to your accusation of the word sockpuppet here, people have voted according to their own judgement, which CAN go against your nomination. What you can do is to refrain from false accusations and Personal attacks like this. Thanks. --Ragib 21:47, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Well I've never heard of him - but I'm not into magic. I don't think having worked for the GLA is worthy of a wikipedia article - and he took time out from his magic career to do that so he's not that great a magician. I smell a rat tbh. Secretlondon 21:52, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

That's why we have AfD. --Ragib 22:01, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

• Indeed we have, we are in the middle of it. Peter S. 22:05, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

• Hi Ragib, you see I was *asking _if_* there are sockpuppets there. I never did any accusations, that's solely your interpretation. Like Secretlondon, I really smell a rat here. Peter S. 22:02, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

You can check out the contributions of the users. Sockpuppets tend to be created solely for ballot stuffing. Lack of contribution histories indicated the existence of sockpuppets. --Ragib 22:07, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

• Actually, there are some forms of sockpuppet-checking that are reserved for administrators (WP:SOCK: "If there is doubt, a developer or checkuser user can check to see whether accounts are related"), which is what I was requesting, amongst other things. I'm sorry if my writing induced disrespect in you, I didn't mean no harm, as long as we both try to make wikipedia a better place. Peter S. 22:15, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

mCheckuser is only available to ArbCom members, and used sparingly to protect user privacy. As I said, usually, the lack of prior contributions is the first way to detect sockpuppets. Thanks. --Ragib 22:22, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Maybe nominating it for deletion was not the best way to deal with the nauseatingly promotional text. Why not try making the tone encyclopedic, paragraph by painful paragraph? It might actually make it better, or at least will force his devotees to admit their inability to recognize and reject blatant advertising material. alteripse 22:26, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

• Hi, that's what I tried in the past 3 months - didn't work out (check the talk page and the history). But then again, if you remove all the promo-stuff, all that is left is an article about a unnotable person (abstract of aladin: he performs rarely, is portrayed in 1 book, and works for the City of London, that's all), so that's the reason why I nominated the article for deletion. Peter S. 22:31, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

• • Or a dude who was International Magician of The year 1991 [13] but I've mentioned this on the delete page. All the users who have taken part can't all be sock-puppets. Englishrose 22:52, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

• Englishrose, the organisation behind "International Magician of The year" doesn't even have a website, how notable can this award be? There are thousands of such smallish awards with grandiose names. Bottom line is, Aladin performs rarely, is portrayed in 1 book, and works for the London gov, so I really really can't see how he's notable. Peter S. 22:57, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
• [14] Over a 1k google hits for the phrase. But this needs to be mentioned on the afd page. Lots of others disagree with you. By all means check if they're sock-puppets but if they're not then let the vote stand. Englishrose 23:03, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

• That's more like 123 hits: [15] Google is very bad at estimating hit numbers for rarely asked queries. Compare those 123 hits to Academy awards [16], where you get 4+ million hits, and it's obvious that "International Magician of The year" is a very small show. And as I said, there is not even a website for it. I cannot see how he is notable, sorry. Peter S. 23:09, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Let me point out that many of the claims in notability in the article are highly deceptive. It, for example, quotes Inside Magic as having called him all sorts of great things, but actually reading the source shows that the editor of that publication had never even heard of the guy and was simply quoting a student newspaper, one that may have gotten information wrong or simply quoted from a press release supplied by the guy himself. The article in Inside MAgic was polite, but questioned the qaccuracy of one of the claims that magician made (to having allegedly quitting a society that didn't admit women, when he knows several women in the society). This whole article stinks to high heaven. Google results on this guy are practically nonexistent. There is no evidence of this person having ever actually won an award other than third hand info and the guy's own self-promotion, and the award certainly is not very ntoable in the field.

We need more editors to take a look at it, as it looks like a combination of spam/hoax going on here. DreamGuy 23:25, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

The guy seems like an indefatigable self-promoter, but he IS featured in an up-coming National Geographic television feature [17]. I don't think they would have featured him if he were a complete hoaxer. Just clean up the article and don't try to delete, OK? If he's going to be on TV, people are going to be looking for him on Wikipedia. So, let them get a straight look without hype. Zora 23:34, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

• TV stations have been duped before, Zora. Your linked program is about refugees, he was portrayed as a refugee. There are 100+ Million refugees in the world, not every one of those needs a wikipedia page (although they need shelter, food, money, peace and justice restored). The article claims "He performs from bombay to las vegas and has appeared on National Geographic", which is clearly a misleading statement. As I said before, once you cut through all the promo language, you end up with a boring person that doesn't warrant an entry in the wikipedia. Those are my reasons for delete. Peter S. 23:39, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

• Any admin able to tune into this station and watch the program? Would come in helpful to settle the argument. Englishrose 23:45, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

• Aren't you convinced by reading the summary on that website? The description clearly doesn't state "Tonight appearing: Aladin, the great magician". It talks about refugees, and refugees only. Peter S. 23:50, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Regardless of everything else said above, I'm concerned about this issue because 30 hours after Peter S. listed this article on AfD, the discussion was closed as a "Speedy keep". Aren't we supposed to keep these debates open for seven days? Doing so would not harm the article (it's not going to be deleted until it gets a lot more votes for that). I just heard about this article, & I feel that this premature closure of the matter will only harm this discussion over the article, & lead to another listing on AfD almost immediately! -- llywrch 00:09, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

User:King of Hearts didn't have proper authority or reason to speedy keep it, so it was undone. He should have kis knuckles smacked. DreamGuy 01:41, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Let's assume good faith here: everyone makes mistakes. No need to villify King of Hearts as long as he meant well & admits he acted hastily. -- llywrch 16:29, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

• I looked through the AfD. A few people commenting are relative newcommers, that a closer might choose to disregard. I placed notes for the benefit of the eventuall closer. Most seem to be of at least several months standing here, with at least hundreds of edits, and some are respected long-term editors. I see no evidence of a sock-fest or of more improper comments than many AfDs generate. DES ^(talk) 06:09, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Delonnette

Is repeatedly inserting unformatted images into articles, despite requests from other users to read the appropriate tutorial pages, considered vandalism? Because that is exactly what Delonnette (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is doing. Note that he/she has been asked countless times to provide source and copyright information for the images that he/she uploads, and continues to upload unsourced images and dump them unformatted into the article namespace. He/she has already been blocked for vandalism, previously uploaded unsourced images and violating the 3RR on Michelle Ryan (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), and has only left one comment on his/her talk page (a response to why she uploaded identical images under different filenames). What do the policies and guidelines say about this type of behaviour? Extraordinary Machine 23:04, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Inserting unformatted into articles, isn't really a problem, but repeatedly uploading images without copyright tags is. I've come across this behaviour before with another user about a year ago. I don't think there are any definite policy guidlines on it. In the end we had to use common sense and simply delete any untagged image as soon as it was uploaded. It was the onl7y way to get the message through. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 23:36, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Per the warning Extraordinary Machine gave on Delonnette's talk page, I'd suggest waiting two days for source information on the noted images, then delete them if none is forthcoming. In line with Theresa's comment above, I'd say that any additional unsourced uploads should be shot on sight until the user gets the hint. (If that doesn't work, then escalating blocks may need to be applied; I hope it doesn't come to that.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:46, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Jimbo has said, not too long ago, that it's OK to block users who are uploading unsourced images repeatedly even after warning. This is a real threat to the project and must be stopped. As far as unformatted, just fix it. --Phroziac _. o º ^{O (♥♥♥♥ chocolate!)} 00:05, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I've been watching this user closely and trying to communicate with them, and get the distinct impression from their edits and uploads that they are quite young and probably don't fully understand the ramifications of what they're repeatedly doing. I think any future communication with this user needs to bear that in mind. -- Francs2000 00:09, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

If you block them. They may very well simply come back under another username. Whereas if you delete their "work" they will probably get the message. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 00:09, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

This hasn't worked in the past: on at least two occasions in the last month I have had cause to delete a whole load of images uploaded by this user that had been tagged appropriately and not actioned. -- Francs2000 00:18, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting tagging them for deletion.I'm suggesting deleting the moment they are uploaded and then going to her talk page and stating that you did it and will do it again and again until she either stops uploading or starts tagging the images correctly. 00:33, 3 January 2006 (UTC)Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 00:49, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Hollow Wilerding

I have blocked her indefinitely for repeated block evasion, sockpuppetry, disruption, personal attacks, and the whole general "Don't be a detriment to the project" package we do occasionally. Phil Sandifer 23:40, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Don't forget the legal threats [18]. I support this. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 23:50, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I have also protected her talk page. Phil Sandifer 00:47, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Wheel war over WP:RFC/KM

A load of admins have been deleting and a load of other admins and users have been restoring or recreating the redirect WP:RFC/KM to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Kelly Martin (see Special:Undelete/WP:RFC/KM. I suggest we block them all for 17 years for getting involved in a really stupid edit war. Talrias (t | e | c) 01:13, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Isn't the standard block for a lame edit war something like 17 seconds? --cesarb 01:16, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I suggest we not do things that suggest that the lynching of one of our most respected community members is a major Wikipedia page that requires a shortcut. Phil Sandifer 01:18, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Me too, which is why I just re-deleted it, and re-protected it. I wonder how long it'll last? -- Francs2000 01:21, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

If the original creator deleting it solves anything, I'll be more than happy to delete it if restored. NSLE _(T+C+CVU) 01:23, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

It's a shortcut that's easier to type than the whole damn mess. Other RFC's and RFAr's have shortcuts, I don't see why this one is suddenly so special. —Locke Cole • t • c 01:29, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Example of an WP redirect to an RFC?Geni 01:32, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Special:Prefixindex/WP:RFC, knock yourself out. You can modify that to look for RFAr shortcuts too. —Locke Cole • t • c 01:35, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

hmmm only 3 legit parrelles and two of those created by the user on the reciveing end of the RFC. All created nov 2005. Not much of a president.Geni 01:45, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

And the precedent for deleting shortcuts out of hand and for no legitimate reason? Examples? —Locke Cole • t • c 01:50, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

fallacy of the excluded middle.Geni 02:15, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Special:Prefixindex/WP:RFAR/, one of those is from January of 2005. —Locke Cole • t • c 02:18, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I know. That is why I refered to RFcs only. RFArs area little diferent since if they result in parole they basic act as policy descission for the user on parole. There is also the issue that RFAr cases can set important presedents. That may be cited in future cases.Geni 02:31, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I disagree. —Locke Cole • t • c 02:35, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not interested in your reasoning, I'm just hoping you'll all stop soon, grow up and go and do something constructive. Talrias (t | e | c) 01:22, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Talrias, I agree about wheel wars, and as you were recently involved in/caused one of the nastiest we've seen in a long time, when you reduced Marsden's block twice before he was blocked indefinitely by Jimbo, I'm glad you've seen the error of your ways. ;-) SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:29, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

How wonderfully off-topic of you, with a rather significant exaggeration of what took place (I didn't cause it, and it was hardly one of the "nastiest we've seen in a long time" seeing as I just reduced the length of a block duration twice and I discussed it fully both times). I would be grateful if you stopped posting messages criticising me everywhere as you often get your facts wrong in them. Talrias (t | e | c) 02:28, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think I've ever seen a WP link for an RFA. I don't see a need to start now. I don't think anyone has broken the 3RR and blocks would be a really great way to increase tension. Not something we want to do. Just explain in carm terms to those createing it that what they are doing is not consistant with wikipedia practice. If you want to see something slighty worrying cheack out what links here for that page.Geni 01:25, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

You all should be bloody ashamed of yourselves, and since when do we care about "raising tensions" when it comes to 3RR? This stinks more and more of the rules only applying to the little people. - brenneman^(t)(c) 01:34, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I feel that accuseing me of all people of only applying rules to little people is ironic. Of course I will rexamine the case to deterime if there has been a 3RR violation but as yet I don't think there has been.Geni 01:40, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

WP:RFAR/SV, WP:RFAR/TDC, WP:RFAR/Libertas, WP:RFC/N75, WP:RFC/LAW, et cetera. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 01:36, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I suggest that we not describe a process by which the community tells a user their opinion on their behavior as a "lynching." It's not just disrespectful to Kelly, and to the community, but also to those who have actually been lynched. Lynching is a process that typically involved mutilation, bodily harm, and gruesome execution, not discussion. Can you turn the rhetoric down about 11 notches, please? It's hugely irritating when trolls on the RFC page describe Kelly as a Nazi fascist (or whatever), and it's hugely irritating when those defending her describe the RFC process as a lynching. Believe it or not, there are plenty of editors on both sides of the debate that, surprise surprise, want to actually build a good encyclopedia, and not just cause harm to a group of way c00l IRC best fri3ndz forever omgwtfbbq1111one1. Nandesuka 01:42, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the phrase "lynch mob" has kind of become a desensitized phrase. Phil Sandifer 01:43, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Dear God. Let me just say I hope I'm not the first person to point out that there's an encyclopedia somewhere around here. I don't care about userboxes, I don't care about shortcut links to RFCs, and the sheer amount of time-wasting that's going on at that RFC and elsewhere is mind-boggling. Really. En-cy-clo-ped-i-a. Dmcdevit·t 01:44, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

My thoughts exactly. Dragons flight 01:49, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Umm, this is _so_ not about the userboxes. It's about the fact that one person's view of what constitutes the best way to build an encyclopedia shouldn't trample anothers. It's about having the smallest shred of respect for opinions that differ from your own. It's about people behavining as if they understood that when you've got some powers, you should use them responsibly. I think userboxes are dumb. But I also have never been more disgusted with the powers-that-be than in the last few days. For Mike's sake, "lynching of one of our most respected community members"? How about some WP:CITE to support that mouthful of marbles? - brenneman^(t)(c) 01:56, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I could, but it's been deleted. —Cryptic (talk) 02:02, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

And, lets be frank, it's not the 700 odd admins who build this encyclopedia, it's mostly the scores of grunts who don't have the power to just delete and protect something they don't like. Show some bloody respect for the Morlocks. - brenneman^(t)(c) 01:59, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I thought it was an invalid speedy... at any rate, I somewhat agree with Aaron. WhiteNight ^{T | @ | C} 02:10, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Well if I can state my bit as the person who finally deleted and protected the deletion: I saw a page that five other admins had tried to delete before me and did the delete/protect to provoke discussion, which has worked. If I can have assurances from parties involved that they're not going to start edit warring over it once again I am more than happy to restore the redirect. -- Francs2000 02:19, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that there are some tough things being said about Kelly Martin. I also think that she was trying to make Wikipedia more encyclopædiac. I support anything that achieves that but I think was Kelly Martin did, however well meaning, showed gross disrespect to everyone. I have worked with people in public office and there is one clear lesson directly relevant here. Where your actions arouse such intense anger you r career in whatever you were doing is dead in the water. You will have lost the credibility and respect you do to do the job. If you adopt an attitude of "I'm just going to ignore this and it will blow over" after causing such an enormous reaction (100+ endorsements of criticism of her so far, and growing by the minute!!!) you are finished. The only way Kelly can salvage her career on WP is to say

• I realise my actions have caused offence and that was not my intention. I did what I believed was in Wikipedia's benefit but obviously I misguided how I did what I did. I apologise.
• Rather than compromise the credibility of the arbcom I am resigning from it.
• I am also voluntarily resigning by adminship.

If she does that, the entire affair will calm down. In a few weeks the whole affair will be forgotten and she will have done no lasting damage to her Wiki-reputation. She would probably find that she would at a future date be re-elected to the arbcom and as an admin, on the basis of her apology and that she acted honourably in stepping down.

If however she hangs on, the likelihood is that controversy will follow her to the arbcom. She will be criticised for everything she does as an admin and like others caught up in far less controversial incidents she will end up quitting WP in frustration. IMHO, putting on my admin-hat and political advisor-hat, her position is untenable. When your action causes such a firestorm of a negative reaction, either you apologise and diffuse the situation, or you stand firm (as she seems intend on doing) and try to hang in there. As anyone involved in leadership positions (whether in politics, business, non-governmental organisations, charities, general organisations, etc) knows, in instances like this to try to hang on is sheer suicide. If she tries to hang on she will be destroyed by it and will end up quitting Wikipedia. It boils down to two options: 'resign and rebuild', or 'be destroyed'. Those with experience of crisis management know that there is no middle ground. (BTW a political consultant would have charged at least €2000 to give advice to someone in business in a similar situation!) FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 02:20, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Let's please not bring that nasty discussion here. User:Zoe|^(talk) 02:24, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I decree that this article needs modification. (and that's all folks) WhiteNight ^{T | @ | C} 02:59, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Talk:Germanic People - a problem with an anonymous editor.

We are having a bit of a problem with vaguely trollish behaviour on the part of an anonymous editor (IP: 24.60.161.63) He/she/it initially contributed just a bit of patent nonsense, which is easily ignored, but now the person is borderline disruptive in aggressively asserting original research and a few other more minor problems. Dieter Bachmann seems to have the matter in hand, and doing well with it, but I thought to mention the matter here so that others can keep an eye on the discussion.

On the talk page, the anon.'s contributions begin at: Talk:Germanic_people#Request

... and gets progressively more annoying as one scrolls down. P.MacUidhir (t) (c) 02:54, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

postscript: apparently he/she/it also blanked a recent edit of mine to that talk page. Lovely. I fixed it.

Kaiser Permanente discussion

pansophia attempting to personally identify a user on kaiser permanente discussion board — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cotman68 (talk • contribs)

I pointedly did NOT identify this person out of respect for his privacy, though I could have easily. I'm only trying to clarify the bias of someone who has been throwing around a lot of accusations. --Pansophia 03:23, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Daniel Matheson

Said user is believed to be a sockpuppet of User:Lightbringer, who was banned by ArbCom decision from editing any article relating to Freemasonry. The evidence is linked in the template on User: Daniel Matheson's user page, and his edits focus solely on introducing anti-Masonic content into the Freemasonry article, when said content is more properly linked from Anti-Freemasonry, and Anti-Freemasonry is already linked from Freemasonry. Said user is also getting close to a 3RR violation. MSJapan 03:53, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Hollow Wilerding yet again, Requests for comment/Bishonen, and trolling by Search4Lancer

Please see section "Votestacking FAC sockpuppets: Hollow Wilerding" above for the abusive sockpuppeteering, deception, and misuse of WP:FAC that got User:Hollow Wilerding banned. Her much-threatened RFC on me, which is going to make all our lives hell[19], has now been created by her new sock account User: Siblings WC (note: not the same as User:Siblings CW, which was already blocked). Snowspinner has blocked the new account indefinitely. And I have blocked yet another IP from Hollow's range, 64.231.155.175, which was used to post on my page. If these accounts really have anything to do with the real person mentioned on the userpages, Toronto teacher Courtni Wilerding (which I doubt), I just hope school starts soon. The RFC hasn't actually been filed—it's not listed on Wikipedia:Requests for comment—but it exists all right. I suppose I ought not to respond to it..? It's sort of temptiing, but it would be a) cruel, b) technically/policywise an atrocity, as it was created by a blocked user busy evading her block, and c) probably a waste of time, as I expect somebody or other will be in a hurry to delete it. Before that happens, I recommend it as light reading for those immersed in the dreadful swamp of Requests for comment/Kelly Martin. The RFC/Bishonen section "Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute" is very nice.

All kidding aside, I'm very surprised at the role User:Search4Lancer plays in this sad affair, not least on this page. I can't understand what's behind such silly/malicious behavior as the ruleslawyering "distinctions" here, the trolling here, and, especially, the endorsement of this RFC, in collaboration with a blocked user—essentially, encouraging her to use yet another block-evading sock account, and helping her conceal it from the community. Search4Lancer, what are you doing? Are you simply amusing yourself in your own way, or do you have an undisclosed relation to "Hollow Wilerding", or what gives? Bishonen | talk 04:43, 3 January 2006 (UTC).

Bishonen - I am very offended by you accusing me of trolling, and by calling my behaviour silly or malicious, and your suggestion of any relation to Miss Wilerding. Never did I encourage her to break the rules. If you would look at her talk page, you will see that I encouraged her NOT to break the rules. Search4LancerFile:Pennsylvania state flag.png 23:59, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Never did you encourage her to break the rules? You helped her break the rules. Or are you claiming you weren't aware that she was blocked when you supported and endorsed her so-called RFC on me—helping a blocked user evade her block, helping her create a frivolous and absurd RFC? Another question, from another angle: You're an established user. HW is obviously unrealistic and erratic in her notions of how wiki works, and of who her RFC would be embarrassing for. Couldn't you have told her what would happen? Didn't it occur to you to warn her against putting herself in the stocks like that, when she appealed to you to co-sign it? You must have had some idea what would happen. For your umbrage above: I'm by no means accusing you of any relation to HW. I'm only asking, because I would fain see some motive behind your incomprehensible behavior. I am accusing you of silliness and/or malice, yes. Trolling, too. Bishonen | talk 01:17, 4 January 2006 (UTC).

I helped her break the rules? I helped her evade her block? Now you're being the silly one. What, did I stand behind her chair, and guide her hands? Frivility and absurdity are in the eye of the beholder. Many of the things she did she did before I could advise her otherwise, so there's nothing that can really be said there. Furthermore, you state that my interest in common decency is 'rather unexpected:' my interest in common decency is why I've been here the whole time. Search4LancerFile:Pennsylvania state flag.png 02:12, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

WP:RFC/KM part two

Is there any reason that a couple of 24hr blocks should not go out for this? - brenneman^(t)(c) 04:48, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Um, scroll down just a bit... Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 04:50, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

You know how after a certain number of edit conflicts in one day you just start to ignore them and hope for the bast? Sorry. - brenneman^(t)(c) 04:54, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Karmafist and Snowspinner blocked for 3RR

I've blocked both Karmafist (talk · contribs) and Snowspinner (talk · contribs) for 1 hour for 3RR violations on the redirect WP:RFC/KM. The 3RR violation is clear and blatant, and I've treated both equally. I'm not trying to take sides, I'm trying to restore an ounce of civility to this nutty situation. -- SCZenz 04:46, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

What links to WP:RFC/KM; only two real pages (Wikipedia talk:Ignore all rules and User talk:Jimbo Wales) ink to it. NSLE _(T+C+CVU) 04:53, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

That's not the issue. The issue is a couple of 3RR violations. And incivility and wheel warring out the wazoo—but it's the 3RR violation that's on firm ground. -- SCZenz 04:56, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah put my comment in the wrong section sorry, meant to put it upstairs. Anyhow, YOU've now been blocked by Phil, amazingly. NSLE _(T+C+CVU) 05:01, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

• Is there some reason that admins get off 96% easier for 3RR violations? - brenneman^(t)(c) 04:58, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

• I think it would be an amazingly good idea if you stayed out of any discussions about Snowspinner for a little while at least, Aaron. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 09:52, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

• Holy Mike. [20]. - brenneman^(t)(c) 05:00, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

For the record, Snowspinner unblocked Karmafist (but not himself), claming that my 3RR block was unjustified. Judging it was inappropriate for him, as involved party, to decide that, I reblocked Karmafist. As a result, Snowspinner blocked me for wheel warring, and User:Sean Black unblocked me. It doesn't seem my effort to shock people into being more civil has improved much. If anyone thinks I acted incorrectly in this, I'd appreciate comments. -- SCZenz 05:12, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Heck no, keep up the good work. Seriously, this is getting ridiculous.--Sean|Black 05:13, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I do think you acted inappropriately, simply because it wasn't a revert war, it was a delete/undelete war, which is a different kettle of fish. Possibly still bad, but you shouldn't try to shoehorn it into 3RR policy. I would not have disputed a one hour block on both of us for abject stupidity. :) Phil Sandifer 05:17, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

The history says it was a 3RR block, because you didn't actively delete/undelete. Wheel warring like that deserves a block too, and abject stupidity is a nice bonus, if you want to think about it that way. This behavior cannot be our standard mode of operation—a regular user acting like some admins have been would be blocked a lot longer, and that's not fair. -- SCZenz 05:20, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'd have accepted a wheel warring block too. That's why I found your wheel warring so ironic as to require forceful comment. :) Phil Sandifer 05:21, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Sure, if we're interprating "wheel war" broadly. More like a "wheel scrimmage" :).--Sean|Black 05:23, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

You were involved, so overriding my block of Karmafist was inappropriate. It was your wheel war, not mine. -- SCZenz 05:26, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

WP:3RR#Detail also says that deleting and restoring are under the auspice of 3RR, so there really is no wiggle room. If someone doesn't block them for the extra 23 hours I'm going cry all over my keyboard. - brenneman^(t)(c) 05:24, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, admins have the option to choose what to do, and I made my choice. -- SCZenz 05:27, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Karmafist unblocked himself, under the misapprehension that Snowspinner had unblocked himself, so NSLE blocked Karmafist unblocked Snowspinner. I reblocked Snowspinner and Karmafist both for 30 more minutes. -- SCZenz 05:26, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

No, I unblocked Snowspinner, rather. NSLE _(T+C+CVU) 05:31, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Right, I've struck through and fixed it above. Thanks for the correction; I was in a hurry. Sorry for overriding your decision, but I think having both users serve their time was fairer. -- SCZenz 05:33, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Crikey! It's hard to sort out who blocked whom in this sort of situation, innit? If only the software could be simplified to give a simple report: "User:X screwed up, block him for 24 hours. Have a nice day." fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 09:52, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm appalled by all of this - the pile-onto Kelly, the opposition to alleviating that pile-on, the wheelwarring on karmafist's part, the wheel warring on SCZenz's part in his blocks, Aaron's apparent determination to step up his hostility in light of his admonishment - everything. This is not an environment in which people committed to what Wikipedia actually is can survive - they are forced to choose between watching the place come down around them, or behaving unacceptably in a desperate attempt to extinguish the forest fire. That's a fool's choice, and I'm done making it.

I'll be back Thursday, maybe. Phil Sandifer 05:59, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

My God, Phil, actually I'm surprised by your apparent sheer inability to admit any wrongs, and to stop. You've made enough potshots against Aaron, but right now, it's you who blocked the admin that just blocked you, you who is wheel warring on WP:RFC/KM, you who is wheel warring at Template:Help Wikiboxes, you who handed out punitive blocks to two users who disagreed with you, and I don't even know what to say about the SPUI block. This is not to excuse the other wheel warriors, but give me a break... This is quite possibly the lamest flame I've seen here, and you and everyone else who participated in it shame the rest of us admins. Get over yourself. Dmcdevit·t 06:13, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

You don't get it, do you? I fucked up. I wheel warred. The problem is that there isn't another option to fix the problems. The problem is that every decision making process through which one could raise a reasoned objection has become clogged with the exact crap I'm objecting to. The only way to oppose it is to wheel war and push on with no regard for the consequences. Which is what I did. That is also, however, reinforcing the fundamental problem. So there's nothing to do. Until the community gets its head out of its ass, there are no right options. Given a choice of only wrong options, I decline to choose. Phil Sandifer 06:27, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh please, this sounds like hyperbolic Chicken Little-ing; Wikipedia worked mostly well yesterday, and, barring further wheel wars, will tomorrow. I get it. "The only way to oppose it is to wheel war" is overblown and preposterous. Edit warriors and uncivil people are fond of saying edit warring is the justified to correct POV, or that they don't need to be civil to POV pushers. And we're all fond of telling them that edit warring is never warranted, and that civility is not negotiable. I never thought I'd have to tell an admin that wheel wars are never okay. If there is something so fundamentally wrong with the system (IAR and all) that you cannot act without wheel warring, then perhaps you ought to say that and fix the system before wheel warring. Dmcdevit·t 07:13, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

That's ridiculous, Phil! You fucked up. Saying "I fucked up" and following it up with "but I was justified" is not the impression acknowledgement of responsibility that you seem to think it is (and baiting Aaron while you do it is pathetic). Wheel warring is rarely (I really want to say never) justified, and was certainly not justified in this instance. "But I had no choice!" is something we've heard from other people engaging in such tactics, people you may remember: Everyking, Stevertigo ... fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 09:52, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

It's been pointed out to me that I'm being very unfair here, not to Snowspinner ... but to Everyking. I've looked into his RfArs, and after a brief skim I can't see anything about wheel warring. I apologise unreservedly to Everyking: I should've done my research. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 00:00, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

For the record, here are the behind-the-scenes details of my block:

1. Phil is complaining about the userboxes on #wikipedia, and mentions that if someone makes a {{user furry}} he'll go apeshit.
2. I am rather surprised that it doesn't exist yet, seeing that we have Category:Furry Wikipedians, and figure it's better for Phil to go apeshit on me than on some hapless noob who creates it.
3. I create it, and Phil accuses me of disrupting Wikipedia (how?!?) and thus violating WP:POINT. So he blocks.

--SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 09:59, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I am very sorry to see the frustration with the situation has reached this point. I welcome further review of my actions, which I have already tried to explain above; please leave comments here or my talk page. -- SCZenz 06:04, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't envy you your choice, SCZenz, but I just wanted to say that it's clear to me that you're trying to be reasonable. So whether or not the involved parties see it that way or not, I just want to say: thank you. I, and I'm sure a lot of other users and admins, are glad you took the reins. That way I didn't have to. Nandesuka 06:16, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

There was nothing wrong with your actions, SCZenz, you tried to diffuse the situation by giving all sides a time-out. Seems very reasonable, at least in my view. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 06:22, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I accept your actions as good faith use of administrator discretion. I remain dismayed that you contributed to the problems you were trying to solve. Phil Sandifer 06:27, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with what you did and I wish you had blocked them longer. This is insanity has to stop, and it looks like neither of them is going to end it themselves. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 07:24, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

SCZenz, you actions were reasonable and supported by policy. With otherwise good faith contributors, there is no need to jump straight to the 24 hour block even for a 3RR violation, the policy says "up to" 24 hours. Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:07, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

The shortest 3rr block I could find in the last 2000 blocks was 12 hours by Woohookitty of LGagnon and Leyasu, both after this all happened, and one by David Levy of ChrisB, also for 12 hours. Can we at least be _honest_ about the double standard? - brenneman^(t)(c) 09:54, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

This 3RR block is shorter. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:02, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Users in good standing are naturally subject to shorter blocks than well-known troublemakers and (sadly) newbies and unknown editors. There's nothing wrong with being more lenient to admins, who as a general rule (there are exceptions) have a looong history of good behaviour and trustworthiness. The issue becomes when one decides that an admin has used up his supply of goodwill, and I'm not certain we're particularly good at judging that. When admins do meet up with the Cluestick of Fate, they seem unreasonably surprised, and that's surely an indicator that something's wrong. Speaking of things that are wrong ... uhhh ... shutupshutupshutupshutup ... what are you still doing here? Get on IRC and get off Snowspinner's back! fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 10:27, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps we ought to not use the full 24 hour block for 3RR violations unless it is a repeated violation. The main idea behind the 3RR is to stop people from edit warring, not to punish them for doing so. That is why we don't block people for 3RR violations which are a week old. If a one hour block is sufficient to stop the user from edit warring so that s/he can return to make good edits to other articles after the block has expired isn't that better than imposing the full 24 hours? Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:39, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

a 24 hour block basicaly forces the editor to sleep before they continue editing.Geni 17:02, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

(this might not be the best place for this) I started really adding to WP a little bit back (about a month). I thought I could really add to something to WP, by editing, getting experience - I was aspiring to be an admin to really help make this an encylopedia to is useful to me and others. But see what has happened (to KM, above) and seeing that even admins act like immature brats as well has made me totally disheartened and I think that the situation is now getting to the stage where it is driving editors away from WP. This is getting rediculous. (will I get blocked for this?) novacatz 10:25, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Comments

• ScZenz was absolutely in the right here, If I were him, I would have done the exact same thing.
• Since nobody was responding on AN/3RR, I had to IAR and stop Snowspinner's premature IARing since there was no policies or guidelines backing his actions.(all of this could have been easily avoided if Snowspinner went to WP:RFD instead of feeling that he was above doing so like everyone else)
• Novacatz has gotten it right, and I think the comment he says at the end says it all. Right now certain people at the top echelons believe that they're above anything and can destroy users acting in good faith at their whim. If this continues, you will have a never ending series of things such as what happened last night or a never ending series of people leaving because they feel as though their voice will just be ignored. I've seen two people this week, and several more on the verge(when Redwolf24 is almost there, you know it's gotten bad)
• I didn't particularly want to do what I did, but I'll act similiarly if I have to. And at this point, it looks like I probably will unless the community at large says to people like Snowspinner and Kelly Martin and even me that acting unilaterally is not necessary and will be stopped. karmafist 13:22, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Snowspinner and Karmafist have both acknowledged that they broke process and 'acted unilaterally', but have stated that this was necessary for the good of Wikipedia. No. Not breaking process is what is necessary for the good of Wikipedia. How can anyone see that it is wrong and harmful for <person A> to go outside process, but not for them to do so? Wikipedia operates on consensus. This shouldn't be a new concept. Someone does something you don't agree with you go through the process... think those userboxes are harmful? Nominate some on TfD, start an RfC on whether they should be deleted, and/or talk to Jimbo about it. Wikipedia will not collapse and die if those userboxes stay around a few more days. Don't like a shortcut to an RfC on the mass userbox deletion? Put it on RfD... Wikipedia will not collapse and die if that redirect stays around a few days. Don't like the summary deletion of the shortcut? Put it on DRV... Wikipedia will not collapse and die if that redirect is missing for a few days. The fact that someone else violated process or policy (CIV/NPA come to mind) is the worst possible reason to do so yourself. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. Putting your own viewpoint of what is good for Wikipedia over the will of everyone else is 'killing Wikipedia to save it'. Consensus is the cornerstone of everything we do here. Putting oneself above that consensual process is always wrong... even if you are completely correct in your views of 'what is best'. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 13:41, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

CBD, you could have easily stopped things last night rather than getting up on your pulpit here, once again. Snowspinner would have likely reverted on DRV, RFD or elsewhere in this case since he feels justified to do whatever he wants, something you've said about me. Our world slowly is going blind, and that's not going to stop until fullscale reforms of all policies and guidelines occur. Until then, eyes will be continually taken for eyes, as you quoted above. karmafist 15:29, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

So it's 100% Snowspinner's fault and 0% your fault? Aecis ^{Mr. Mojo risin'} 16:13, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Heh. Karmafist, I spent last night experimenting with the complexities of WeebleCode vs hiddenStructures and inventing what I think may be a radical new way of performing content variation (or a way to give all the devs coronaries... the jury's still out). I couldn't have 'stopped' last night 'cuz I wasn't part of the bickering last night. I provided some examples when requested and disagreed with the view that calling something 'moronic' wasn't a personal attack, but I was pulpit free. Yup, today we've got a pulpit. It needed to be said... even if you didn't hear it. Maybe we're taking out 'ears' too. :] --CBD _☎ ^✉ 16:26, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Proposal

This mess has stemmed from the actions of two people, yet seems to be dragging a whole lot more folks into it, as well as the image of admins in general. Overall, the issue that has been argued over is, as usual in these circumstances, a tiny one. We know that Karma and Phil both violated 3RR, and wheel warred into the blue with themselves and others. Blocking again is just going to cause more problems, and is ultimately futile anyway (though ScZenz was right in his actions). So, Karma and Phil should both volunteer a total 24 hour wikibreak - no blocking or unblocking or reverting, just step back for a day, take a nap, get a bite to eat... the differences between the involved parties seem too large for them to drop it, but they should at least try to chill a bit when they come back. Anyone else involved should leave them alone, too, if they aggree. If they aggree, January 4, 0:00 UTC to January 4, 23:59 UTC seems reasonable to me. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 18:47, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Good idea! fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 23:58, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

While neither Phil nor Karma have responded to my proposal, Phil has left a note on his page saying he'll be back on Thursday. They have both ceased activity at about 5:00 UTCish, though that could have been each user going to bed... --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 08:47, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry Jeffrey, if I leave now, there might not be a Wikipedia to come back to. I won't stop until I can feel secure in the fact that there will be no more comments like the ones at this edit.[21]

I feel more than justified to do whatever it takes to stop those who feel justified to do whatever they want, at least until we can finally get a stable rule of law on Wikipedia that isn't some vague set of project pages that don't contradict each other and are decided on some talk page somewhere. And trust me, i'd like nothing more get the rule of law followed by all on Wikipedia so I don't have to deal with all this anymore. karmafist 12:52, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not an experiment in bureaucracy. Perhaps you need to find a new hobby, karmafist. Kelly Martin (talk) 13:19, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Based on the capriciousness with which new rules ephemerally appear and disappear to suit the conveniences of some, you could have fooled me. Nandesuka 13:32, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Kelly, Wikipedia is not an experiment in anarchy either, but you missed that part apparently. I'd also suggest to you to get a new hobby, but apparently trying to silence those you disagree with is an enjoyable enough hobby.karmafist 07:05, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Australian vandalism

Anyone got checkuser capability to help out with a persistent vandal targetting Australian related high profile articles? See User:Crocodile Dundee and associated sockpuppet accounts for more info. Listed on WP:VIP over an hour ago. Help!. -- Longhair 12:15, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I suspect we have a new North Carolina vandal to watch out for. Will he attack Holden car-related articles next?? --Sunfazer 12:22, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

It's interesting to note, the moment the Australian related vandalism stops, Willy on Wheels starts. Perhaps one and the same, or a copycat. -- Longhair 12:50, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

The Australian-topic vandal is back for another round. Can we get a checkuser on all of his socks (just look in the block log)... obviously open proxies, we should be able to indef block a bunch of these, nice of him to reveal them for us. -- Curps 06:25, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:User Bill of Rights revert war

There has been a revert war on the User Bill Of Rights, apparently by Benjamin Gatti and SEWilco on one side, and 172 and Nandesuka on the other. I've protected this page in the version before the reverts started, which is obviously m:the wrong version. I have made a few edits to that page (which were reverted along with the rest of it), which some may see as involvement, so I'm posting a note here. Radiant_>|< 18:03, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Seems like a lame edit war to me. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 19:42, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I've given up reverting this. I need to get back to actual editing of things that matter. If it will make SEWilco and Benjamin Gatti feel happy to have "proposed" on a page that has been massively rejected, it's no skin off of my back. Nandesuka 19:29, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Mistress Selina Kyle

Mistress Selina Kyle (talk · contribs) I'd appreciate input from other admins about this user. S/he's been here for just over two weeks, seems to make very few useful edits, and spends most of her time causing problems and insulting people. She has 500 article edits (most of which I guess are reverts), but 1,633 on talk, project, and template pages. [22] I get e-mails every couple of days from editors she's offended wondering how long they have to put up with it. She's been warned many times and blocked 10 times, but nothing makes any difference. I asked her to stop again today, [23] but her response was to change the header of my post, [24] delete my second post, [25] then alter my first one. [26]

As this is an encyclopedia, I'm wondering what the benefit to Wikipedia is of her presence, and I'd like to know whether anyone agrees that the account should be blocked. Or if I'm wrong and she is in fact contributing constructively in some non-obvious way, I'd appreciate hearing about it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:39, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

My experience with this user is limited, but I do have some, and it hasn't been positive. She was extraordinarly rude and disruptive at Zatanna over a fairly minor issue. I believe, if I'm remembering correctly, that I also blocked her there for violating 3RR. While blocked for 3RR several anons began to show up to continue reverting. The article remains protected, in part because she (and other users) cannot agree on this continuing problem. You may also be interested to inspect this diff [27], the results of a sock check suggesting that Miss Selina Kyle may be User:Chaosfeary. (I note that she left a message on Chaosfeary's userpage as well [28]). · Katefan0^(scribble)/mrp 18:57, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

However, the last block of User:Mistress Selina Kyle, by Kelly Martin, may have been a bit of a stretch. See User talk:Kelly_Martin#Chat transcript for why the block was done. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:02, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes - (s)he should send karmafist a thank-you letter for cleaning up after her/him. Anyway, I do agree that if it continues kyle should be blocked - but lets take it in increments please...Start with a day, then a week, etc.. Simply outright banning looks bad - and that's the last thing that is needed at the moment. WhiteNight ^{T | @ | C} 19:07, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, but I've been watching this user quite closely. She is an unrepentent edit warrior on multiple pages. She has an uncanny knowledge of Wikipedia's politics for being here just two weeks. She's been attacking and disparaging multiple users. Blocks of ever-increasing length is a good strategy, until/unless someone can confirm whether she's a reincarnated banned user. -- Netoholic @ 19:19, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Upon comparison, I am absolutely convinced that this user is a reincarnation of User:Chaosfeary. -- Netoholic @ 19:40, 3 January 2006

Hmm, you have a point there. Started contributing just after Chaosfeary stopped, too. User:Chaosfeary wasn't permanently banned, I thought? —Matthew Brown (T:C) 20:00, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I am convinced they are one-in-the same based on some specific editing quirks of both users. Chaosfeary was getting blocked progressively more often and longer. In fact, SlimVirgin mentioned a permanent block, right before Chaosfeary's last edit on Dec. 9th. -- Netoholic @ 20:12, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I haven't looked at any of her other contributions... but see this revision of {{User antimonarchist}}. There were at least two others like this that I saw. Given the timing of her block, I also strongly suspect it was her behind User:N000 (see its deleted revisions, if you don't mind waiting a long time for it to render), User:Saveus, and the other two IPs I blocked on the 1st in relation to this whole mess. —Cryptic (talk) 19:31, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I am 100% convinced she is a reincarnation of SOME long-time user, banned or not - nobody truly new leaps into Wikipedia and instantly starts MULTIPLE wars on known contentious subjects and knows how Wikipedia works like that. I haven't seen any credible theory on who she might be a reincarnation of, however. The sockpuppetry allegation should be checked out, that's for sure. I would support blocks for excessively warring behaviour; we are here to produce an encyclopedia, not to argue as a goal in itself. —Matthew Brown (T:C) 19:43, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Not an admin, but just a brief note to confirm that MSK, in my experience, has contributed only hatred and disruption. Zora 19:48, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I met MSK when she was replacing pics of Jimbo with those of a video-game megamaniacal warlord and I was doing vandalism patrol. After a few 'pleasant' comments on my appearance in the photo on my userpage I made a joke, she felt bad, and we have since gotten on fine. She is a handful to be sure, but does make some constructive contributions to the article space from time to time. My favorite editor? No. (that'd be me of course)... but not beyond hope or redemption. Guide upwards... not crush downwards. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 20:03, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I forgot to mention Mr Data (talk · contribs), a new account that turned up to revert to MSK's version at Aisha just after she was blocked for 3RR, and another one on the same day, forget the name, both of which she claimed were friends. CBD, can you direct me to any constructive contributions she has made? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:14, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

A user with the name "Mr Data" screams "I'm randomly looking around my computer desk for a new name to use". Mr Data is a company that makes cheap recordable optical media. --Kiand 00:50, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[29], [30], [31], Macro virus, Macro_virus_(biology)

Likewise to CBD here. I think she's her own worst enemy, and far too vitriolic when facing those who disagree with her, but not a bad faith editor. I've let me know that she's just making it worse for herself, I will only intervene again if she's blocked by someone she's having a dispute with or she needs a friend. These are trying times for all Wikipedians. karmafist 20:17, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Wow. El_C 20:21, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Willy on wheels seems to hate me, surely I can't be that bad? more than 10 impersonators, wow.. -_-

1. 18:03, 30 December 2005, Curps blocked Mistress Selina Ky1e (infinite) (contribs) (user...)
2. 18:01, 30 December 2005, Curps blocked Mistress-Selina-Kyle (infinite) (contribs) (user...)
3. 18:00, 30 December 2005, Curps blocked Discuss my sockpuppets (mistress selina (infinite) (contribs) (user...)
4. 17:59, 30 December 2005, Curps blocked Mistress Selina Kyle creating a sockpupp (infinite) (contribs) (user...)
5. 17:54, 30 December 2005, Curps blocked Mistress Selina Kyle - Wikipedia prostit (infinite) (contribs) (user...)
6. 17:53, 30 December 2005, Curps blocked Mistress Selina Kyle = ME = THE WIKIPEDI (infinite) (contribs) (user...)
7. 17:51, 30 December 2005, Curps blocked Mistress Selina Kyle personally attacks (infinite) (contribs) (user...)
8. 17:50, 30 December 2005, Antandrus blocked Mistress Selina Kyle hates Pigsonthewing (infinite) (contribs) (abusive sock)
9. 17:50, 30 December 2005, Curps blocked Mistress Selina Kyle hates Pigsonthewing (infinite) (contribs) (user...)
10. 17:49, 30 December 2005, Curps blocked Mistress Selina Kyle's second sockpuppet (infinite) (contribs) (user...)
11. 17:49, 30 December 2005, Curps blocked Mistress Selina Kyle's Sockpuppet for va (infinite) (contribs) (user...)
12. 17:49, 30 December 2005, Antandrus blocked Mistress Selina Kyle's second sockpuppet (infinite) (contribs) (sock for personal attacks)
13. 17:20, 30 December 2005, FireFox blocked Aspergersgeek9 (infinite) (contribs) (WoW)

um anyway joking aside I'm not a vandal or whatever and I'm definitely no-one's sockpuppet: And those other people (Mr Data, CSB and N00000) are NOT me: I bet SlimVirgin never even checked first - *They were* internet friends though, but in getting people to help me I was just doing the same as what Yuber was doing at the time: going round to other editors and getting them to revert for him:

(example, Farhansher, who immediately afterwards went on every Islam-related article and reverted back to Yuber's POV version) - I was just trying to help stop the rampant POV-pushing going on

One example

• Labelling the Pro-Islam source "evidence" while the other is a "claim" is wrong: they're both claims as I tried to point out, I talked to Svest (talk · contribs) and he was ok with it after I explained in more detail on his talk page and pointed Yuber towards that but he wasn't interested and carried on revert-warring
• And it's true that there's no way someone could end puberty at 9. I mean come on, that's a relevant observation: It's a sick joke to say someone at 9 is post-pubescent.

See Lina Medina and think again. alteripse 00:53, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• The labelling of one view/opinion as "traditionalism" is wrong, it's just another side of the story: The fact is there's no proof on either side and that's something that's accepted, which is why there's two sections (proof for, proof against etc) in the article already -_-

Some of the edits by Yuber are just blatant censorship and SlimVirgin supports him all the way: Anyone accused of being a "sockpuppet" against him is banned immediately, while anonymous IPs with no contributions tend to appear out of nowhere and revert for him and no action is taken at all

What you say is demonstrably false. I submitted evidence in a fairly recent arbcom case against Yuber, and have taken recent admin action against him. But I will support him when he's being unfairly attacked and possibly stalked, as seems to be the case here. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

She really seems to have something against me, probably because I tend to oppose her blatant nepotism and cliqueism (as I have said before). Recently she decided she'd paste on my talk page a link to Irishpunktom (one of her editing friends) insulting me on another article's (Islamofascism (term)) talk page and then complains when I change it, that's what's triggered this off she seems to REALLY want the last word.

Netoholic (talk · contribs)'s not neutral in this at all, he'd love to get me banned not because he's "convinced" I'm a sockpuppet but because I opposed some of his editing on articles like Eminem: He's said before he'd like to get me banned, he's pretty vindictive. After daring to change "his" infobox celebrity (to try and make the image work better, it was resizing ALL images even small ones to be a certain size so messing things up and making them look distorted) he stalked me onto Eminem and reverted me several times and reported me for 3RR on that and then later on Latex, an article he's never even edited —the preceding unsigned comment is by Mistress Selina Kyle (talk • contribs) 23:32, 3 January 2006

I've never edited Latex, but I did notice it in your contribs while checking other things. -- Netoholic @ 01:20, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Let's try and deal with this in a way which doesn't go into personal attacks. She's still trying to 'find her feet' here, as the metaphor goes. --Sunfazer 22:34, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree, she's a new user and she does make valuable and valid contributions, so perhaps we should take it easy on her. If she violates WP:NPA, she should be warned with the {{npa}}...{{npa4}} templates and blocked if necessary. But no permanent blocks. - ulayiti (talk) 23:45, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

The consensus seems to be to start implementing blocks of increasing length for disruption and personal attacks. Karmafist, you said or implied MSK had made some useful edits. Does anyone have any diffs? I'd like to give MSK the benefit of any doubt. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:40, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

There's no reason to start pasting my contributions onto the administrator's noticeboard because you think I "may not have made enough useful edits" ..That doesn't belong here, and there's definitely no rules about "not making enough edits" - it looks more than anything that you're clutching at straws trying to imply I'm a ""bad editor" --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 01:17, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

(Not an admin) I'd just like to point out that some people may have contributed anonymously long before bothering to get an account and log in; their real list of contributions may be more than what is on their user constributions page. Also, some users do not bother to log in unless commenting to a talk page. This may also explain the familiarity of a "new user" with WP. - Synapse 01:12, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

As Karmafist seems to be MSK's main supporter, I've left him a note asking that we keep in touch regarding how best to proceed. [32] Hopefully, that way we'll avoid wheel wars. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:17, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Your problem is obviously a personal one with me and the fact I don't like how some of your friends act, this shouldn't even be here --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 01:25, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I have no personal issues whatsoever with you, and hope you're able to turn into a constructive editor. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:30, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I already am. Your definition of "constructive" seems to mean nothing more than "let my friends walk all over you and revert war all they want" though: This is what's been going on recently. If anyone's "stalking" anyone it's Yuber and Farnhansher doing it to me. For example how Yuber tells him to go around reverting every edit I make all the time on articles he's interested in back to his own personal POV which often include unsourced personal opinions, original research and clear bias: For example like in Aisha how he was venhement in labelling the one saying about that Aisha may have been older as "evidence" and the others as "claims" and reverting when I tried to change this to say both as claims (NPOV): He does this kind of stuff all the time and when he needs help in revert wars he goes to you and you help him: You block my friends claiming they're sockpuppets with no evidence, yet his group of reverting anonymous IPs (with just as much evidence, often with no other contributions than reverting) that appear occasionally when needed are ignored out of hand --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 01:36, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm surprised you'd try to defend your editing and revert warring at Aisha with your unsourced, original research e.g. that "post-pubescence at nine ... is unheard of in medical terms ..." [33] and while I've no doubt you have a point (though I think you may be wrong), you need a source for the edit, because your name is not Professor of Gynaecology Mistress Selina Kyle, and the editors who reverted you on the grounds of WP:NOR were right to do so. Your sole purpose in making the edit was to underline that Muhammad, believed to be a prophet by Muslims, was a nasty old pedophile, which shows a lack of knowledge about male-female, male-male, and possibly female-female, sexual relations during that period. If you want to be a Wikipedian, you have to edit and interact within our policies and do at least a modicum of research. If you're not prepared to do this, you ought to leave, though I hope you'll choose the former course. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:03, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Wrong, I was trying to get rid of the POV and disregarding out of hand any evidence that points towards the view that shows otherwise. You don't seem to know the meaning of "assume good faith" that you supposedly hold "highest of all" (quote from your user page) and seem to want to stifle any criticism of anything to do with religion, especially Islam

And offtopic: I do know that it was considered "acceptable" back then for such things but that's nothing to do with it at all: just because middle-aged men having sex with nine year old girls was considered "acceptable" back then doesn't mean it isn't still sick: We know better than to allow people to abuse children now, even if you get certain weirdos occasionally wanting to return to the "good old days" of being allowed to marry and have sex with kindergarten kids. --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 02:51, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

From what I read through this all, Selina, the point does not seem to be as much about what opinions you have, but rather about the way you seem to be expressing them. Revert wars, fights with other users, incivil behavior, all must stop. You seem to be accumulating blocks regularly, and that usually has no good consequences. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:21, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

MSK -- there is an odd combination of unwarranted hostility toward me (calling me an Islamist and so forth) and an unwillingness to engage with me in discussion, even benign discussion. (For example, my query to you about your vote on the deletion measure for Fascism (United States). This combination of instant hostility and strained silence is strange, since you and I have never had any disputes before. BYT 13:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

MSK -- I don't care if the user is an incarnation or a mirror of some or a few ex and present users but the behaviour of MSK is to be changed. Seriously!. They have been asked gently many times to refrain from using the ists when interacting with fellow wikipedians. I was one of the first users who noticed the hotty behaviour of the user being curious about about the userbox admin that they posted for fun on their userpage the first day!. I was assuming good faith believing they are really newbies! A few weeks later, still assuming good faith but this time believing I was totally wrong!

One more issue. I am not a fun of festivals of userboxes (I got enough though) but i saw the user creating havoc and anarchy in the community re the issue, which i personally consider it is not the first thing we need here. We need good editors, editing and avoiding useless controversy. I mean, seriously, we have some weird userboxes (i avoid to name them wikiboxes to not participate in their spread and be accused of conspiracy) and see that as a sign of individuality in wikipedia that i am against.

MSK, appart from the non respect of policies (being blocked more than enough) and the amount of conflicts they have had with tens of wikipedians, including myself in the case of Aisha and its relative discussion. This is something serious as it is the problem touches the community and one can never make life horrible for many. We spend more time arguing and witnessing incidents and infrigements (like here) than we do contributing. We got work to do and I can't accept contributing more to this board than to the main reason we all came here for. Cheers -- Szvest 20:20, 5 January 2006 (UTC) ^{Wiki me up&#153;}

Sockpuppery of user:Brian Brockmeyer

I have suspected that Almeidaisgod (t c) and Flavius Aetius (t c) is a sock puppet of Brian Brockmeyer (t c) and used for revert wars.

Evidence I gathered can be found here [34].

I asked for a checkuser already and it's a match.--Ichiro 18:59, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Projects/Vesa

A user who has been causing general trouble User:Projects/User:Vesa has came out with the following after I reverted his userpage's sock puppet notices: Listen up ahole, the sucket puppet, i dont care where you place it or where you connect to me, that it's me and 10 other people, whatever... I wrote my bio about me and I have the right to blank it, if you continue doing this, I will blank your page from 10 different IP's I have access to and you will have to block all IP's for the rest of your life. Am I blanking your page ahole? Get a life and grow up, you deserve these words! The user has also been constantly trying to recreate the article Rocky Day and putting the same info on the talk page. (Among a list of other things - look at the contributions Special:Contributions/projects Special:Contributions/Vesa. Can anything be done about him?-localzuk 20:55, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Gildyshow (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Vesa (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Projects (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

As I previously posted on this page, I have collected aboundant evidence about this user which implies he should be blocked not only for sock puppetry, but for several other violations of wikipedia guidelines. Nobody cared :-D And, there's this third discussion about same guy: [35]. Anyway, it's about time somebody does something. Now I'm really sad I rejected that admin nomination, could have blocked him 5 times already. :-) --Dijxtra 23:13, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I deleted several talk pages of previously deleted articles where User:Projects had called an admin an 'idiot' and posted personal links. After warnings, I blocked him for disruption, trolling and attacks (24hrs). I have since received a series of abusive uncivil threatening e-mails. I have well enough to justify a perma-ban, but as he'll just use socks, it may be better just to watch him. --Doc ^ask? 23:19, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Watch and revert is the way to go. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 23:29, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I surveyed wikipedia policy (I'm peacefull and calm person and only thing I really can't stand is ad hominem attack, so he made me do some reading) and discovered that for the list of things he did you can get permanent ban and deletion of future accounts on sight. If you inspect the way this users interacts with other editors, I'm pretty sure you'll to come to conclusion that good faith (in which I always tend to act, not only on wikipedia but IRL too) just won't work with this guy. But, of course, not my desicion to make, just my 2 cents. --Dijxtra 23:35, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

After 24 hours block on User:Projects by User:Doc glasgow expired, he imediately made personal attack on me. Now I'm asking any more expirienced users that might be watching this discussion: is there any other step I can take now except for presenting the case before ArbCom? I don't want to rush into the request for arbitration unsure if I "explored other avenues I could take". So, is there any other avenue to stop this guy from making personal attacks on me other than ArbCom? --Dijxtra 20:15, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I request User:Dijxtra2 to be blocked, as it is obvious this acount is yet another sok puppet of the same person, and is stealing my identity. --Dijxtra 21:30, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, I officially abandon this case. I contemplated about this situation and came to conclusion my actions are only worsening the situation and that I'm feeding the troll. I requested my user page to be protected, and I'm not going to do any more reverts of this users actions as he seems to think I'm terrorising him for some wierd reasons (calling me a nazi, d'oh). I made my point, administrators are aware of this guy now. If somebody decides to put this guy before the ArbCom, I'd be more than thrilled to write a statement and do some digging on his contributions (apart from that alreadly supplied). Now I'll go do some usefull stuff. Cheerz, Dijxtra 10:58, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Merge and redirect

I just received this message regarding the deletion debate of List of Masonic organizations. He said: "While I understand your desire to keep the "attribution" it is also no relevant. It doesn't matter who first wrote the list as it was freely licensed and they don't need to be attributed.Gateman1997 21:56, 3 January 2006 (UTC)" How can you best tell people about the need to redirect to finish a merge? - Mgm|^(talk) 22:03, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

• I usually state, "In order to maintain author attribution as required by the GFDL, merge/delete is not a valid course of action." So far, nobody's challenged me on that yet. howcheng {chat} 06:34, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• Merge/delete is a valid vote, as page histories can be merged. See Wikipedia:How to fix cut and paste moves for details. Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 12:41, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• I still don't know what happens to diffs in a period both articles where edited. I would assume this would mess up diffs. While histories can be merged, it's not always the best option. - Mgm|^(talk) 13:50, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

User:John sargis

John sargis (talk · contribs)

This user has been lobbing vulgar personal attacks for days. He continues to attack people on their personal pages and questions validity of people's votes on deletion of his articles. He apparently uses sock puppets. He has transcended beyond the typical annoyance into a clear dispution and troll. He has been warned and was given his final warning 22:08, since then he has published yet another personal attack in an Afd. Please block. -- Jbamb 22:55, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I just blocked him, and was about to come here to announce that as per the advice at Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Disruption. I'm waaay ahead of you. :) - ulayiti (talk) 23:19, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Invalidly "licensed" image

This image [36] was uploaded about a year ago, identified as a "private photo," and supposedly GFDL-licensed by an editor who did not have any rights in the image to license. None of the standard IFD processes appear to apply in this case. The image is plainly not a "private photo"; it is clearly a video capture/screenshot (note the characteristic distortion at the bottom of the picture). The image is drawn from a commercial bootleg video, and therefore cannot be validly licensed for Wikipedia use. What action is required to delete the image, which is currently available, quite inappropriately, on Wikipedia Commons? Monicasdude 05:55, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I suppose it could possibly be "fair use" in an article about that particular bootleg video. Regardless, I notice that User:JDG is the uploader. Does that user claim to be the author of the video (which it clearly is from)? If not, it needs deleting both here and at Commons. We need reliable authorship / copyright-holder information for all of our infringing material. Jkelly 06:03, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

The image was tagged GFDL by User:Mailer diablo, not by the uploader. Jkelly 06:16, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

The screenshot was not even created by the uploader; it was pulled from a moderately well-known Dylan fansite which doens't require copyright clearance, and wasn't even original to that site. [37] [38] It showed up on Wikipedia shortly after the "picture gallery" went live; the underlying video had been circulating for several years before that, going from VHS to VCD to DVD. Monicasdude 14:45, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

This image very obviously falls under fair use. It was not "pulled from a moderately well-known Dylan fansite". It was sent to me by an acquaintance in 1998. Other uses he may have made of it don't concern me or Wikipedia. Whether it is a photo or a still from a video is also irrelevant. The law is quite clear about fair use of images of public figures (as Dylan assuredly is) and there is no problem with its inclusion here. Jkelly, I suggest you take your cue from the history of similar fair use images that exist by the hundreds in Wikipedia and have attracted zero litigation. JDG 23:38, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

User:JDG, thank you for responding. The issue, unfortunately, isn't entirely settled. The most important problem is that User:Mailer diablo has asserted rights to the image that they do not have by tagging it GFDL, which means that copyright-infringing material is now at Commons. I will tag it for deletion there. Further, please review Wikipedia:Fair use. Simply because Bob Dylan is a public figure and appears in the image does not automatically make it fair use in our article about Bob Dylan. Finally I cannot bring myself to agree that inaccuracy in labelling images (as a private photo vs. a bootleg video screen capture) is "irrelevant" -- it is quite important to creating fair use rationales. If our conversation has inspired you to help out in keeping Wikipedia free of copyright-infringing material, please feel free to check out Wikipedia:WikiProject Fair use. Thanks. Jkelly 23:50, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

If GFDL is inappropriate then our grounds-for-use should be changed to "fair use" and the image retained at Commons. This argument regarding images of public figures has been had many times over and the consensus has been to retain the images. Your work to keep Wikipedia free of copyright-infringing material is laudable, but whose copyright is being infringed by this image? Answer: nobody's. JDG 00:05, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Fair use images are not kept at the Commons, so the copy there will have to be deleted. Zach ^{(Smack Back) Fair use policy} 00:09, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

www.questia.com

Rjensen (talk • contribs) has added lots of links to this external commercial site on a few pages. I'm normally an external links nazi, but am not familiar enough with this service to make an educated judgement. I've put a note on his talk page saying that I'm a bit uncomfortable with it and referring him here. - brenneman^(t)(c) 07:59, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Questia.com is a legitimate publisher of out-of-print books. It is a commercial outfit with low prices ($20 for 30-days access to all its books online). Wiki recommends listing publishers and so Questia seems to fit in the guidelines. (Questia's name does not appear on the Wiki pages, only a hot link like this: Freeman, Washington. I have no connection whatever with Questia, except I paid $99 for a one-year membership. But the reason I link it is not to sell a product but because it offers two very useful services, free to everyone. which fit very well I think with the Wiki goal of maximizing access to information through the www. You can read the first page of every chapter of every book in Questia (and cut and paste), and you can do a full text search through its huge database. It carries mostly old and out of print books, that have been selected by librarians to be of value to researchers, and historians like myself. Reading every first page will help people decide if they want to buy the book through Amazon or Questia, or order it through their library, or track it doen in the stacks of a major university library. When you have a bibliography of maybe 30 titles and have to narrow it down to a couple, Questia is a godsend. The online feature means you will not wait a week for inter-library loan. I am told that some libraries will pay the Questia fee (which is a bargain, considering that libraries say an interlibrary loan costs them $20+ to process.) Rjensen 09:55, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I can't believe I'm hearing myself speaking in favor of any commercial link, but Questia is indeed a good deal and a good outfit. Their niche is to sell subscriptions only to private individuals, at very affordable prices; they're not available to libraries. This is a Good Thing. It counteracts the tendency for texts to become more and more easily available to academics, and less and less to everybody else. Such a tendency has arisen because so many big, yummy databases are now on the web—stuff like the huge Early English Books database (yum, yum), the OED, the latest Encyclopedia Britannica, the Chadwyck-Healey complete English pre-copyright poetry and drama text collections—drool— but are in practice only accessible to University employees. Their subscription prices are so outrageous that only Uni libraries (and far from all Uni libraries) can afford them. Questia is not exhaustive like these library-aimed services, but it's big all right, it's very useful and cheap, and as far from a scam as you can get. One thing that impressed me specially when I was trying to decide whether to get a Questia subscription for a friend was that my own University library —a big, stuck-up outfit (through which I enjoy access to many goodies) which is extremely puritanical about commercial links—actually recommends Questia to staff and students. That was an unusual sight to see. Bishonen | talk 10:30, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

they're not available to libraries. This is a Good Thing. It counteracts the tendency for texts to become more and more easily available to academics, and less and less to everybody else. There is such a thing as non-academic libraries. - Mgm|^(talk) 13:45, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

True, but non-academic libraries won't carry even the big juicy services -- don't want them -- and Questia would be of no more interest to them than Ebsco, e.g. Only in very large cities, at very central branches, do public libraries, at least in the US, feel that their patrons want dry, scholarly services. (NY pub lib is fantastic, as we know, but the Reidsville public library wouldn't want Questia.) I think, though, that Questia is able to purchase copyrights because they can assure publishers that the works are being accessed by single users, a la being checked out of a library. Geogre 14:17, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

On a cursory check, it looks like the benign sort of link. It provides some evidence that a hard-to-find book actually exists, lets you confirm publisher information, and probably lets you read the first few pages which could be useful to get a feel for its usefulness as a source. All that for free, and a potentially useful source of additional facts for people who can subscribe. My only question is whether similar free services are available: is there any overlap with Google Books, for instance? The Land 10:42, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I use Questia, myself. If the links are, in fact, to books/articles on Questia, it seems like licit behavior. If the links are to "subscribe to Questia," probably not, unless the article containing the link is on things like "books on the web" or "web publishers." In general, Questia is a kick *ss site that does a great service for us all. One reason that folks in universities might not hear of them, though, is that Questia is not available for institutional licenses. It's aimed solely at individual scholars (and I mean scholars). Great stuff. Geogre 14:11, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad I asked. Still don't like the look of ten links to the same site on a page, but the unholy combination of Geogre and Bishonen is enough to convince me. Can someone else spread the news to Rjensen? I'm not sure how he'd take it from me. [39] - brenneman^(t)(c) 14:17, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Xenaphon and User:Xenophon of Ephesus

Blocked Xenaphon for insulting edit summaries and violating WP:NPA [40][41] [42] [43] Editor was warned [44] but appeared to move on before I imposed a 24 hour block. Also blocked probable sockpuppet (User:Xenophon of Ephesus) for 24 hours who only made edits onto Xenaphon's talk page and in the article Xenophon where the two were edit warring [45]...appeared to be same user, created account at about same time.--MONGO 08:53, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Edit summaries are unaccaptable, the block is bold but not unreasonable. --Doc ^ask? 13:38, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Quote of the Day

I found this quote somewhere on Wikipedia and found it strange enough to point it out to the rest of us. I do hope it wasn't a serious one. BJAODN time? Radiant_>|< 11:05, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

"I'm considering opening an RFC against Brion and Jamesday. Their intransigence is unacceptable and highly destructive to the project." - name withheld.

"Name withheld"? C'mon, this is the 21st century... you had to know we'd google that. - brenneman^(t)(c) 11:15, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't need to Google it - I remember the comment, and would point out that the user in question recently declared they were leaving over another matter. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 11:43, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

For those of you who don't want to google it, User:Firebug was the user who made the quoted remark. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 23:48, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

CheckUser request for User:Beckjord and User:Dr Joe

There is abundant evidence that either 1) User:Beckjord and User:Dr Joe are one and the same, or 2) they are acting in concert. It would be useful to know if Dr Joe is a sock- or meatpuppet of Beckjord, so appropriate administrative action can be taken.

User:Beckjord is none other than Erik Beckjord, a "professional" paranormal researcher who insists on inserting his own unsourced POV claims into Bigfoot and the article about himself. He is the proprietor of beckjord.com; at one point he published a "call to arms" to the readers of his site, asking them to come defend his POV on the Bigfoot article, among others. He has since taken the notice down from his site, but the effects still linger; the article has been semi-protected at least once to deal with repeated copyvio/POV postings. Beckjord refuses to read, understand, or abide by the most fundamental of Wikipedia policies. I have asked him countless times to read Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:No original research, and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, with various brush-offs.

Beckjord has a unique posting style. It is not clear whether or not English is his first language, and he typically inserts unneeded line breaks into his posts, as if it is necessary to hit Enter when one comes to the end of the edit box. Dr Joe has also exhibited this same tendency, as if he either is Beckjord or is being fed material by him, inserted verbatim into articles. They also have the same style of "citing" their claims: [46] (compare to above diff of Dr Joe's edit).

Beckjord recently indicated he is "leaving town" for a time. Less than two days later, he "left the project", that diff timestamped 01:54, January 4, 2006. Enter User:Dr Joe, who made his first edit to the Bigfoot article a scant 54 minutes earlier (timestamped 01:00, January 4, 2006). Dr Joe is remarkably proficient for a new user, even using abbreviations such as rv in edit summaries. He also made one revert (see previous diff) to Mythology; the user he reverted was User:DreamGuy, often referred to as an "opponent" or "enemy" by Beckjord.

The pattern here is obvious, but I am asking for CheckUser here so we can nip this situation in the bud with definitive evidence, if it exists. It's clear that neither Beckjord nor his supporters are interested in contributing meaningfully to Bigfoot or other articles. android79 14:15, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure Dr Joe and Beckjord have done anything which makes their sockpuppetry improper (any 3RR evasions, block evasions, vote-stacking, or anything?) so there may not be grounds for a CheckUser. Checkuser or not, I'm also going to note the slightly-differently-spelled DrJoe (talk • contribs) (note, no space). I noticed this curious character editing crop circle and then systematically mildly vandalizing then repairing Butter, Cheese, and Black pepper, which by a wild coincidence (I'm sure) happen to be the three articles I've brought to FA. They're prominently linked off my user page, and I've had run-ins with Beckjord.—Bunchofgrapes (talk) 16:13, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

From WP:SOCK: In addition to double-voting, sock puppets should not be used for purposes of deception, or to create the illusion of broader support for a position. This kind of behavior is disruptive and unnecessary for any potentially legitimate use of sock puppets. "Illusion of broader support" appears to be the aim here. Normally I wouldn't get so incensed over such obvious sock/meatpuppetry, but given Beckjord's other disruptive behavior I feel this is necessary. It should be noted that Crop circles is one of the areas that Beckjord claims expertise in, and is the article that User:DrJoe appears to be most interested in. android79 16:33, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

User:JackJackson

This entirely new user has been adding templates to Mistress Selina Kyle's userpage which are simply false. MSK has not been blocked as a Wikipedia is Communism vandal, and her userpage is not protected. Suspect that JackJackson is an abusive sockpuppet of somebody (nobody starts off their Wikipedia career by adding templates to other people's userpages). What to do? Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:39, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Indefinite block. It's obviously an abusive sockpuppet of someone, and it doesn't really matter who the master is. android79 14:42, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Revert and warn once, if he continues, block for 24h. If he comes back and continues vandalising, block longer. On the third time, block indefinitely as "suspected sockpuppet, vandalism only account". Lupo 14:44, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Just a clarifying note: I have no problems with Android79's proposed immediate indef blocking. Lupo 14:46, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Whitewalls showed the same odd interest in Male bikini-wearing earlier this week, and also messed with MSK's user page. This is an obvious troll account that we can do without. android79 14:47, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

JackJackson has continued adding {{protected}} templates in a disruptive fashion, that is, to articles which are not protected. I have been extremely mild and only blocked the account for 24 hours. I hope that is sufficient but I fear that it isn't. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:56, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

He has since requested that he be blocked indefinitely on his talk page. Not sure of the form, so I'll leave it to somebody else. --GraemeL ^(talk) 15:02, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Indefinite block applied, though I'm sure this fellow will be back with a new account sooner or later. android79 16:36, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Sago Mine (page move) disaster, need immediate intervention

The history got left behind at Sago Mine Disaster. I have no idea where people have copy&paste moved and redirected to by now. WAvegetarian ^(talk) (email) ^(contribs) 16:53, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

The history seems fine now, so I assume it's fixed. Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:14, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Karmafist and the issue of fair use images in userboxes

Karmafist (talk · contribs) seems to be on a self apointed crusade against WP:FUC wich he percieve to be illegitemate, created as a ploy just to censor people and unreasonable "copyright paranoia" (so much for WP:AGF). First he tried to "fix" WP:FUC itself ([47] [48] [49] [50] [51]), after it became clear that the consensus on WP:FUC was against him (what he calls "the mob"), he instead started to simply revert templates where fair use images had been removed (chiefly the {{User democrat}} one) based on WP:FUC (and/or WP:UP), after stating that he would never stop reverting because WP:FUC has "no basis in reality" and is just "wiki-law" [52]. On a couple of ocations he have also cited Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Democrat userbox in edit summaries (even on other templates), but the use of fair use images was barely a topic at that RFC at all, it was a dispute over wether or not the userbox should be used for the US party or for people who favour democracy in general. A couple of attempts to "talk him down" have been made with little result [53] [54], he keeps insisting that Wikipedia should not be more restrictive than US law regarding fair use. Here is a sampeling of some of the "battlegrounds" [55] [56] [57] and [58] (the last one seems to have been resolved by inserting a free licensed image instead though).

He is clearly not willing to listed to me, and I've made myself a party to this "dispute" anyway, so if some other "neutral" admins could please try to explain to him why he should be following the rules even if he disagree with them, in a way that doesn't trigger his rebellious streak I would apreciate it. Hopefully some gentle "peer preasure" will be enough, so we can avoid yet another dispute resolution process based on these lovable little boxes. --Sherool (talk) 17:22, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll have a chat with him next time I see him. Talrias (t | e | c) 17:42, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Bad to edit war but fair use should not can not be used on userboxes and templates (outside of article space) no matter how argumentative those who want them there want to be. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 20:10, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I spoke to Karmafist on several occasions, both on here and IRC, and he really just wants to wait for a real world response, which I frankly told him there will be none. I state this since laws take a long time to catch up to copyright and until "our issue" is dealt with by the courts, we will have to follow the guidelines on what we have at WP:FU and WP:FUC. Fair use is a grey area that many of us have little to no understanding of, but I stand behind the efforts of the above posters, and myself, for removing all Fair use images in userboxes. Zach ^{(Smack Back) Fair use policy} 00:00, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Apparently "consensus" can be gained now by a few random people on a talk page or IRC Channel or e-mail list somewhere without any justification other than fear of a Crystal Ball. Whatever. I've already lost friends and respect standing up for what I believe in, I can't stop now. Kelly and her troll brigade will likely put their NPA vios below this regardless.karmafist 07:05, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

ScienceApologist (2)

ScienceApologist (talk · contribs)

I don't know whether this a vandalism, or lack of good faith, but ScienceApologist is making destructive edits, and without following Wiki guidelines.

• I created a new article called "Intrinsic redshift" (latest version [59]), and invited other editors to take a look and comment (which they did).
• Within 24 hours, ScienceApologist created an Article for Deletion page [60] (AfD), fair enough, but without any discussion with any of the editors.
• I note from the Wiki Guide to Deletion page the following guidelines: "Do not remove or modify other people's comments even if you believe them to be in bad faith". (my emphasis)

• Yet a check of the AfD history shows that ScienceApologist has indeed moved two comments to the AfD's talk page (1) [61] (2) [62]

• Now ScienceApologist has withdrawn the AfD, and "rewritten" or "blanked" most of the existing article [63], again without any discussion.
• Unfortunately ScienceApologist's User page is protected, so I am unable to place a Vandalism template on it, though I have made this clear on the article talk page [64]
• There were over 50 citations in the original article that have been deleted.
• Wiki policy on Verifiability states that "Wikipedia should only publish material that is verifiable"

• Yet ScienceApologist is currently claiming [65] that ""Plasma redshift" doesn't exist. It is a figment that I haven't seen mentioned in the literature.", which ignores the citations I provided earlier where it is clearly mentioned [66]

What can I do? --Iantresman 18:21, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

It looks like the user is a creationist partly pretending to be an anti-creationist (hence the user name). I.e they intend to produce a straw man, which they can then knock down easily. Red shift is one of the arguments concerning the age of the universe which creationists frequently have issues with. Personally, I would block the user for being an obvious sock puppet - straw men need someone to knock them over. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove biblecruft 03:13, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

@ -Ril- : You are severely mistaken. User:ScienceApologist is a most valued contributor in physics, especially in cosmology. He was nearly driven away by harassing, see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Reddi 2

@ Iantresman : Your citation query adds weight against your own opinion. If a term is only used by one author, more often than not it is not suitable for an encyclopedia.

Pjacobi 14:41, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Valhalla legends

It's getting hit a fair bit. I recived an email on the helpdesk asking for it to be removed. Does anyone know what is going on here?Geni 18:41, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

What does the email say? Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 00:06, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

email text was as follows.Geni 00:16, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Someone has posted an entry about my server's functionality that I did not approve.

I would like the article removed. Not only is it highly incomplete, nearly everything it said is inaccurate, and the entry proposes that we are engaged in illegal activity, which is not true.

I will check back tomorrow to make sure it is removed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valhalla_legends

Thank you,

Grok

owner/operator

valhallalegends.com

Well, regardless of the threat/request, the article doesn't in try to establish encyclopedic-level noteworthiness in the least, so I think it should be removed. DreamGuy 00:22, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

further reading they don't seem too upset so probably safe just to list this on AFD.Geni 00:51, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

70.81.117.175: dealing with repeated sneaky vandalism

70.81.117.175 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) This anon has commited repeated sneaky vandalism over a long period, entering distorted or completely false figures—details or on the vandal's talk page. Has been repeatedly warned and blocked, and is currently blocked for 48 hours. I have spent hours cleaning up this anon's damage on several occasions, and believe that it requires a long-term block or ban.

I don't know what is appropriate or allowed, and a second opinion is probably a good idea before taking more drastic action against him. Advice, please? —Michael Z. 2006-01-4 19:22 Z

Thanks for dealing with this, Hall Monitor. —Michael Z. 2006-01-4 20:34 Z

SlimVirgin & fair use images on her user page

While I was leaving a note to SlimVirgin (talk · contribs) due to a server error which caused an odd error while she was leaving a message, I noticed that two images on her user page were fair use, which is not allowed per our fair use policy. I left her a note telling her about the server error and the fair use messages, she replied saying she could have them, I replied again, she ignored my comments. I then removed the images from her talk page, and she has reverted me. Could someone else handle this; I don't want to start an edit war but policy clearly states that no fair use images are allowed on user pages. Thanks, Talrias (t | e | c) 02:27, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, Talrias's tone certainly was not the most constructive in that. Comments like "this is so full of lies", "patent nonsense", "you are ignorant, not malicious", etc, don't really help. The full discussion is at User_talk:Talrias#Enough. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:00, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Not quite. He has removed or altered some posts: where he calls me a liar (which I'm glad he removed, so thank you for that), and where he was warned about personal attacks. [67] SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:12, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I invite you to read the full discussion to understand the context behind those remarks. Talrias (t | e | c) 03:03, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Admins are supposed to set an example. If the policy says X then admins should abide by it regardless of whether they think the policy is wrong. If you think a policy is wrong, you should try and change it first, and not go around behaving as if you are the law. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove biblecruft 03:07, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Ril. I find that scary, however. --Phroziac _. o º ^{O (♥♥♥♥ chocolate!)} 04:30, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

She claims that Image:Kamelia shojaee.jpg is okay because it is a promotional image. How is that any different from most of the logos that userboxes were deleted for, most notably the one on {{User democrat}} (which has had a long edit war). --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 05:07, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't want to get into a public spat about this, but I'd like to note the background to Talrias' complaint, which I see as malicious. My first contact with him was when I objected to his engaging in a wheel war over User:Marsden, twice reversing an indefinite block, [68] until Jimbo ended the dispute by blocking Marsden indefinitely himself. Shortly afterwards, on an unrelated talk page, Talrias accused me of stalking him, talked about my "absurd comments, rude remarks, and argumentative nature," [69] and restored the comment several times when I tried to delete it. Today, he accused me on the mailing list of "whining" because of a post I wrote about the need to improve the way we choose admins (I wonder what makes me think that), then later deleted images from my user page, called me a liar, [70] ignorant, [71] deleted an admin's warning about WP:NPA from his talk page [72] (in fairness, at the same time removing one of the personal attacks), proceeded to add this report here, then went to Wikipedia:Fair use and changed it from a guideline to policy as if to lend weight to the report. [73] It adds up to inappropriate behavior for an admin, in my view (whether he's right or wrong about the substantive issue), and I am asking him once again to stop. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:40, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

How much of that is actually related to the fact that you have fair use images on your user page, when you are not allowed them? Yet again there is a selective version of history going on here. How many times must I correct the "background" which you present? Here we go: I didn't undo an indefinite block of Marsden, I shortened it and discussed it fully at all times when I was performing admin actions (which few others were), I have also opened an RFC asking for comments on my actions; I reversed some of your actions which were specifically against policy; the email you wrote on the mailing list was actually a gross distortion of new admins in general and deserved to be criticised; you were making untruthful comments on my talk page which is why I called you a liar (a comment I later removed); and our Fair use page is policy, as you can see by the recent comments by the Arbitration Committee. I'm asking you to stop thinking I have anything other than the best interests of a free content encyclopedia at heart here, assume some good faith and stop posting "background" to all of my actions when I've refuted a number of your claims only to have my comments completely disregarded by yourself. Thanks. Talrias (t | e | c) 06:13, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Per Phroziac, I find it deeply disquieting that I agree with both Ril and SPUI on this page. 'Promotional' image or not, making our user pages more attractive just doesn't seem like a sound fair use argument. That said, I hope that we can limit the amount of heated invective that this discussion generates, and I will be very disappointed if this turns into a 'pile on to SlimVirgin' thread. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 05:45, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be a good idea if someone could make a bot that would go around leaving nice messages for people with fair use images on their talk or user pages directing them to the relevant policy page and asking them to remove them themselves. Looks like a big job... Dmcdevit·t 06:01, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

That's a good idea. We always need more good images taken or created by our own contributors, so perhaps a message could encourage their creation to replace the, er, borrowed images. I bet most editors have a breed of pet, variety of flower, cultural landmark, or outcropping of minerals that would be useful to have a picture of. Let's decorate our pages with our own (and each others) images. -Will Beback 08:15, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I have left a rather more polite notice. Please assume good faith on Sarah's part, and make sure you keep to WP:CIVIL. [[Sam Korn]] 12:43, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

An even worse example

Trekphiler (talk · contribs) Fred Bauder 02:37, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

lol. --Phroziac _. o º ^{O (♥♥♥♥ chocolate!)} 04:30, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Aieee! My eyes! --Calton | Talk 04:37, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, it wasn't that bad. --Must... keep... straight... face... 04:57, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

soooo.... many..... user.... boxes.... -Lanoitarus _^(talk) .:. 05:15, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Check out User:GeekGirlSarah for even more userboxes, in a table no less. Without the misused fair-use images, though. —Matthew Brown (T:C) 18:40, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

GGS may have more userboxes, but at least they're not strewn around with the fairuse images in the way Trekphiler's is. A lot easier on the eyes. --Deathphoenix 18:49, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Two small (hahaha) points

1. The "WP fair use policy" is a guideline, not a policy.
2. From what I'm reading, the spirit of this guideline is that it applies to article space.

Tomer^talk 06:06, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

And copyright law is a law, and it applies everywhere, including Wikipedia. Policy is extremely clear on this one: no unlicensed media in user space. Kelly Martin (talk) 06:17, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

You'll have to show me which law you're talking about Kelly. Then again, nobody's been able to show which law you're apparently talking about at Template talk:User democrat for weeks now except BDAbramson, who by the way is an actual lawyer in Florida basically saying FUC's stance on User pages is full of shit more than likely. karmafist 07:15, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I dunno, you might try reading Fair use: you might learn something. --Calton | Talk 07:24, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Clarify please, how these "fair use" images here are prohibited by copyright law. Tomer^talk 07:08, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, many people are arguing that copyright law does not forbid such images. The typical response is that policy trumps law. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 06:30, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

As I said, WP:FU is a guideline, not a policy. Tomer^talk 07:08, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Many people are arguing out of their posterior. It needs to be clearly set as poicy just so the whiners and complainers don't ignore it. Legally speaking, not making it policy would make the site look like it doesn't care and will let people violate the law if they want to, which, if it ever comes to a lawsuit, means we're totally screwed. DreamGuy 06:34, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Fine. Propose it as a policy. First off, there's no violation of law with legitimate fair use. Second, until you propose a policy, you should be careful about whom you accuse of arguing out of their posterior. Thirdly, your previous history with Slim casts doubt on your detachment from this discussion. Finally, your statement "it's not a laughing matter" is disingenuous, since it's quite clear that the "hahaha" was in reference to my use of the word "small", not in reference to this discussion as a whole. I recommend you lighten up. Tomer^talk 07:08, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I think Kelly's comments about gray areas in fair use law, and how Wikipedia should explicitely avoid those gray areas, was an extremely good explanation, and I'd like to see that specific thing mentioned in official policy. --Interiot 06:37, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

In which policy, precisely? Tomer^talk 07:08, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Fair use#Fair use policy --Interiot 07:17, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Great. So, like I said previously, Slim's usage does not violate this. Tomer^talk 07:31, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

"The following section of this page is an official policy on Wikipedia" ... "Fair use images should only be used in the article namespace. They should never be used on templates (including stub templates and navigation boxes) or on user pages." --Interiot 07:40, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Regardless of wikipedia policy, fair use is a facet of copyright law. Essentially, we cannot reproduce copyrighted images unless we can claim an Fair use exception, such as that the image is used to illustrate or critique some specific point. This means wikipedia does not own the image in anyway, but in that specific case we are asserting that we do not have to. If someone uses that same image on their user page, it is typically NOT fair use and is a copyright violation. The exception here would be if the user page itself qualified for fair use (for instance, if i had a critique of something on my user page then the image could also be fair use there). The general point is that most users using fair use images have them just for decoration, which is a copyvio. -Lanoitarus _^(talk) .:. 09:09, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Funny thing is SlimVirgin vehnemently supported Kelly's deletion of userboxes with fair use images on them. Seems she thinks the rules apply to anyone but her. --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 12:58, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

That seems a rather broad accusation, Selina, based on this (rather trivial) incident. Is there another example you could give us where you feel Slim has ignored WP policy? BYT 13:32, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

So then, the question is, since Slim is saying that the images are being used as an advertisement, whether or not the community judgment is that that claim is accurate [not sufficient, just accurate]. I haven't seen any argument here yet that indicates that anyone is even thinking about, much less addressing that question, which is the only relevant one in this entire discussion. Tomer^talk 13:22, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I've deleted one of them, which did say fair use, but the second says "released for promotional purposes," and used to be tagged with a free licence, so I'm keeping it until I can find out why the tag was changed and what it should say. However, using a hypothetical example of an image we know is correctly tagged as "released for promotional purposes," what would be wrong with using that on a user page, and where on Wikipedia or elsewhere are the conditions for using images like that written down? It seems to me that an awful lot of people are jumping to conclusions about copyright law when none of us are copyright lawyers, and even if we were, we couldn't be sure because there's no case law about images in Wikipedia.

Also, for the record, I neither opposed nor supported the deletion of fair-use images in user boxes. I know nothing about the subject. What I opposed was the RfC about it, which I saw as an excuse for bullying. I also see the attempt to delete my user page as bullying. It's all rather more disturbing than the use of a picture of an Iranian woman and a field of flowers. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 14:29, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I have to say, well done, and kudos to Slim for her actions. I personally think the current guideline/policy (not even clear WHAT it is due to edit wars over its status) regarding fairuse images is in need of review, although it currently seems to clearly say they should not be used in userspace. Promotional images are, well, promotional and should be fair game in userspace. The infamous Firefox logo being an example. Any future commercial distribution of WP is not going to include userpages now, is it? --Cactus.man ✍ 14:41, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Unblocked 220.247.240.0/20

This block (4096 addresses, 220.247.240.1 - 220.247.255.254) was meant to stop vandalism from:

• 220.247.254.120 (talk · contribs)
• 220.247.247.199 (talk · contribs)
• 220.247.254.109 (talk · contribs)
• 220.247.241.79 (talk · contribs)
• 220.247.247.61 (talk · contribs)

I unblocked because it had been about three hours and it was catching a legitimate user. If there is further vandalism from this range, you can assume the vandal to have been warned but you might want to block for less than 24 hours, given its a range on an ISP. Demi ^T/_C 06:29, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Edit warring template

Look at this: [[74]] to see a new template I have designed that will alert the editor that an article is subject to edit wars. I would like to know if this is a good template. --Sunfazer 11:12, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the point of it is. How would you see it being used? Secretlondon 11:54, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh edit warring shouldn't link to edit conflict. They are different things. Secretlondon 12:43, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

The nature of a lot of article space templates is of a 'temporary alert' style, indicating something within the article is needing of attention. We've got templates to alert others to wikify this, to copyedit that, and to expand this too. I feel your template comes across as more of a permanent alert. -- Longhair 12:04, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Having seen the Jeremy Clarkson talkpage and the edit history of the article, I thought this would be a useful idea. It can be removed when the edit war cools off. --Sunfazer 12:28, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

We have a controversial one somewhere. It has less of a "this article is broken and should be ignored" feel about it. Secretlondon 12:38, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Would Template:Controversial work? Secretlondon 12:45, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Proposed Solution

I didn’t want to do this, since I figured it’d set a bad precedent for future instances, that people would feel a need for it to be required, but I’ve come to believe the exact opposite after a bit of thinking about it, hopefully you people will realize that nobody on this board knows anything about copyright law, including myself, and that anyone who tries to claim themselves knowing anything more than the very basic levels is basically just trying to go through with how policies and guidelines are actually made, or at least partially made(since nobody ever follows them) around here – grab a group of people that agree with you and intimidate your opponents into submission.

My next door neighbor’s best friend from High School is Mike Tamburro, the General Manager of the Pawtucket Red Sox, the top farm team of the Boston Red Sox, which means that he has alot of interaction with their head offices. I’ll ask my neighbor to ask Mike about the Boston Red Sox logo in regards to userboxes.

I also know a man in my town named Gaetan DiGiangi, he’s a member of the Democratic National Committee, and being as such, knows just about everybody who would have any claim to proprietorship over the icon in Template:User US democrat.

I can almost guarantee you knowing both of them that instead of these groups having a hissy fit like some editors on here and screaming bloody murder to cut off their nose to spite their own face, in all likelihood they will probably be overjoyed that they have so many supporters here on Wikipedia and will ask that the userboxes have official links to their respective websites or something in an attempt to grab some grassroots viral marketing.

And, since pretty much everybody’s ignored BDAbramson (talk · contribs)’s assessment of things on Template talk: User US democrat in regards to images such as these, I have another lawyer friend here in town, I’ll try and contact her and get a statement from her, although I have a feeling that’ll be little good since those of you who have disagreed on this have done so to the point where you’re unlikely to listen to any reasoning of any sort.

No, this is sheerly about Wikipolitics now. This is about if 100 users say 2+2=5 and 1 or 2 users say 2+2=4, if those 100 can intimidate those 1 or 2 with blocks or harassments or deletions or edit wars or attempted deletions of user pages against those who disagree with them.

I’ll be back fully in a few days with what they’ve said and if needed contact information to verify my claims. Hopefully by then Wikipedia will have regained its sanity.

Oh, by the way, did anyone enjoy the irony of Template:User support Kelly Martin? I wonder if she or one of her cronies will try to summarily delete it like they did with userboxes that they don’t like. I sincerely doubt it. karmafist 15:33, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Karmafist, I'll wager you'll be surprised at the responses you get from the Red Sox guy and the DNC guy. Marketing departments like viral marketing and such. Corporate lawyers hate it. Hopefully, I'm wrong, though.

I got some great advice from BDAbramson awhile ago; he obviously knows his stuff regarding fair use. It's rather annoying that the actual lawyers are being ignored, but that's to be expected. This is Wikipedia, where everybody is an expert in everything.

No doubt the Foundation has its own legal representation. Perhaps we could appeal to Jimbo to get them to weigh in on this matter? If Jimbo is $DEITY, then certainly $DEITY's lawyers' word is law.

Then we could all get back to, oh I dunno, writing an encyclopedia instead of worrying about silly boxes. android79 15:41, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Would BDAbramson's comments be the ones where he says that fair use may allow use of logos like the Democratic National Party logo, because that logo has been designed to allow people to use it for self-identification? Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 17:52, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

User:204.218.244.11

User 204.218.244.11 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) has a long history of vandalism, and the account has been blocked several times, the most recent on January 3 for three months. Unfortunately, it's a shared account used by several people at a DOD school. The Help Desk mailing list has received an email from one of the teachers at the school complaining that his User id, User:jefftaylor@xwb.com, has been blocked because of the IP block. Should we unblock this IP address? User:Zoe|^(talk) 18:54, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Also, allow me to keep watch over his contribs so I can revert them on sight. Which would be made an easier task if Wikipedia:Requests for rollback privileges were still active. Still, I think if I and perhaps another user had a link to the contribs located in a easy place (maybe the userpage), reverting vandalism and quelling it would be much more managable. -MegamanZero|Talk 19:12, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Now that a teacher is involved, maybe Help Desk can ask him to get people (their IT folks?) to start clamping down on people who use those school computers to vandalise. Barring that, I guess this IP should be treated like any other shared IP (ie, only blocked for short periods of time). --Deathphoenix 19:31, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. But I still want to take responsilbility and watch over reverting vandalism. Can we get Wikipedia:Requests for rollback privileges active again..? I'm quite serious in this endevour, and would like some assistance; rollback would be very favorable.-MegamanZero|Talk 19:35, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Undeletion request/deletion review

i was just made aware that the page for the band "The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza" was deleted from wikipedia. i read over the reasons, and only of them seemed to acknowledge that they are in fact a real band. i have th one of thier albums, and although it's pretty extreme metal, it's entertaining and pretty good. they are a completely valid band who gigs and everything, not to mention having a snappy name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/The_Tony_Danza_Tapdance_Extravaganza

please consider placing this page back into deletion review.

Chris fatecreatr@gmail.com

The proper place for requests like this is Wikipedia:Deletion review, but you're unlikely to get the consensus overturned unless you can prove that the band meets the guidelines at WP:MUSIC. User:Zoe|^(talk) 19:51, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Roger Dangerfields

Created a patent nonsense article (Glyn's Mum) and nominated it for Featured Article [75] I speedy deleted the article [76] twice and R3m0t also deleted it once after me, then blanked and protected the article page. Now User:Roger Dangerfields Contrib has it posted on his/her userpage. The latest is a sudden change in the infobox image for the Ariel Sharon article. [77]. Suggestions?--MONGO 20:41, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Now he has given me a slice of pie too...[78]--MONGO 20:47, 5 January 2006 (UTC)