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    User:Pmanderson

    This user has twice removed AFD templates from the article List of wars between democracies The first removal was here [1] with the edit summary two more references which i reverted to restore the template with the edit summary rv please do not remove AFD tags. The second was [2] here with the edit summary revert persistent vandalism which i have now reverted to restore the template. Could someone please tell this user not to remove AFD tags, and not to call people vandels mark nutley (talk) 20:55, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Given this edit, the AfD template appears to have been an accidental casualty of Pmanderson's reversion of content blanking. --erachima talk 21:00, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Not content blanking, just editing. Once may be an accident, he did it twice. And there is noway he could have missed my edit summary mark nutley (talk) 21:03, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    How would it be an accidental casualty of that? The template was not added in that edit, an undo would not remove the template. But fine, if Pmanderson says it was an accident... --OpenFuture (talk) 06:50, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Looks like he restored it himself, after restoring his edits[3], so not sure it was done on purpose (though his edit summary calling your revert vandalism does not appear to be extending good faith). -- AnmaFinotera (talk ~ contribs) 21:07, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Per the definition, blanking referenced content without an explanation or obviously identifiable reason is a form of vandalism. Edits should not be referred to as vandalism in content disputes, however, and calling established editors vandals is a bad idea in general. --erachima talk 21:25, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Depending on the validity of the sources cited in the content you removed, Mark, you are either vandalizing the page by blanking referenced content or this is an edit war. In the latter case, ANI will not endorse a side in this edit war due to an accidental template removal, and it will certainly not censure a user for reverting vandalism if it is the former. --erachima talk 21:13, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes there is a content dispute (when is`nt there) The removal of content was due to OR and Synth issues. But that is an aside, he has removed the tag twice, once may be a mistake, but twice? mark nutley (talk) 21:17, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, twice. Pmanderson understands the deletion process, claiming he would intentionally remove AfD tags is simply absurd. --erachima talk 21:25, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    An accident, now fixed, while restoring mark nutley's persistent blanking of sourced material.
    Blankings from July 14:
    At this point the page was protected. Mark Nutley then put the article up for AfD; he has a somewhat idiosyncratic understanding of the subject: Greeks had no democracys [sic] and that the United States had no elections before 1789. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:08, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I had already reverted you to restore the tag, what you actually did was insert disputed text under the guise of restoring the AFD template. Content issues aside as this is not the place, why did you do it twice? mark nutley (talk) 21:14, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    And you were removing disputed text under the guise of restoring the AfD template. --erachima talk 21:26, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    And this means what exactly? mark nutley (talk) 21:42, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    It means you need to stop edit warring, and stop making frivolous ANI reports. --erachima talk 21:51, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The first and the last use twinkle. Will someone have a word with this user, or shall I go on the Twinkle page? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:29, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Is there something wrong with comparing versions and restoring a previous one? mark nutley (talk) 21:41, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    There is when you do so in place of discussion. --erachima talk 21:51, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I have been discussing it, it is difficult to discuss with an editor who does not respond [4] And i refute your allegation that i am edit warring mark nutley (talk) 22:08, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Pmanderson appears to have made a full dozen posts in the topic you linked, hardly unresponsive of him. And no you don't. Refutation implies making an argument, you've just made an assertion. --erachima talk 22:13, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes while the page was protected, as soon as it was lifted he stops talking and reinserts disputed content as i obvious from the fact he has not responded in there, why not just mark this as resolved. I can`t be bothered to argue with you over it anymore mark nutley (talk) 22:38, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    It's worth noting that Pmandersons talk about "blanking" is not in accordance with the facts, and neither his statement that his text is "sourced". Just FYI. What is happening here is removal of POV statements that is not supported by the sources given. --OpenFuture (talk) 06:50, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Not in accordance with the facts? The diffs are above; all of them show blankings of sourced assertions. While there have been some other edits by these editors, the only other effect they have had is to replace the AFD coupled with a massive blanking reversion (the first of mark nutley's edits on the 17th).
    But unsourced claims seem to be their stock in trade. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:52, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Again: The sources do not support the assertions, so many, if not most of the assertions that Pmanderson claims have been "blanked" are not in actual fact sourced at all. Pmanderson knows this. --OpenFuture (talk) 22:56, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    That is a deliberate lie. But at this point we diverge into OpenFuture's preferences on content, which depend upon his choosing to read the sources in ways he has invented, and which are contrary to the readings of other reliable sources. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:29, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    This has nothing to do with preference, and Pmanderson knows this. His sources does frequently not support the assertions he adds. Which he also knows. This is exacerbated by his constant personal attacks making constructive discussion impossible, which undoubtedly is the intention. The "ways I have invented" are called following WP:SYN and WP:OR nothing else. --OpenFuture (talk) 07:14, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    This is a content dispute, based on a single verbal quibble: that Dean Babst, the founder of democratic peace theory, writing his papers before there was any literature on the subject, chose to call his subject matter freely elective governments (he has an extensive definition of them including secret ballot and civil liberties); AFAICS, every source that discusses these papers describes them as making assertions about democracy.
    It is not germane here; it is not involved in most of the blankings listed above; and it is based on Open Future's own Original Research. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:08, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    This *is* involved in the edits above. Why Pmanderson is wrong here has been explained multiple times on the talk page. The problem is that he refuses to accept or even discuss it and instead engages in personal attacks. --OpenFuture (talk) 16:35, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • A "deliberate lie" as opposed to an accidental lie? This is the inflammatory approach that is unlikely to settle things down at the article. Soon there will need to be a named archive at ANI for Pmanderson sections.Tony (talk) 09:30, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I thought AfD tags could only be removed by admins. Is PMA an admin? If so, then he is an involved admin so far as these articles. In which case, isn’t he supposed to get an uninvolved admin to remove the tags? Greg L (talk) 14:50, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    As noted above, Pmanderson apparently deleted the tags by accident when reverting, and later restored them. So, this point is moot. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 15:33, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Harrassment by IPs

    In the period December 2007 to March 2008 there was a user who added and reinstated original research to the Games Workshop article after it was duely removed. They then objected to this removal on two occassions and claimed I was involved in "abuse of admin power" (approximately 9 months before I was nominated at RFA), that I was alone in objecting to the materials inclusion and then proceeded to personally attack me. For clarity I made one serious edit to that article in December 2007[5] and none since (excepting 2 minor and obvious vandal reverts[6][7]) The user in question was RichSatan [8][9]. They were blocked as a sockpuppeteer following this RFCU in 2008[10].

    Following this block an IP user claiming NOT to be RichSatan continued the same arguments on Talk:Games Workshop in March 2008[11]. I opened an ANI thread then in March 2008 which resulted in the IPs being blocked[12]. However they returned again in July 2008.[13][14]

    And to reiterate I had not edited that article in any serious way since December 2007. Also a consensus on the talk page rejected the material[15] in the Winter of 2007 and again in March 2008.

    This month another 2 IPs User:82.152.164.81 and User:82.152.165.79 popped up claiming not to be RichSatan making the exact same claims.[16][17][18][19]

    I tagged these 2 new users as a suspected RichSatan socks and after 2 days User:MuZemike dropped me a message saying: "I just had the person behind the IP right now talk to me on IRC saying that he/she is not RichSatan. I strongly recommend that if you wish to further pursue this that you start an WP:SPI case and allow the accused IP to presume his/her innocence." Now let me preface this by saying MuZemike did the right thing but as I understood it this case is closed - RichSatan is a confirmed sock-puppeteer and these IPs are replicating the same behaviour.

    82.152.165.79 dropped a note on my talk page claiming I vandalized the Games Workshop page by removing the material.[20] That they never had contact with Wikipedia admins before and that they were not RichSatan ("I am not RichStan [...] Prior to this conversation I had no idea what an "ANi" was, since I've never had any previous contact with Wikipedia's administrators.") As I understand it they are claiming not only that they are not RichSatan, but also, not the user who was involved at ANi in March 2008.

    Now, if this not RichSatan I'm happy to remove the tags - but these IPs are behaving in the exact same manner and seem to be restricting their onsite involvement to this single purpose. Other than claim I made an improper edit and make attacks on me these IPs have made very few other edits to WP.

    It appears this user/these users has/have a vendetta against me but since my judgement here has apparently been questioned I'm submitting this to ANI for outside review. Any help would be appreciated. And as normal I submit my own behaviour and action to the scrutiny of my peers--Cailil talk 03:15, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    For ease of viewing I'm presenting previous behaviour by other IPs whom this new user claims not to be:
    IPs March 2008
    Current IPs
    Also if you read through the old ANi thread you will see that person using IPs 91.84.95.68 and 82.152.176.98 denies being RichSatan in the same manner[31] that the new user 82.152.165.79 does. Also it's worth noting that on the post to talk page they claim to be "This is (one of) the users" I have accused of being RichSatan (therefore saying 82.152.165.79 and 82.152.164.81 are different people involved in the same discussion, making the same points, and also sharing the same IP range)--Cailil talk 03:15, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    OK, look, this is getting silly. Here's the facts: some (possibly all or maybe just a couple, I haven't checked) of the IPs in question are assigned by Eclipse Internet in Exeter. This is a reasonably popular UK ISP and it is, according to them, feasible for large blocks of their users to be assigned any of a fairly wide range of addresses any time they connect. Cailil's assumption that anyone using an IP in their range is the same person is just simply wrong from a network technology standpoint, quite apart from anything else. I have edited dozens of articles on wikipedia (most recently SMPTE Timecode and Betacam because it reflects what I do for a living) and the fact that Cailil seems to be blisfully unaware of this puts another hole in his argument.
    For the record, despite Cailil's stating that I or other people am claiming various things, all I can tell you is that I have never held the user ID "Richsatan" and that there is at least one other person, presumably an Eclipse client, involved in this discussion.
    I should point out that I have had absolutely no involvement with either the Games Workshop article or Cailil (or any wikipedia administrator) before my talk page comment beginning "Further to the above...". I was drawn to visit the page upon receiving a message indicating that I was suspected of being a clone of a user called Richsatan. Looking into this led me to the Games Workshop article and Cailil's involvement. For what it's worth I tend to agree with the criticism of Cailil's content position as some of the material he or she is campaigning against was entirely well sourced and properly written, but that no longer seems to be at the core of this matter. This now seems to be more about Cailil running around bashing Eclipse users and I think it is clear he (she?) has broken some rules. I certainly feel unduly attacked.
    I think it's obvious that this has created an entirely circular situation whereby Eclipse users receive rude messages from Cailil about being Richsatan "sockpuppets" and are drawn into the argument. Please, someone, think of the children! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.152.165.79 (talk) 11:14, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I've checked the immediately preceding IP address with RIPE. It is indeed as claimed part of a DHCP block for an ISP's customers, as indeed are the whole of 82.152.164.0/22 and the whole of 82.152.176.0/22. This should help in the future. Feel free to mark the other IP address talk pages above that are in those ranges in the same way, and check further addresses with RIPE. Uncle G (talk) 13:45, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Thanks Uncle G. I need to address some of the very interesting remarks made by the person using IP 82.152.165.79. They do in fact claim not be the same person as the user who made the same (verbatim) points at Talk:games Workshop and on ANI in March 2008. Interesting that user also claimed to be new to wikipedia then but in fact these IP users pre-date RichSatan as illustrated at the RFCU and the previous ANI. Also it's worth remarking this IP and that IP in March 2008 made their first posts criticizing me for the December 2007 deletion and claiming to be a new independent user. I'm going to drop a note to the other users who had experience of this case in 2008 and will present further diffs for examination shortly. I want to address the behavioural issues here (primarily an IP or group of IPs harrassing a user about an edit made over 30 months ago on a page they haven't editted since then)--Cailil talk 14:21, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    So hang on, we have an independent third party telling you what's going on technically, and you're still desperately trying to sling mud? Of course everyone is making the same complaints about you, you're doing exactly the same thing to all comers. This "harrassment" line is preposterous to the point of absolute laughability; before this time yesterday I'd never heard of anyone called Cailil, yet now I'm harrassing you? You came to me, if you recall!
    I think my response to this has been absolutely impeccable in the face of the most outrageous arrogance and discourtesy (and so, as far as I can tell has that of several other people, if they're to be taken at face value). If I cared this much about the Games Workshop article, really, I would have edited it.
    I really have run out of things to say on this topic. As I understand it the same technological issues that created this situation also make it impossible for Cailil to censure me personally, at least with any reliability, so really this is all just hot air in any case. As such all I'll say is this: I don't know what the procedure is for complaining about an administrator, but I get any more unpleasant messages, I will do my best to find out.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.12.72.1 (talk • contribs) 15:50, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Thre is the problem with your remark that "before this time yesterday I'd never heard of anyone called Cailil, yet now I'm harrassing you? You came to me, if you recall!". You see I tagged Ip 82.152.164.81 on the 11th of July 2010[32], one week after it made this post to Talk:Games Workshop[33]. That July 4th post mentions me by name. Then on the 15 July 2010 at 14:10 (UTC) after the IP 82.152.165.79 replied to a different IP user (who IS a different user the IP is in a totally separate range and location) who responded to the comment by 82.152.164.81. Now MuZemike was contacted by 82.152.165.79 on July 16th. The above posted was made on July 19th by user who was using 82.152.165.79. So it is fair to say you've been involved in this, making comments about me since July 4th not July 18th. Remember we have experience of dealing with anon editors here on WP and we have public records.
    Also THIS is the venue to complain about administrators but I caution you I wasn't an admin when I made those edits and I have not used admin privelages in any contact with you but feel free to ask for outside input--Cailil talk 16:57, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't know if you've read the post by "Uncle G" above but does explain how random assignment of IPs works. In case you haven't, I'll make it clear: an IP address does not uniquely identify a computer (even if a computer uniquely identified a person, which isn't a factor in my case but could be in others). If you are using, for instance, an ADSL modem, every time you connect that modem to an exchange it will (or may, or probably will) be given a different IP address. Sometimes this happens to me even when I don't explicitly ask it to. This is all entirely normal. I'm not sure I quite follow the chain of events that you describe above because I'm not sufficiently familiar with Wikipedia's administrative process, but in light of this I think it's more than adequately explained. The only comment I wrote on the Games Workshop talk page is the one beginning "Further to..."
    You don't know what you're talking about, and you're making serious mistakes. I don't know you, I have never heard of you, and yet you are going out of your way to wind me up. Do you not see how this causes a problem? Do you not understand the potential negative impact of accusing effectively random people of things they clearly and obviously didn't do?
    But at the end of the day I can't stop you doing what you're doing, and you can't stop me doing what I'm doing. Let's get a disinterested administrator involved. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.85.189.168 (talk) 17:55, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I am not "trying to wind you up" - I am trying to sort out a serious problem. Wikipedia prohibits the kind of personal remarks made by these IPs on talk pages and I am wholly within my rights to pursue this.
    Also I do understand the situation with IPs and have dealt with far more complex ones than this. The shifting of IP address is precisely my point. There is only one constant in this situation - users from your IP range harassing me about an edit I made in December 2007, and then claiming to never have used wikipedia before and to have never edited Talk:Games Workshop before. What the diffs show is the same behaviour, the same area of interest, the same attacks on me, the same single point of content and the same IP range. Now I've posted this here for outside input but if none comes I'll bring this straight to SSPI--Cailil talk 18:24, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Also to clarify something it may not be YOU, the person who has just written here, that is the person replicating RichSatan's behaviour but somebody using the same IPs range is. The best course of practice for YOU to avoid being confused with a sock-puppeteer is register an account with wikipedia. This would stop you from getting messages left on IP accounts meant for other users. Also it would be good for you to acquaint yourself with our policies on civility and talk page usage and also the three core pirnicples of Wikipedia, WP:V, WP:N, WP:OR--Cailil talk 18:34, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    So... either Cailil is dealing with one or two editors who are abusing an ISP that allocates random IPs, in order to attempt to create a false consensus, or every user of that ISP who has been tagged or contacted by Cailil feels so strongly that Cailil's position in the content dispute is wrong that they just have to join the discussion. I think it's safe to say that, if Cailil is really wrong on this issue, established editors with account names, and/or IP editors using different ISPs, will step forward and say so. In fact, that's pretty much the basis of our dispute resolution guidelines - getting more opinions from a wider user base in order to more clearly establish consensus - so this issue shouldn't be too difficult to resolve. I'll be adding Games Workshop to my watchlist, and I'll be happy to help arbitrate any disputes that arise there. SHEFFIELDSTEELTALK 16:47, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Thanks SheffieldSteel. That's good enough for me. As regards the page I (to labour a point) haven't edited since December 2007 (and have no plans to edit it any tiem soon), also a consensus was formed there on the talk page not to re-include the section as it was OR in March 2008. Really it's just a case of these Eclipse IPs using that page to attack me about a LONG dead issue. That said I'd consider this thread resolved now that there are extra eyes on it--Cailil talk 18:23, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Stepping in on this, I was asked a couple years ago to look over the GW article (you can find my thoughts in the archive). I have to agree with SheffieldSteel, that while we cannot be 100% sure that this is a returning user trying to re-litigate a fight over and over again, it certainly is suggestive and worth monitoring. SirFozzie (talk) 20:55, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I've long since lost interest in this as it seems it was never actually aimed at me personally in the first place, but I have to point out: "There is only one constant in this situation - users from your IP range harassing me about an edit I made in December 2007". Well, yes, Cailil, of course we're all from the same IP range, because you have specifically gone out of your way to contact people using this IP range. I hate to point out the blazingly obvious but this is what we call a self-fulfilling prophecy, and as such you would do well to take a much more cautious tone when talking to people in situations like this. In any case, has anyone actually looked at the Games Workshop article recently? There's far less well-cited critical stuff in there than there ever was involved in the 2007 edit war, which makes this whole conversation seem slightly ridiculous. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.84.119.63 (talk) 02:23, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Enforcement regarding User:Mk5384

    Resolved
     – Ban enacted. Ncmvocalist (talk) 22:39, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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

    This user is on an indefinite civility restriction, where if after four blocks, starting at a week in length, the user still persists, the block may be upped to indefinite.

    If the community would please check his block log, they would find not only has he been blocked for edit warring, this block has been changed to revoke talk page access for incivility/personal attacks, and was then upped to 2 weeks for gross incivility. After all of this, the user still would not stop, and chose to evade his block just to vandalize the original blocking administrator's userpage. If there are any doubts the IP is them, simply check the IP's contributions.

    This user just can't seem to abide by our rules, and frankly doesn't seem to get it that their behavior is unacceptable here. Per their most recent 4 changes, today in their block log, starting for edit warring and being upped for personal attacks, I propose this user's block be upped to indefinite.— Dædαlus Contribs 19:56, 19 July 2010 (UTC) User notified, not that it matters since they cannot comment here.— Dædαlus Contribs 19:56, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I upped it to 6 months before I saw this, because I suspected that "indefinite" would be "infinite" given past contributions. YMMV.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:05, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Just as a point of order, the block was changed to revoke talk page access for gross incivility, but this was done at the same time as someone increased the block to two weeks for the same (see the timestamps). So that should really be read as an enforcement of one action, but with differing opinions on how to enforce. With Mk5384's actions today, I'm throwing my hands up. –xenotalk 20:11, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    This is just more of the same. Those (Kww, for instance) that weren't happy that the ban proposal didn't carry have returned to finish the job. 6 months, 6 minutes, or 6 years-it makes no difference. Sarek had the opportunity to show some integrity, and tell Kww he had no right to block me. Instead, he chose to join this kangaroo court. If I'm blocked for 6 months, then that will simply mean 6 months of making trouble, instead of makijg productive edits. Well done! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alysheeba (talk • contribs) 20:26, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The block could have probably been lifted if it was talked out, instead you chose to resort to gross incivility and logging out to vandalize. Please start taking ownership of your own actions. –xenotalk 20:29, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Proposed community ban

    Since the editor has above threatened merely to vandalise whilst blocked (I have just had to revdelete a pretty vile comment from User:Kww's talkpage), I propose that the block be raised to a community ban. I think this is fairly straightforward and standard here. Note: I have altered the block from 6 months to indefinite. Black Kite (t) (c) 20:38, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I placed the banned notice on the user's userpage. Grandmasterka 02:37, 20 July 2010 (UTC) EDIT: Ban not in place, discussion is still ongoing.[reply]

    Reopened

    I don't see how a single diff, where the user doesn't even use an edit summary, shows how they were 'better'. They were banned for edit warring, gross personal attacks, sockpuppeting, and socking just to vandalize. A diff in the past that has no edit summary does not demonstrate how this user was 'good with others'.— Dædαlus Contribs 04:44, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Ban too fast

    I object. This is WAY too quick. So make this a community ban enacted after a rush job. The editor is bad but this is way too rushed. [redacted inappropriate analogy] RIPGC (talk) 04:02, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I've redacted your inappropriate analogy. –xenotalk 13:19, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Newyorkbrad wrote on 17:24, 26 May 2010 (UTC) I agree that 24 hours should be a presumptive minimum for community-ban discussions, in the absence of extraordinary circumstances, and that the discussion should go on longer if there is useful dialog still taking place (i.e., input from new commenters and/or people making new points, as opposed to the same small group of people making their points more and more stridently). ...Administrators are told that "blocking is a serious matter," and of course banning is as well, even more so.

    I've never seen a ban discussion (including topic bans) that I thought went according to a fair, open, and reasonable process was written by II | (t - c) 07:59, 26 May 2010 (UTC) (ImperfectlyInformed).

    As you can see, less than two months ago and on ANI. RIPGC (talk) 04:11, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I have moved this comment to the bottom, where new comments go. As to the content of your comment, I have no comment on it, for the moment.— Dædαlus Contribs 04:19, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I've reverted my close and reopened per request. We can afford to wait 18 hours more or so... but I can pretty much guarantee it won't change anything. If consensus somehow magically changes, I'll... I'll... well, be astounded, for starters. Jclemens (talk) 04:22, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Ha, ha, then vote "keep" in the AFD of Presidential election of 2084 (citing "I can pretty much guarantee that the election will take place!"! Others may vote "delete" citing WP:Crystal ball. Good work, Jc. RIPGC (talk) 04:47, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    My main idea is that if we railroad someone so quickly, even if they are very bad, it makes us bad. In protest, I will quit Wikipedia for a minimum of 48 hours. Others might use this as an opportunity to criticize me thinking that I am away from Wikipedia but that just makes them look bad. Guys, let's get this right! (paraphrasing Jimbo Wales). RIPGC (talk) 04:24, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Thank you Jclemens. Let the guy respond then ban him tomorrow (but have an open mind and don't just do it for show). RIPGC (talk) 04:25, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Too fast indeed - Extensive WP:AN discussions regarding community bans established a standard of 24 hrs bare minimum for community ban discussions, with a strong community urging towards 48 or more hours duration. We must allow time for discussion including those who are not logged in at the time. SNOW and SPEEDY are specifically not applicable to community ban discussions - admins may close early to truncate abuse of proposed banees, or due to other cases under normal admin discretion - but not to speed up the process absent other abuse.
    I have requested that Grandmasterka revert the closure and ban notification and allow at least the requested time period.
    Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 06:24, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    In the interests of not appearing too bureuacratic or limited by red tape in this case, I don't think there will be much use in removing the notice now as of this time stamp (nothing has changed) - the discussion should be kept open for another 24 hours but based on the current direction fo the discussion, it appears that the outcome is not going to change in this case either. Ncmvocalist (talk) 18:22, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The user in question (and his known socks) are currently choked off from further disruption, so I don't see any harm in leaving the discussion open longer. However, if a bunch of redlinks start voting "Oppose", someone might want to look into those. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:50, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    This is Wikipedia at its worse. Basically the action that Bugs (who admits he is subject to an interaction ban for bad behavior) recommends is that if you don't like what you hear, you accuse people of sockpuppetry. Why not checkuser all the supports because there may be socks there? Wikipedia should be a discussion of rational ideas. If the oppose votes have rational ideas, we should consider them, not accuse them of sockpuppetry. Likewise, the flood of ban votes should not be subject to sock accusations but rather each one with rational ideas should be considered. This discussion is important even if the banned user is as bad as Hitler.
    The value of this discussion in this case is that we must do bans correctly so that we maintain our integrity. The second value is that the ban of this person is now completely valid. RIPGC (talk) 04:01, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I saw what was happening after it initially closed, and was disturbed by it. We should not be banning people in less time than it takes to watch a sitcom, and I don't care how many people voted in favor of it.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:51, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    This ban, in my observation, has been a long time coming, based on the previous escalations, sanctions, and whatnot that have gone on before. Six hours, twenty four hours, forty eight hours... whatever the community wants to assure itself of its own impartiality and fairness is fine, but the fact remains that the extra time has resulted in no real change to the discussion. Jclemens (talk) 20:47, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I'd like to sincerely apologize for my actions. I should have allowed the user to speak on their behalf before I did that, and I was unaware of any minimum time a ban discussion had to be open, as long as it was clear where it was headed. I'm sorry for this, and it won't happen again. Grandmasterka 01:57, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    As a side note...

    The user is now abusing their email. I suggest it be revoked. They basically emailed me a threat, warning me 'not to fuck with them, or else'. If you want the exact email, I can easily send it to you, simply email me in kind and I'll forward it to you from there.— Dædαlus Contribs 06:59, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I've communicated with Daedalus969 privately, and we've come to a conclusion that, for right now, we should leave email enabled. There needs to be a more severe and persistent pattern of disruption which there hasn't been, and that email is currently the only way for Mk5384 to appeal the imminent ban. Moreover, if we yank email at this point, it's likely that many will forget the email revocation (as most indef-blocks, talk page revocations, etc. are basically "set it and forget it") as a result. –MuZemike 07:48, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    For those of you who like to assume bad faith.. sorry, but this is indeed the case here. I am in agreement with Mu.— Dædαlus Contribs 07:51, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I also received a very amusing email calling me all names under the sun (Mk does appear to have a scatological bent) which I couldn't care less about, but more importantly included the following - "As I have explained to others, via e-mail, I have a new username, and will be making no further edits from my Mk5384 account, whether or nor it's ever unblocked ... I have no plans to sock. (Of course, you probably consider starting a new account to make productive edits "socking", but you're an asshole anyway, so I don't really care.)" Black Kite (t) (c) 12:14, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Considering User:Alysheeba above said "If I'm blocked for 6 months, then that will simply mean 6 months of making trouble, instead of makijg productive edits.", I think we know what the alternative account is (and can block it accordingly). — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 14:00, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    It's been blocked. I have a feeling it isn't the last one we'll see. Get your WP:DUCK alarms tuned. N419BH 14:07, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I had already blocked his e-mail access before seeing this discussion, upon receipt of a little gem from him myself. As for MuzeMike's comment, I don't see why anyone would ever reinstate e-mail access for this account. Because of the socking threats, I've initiated an SPI to see if there are underlying IPs we can block to nullify the threats.—Kww(talk) 16:59, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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

    Interaction Ban

    I would like to ask the community if this total ban on MK nullifies the interaction ban which was previously placed between MK and myself. I hope my question itself is not a violation of that same ban, but I was not sure who to approach about this. It would seem the point has lost itself since MK is now completely banned from the site. I have no problem, however, if the community wants the IB to be continued. -OberRanks (talk) 13:21, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    No, I don't see why it would necessarily do so (though presumably it would be somewhat moot), and yes, this is probably a violation. In future, please use the EmailUser function to ask questions such as these. –xenotalk 13:57, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I see this as a request to review the restriction based on the last 2 sentences (so probably not a violation). That said, I'd note that bans are never permanent, and in the event that the ban is lifted at any point, the interaction ban and Mk's civility parole would still remain in force. Standard practice has been to keep restrictions in force even where an editor is banned so that these clearly form as absolute minimum conditions if the editor returns (though usually more conditions are attached on top of this). But all those procedural notes aside, to be very clear, I make no comment on whether it should be lifted in this case or whether it should stay in force in this case. Ncmvocalist (talk) 18:13, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I am currently on an interaction ban with a particular user who is currently generally banned from wikipedia. Once someone is banned, there is no need for any interaction, so the interaction ban becomes irrelevant... unless they get un-banned, in which case the interaction ban should still be there, unless they have mutually agreed to get along. That's mine opinion, anyways. :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:22, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Thank you everyone for clarifying. No problem at all adhering to this and I will make no further posts on this issue except to report direct attacks or abuse. I haven't checked my private e-mail yet, but I would put some money down that I have probably recieved some kind of e-mail by this point based on my history with this user.I did have one final question, though, and that is that MKs page has been restored with a notice "revert ban". Is he no longer banned? Thanks again and I'm out of this now. -OberRanks (talk) 13:09, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    This is explained above (users felt that it was closed to quickly) and has nothing at all to do with your interaction ban, and thus, the above is a violation of it. Please leave the administrative sundries to other users who are not under an interaction ban. –xenotalk 13:13, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Since you told him that discussing this was a violation of his ban, and he still felt compelled to get in one last swipe at Mk, blocked for 31 hours. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:17, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Sock drawer

    Anyone mind doing a CU on this guy? He just sent me another email, saying that he's created another account. He says it will be impossible to find... but with his knack for insults and edit warring, I don't think so. To the end of the CU, it would be best to quell the disruption before it starts.— Dædαlus Contribs 03:40, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Administrator BrownHairedGirl's badgering of User:Boleyn

    There might be something going on with administrator User:BrownHairedGirl and her relentless attacks on User:Boleyn. It really is time someone looked at how badly this looks and get BrownHairedGirl to back down, go away, redirect her angers.

    If User:Boleyn's edits really are a problem, the community can take care of her edits in the proper location. However, at this point, BrownHairedGirl's behaviour is a far bigger problem than Boleyn's edits, and BrownHairedGirl's behaviour appears to be escalating.

    Last 250 User talk contribution of BHG

    Please stop this. This is an encyclopedia, and User:Boleyn is not BHG's personal punching bag. --IP69.226.103.13 | Talk about me. 02:34, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I tried to sift through some of the edits but wasn't sure what I was looking for or at. Do you think you can provide some specific examples? Basket of Puppies 03:22, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Perhaps Boleyn could stop creating unsourced stubs? That would be a good first start. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 03:49, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I was under the impression this was already discussed. Wasn't there some kind of restriction put in place, banning BHG from interacting with Bol?— Dædαlus Contribs 04:26, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I was wrong, they weren't.— Dædαlus Contribs 04:30, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    It's a vendetta. Looking at the edits by BrownHairedGirl to User talk:Boleyn on 18 and 19 July, anyone would be struck by: the repeated hammering by multiple repetitive postings; the assumption of bad faith (repeated); the misuse of reference to an editing guideline by inaccurate reading; a blatant personal attack; misuse of an edit summary to back up the personal attack; disregard of the comments of three concerned outside opinions; lack of anything constructive to say, and interference with a thread that offered some way forward. See Wikipedia:Harassment#Wikihounding. I have gone to User talk:BrownHairedGirl and been met with nothing but combative self-justification. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:43, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Diff for personal attack? Exxolon (talk) 10:05, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Here: "experienced but lazy editor", repeating a slur from the past, in fact. The same diff shows misdirection as to "verifiability", considering that much unsourced but verifiabkle material is in WP. Charles Matthews (talk) 10:29, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I made the point last time that calling an editor with over 100,000 edits "lazy" was disingenous at best. Exxolon (talk) 10:34, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    And I stand by it as fair comment on the stub-creation work of an editor who repeatedly creates sub-stubs which require cleanup by others because they are either unreferenced, factually inaccurate, miscategorised, or misleading. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:00, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, an attempt to damage a reputation, rather than explain the situation properly, or move ahead on any front. Whatever is said below about Boleyn, and the stubs are not "ideal stubs" if people are wanting to make a point there, BHG has not established that Boleyn's edits violate policy, despite many arguments, and BHG's conduct has simply been outrageous in the past couple of days, violating several conduct policies. At minimum BHG should be told that, frankly, you are not treating Boleyn as a colleague, and therefore you are the wrong person to be addressing the issues here: posting carping messages to her talk page every few hours looks more like an attempt to drive an editor away than to resolve anything. Charles Matthews (talk) 11:02, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    As noted below, if the ongoing creation of large numbers of sub-stubs which fail WP:CSD#A10 is not a problem, then let's have a community decision to that effect, and remove A10. If the creation of large numbers of unreferenced stubs is not a problem, then let's clarify the matter by adding an explicit statement to that effect in WP:V, and let's remove the section of WP:STUB which warns that wholly unreferenced stubs may be deleted.
    You are entitled to your views, Charles, but your comments would be more likely to lead to a resolution if you acknowledged that their adoption would require significant changes to existing guidelines. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:39, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Thank you, I really wasn't sure what to do about this, as it's been going on for a while. I was taking information on notable people from different Wikipedia articles, e.g. constituency articles, and collating it into a stub. I would then look for a reference and add it if possible. Since BHG started her campaign, I have gone back over most of the 700-odd articles I've created, seeing if I can add more to them, and I'm continuing to do this. I have merged my watchlists as this was the reason given by BHG for giving me an indefinite block, and now use the one log-in. I have also stopped creating stubs if I can't find a reference to go with the information I've found in existing, and usually very accurate, Wikipedia articles.

    Even with references to the ODNB, some articles I've created have been nominated for speedy deletion by BHG on grounds of brevity, so referencing was presumably not the main problem for BHG. At the moment, she seems to check through all my contributions, looking for mistakes/things that could be improved and then sending me a long and usually rude message each time she spots something. I am trying to stop replying to her as I have answered all her points before, but the messages just keep coming, despite a recent ANI about her behaviour towards me. BHG is on here pretty much literally 24/7 and has made a great contribution to Wikipedia. Her time could be better spent returning to that than stalking and insulting other editors. Boleyn (talk) 08:44, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Couldn't agree more. The sort of content Boleyn has been creating like James Chaine is being attacked. Brown Haired Girl has persisted on tagging unversally accepted articles from the Oxford National Dictionary of Biography as non notable and even trying to speedy delete her efforts. To me is looks like petty victimization and deplorable behaviour from an admin. Nobody is obligated to add a single thing to wikipedia so to yell at somebody who is generating traditional, much needed content in whatever form is a little off. Dr. Blofeld White cat 10:06, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Dr B, that comment on the DNB is simply untrue, and I wish you would stop repeating the same falsehood.
    AFAIK, the only DNB-referenced article which I tagged for notability was Sir Henry Russell, 1st Baronet, and at the time it was not referenced to the DNB.
    However, I have tagged several others for speedy deletion per WP:CSD#A10, which is not related to notability.
    As the James Chaine, it would be more helpful if you linked to the article as Boleyn created it, rather than the article after I and others had expanded and corrected it ... and if instead of hysterically saying that the article was "attacked", you noted that the concern I expressed to Boleyn was about the apparent unreliability of the source, a web-forum. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:13, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, I can see now that the articles was unsourced at the time, it initially appeared you had tagged a ONDB article for deletion. May you are frustrated that Boleyn has created unreferenced stubs when you had asked her several times not to. this is a bit harsh. The stub wasn't that bad, it needed some sourcing and expansion that's all. There is also nothing major wrong with James Chaine starter article. It has some basic facts, established notability and requires minimum cleanup. Echoing what Black Kite says below, if Boleyn starts articles with sources and some content in a manner which is desirable to Brown Haired Girl and our guidelines then maybe BHG will back down and calm down. There are always two sides to every story. Boleyn can you ensure you reference your stubs to avoid future conflict? Dr. Blofeld White cat 11:45, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you, Dr B, for promptly accepting the correction. However, since many other editors are commenting on conduct, may I suggest that when you criticise another editor on the basis of something which you hadn't checked but which was demonstrably false, that a little bit of an apology is in order? And that it might be a nice idea to go back and strike out some of the other comments you have made which were also based on the same lack of checking? Just a suggestion, but since conduct seems to be a concern here, I think it's relevant.
    Anyway, I'm glad that you can see the merits of Black Kite's suggestion. If Boleyn raises the quality of her stubs, then the problem is solved and I will be delighted to see more new stubs rather than frustrated to see so many more bad ones. In any case, as noted below, I have at this point documented the many problems well enough that there's no point in my drawing more of it to Boleyn's attention. Either she starts seeking help to improve her output (rather complaining that raising problems with her is "unnecessary"), in which case problem solved ... or she continues to ignore the problems, in which case I or someone else will eventually open an RFC. But at this point, it's quite clear that my notifying her of problems is an utterly futile exercise, so I will desist. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:19, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • There's an easy way to make the issue go away, and that's for Boleyn to stop creating unreferenced sub-stubs that often contain less information than is contained in other articles and/or fail WP:CSD#A10. As soon as she stops doing that, there will be no need for anyone to "badger" her to fix the issues she creates. Especially when given the subject matter that most of her articles are about, there should never be a problem with referencing them. Black Kite (t) (c) 10:23, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Copy-and-pasting comments I made earlier on BHG's talk page:

    I don't think it's personal for BHG: I think the despair about Boleyn's editing is probably shared by other editors who regularly sort stubs or otherwise interact with Boleyn's work. For example yesterday, I came across this. In the course of one short stub this very experienced editor manages to (a) link Plowden to a dab page; (b) create a red-link for Baron Plowden (a later editor created a redirect which links back to this page, the only sensible place for this link to point - so there was no point making it a link in the first place); (c) create duplicate references to one source. She added this person to the Plowden dab page, with no dates or description. All this would be fine from a new editor, but this massively experienced editor should not be leaving so many loose ends for other people to tidy up. (Yes, I got hooked and spent too much time yesterday creating not only Plowden, Shropshire but also Bridget Plowden). She obviously does a huge amount of work on Wikipedia, but I and BHG, and probably other editors too, wish she would improve the quality of her work even if at the expense of some of the quantity. PamD (talk) 07:17, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    And I've just noticed that she added Category:Barons in the Peerage of England which I think is only for early titles - I'm not an expert in this area, but I think more recent titles are at Category:Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, and a note there says to use Category:Life peers instead for such people. PamD (talk) 07:27, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Response from BHG

    Boleyn's comment that "I really wasn't sure what to do about this" is at very best disingenuous, because she knows exactly what to do about it. She should stop creating:

    1. pointless sub-stubs, which do nothing but duplicate some of the content of an existing article, and are therefore speedy-deletable per WP:CSD#A10
    2. shorts stubs which despite their brevity are full of problems and require cleanup even if they are not expanded, because they are one or more of: wholly unreferenced; factually inaccurate; misleading; referenced to an unreliable source; miscategorised.

    She's quite right that I have better things to do with my time than pointing out the errors in her contributions (such as completing a draft list of MPs elected in 1832, in which I am experimenting with a new format that probably doesn't quite work). However, as well as creating new content myself, I also routinely monitor a series of categories of other articles in the areas I edit (esp UK MPs), to look for anything that needs correction or cleanup. At this point, by overwhelming majority of newly-created or newly-expanded articles in that area requiring cleanup are the large numbers of sub-standard sub-stubs created by Boleyn. I am not the only editor to have identified this problem (see comments on my talk from Choess and PamD). I raise the issues with Boleyn precisely because I have better things to do with my time than to cleanup articles created at high speed by an editor who prioritises quantity over quality.

    This is NOT stalking. WP:HOUND says clearly: "Proper use of an editor's history includes (but is not limited to) fixing errors or violations of Wikipedia policy or correcting related problems on multiple articles." That's what's happening here: related problems are occurring on multiple articles.

    The messages have kept on coming because the problems have continued to recur. For example, despite the problems having been raised by me a month ago, and discussed at ANI, Boleyn created over the weekend two new wholly unreferenced stubs: 1& 2.

    User:IP69.226.103.13 is quite right to point out that "this is an encyclopedia", because that's the core of the matter here. Wikipedia is not a blog or myspace: it's an encyclopedia, whose purpose is to publish verifiable, reliably-sourced information for readers.

    That's why articles which waste the reader's time by adding nothing at all to the content of the articles from which they are linked are and speedy-deletable: they are pointless, and waste the reader's time.

    That's why articles which are wholly unreferenced are tagged as such, because they do not meet our most basic quality standards, which readers have a right to expect that we editors will strive to uphold.

    That's why articles which assert untruths or mislead the reader are problematic, because we create this encyclopedia for the readers.

    And that's why I routinely use RelatedChanges to monitor a series of categories of articles in the areas I edit, to look for new articles and for potentially problematic changes. In the course of reviewing those categs a month ago, I found several article created by Boleyn, which led me to review her contribs and find that they were the tip of a large iceberg, so I made this post raising the problem with her. Her lack of response and her continued creation of factually untrue stubs (such as James Christopher Flynn, comment here) led that situation to escalate to an ANI thread in which there was widespread concern about Boleyn's make-work sub-stubs.

    After that, I took a break from monitoring her work, but when I checked again I found serious problems continuing. Since then Boleyn has repeatedly defended one-liners-pasted-from-a-dab-page by saying that anyone else is free to expand them ... and when factual and other errors in the stubs she creates are pointed out, she insists that she doesn't want to know about the problems. If she doesn't see the problems herself, and doesn't want to be informed about them, then how is she either going to correct the errors or avoid repeating them?

    There has indeed been some progress since I started trying to tackle this, but the fact that even after four weeks of scrutiny, she was still creating wholly unreferenced new stub articles over the weekend (1& 2) shows how far there is to go.

    That's why I have ceased to assume good faith wrt Boleyn. Per WP:AGF, "This guideline does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of contrary evidence".

    I think it's also important to correct some of the untruths being stated by a few editors on Boleyn's talk page. For example, my concern about one-sentence articles referenced to the DNB is not (except in one case) notability, but the fact that they are waste of reader's time, but create a pointless blue-link from an existing article yet say less about the topic than that other article does. That's why WP:CSD#A10 exists (and no, AFAIK I had no hand in the creation of A10).

    At this point, I'm quite satisfied that my notes to Boleyn about her latest additions document very well how her contributions fall below the standards of quality required for an encyclopedia, so I do not intend to add any more. The problem is clearly documented, and at this point a community decision of some sort is required.

    As far as I can see, there are two issues for the community to decide

    A) Is it acceptable for Boleyn to churn out large numbers of new articles which either add nothing to existing articles, or have persistent failings of quality (unreferenced, factually inaccurate, referenced to unreliable sources)

    B) When an editor creates hundreds of abysmal sub-stubs, apparently prioritising quantity (see her articles-I-created counter) over quality, should other editors:

    1. ignore the mess, and leave readers to be misled by untruths or have their time wasted by following link to articles where the two major facts asserted are untruejust a bare factoid lifted from a list; or
    2. devote huge amounts of time on each of these rapidly-created sub-stubs: checking the references which the creator didn't bother to check, then correcting the errors and misleading statements, and say nothing to the editor concerned
    3. Inform the editor of the problems in the hope that they will try to avoid such errors in future.

    This is a serious issue. Boleyn creates so many stubs, so full of problems, that another editor could easily spend many hours every day doing nothing but clean up the newly-created stubs of this one contributor. My understanding has always been that every editor takes responsibility for the quality of what they add to wikipedia, and has a duty of care not to introduce factual errors or mislead readers. If I am mistaken in that, then I'd like to be directed to the relevant policy or guidelines, or to see some policy or guideline created out of this discussion which clearly states that editors are free to churn out large qauntities of sub-standard new articles, and should not be reproached for this. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:46, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    You fail to appreciate, it seems, that your chucking your weight around and insulting another editor is damaging (concretely, in real time) to Wikipedia, while substandard stubs have always been with us, and always will. I support the idea that your conduct (including use of admin tools) would properly be examined in a conduct RfC. Charles Matthews (talk) 11:07, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Charles, you seem to have been consistent in your view that the creation of large quantities of sub-standard content, despite many concerns expressed by multiple editors and explained in detail, is not a conduct issue which needs to be addressed, and you have repeatedly criticised me for invoking WP:CSD#A10. At this point we need to see whether or not there is a consensus of uninvolved editors to support your view that WP:CSD#A10 should be ignored wrt Boleyn's articles which meet A10, and that it is inappropriate to criticise another editor for consistently creating sub-standard content and for denouncing posts explaining her errors as "unnecessary".
    At this point I dunno which way this will go. As above, I thought that the over-riding purpose of editing here was to build an encyclopedia, and that contributions which did not meet our quality standards were problematic. It may turn out that the consensus takes your very different view, in which case so be it; but if that's the case, it's a very big issue. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:25, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Here we go. It is not true that anyone who advocates against onsite harassment is commenting on anything else. You misrepresent what I wrote on User talk:Boleyn, which related only to stubs I have personally sorted through. You attack me for calling you on your bullying approach, which would rather make my point. You misdirect, systematically, from your own violations of basic principles, such as AGF, NPA and a collegiate approach. Even if there is a serious issue here on content, that provides not a scrap of justification for the line you are taking. Charles Matthews (talk) 11:34, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Again, that's the core of the issue to be decided here. When an editor repeatedly creates sub-standard content in large quantities, you believe that it is wickedly inappropriate for another editor to point out the problems: e.g. in this thread, where you object to me drawing Boleyn's attention to yet another wholly unreferenced stub.
    My idea of a collegiate approach to editing would have been for you to examine ways of encouraging Boleyn to stop doing that, rather than to simply criticise the messenger. As a matter of conduct, your insistence on ignoring the content problem and instead looking for ways to criticise my attempts to solve the problem is not a collegiate approach and fails to AGF. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:52, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    You forget, I think, that at User talk:Boleyn#Just a thought I made a good, solid suggestion, to which you added a nitpick, plus a reiteration of your assumption of bad faith in Boleyn. You had no business in there carping and adding to your invective on that page. You can clearly type fast, but higher standards are required of admins. Charles Matthews (talk) 12:06, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Not at all, Charles, I didn't forget that I had commented there. It seems to be you that forgot that I specifically supported the principle of what you suggested, and that I replied not to you, but to Boleyn, who had misprepresented my position ... and to clarify that I would not object to her creating DNB stubs, and that if they contained "a few sentences, referenced to the DNB, and checked to endure that the facts stand up ... that's fine".
    However, you are right that I do not at this point AGF wrt to Boleyn on this issue, and I won't repeat my explanation above of why AGF is not required in such situations. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:34, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    You forget that you dragged a spoiler right across someone else's suggestion that would actually address the issue? Looks very like an assumption of "ownership" of the issue right there, and that view of mine seems to be reinforced by comments elsewhere in the thread that you might consider an RfC on Boleyn. The issue here and now is your conduct, in fact. The end does not justify the means, and for Wikipedians to say that it does is short-sighted in the extreme, denying nearly a decade of building a community to be proud of. The issue of "good faith" clearly removes from you the right to interact with Boleyn on this matter, doesn't it? No amount of intransigence on your part changes that: call people names and deny that they are working for the common good (a position flatly contradicted by others here) and you necessarily have to back off and let others clear up the mess at the personal level you have created. Charles Matthews (talk) 13:45, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Charles, you made an apparently constructive suggestion, Boleyn's reply indicated that she thought it was probably doomed because I'd object, and I responded to clarify what I did and didn't object to, leaving the path clear for your idea. If that's a spoiler, I'm a banana and you're a milkshake. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:36, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Suggestions

    (I'm moving this down as it might have been missed due to BHG's lengthy post just below it)

    BHG should consider alternative ways of handling this. Regardless of the merits of her stance, it's coming across as a personal crusade/vendetta. Suggestions :-

    1. Open a user conduct RFC and get wider community input on Boleyn's editing style and stub creation
    2. If BHG feels Boleyn's edits require any admin attention or action, report here for a neutral admin to evaluate and act if required.
    3. If there is an appropiate Wikiproject devoted to stubs, let them as a group take a look at Boleyn's edits and come up with evaluations/proposals.
    4. If BHG feels that experienced editors should be held to higher standards on stub articles - propose this policy through the correct channels.

    Additional suggestions welcomed. Exxolon (talk) 11:40, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    If, as BHG suggests, there is a broad body of opinion with similar concerns about Boleyn's edits, it shouldn't be that hard for BHG to find a proxy in dealing with Boleyn. This sort of minimum cut-out might allow for a more reasoned and problem-solving approach; and would deal with the current fracas. Charles Matthews (talk) 11:48, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Unfortunately, many editors who identify problems such as this simply don't want to put the time into tackling it, so although there are several other editors who share my concerns (some of whom have already posted in this thread), that doesn't mean that they are likely to commit the effort to setting up an RFC or whatever.
    I will be winding down my own editing over the next few days, before going away (and offline) for about 5 weeks, so I don't intend myself to open an RFC at this point. (It would be unfair to set it up and then vanish)
    At this point, the points I have documented on Boleyn's talk page are quite sufficient to provide ample evidence that there is a problem and that attempts have been made to resolve it, which provides the basis for an RFC. As noted above, I do not intend to continue for now the time-consuming process of documenting them all ... but if when I return in September, I find that Boleyn is still creating the same sort of substandard new pages, I will see if I can find time to gather the new evidence and add it to the existing bundle to open an RFC. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:02, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • No experienced editor should be creating uncited stubs. Doing so is nothing but trouble, that is what I expect from new accounts. Off2riorob (talk) 12:16, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Very true. As Black Kite mentioned above, the problems would go away if Boleyn started citing articles appropriately. It's not difficult. It's not a race to create as many new articles as possible. I agree that it's definitely a problem, and I think BHG's efforts to clear this up have been responded to badly, which has naturally caused her frustration. I think an RFC is in order, as people are clearly divided over the issue. Aiken ♫ 12:58, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I see BHG as being in a bit of a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't situation. She's got a problem with Boleyn's articles, seeing them as a diffuse web of useless, unsourced and frequently inaccurate microstubs. From what I've seen, this perception of the stub is accurate at least a high percentage of the time. BHG's taken it upon herself to clean up or repair the mess, continually following Boleyn around begging and demanding that they show some restraint and responsibility. This, coupled with the fact that the job is apparently too big for anyone else to even think about attempting, can make it look as though BHG is on some sort of anti-Boleyn harassment campaign. Getting snippy obviously just reinforces that perception. But I think that going "pretty please with sugar on top" would have even less effect in stemming the crapflood. In any case, I think it's obvious that an editor introducing inaccuracies into Wikipedia that take much longer to repair than they do to perpetrate is far more problematic than the manners of the person telling them to stop.Reyk YO! 13:31, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Rediscovering the wheel, isn't it, to say that admins can behave as they goddam please as long as they don't keep a cool head? I though we'd nailed that one around 2004. Charles Matthews (talk) 13:53, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I didn't say that, and you know it. Please stop twisting and misrepresenting the words of others; it isn't the first time you've done that on this thread. Reyk YO! 00:34, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Where to from here?

    Seems a few people have some bugs up their asses, but there isn't really anything here that demands admin action. The best course would be a WP:WQA or WP:RFC, rather than clogging up ANI with "yes you did/no I didn't" posts. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 14:11, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Actually, given that it says in WP:HOUND that If "following another user around" is accompanied by tendentiousness, personal attacks, or other disruptive behavior, it may become a very serious matter and could result in blocks and other editing restrictions, it's rather important to discuss exactly what has been happening. Charles Matthews (talk) 14:21, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    That's what WQA or RFC are for. Unless its clear hounding, ANI can't do a damn thing with it. And this isn't clear, as both sides have some disruptive behavior. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 17:14, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Please read the bit in WP:WPA that makes it clear that they are complete forbidden, no matter what the other party has done. And then tell me why there is any need to dicker about this. Charles Matthews (talk) 20:35, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Facepalm Facepalm Yes, harassment is forbidden. But I don't see that this is clear harassment. It's a behavioral issue on both sides. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 16:06, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I will be taking an indefinite wikibreak as I just can't take any more of this. This has recently started to feel like a job I'm not doing well enough, rather than me volunteering my time because I enjoyed it and thought it was important. I have spent many hours, especially over the last few days, going back over articles I created and adding to them, but as far as I'm aware I broke no policy in creating short stubs. I apologise for any and all mistakes I have made in my editing, but as I've said before, I spend many hours a day editing and there will be some errors found, especially if someone checks every edit I make - I believe the amount to have been exaggerated. I may pop back on to look at messages but am unlikely to edit for a while, and will see if I think I still have anything to contribute to the project. Thanks for all the support I've received over the last two and a half years, particularly in recent weeks. Best wishes, Boleyn (talk) 14:26, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    No, please, disregard the rather callous comments by a few above who apparently are not prepared to hold an admin to basic standards. Instead discuss with Dr. Blofeld and me a way ahead that will be more fruitful, ignoring if you can the personalia that have been aimed at you. I uphold the view that you did not break policy, and have been harassed. The appropriate policy is cited above, and it looks like three strikes against BHG to me, at least. Charles Matthews (talk) 14:45, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I think it's advisable for both users to take a non-permanent break, and that both users should read all of the following.
    With respect to BHG, even during difficult situations, admins are expected to model appropriate standards of courtesy and civility to other editors and to one another, and to engage in proper conduct. That requirement is not optional purely because one becomes involved in a dispute and is technically not permitted to use their tools in that dispute; it applies because that's part of the responsibilities that come with becoming an administrator (or any other position of trust on Wikipedia). Remember that it would be counterproductive if an user felt that the only way they can contribute is through new accounts so that their content will not continue to be subjected to an unusually high level of scrutiny. I appreciate the concern about the quality of content that is being generated, but know yourself, and take breaks when you find you cannot maintain the standard of behavior that is expected.
    With respect to Boleyn, clearly the perceived conduct issues and approach can overwhelm any user - especially when it either appears or feels like an user is consistently trying to find fault with whatever you do. Similarly, you should also remember that where an user appears or feels that their concerns about your approach or content are not being heard, not responding to the comments is hardly going to deescalate the situation either. If necessary, slow down or take breaks; chances are that it will help both you and the project.
    I think everyone would like it if both users constructive contributions are retained particularly as both users want to or have in some way (tried) to improve the project. But sometimes, it is better both for the individual and for the project that they take a temporary break when things are going too out of control (too much to handle) or things are getting out of perspective. When it is taken in appropriate circumstances (like here), this can be the best form of dispute resolution - better than a solution that any editor, admin, community or a bureaucratic committee can provide. It's also a preferrable option to a WQA or a RfC in this case. Come back refreshed after you've both taken enough time off; work on the issues that others have identified with your approaches (even if this means talking with others or working with others to address these), and finally, continue helping the project - that's all we want, and that's what the project will benefit from. My 2 cents anyway. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:36, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Can I just say quickly here that
    1. it is not, and has not been, either my aim or desire for Boleyn to stop editing wikipedia, and I would encourage her not to quit. All I have sought is for her take some steps to acknowledge and learn from problems identified. I have more than once suggested several ways in which she could do that (e.g. mentorship, engaging with concerns when they are raised, creating new articles in userspace and seeking a check before they go to mainspace), and I hope that when she returns after her break, she will find some way of seeking assistance from other editors so that she an do this without raising concerns.
    2. For myself, I will be taking a summer break from next week, and have in any case already committed to staying clear of Boleyn other than possibly than to raise an RFC if problems persist on my return.
    3. One of the issues revealed by this discussion has been a divergence of views about the applicability of existing clearly-worded guidelines on the sort of content creation in which Boleyn has engaged. One of the factors which escalated this dispute was the intervention of editors who appear to me to reject clearly-worded relevant guidelines such as WP:STUB#Basic information and WP:CSD#A10, although they seem sincere in their readings. I suggest that a review of both those guidelines is now needed to test the degree to which they still reflect consensus, hopefully leading to some sort of clarification one way or another, particularly with regard to the distinction between the welcoming assistance we should give to new editors learning the ropes and the different issues which I (and several other contributors to this thread) believe are raised by experienced editors who create many new stubs.
    There is a lot more which I could say on this topic, and I will say them if Charles Matthews or anyone else wants to pursue the matter further ... but in the spirit of ncmvocalist's posting I will leave them be for now in the hope that everyone can move on. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:27, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I'd say once again it is WP:AGF which is central to this. Boleyn was doing what she thought was right for the encyclopedia and didn't see a problem with small, unreferenced stubs. Brown Haired Girl took Boleyn's continued unsourced articles as an insult so proceeded to harass her and tried to make her to get the message and not to create more without a source or content. Above all I'd say a solution could be found where everybody is happy; it largely comes down to referencing and some levelof basic starter content. If Boleyn can take heed of the guidelines and BHG's concerns and generate articles even if shortish stubs with proper sourcing, (that means more than just a bare URL) and she is happy to do so I'm sure BHG, if she is really keen on wikipedia development, does not really want Boleyn to leave, and has some level of decency, then I think she would not continue to go on at Boleyn and stalk her articles. Take some time away from wikipedia Boleyn but I think it is unnecessary to depart from wikipedia when its obivous its something you enjoy. The key is to edit in a way you and other people are happy with. I do believe the extent of the mistakes she has made are highly exaggerated. and that overall the content she has added to the site is encyclopedic and can be built upon. The worst thing I think is the fact that one of the editors in this debate (not Brown Haired Girl) added more fuel to the fire by prodding and sending ANOTHER deletion warning to Boleyn, as if she didn't get the message which I thought was particularly cruel and unwarratned. The article, Arthur Ingram has since been expanded and is awaiting DYK. Dr. Blofeld White cat 18:23, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    So an unsourced, one line, biography stub was PRODded as unsourced, and as a result the article has had sources and information added to it and has now been nominated for DYK? That certainly sounds like a positive outcome to me. --Jezebel'sPonyoshhh 18:31, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    While we have some users feverishly creating minimalistic, unreferenced articles, we have other users feverishly marking minimalistic, unreferenced articles for deletion (particularly due to BLP concerns). And I'm not talking about BHG, either. I think there is actually a project dedicated to rubbing out unreferenced BLP's. So what are the rules? Is it valid to add unreferenced articles? Technically speaking, isn't any unreferenced stub essentially "original research" if it lacks a reference? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:15, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Just dropping in a comment here in the middle, responding to the above comment. Three things. One -- In April, due to BLP concerns, there was indeed a project to delete BLPs that, after notice, lacked even one ref. That sounds like a "camel" of a solution -- a compromise that was not perfect, but was an improvement to what was then a disturbingly high number of non-reference BLPs. Second -- my own practice is to not add a sentence of prose without adding a footnote. Third -- the AfD policy does not require that there be refs in the article, or that there be refs in the article that reflect notability, but just that they exist. So, in an AfD discussion, it is not uncommon for the nom to say -- hey, well if those sources exist, you have to put them in the article for me to agree to a "keep", and for the older (if not wiser) hands to respond ... that's not how it works. Of course, the good souls go about putting the refs in the articles. When those editors come up for admin (and that's not infrequently a subtext), they of course almost invariably receive my support.
    Bottom line -- our policies, for better or worse, allow for unreferenced prose. If questioned, however, refs must be supplied. Or the material is (after how long? not sure there is a standard) deleted. Is this a good approach? It may be a "perfection is the enemy of the good approach". I should point out that as to lists, some editors believe that they should (though they generally don't) have a ref for each entry. Which is of course curious, given how it is inconsistent with cats -- which can't of course have refs.--Epeefleche (talk) 08:57, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    In response to Dr Blofeld above, I'll repeat that I didn't want Boleyn to leave, and don't want her to leave. I do think that having Boleyn staying and creating good stubs would be the ideal outcome. I'm pleased to see other editors (including Dr B) now taking up the baton of advising her on how to achieve that, and I'm even more pleased to see that she seems to have moved on a long way from telling them to go fix it themselves if they want to.
    I also think that Baseball Bugs is right to raise the issue of a wider problem wrt to the role of stubs. Wikipedia's priorities have changed over the years, and it does seem that some very divergent views on the role of stubs have currency in difft corners of wikipedia. This really does need some attention as a systemic issue, rather just leaving individual disputes to be resolved on a piecemeal compromise basis. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:15, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Which being translated means that you at last realise that your attacks on Boleyn are founded in no policy as such (as I have said all along) but in an opinion you hold of what policy should say (as we all realised quite some time ago). I think we do need to discuss with you why you exaggerate the harm done by stubs, when they are not unreferenced BLP (which [[WP:V}} singles out prominently) but may contain unattributed material (which is not particularly desirable but not always subject to the first para of WP:V as is clear to anyone who actually reads it), or of the seed type that may duplicate material already in an article but allow for expansion of a topic. The latter type may be subject to CSD A10, but really shouldn't when there is a clear case for expansion. The difference between may and must is key in understanding where the growth points are: it is much more likely that Wikipedia is harmed by having too few stubs to expand, than too many. (None of this excuses any aspect of your behaviour, naturally. Those who dismiss it or accept your self-excusing version of a display of petulant aggression with gross exaggerations and "tendentiousness" are, I would say in your style, conniving in harassment.) Charles Matthews (talk) 20:21, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Charles, considering that you have repeatedly criticised my conduct, that level of vituperation from you doesn't help your case.
    I am trying here to seek a win-win outcome to all of this, so I don't intend to intend to discuss these points with you while you are ranting ... but I'll just note that you grotsequely misrepresent my position in a number of respects. I do not "realise that your attacks on Boleyn are founded in no policy as such", and it would be helpful for you not to put words in my mouth; what I do acknowledge is that it has become clear that some clear and well-established guidelines are not supported by a number of editors, and I don't know how widespread that dissent is, which is why I suggest a wider review. In an appropriate forum I will be quite happy to expand in much greater detail on the problems of bad stubs, with plenty of evidence to support that, but I'm not going to bother trying to do that when you simply shout about "exaggeration" rather than looking for some evidence, and when you try to misrepresent my position as being opposed to stubs per se. If anyone is inclined to take that comment of yours at face value, then I urge them to take a look at my own article-creation over the last 4½ years of editing here: the number of stubs I have created probably runs into the thousands. There are external tools which help in finding such articles, though it takes them a long time to process my contribs list. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:30, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • We had proposals in place the last time around to deal with this. They were quite reasonable, though people were worried about Boleyn being restricted in unreasonable ways and BHG didn't think those restirctions went far enough. All that said, I don't understand why WP:STICK isn't invoked here. If there is a serious problem, there is no reason why BHG needs to be fixing it. Let others try. It seems to have become a pretty clear case of badgering. Badgering with good motives, but badgering none-the-less. Hobit (talk) 19:43, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Maybe let the deletionist projects find them and deal with them? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:47, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • (hi Bugs!) comment - Where's the RfC? We're out of behavioral territory here (which is what administrators are supposed to be enforcing), and probably out of most policy space - most content policies govern what is suitable for individual articles, whereas this is a meta-question of setting policy: should we be creating placeholders / sub-stubs en masse for notable historical people based on biography databases, or should we wait for people to create viable articles? The content issue is similar to a number of historical debates: articles for all models of cell phones? articles for every town and geographic feature in the world? articles for x-y relations, where x and y is the set of all countries in the world? The result is sometimes yes, sometimes no, depending on the circumstances... it's best to have a prior discussion before any mass creation or mass deletion of content, rather than making content decisions like this through the tenacity of individual editors or the success of their complaints about one another. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:58, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • RFC for what? Deletions of BLP's with no sources? I don't recall, but probably discussed on the BLP talk page. My point overall, though, is this: If you create an article, of any size, it can't be from thin air. It has to have a source. But if there's no reference given, then what is the source? The creator's recollection of something? Maybe that's OK for a given isolated article. They could start to create it and come back with references. But if you're mass-loading stubs, you have to be getting them from somewhere. Where? And why isn't in the article? And if it is, What's the problem? Ya follow? :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:32, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I, personally, would request that Bugs stop going up other people's asses.
    Seriously, man, that's sick. HalfShadow 01:50, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    That's way too Freudian. I think he was channeling LC when he posed that question. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:29, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Supporting Bugs's point about sourcing, recent comment by Boleyn confirmed what I suspected, that she was sourcing the content from existing wikipedia articles and then looking for external refs to back up some of the article. That's an understandable approach, but it's dangerous, because it leads to the replication of errors ... and it's important to remind editors doing this that wikipedia is not a reliable source.

    Here's an illustration of the danger, which I just encountered a few minutes ago whilst building a draft list of 1832 MPs: in the list of MPs for Winchester, William Bingham Baring is listed as a Tory, and the same label appears in his article. But a little scrutiny shows that in neither case is the party affiliation explicitly referenced, and F. W. S. Craig's British parliamentary election results 1832–1885 shows that Baring was elected a Liberal/Whig for Winchester in 1832 and 1835, but as a Conservative MP for North Staffordshire from 1837-41, and for Thetford from 1841 to 1848. I know exactly how that sort of error arises, through a good faith but mistaken assumption that if he was a Conservative in the 1840s, he must also have been so in 1832 ... but party-switching was much more common then, making such assumptions dangerous. This sort of mistake can linger for years in under-scrutinised articles on relatively obscure MPs, and even tho Baring was more notable than most MPs, rising briefly to ministerial office, it has remained in the article on him since this edit in Sept 2009, and in the Winchester article since this edit in Nov 2008.

    Both edits were good faith mistake by an experienced and careful editor, but it illustrates the dangers of relying on existing wikipedia articles as a source. Rapid-fire-creation of stubs based solely on existing articles not only replicates existing glitches such as these, but risks compounding them with further misunderstandings of various subtleties: the chinese whispers syndrome of content degrading as it is passed on down the line. That's why the use of reliable sources is not just an adornment to be added later, but is supposed to be the basis for adding new content. When that sort of error is made in an uncategorised sub-stub on an obscure back-bencher, it can linger for years; even well-linked and categorised articles on backbenchers often get only a dozen or so hits per month, and a surprising number of stubs which I created four years ago on 20th-century backbench MPs have seen no substantive content changes since then. The high error rate in Boleyn's sub-stubs on MPs is likely to persist for a looong time unless checked, and there is a very limited number of editors with access to the scarce reference books required to check these points for obscure mid-19th-century MPs. With this sort of obscure topic, the sort-it-out-later approach to sourcing just doesn't work ... and we have over 700 articles created in this way by Boleyn. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:27, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    That makes a lot of sense. I do think from a process perspective it's better to get a community consensus (or point to a prior one) than to tackle this as a solo administrator. I know we already have WP:V, WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT, and also WP:CIRCULAR. Has anyone ever written an essay to the tune of "don't mass-create articles based on a single source"? - Wikidemon (talk) 20:52, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The thing that has surprised me in all of this has been that when we already have WP:V, WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT, WP:CIRCULAR, WP:CSD#A10, WP:STUB#Basic stub etc, there seems to be a view in some quarters that we do not have a prior consensus on this. I have been very surprised to be accused by a few editors of pursuing a novel interpretation of existing guidelines. I accept at this point that a wider discussion is needed to settle this issue, but now that Boleyn has confirmed what was apparent already, viz. that she was creating sub-stub articles without reference to any external source, I think we could usefully start by clarifying whether existing guidelines do (as I believe) explicitly and clearly deprecate that ... and if they don't already, whether they should be amended to provide more clarity one way or another.
    It seems to me that the question you pose could be broken down into two parts: a) whether multiple stubs should be created solely on the basis of existing wikipedia articles, and b) whether and in what circumstances a single external source can be used in that way. (Personally, I think I would be in favour of A but opposed to B if it were to impede, for example, the use of the DNB as the basis for creating stubs). --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:34, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    More light, less heat please

    I've noticed several comments in this discussion that get very close to crossing the line here. I understand that tempers are high, but let's back down a bit on the incendiary rhetoric. Let's DISCUSS what the problem is, and how to fix it. If necessary, let's go to a RfC, but I'm hopeful that the participants will agree to discuss, and not accuse. SirFozzie (talk) 20:32, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I think Boleyn should be given mentorship by an admin who can coach them through the etiquette of acceptable article creation. BHG should try and keep her distance from Boleyn because its obvious she dislikes her editing style and so cannot be neutral in new situations. Furthermore BHG needs to bring up her concerns about stub creation elsewhere and also about CSD#A10. To prevent such reports in the future both users need to make use of the help available in terms of neutral administrators, third opinions and mediation. --Lil-unique1 (talk) 04:26, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Certainly BHG should undertake (a) to avoid Boleyn, not to make personal attacks on her under any circumstances, not to employ admin tools against her under any circumstances, not to repeat the allegations of bad faith and "laziness" (absurd) in any circumstances; (b) to respect interventions by third parties in this matter, rather than ignoring them; (c) not to deflect from the conduct issues into theorising about what should be going on with stub formation. All this could be done quite simply as a voluntary self-restriction. Of course I should also like to see responsiveness to informal mediation, a complete cessation of the accusations that anyone who is try to mediate is somehow a proponent of "low-quality additions" to the encyclopedia, an appropriate apology to Boleyn, and a change in the apparent attitude that BHG has some sort of veto in all arrangements or proposals to do with Boleyn as editor. Charles Matthews (talk) 10:29, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I would like to see pigs fly, personally. I think you should see by now that there's no call (outside yourself) to enforce such restrictions on BHG. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 20:58, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd like to remind both parties of the statement I made at the top of the section please? SirFozzie (talk) 21:52, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The primary parties (Boelyn and BrownHairedGirl) will be taking a break (which is incidentally in line with the advice I provided earlier rather than as a result of that advice), so at least for now, all conduct concerns are on hold. Everyone else here who has an opinion is simply going to be restating their opinions over and over, but nothing is going to change about those opinions. If there are concerns about stubs and the relevant deletion criteria, discussion should occur at (or be moved to) those policy/guideline pages. Other than that, this discussion is hold, and I don't think that keeping this thread open is going to accomplish anything useful in such circumstances. Ncmvocalist (talk) 22:18, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    User:Дунгане and questionable edits

    I reverted User:Дунгане's edits to Second Sino-Japanese War entirely, as I couldn't tell if there were any good ones mixed in with the bad ones. User:Дунгане added a doctored photo which had been removed as it is a phony. User:Дунгане regularly accuses other longterm editors of vandalism. User:Дунгане removes citations; all of which makes User:Дунгане's edits look very suspicious. I notified this user, instead of modifying their behavior, they continue to cry "vandalism" and accuse me of bias on my talkpage. I request an admin to have a look.--Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 05:14, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Diffs would probable ensure a faster response. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:20, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, and if in five years I could have figured that diff coding mess out, I would have included them. As I am not a tech guy, I left them out.--Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 13:35, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    As to the photo, did you mean File:Japanese soldiers pow.jpg? If so, I think it's prudent to wait on commons:Commons:Deletion requests/File:Japanese soldiers pow.jpg before making accusations that's forged especially since Дунгане doesn't seem to have anything to do with that image and especially when your explanation is just "clearly doctored" without anything more specific. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:26, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I am not the only one to have removed it as doctored (another editor just eloquently answered that one on my talkpage), just the most recent. User:Дунгане does have something to do with that image, especially as repeatedly putting it back.--Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 13:35, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I saw this discussion, and since I deal with digital images 10 hours a day as a professional, my interest was piqued. I looked at the image, and offered the opinion Chris referred to above, on his talk page. I've also commented in the deletion thread at commons as a result of that. I hold no opinion on the rest of this.  Begoontalk 14:15, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Its awfully strange on how i only put the image back on the article ONCE and Kintetsbuffalo claims i "repeatedly" put it back.
    Equally strange is how he calls anonymous ip addreses "Long term aditors". i remove citations because the information that was used had NOTHING to do with the specific citations that were used.
    I have nothing to do with the making of the photo, the reason i put it back was because i suspected that Kintetsbuffalo, as a self professed japanophile, was trying to tilt the article toward a Pro japanese POV, and there was absolutely no concensus from other editors on removing the photo. He just took it upon himself to do it.Дунгане (talk) 16:41, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Frankly, if you don't stop the name-calling right now, I'm blocking you. Read WP:CIVIL and knock off the commentary here. Ignoring the picture, there's some questionable stuff here. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 16:46, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    And I'm still waiting on editors to actually provide diffs. Personally, I'm not in the mood to look over the edit war and see who was the first to be disruptive. Chris, if you make accusations, it would be nice for you to provide the evidence. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 16:48, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The source he used is questionable. Here is the website he used to provide the KIA numbers-San.beck.orgIt says "Dear President Obama,

    Please stop killing people and get US out of Afghanistan now! Negotiate disarmament and reduce military spending to eliminate the deficit."

    I seriously doubt that this can be classified as a reliable source. I have provided my own source for casualty numbers.Дунгане (talk) 16:55, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    So? Dispute the source following dispute resolution including WP:RSN if you want. That doesn't allow you to name-call. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 16:59, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    About the alleged long term editors, the guy who removed the doctored photo here [37] had only ten edits and has edited for only two months
    The guy who added the KIA numbers fro the san beck website here [38] was an anonymous ip addrese
    Kintetsbuffalo claims that these two were long term editors....Дунгане (talk) 17:03, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The entire article is a disaster. Has there been any indication anyone has supported his arguments in this thread? Do you think anyone will care about whether those two were "long-term" editors or not? Will you acknowledge the name-calling is inappropriate? If the photo was doctored, do you support its removal (regardless of who removes it)? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 17:13, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I acknowledge that name calling is innapropiate. The reason i pointed out that they were not longterm editors, was beucase Kintetsbuffalo either lied, or he didnt even bother to check out the edit history before making accusations against me, which shows lack of credibility on his part. I support the removal if consensus is reached by different editors.Дунгане (talk) 17:22, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Im fixing the article to add both the Chinese and Japanese estimate for casualties, and note that they were respectively "claimed" by both parties, meanwhile, im leaving the western estimate, 1.1 million dead, as the neutral claim.
    As for the photo, i really don't care about it.Дунгане (talk) 17:05, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Don't pick and choose which claim is "neutral" and only include that. If there are differing claims (by reliable sources), then the range should be listed with the different ones in detail explained (i.e. Biographer BLAH says this, biographer BLAH2 says that) [and we can avoid labeling people purely on their nationality]. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 17:20, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Ricky, as I said, if I could figure out how to do diffs, which I can't, I would be happy to provide them. Best I can do is copy-paste the history, and bold my points:

    1. (cur | prev) 13:43, July 16, 2010 Дунгане (talk | contribs) (99,080 bytes) (Undid revision 373220971 by Sinophile21992 (talk) reverting vandalism and unexplained deletion) (undo) (Chris' comment: it was in fact an explained deletion, which led me to nom the photo at Commons after seeing for myself.)
    2. (cur | prev) 04:00, July 13, 2010 Sinophile21992 (talk | contribs) (99,083 bytes) (→End of Pacific War and surrender of Japanese troops in China: This is a doctored photo.) (undo)
    1. (cur | prev) 05:28, July 17, 2010 Kintetsubuffalo (talk | contribs) m (99,083 bytes) (Reverted edits by Дунгане (talk) to last version by Sinophile21992) (undo) (Chris' comment: this is where I stepped in. Users who consistently cry "vandalism" set my bells-and-whistles off, and I am right more often than not.)
    2. (cur | prev) 13:49, July 16, 2010 Дунгане (talk | contribs) (99,009 bytes) (→Japanese casualties: changing section to what it was like before a pro japanese editor vandalized it, using a source that doesn't even support what he said!) (undo)

    The other things I reverted en masse were, as I said above, nothing to do with the source validity or lack thereof, but that User:Дунгане consistently mixes good edits in with the bad ones, and regularly accuses other editors of vandalism smacks of POV. If a "Sinophile" is a vandal, and a self-proclaimed "Japanophile" (me, also a five-year editor and not blind to the facts) is a vandal, it would seem we are all vandals if we don't want to sift through Дунгане's piles of edits for the small truths mixed therein. That's my single edit to the article for a month, and for it I got http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AKintetsubuffalo&action=historysubmit&diff=374344817&oldid=374339234 dripping with POV, paranoia and venom, that's why I brought this here.--Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 17:25, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    (Sorry about the odd placement, I was replying to the thread by Ricky81682 only, others were editing at the same time it seems)--Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 17:35, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    In order. Regarding 1, I don't think this is really explanatory but again, you need to assume good faith. Editors normally don't randomly remove images saying they're doctored and never edit again. That's just strange on its face. However, I don't see any suggestion that he knew that it was doctored and even after you've listed the image for deletion, it's still being currently used on a number of other pages. Is every editor who inserted it guilty of vandalism? As to 2, it's inappropriate and as I noted above, more name-calling will result in blocks. I've put a clear warning on his page. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 17:43, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The reason i sent Kintetsubuffalo that message was because he flat out lied to my face on my talk page [39], claiming the anon ip and the editor with ten edits were "long term" editors. and He blamed me for for "removing citations".
    THe citations he was talking about was san.beck.org, which was an unreliable source. i saw it as such, and sought to remove it was restore the article as to it was before the anon ip added san beck.
    but kintetsbuffalo, instead of looking for the edit history, and actually looking at the san.beck source, fibbed and tries to make it seem as though i was removing a reliable source contributed by a "long term" editor.Дунгане (talk) 17:39, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    As I told you on your talk page, I don't care about who's right. You need to respond with remaining civil. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 17:43, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Kintetsbuffalo, show me my "bad edits"? All i did was remove the unreliable source san.beck.org and try to restore it to the previous version, and remove the photo because no concensus was reached, but you use the confusion over the removal of the photo and my edit summaries to try to make it seem as though the content of my edits were bad.Дунгане (talk) 17:45, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    For the record, it is possible for an IP editor to be a "long term editor." Not all IPs are shared, some are fixed to a specific person's computer. Trying to harp on this point isn't going to help. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 16:10, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    THe point is that the Ip editor messed up the article by adding an unreliable source, which i removed, but which kintetsubuffalo put back.
    And the point to that point, is that Kintetsubaffulo has absolutely no proof that i added vandalism or "Bad edits" to the article, which is why he cant pick out exact edits of mine from the edit summary, not because he cant (somehow i was able to go back into the history past several months and pick out the anon ips edits, but kintetsubuffalo claims that he is unable to look into my 4 edits before he reverted them)
    Its quite strange, since the ip's edits whom i reverted called kintetsubuffalo an "idiot" on his talk page [40] that kintetsubaffolo feels the need to defend him.Дунгане (talk) 17:16, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    and i want to clarify that the anon ip called him an idiot, not me.Дунгане (talk) 17:26, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Louise Porter

    Resolved
     – Article has been properly deleted. LK (talk) 08:13, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    This article was nominated for deletion as its original title Dr Louise Porter and the result was delete (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dr Louise Porter). However in the process someone changed its name to Louise Porter so it wasn't deleted properly. TomCat4680 (talk) 05:56, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Done, but I think you could have just informed User:Cirt, the closing admin. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:08, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I didn't think of that. Thanks though. TomCat4680 (talk) 06:47, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I had half a mind to just post a message on his talk page starting with "You dun goofed". ;) -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:54, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    For future reference, Template:Db-xfd can be used to reach the same result without an ANI discussion, as G6 applies if an admin (and only an admin; no non-admin closures) closes an XfD as delete but somehow doesn't delete the page. In this case, the common script used for closing AfD's isn't smart enough to follow redirects, so if the admin doesn't notice the page has moved, s/he will delete the redirect dropped after the move without any indication the actual page is still there. Courcelles (talk) 08:18, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Penalty shootout (football) unilateral move

    Wrong venue. Please move to the article's talk page or to WP:RM. Salvio ( Let's talk 'bout it!) 12:12, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I would like to draw the attention of the above page to this noticeboard as it has been unilaterally moved by an Adminstartor after being stable for well over two years. If there was an apetitie to change the name again then I believe that there should be a discussion again. While I agree the original user acted unilaterally that was well over two years ago. Can the page please be moved back over the redircts to the original pages and allow for a discussion to take place which can then have a change of title if desired. If this is not reverted it will aloow admins carteblanche to do what they like to stable articles without any oversight. There are also now a large volume of reditects to correct due to this unilateral move of the page, which are unecessary and only due to the selfish actions of one administrator. if the Admin had come along two years ago or someone else had noticed two years ago then fine, but no one said a word so the original user in effect got away with it, but just becasue one user did so two years ago dosent mean another user and specifcally not an admin should be getting away with it.--Somali123 (talk) 10:42, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    To request a page move, you should go to WP:RM. Salvio ( Let's talk 'bout it!) 10:46, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I have bough it here to complain about the nature of the admin who moved the page please can you comment on the substance of what i have written above and not just the move request.--Somali123 (talk) 10:48, 20 July 2010 (UTC).[reply]
    The complaint would seem to relate to this move [41]. Exxolon (talk) 10:50, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Notified User:Jan Hofmann about this discussion, assuming this is the issue being brought up. Exxolon (talk) 10:54, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    You are correct, I can only assume the user moved the page over preious redirects because they preferred the title
    It seems like an uncontroversial move, so it can be done prior to discussion. The page was moved almost a month ago by User:Jan Hofmann, who is not an administrator, so you're both wrong and really late to the party. Characterizing the move as "selfish" is really unnecessary and I see no indication that this was indeed a selfish act besides it being a unilateral one.--Atlan (talk) 10:55, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Can I also ask how a non admin moved pages over redirects then as I was under the impression only admins could do that. Also so what if it is nearly a month it is not the two years the preious title was maintained for after it was changed. That two year peropd appears to make that title alot more stable than this one.--Somali123 (talk) 11:00, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Non-admins being able to move over redirects is now stupid as it allows for a whole can of worms to be created which is messy and resultant in discussions like this.--Somali123 (talk) 11:04, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    This is because for over two years no one says a word about the title and then along comes this user and just moves it. At least the first user attempted some form of discussion, even if they did ignore it. This user was purly selfish and unilateral.--Somali123 (talk) 11:14, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Please can you stop calling the user "selfish" until they've had a chance to see this discussion and comment. As our No Personal Attacks policy states, "Comment on the content, not the contributor" - we don't know Jan's motives for this move, let's wait and see what he/she says. Calm down - this is not a big deal. Exxolon (talk) 11:18, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Pages can only be moved over redirects if the redirect has exactly one revision and currently points to the page that is being moved over it. This is deliberate and helps to ensure that mistaken page moves can be corrected without fuss. As for the move in question, there's nothing wrong with it: Lucy-marie (talk · contribs) incorrectly moved the page despite there being no consensus to do that, and whether this was reverted two minutes or two years after the fact doesn't really matter. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:22, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Agree and think this thread should be closed. If you disagree with another user, Somali, you should discuss with them, first. Salvio ( Let's talk 'bout it!) 11:23, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Waiting for another user could take months at least here i got a quick discussion going.--Somali123 (talk) 11:24, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    This summarizes my reasons for the move. It was hardly controversial and if you wish to have it moved to association football you should request a new poll in order to see whether the consensus has changed... I have nothing further to add. — Jan Hofmann (talk) 06:51, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Jan's editing seems extremely sporadic so they are unlikely to see this. (No edits since the June 23rd ones including this move and the previous were in March). Suggest we close this as a justified move as the original move was against concensus. Somali123 should start a new discussion on the talkpage or at requested moves about moving it to Penalty shootout (association football) again. Personally I would suggest Penalty shootout (soccer) - avoids all problems about which type of football the article relates to. Exxolon (talk) 11:47, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    They'll never agree to that here in Europe. I'm too lazy to find a place where this was discussed, but there's probably consensus or a style guide somewhere that says we should use "association football" when referring to soccer. If true, the article should probably be moved back to conform to that consensus, but I have no preference either way, or a desire to look into this any further.--Atlan (talk) 12:20, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    We've pretty strong consensus now that for articles about footy which aren't explicitly "soccerish" the term "association football" should be used if there's ambiguity in the title, but that's not the case here as penalty shootouts aren't a feature of other football codes. It's fine where it is. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:33, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, rugby union (a code of football) recently adopted a form of penalty shootout as a method of deciding ties in the Heineken Cup, but since someone looking for the rugby union penalty shootout would more likely search for "penalty shootout (rugby)" or "penalty shootout (rugby union)", I agree with Chris that the article should stay where it is. – PeeJay 14:35, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Uncivil conduct by JRHammond

    Resolved
     – Already warned by admin Mauler90 talk 02:28, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    After being blocked for 31 hours for edit warring, JRHammond (talk · contribs) calls the blocking admin "ignorant, lazy and dishonest" and further states "you'll never admit your incompetence." [42] There should be zero tolerance for this behavior on any forum.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 16:01, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    User notified[43]--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 16:05, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I think that falls under the "ignorable venting after block" category. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:25, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Striking the above -- it wasn't clear that this was after the block expired. Still not actionable, imho, though. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:32, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Calling someone ignorant, lazy, dishonest and incompetent constitute vile personal attacks.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 16:54, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm sure User:Enigmaman is a big boy and can deal with being insulted without you running to ANI for him. In fact, he already did.--Atlan (talk) 17:06, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    That's a good response, concise and unyielding yet leaves little scope for retort or escalation. I approve. S.G.(GH) ping! 17:22, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    This is why I try to block people for edit warring rather than breaking 3RR. SHEFFIELDSTEELTALK 20:02, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment Not a big deal. I've been called far worse. However, there does reach a point when my patience is exhausted, and if he does continue edit-warring and name-calling after the warnings, I will block him again. Enigmamsg 02:18, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Wikipedia talk:Article titles debate closure

    In an unusual turn of events, this will be the second time in a week I have used AN/I to report my own controversial actions.

    There has been a discussion on WP:AT about a proposed rewrite of the policy by User:Gavin.collins, proposed on the 9th of June in the section Descriptive & segmented article titles. Approximately one hour ago, I concluded that the proposal had been soundly rejected for over a week, and that the discussion was being held open solely by the proposer's tendentious refusal to listen to any of the other editors on the page. I informed him of this conclusion, and then collapse-archived the discussion with the summary "proposal rejected".[44][45] This is an obviously controversial action, and has met with the expected complaints (and a WP:WQA[46]) from User:Gavin.collins. I am requesting a review of my assessment of the consensus present in the debate, as well as my action to personally announce the discussion closed.

    User:Gavin.collins has been notified of this posting, of course.[47] --erachima talk 16:56, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Although I am clearly not an uninvolved participant in these discussions, I was pleased to see Erachima make the move he did. It was entirely appropriate as the Flogging a dead horse was getting a bit tedious.--Mike Cline (talk) 17:07, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Gavin Collins doesn't get what Gavin Collins wants, quickly posts an inappropriate Wikiqutte alert. Looking over it, you weren't wrong in your actions. Vodello (talk) 18:35, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The ongoing promotion of "descriptive & segmented article titles" is in opposition to fundamental policy. Fundamental policy endorses sourcing. "Descriptive & segmented article titles" are at bottom workarounds to compliance with policy calling for sourcing at all levels. Article titles indicate article scope and/or article topic, which should be adequately sourced. Adequate sourcing means that the overarching theme of an article should be found in sources, or it is debatable whether that article should exist or not. I have acknowledged that in many instances inadequately sourced article topics can be allowed to stand. But this should only be the case if no one objects to them. In the instance in which voiced opposition is heard, and if inadequate sourcing can be determined to be the case, appeals to such novel concepts as "descriptive & segmented article titles" should be deemed illegitimate excuses. Fundamental policy should reassert itself in such instances. In essence, "descriptive & segmented article titles" should be regarded as tentative descriptions of a certain type of article title type. But when controversy arises, they should have diminished standing. The concept of "descriptive & segmented article titles" can have the effect of weakening Wikipedia under certain circumstances. Bus stop (talk) 18:38, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    For what it's worth, the fact that Bus stop's post immediately above is carrying on the debate is fair evidence that the discussion wasn't actually ended by either proponents or opponents of the proposed change. I suggest relaxing a bit, rather than looking for "End of discussion!" as a solution. The problem of non-neutrality in article topics as people break apart one-sided sub-topics of an overall subject, which this discussion touched upon multiple times, is one that has been discussed on and off for years. Here's a proposal from 2005, for example, which I am positive isn't the first. (I vaguely recall that Ed Poor had one at one point, for example, but I don't remember off the top of my head where it is. There have been mailing list discussions, too.) And this wasn't, looking at the recent edit history of Wikipedia:Article titles an edit war that had to be stamped out. It was a proposal, boldly enacted, reverted, and put forward on a talk page in line with Wikipedia:Bold, revert, discuss, and discussed. So it was discussed for 10 days. So what? The overall issue has been discussed for more than six years. Relax. Uncle G (talk) 23:47, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I've uncollapsed the debate, that's over the top. I've left it archived. Fences&Windows 00:30, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I collapsed the discussion because it was 60 pages long, as an alternative to moving it to an archive sub-page, because I know moving discussions to subpages is often viewed as attempting to obscure the discussion. Apparently, it didn't have quite the effect I intended. --erachima talk 00:51, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you for your comments, Uncle G. I am well aware that the underlying issue of how to properly divide up articles and still satisfy NPOV has been a subject of debate since the Wikipaleozoic, it was in no way my intent to suppress discussion of that crucial issue, and it was in large part due to that knowledge that I closed the proposal.
    You mention BRD, but remember, as the page itself says, it's Wikipedia:Bold, revert, discuss, not Wikipedia:Bold, revert, discuss, discuss, discuss, discuss, discuss, discuss, discuss, discuss, discuss, discuss, discuss, discuss, discuss, discuss, discuss, discuss, discuss, and further that the cycle only works so long as the discussion is moving forward (emphasis mine). When the larger debate has been going on for six years, and it has become apparent that the wheels are just spinning in place in the current discussion (particularly when the wheels appear to be spinning because one of the participants has jacked the van off the ground), it's time to label the attempt a failure, archive it for future participants to learn from, and wait for the next person with a clever idea to come along. Interminable discussion of specific proposals just encourages mental entrenchment, which is not how problems are solved. And again, I appreciate your perspective. --erachima talk 00:33, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    It was an interesting debate, it's been thrashed to death, and your close was correct. Bus stop and Gavin Collins beating the dead horse doesn't mean there's any life in the debate. Fences&Windows 19:44, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Amendment to general sanction on British Isles

    A general sanction was approved at the weekend to topic ban any editor found to be systematically adding or removing the term British Isles to the encyclopedia. The sanction itself can be seen here.

    Since then, the spirit of this sanction appears to be being broken at a page called the Specific Examples page. Some of the concerns have been raised and discussed at Black Kites talk page. With specific relation to the sanctions from last week, the page appears to be being used as a device for a small number of editors to continue to make systematic addition/removal of term in contrary to the spirit of the sanction.

    The request to amend the general sanction as follows:

    Any editor who systematically adds or removes the term "British Isles" from multiple articles without clear sourcing and justification, or systematically initiates discussions to add or remove the term, or who edit-wars over such addition or removal, may be added to the list of topic-banned editors. For the purpose of this sanction, "systematically" will be broadly interpreted. ...

    And the following an additional topic ban to add to the list of possible topic bans under the sanction:

    TB02 (Topic ban two): User is banned from adding or removing the term "British Isles" on a Wikipedia wide basis. The user may not initiate related discussions but may still participate in related discussions so long as they engage in appropriate conduct, and do not add or remove the term.

    The purpose of this change would be to close off the "back door" of the Specific Examples page as a means to make systematic changes. It would also prevent the systematic activities of the Specific Examples page from spilling out onto general talk pages. The proposed change received broad-ish support at Black Kites talk page from editors contributing to/observing the Specific Examples page. --RA (talk) 21:55, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    This is acceptable. GoodDay (talk) 22:06, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The issue needs to have a location for centralised discussion. 'Specific Examples' is not a 'back door'. RashersTierney (talk) 22:13, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Centralised discussion, good. Systematic changes, bad. Superficially, the SE page looks fine. Good even. Beneath the surface, it's just another way to play out the disruption that the community said 'no more' to last weekend. --RA (talk) 23:03, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    You can't ban someone from proposing changes to Wikipedia if they discuss them and don't edit war. The previous sanction has only been given a few days to run and aside from one quickly corrected failure on each side to comply has stood. Nothing has spilled over to general talk pages The proposed ban is so general it will just initiate multiple debates about what is or is not systematic. What is needed for editors to engage with the content issues and not come running to ANI every time they find life difficult. A sanction to band SPAs would be a different proposition, not to mention a ban on bringing the issue to ANI come to think of it--Snowded TALK 03:43, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't see where it's appropriate to ban reasonable discussions. But maybe they keep bringing up the same stuff - like the birthers who kept turning up and raising the same old discussion points, an endless loop. Conentious discussion could be targeted. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:06, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I have engaged from time to time in the discussions about the use of the terminology, but not recently, so I'm not up to speed about where the alleged problems lie with Wikipedia:British Isles Terminology task force/Specific Examples.

    However, I am very concerned about the principle of banning centralised discussion of a contentious issue. I guess that there may be some cases where it is appropriate, but I don't yet see the grounds for applying such a sanction here. AIUI, the concern appears to be that the specific examples page is being abused by repeatedly proposing the same changes. Is that correct? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:19, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    If you go through the various tortuous threads you will see that suggestions have been made (and accepted) of a limit on the number of changes that can be proposed in a given time period. That is much more sensible and there could be an argument for amending the ruling to formalise it. We have had old resolved cases raised since the last ANI ruling which is a pain, but the discussions have been interesting and good tempered on that. At the moment I haven't seen monitoring admins intervene to resolve polarised debates which are going no where - that would help considerably --Snowded TALK 04:25, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    BHG, Centralised discussion is good. I don't want to see an end to discussion of any sort. The problem with the page is not the discussion, it is the changes.
    Last week, we banned systematic changes on this topic. The disruption that led to the general sanction of last week originated with this page. Since then, we've had threads opened on this page making changes to topics as diverse as Angloromani to The Complete Peerage to BS 1363 to Keith Floyd to Artemisia vulgaris to Celtic Christianity to Atlases of the flora and fauna of Britain and Ireland ... there is just no end to it!
    Those who are involved have entrenched views on this issue. I don't believe their views are reflective of consensus in the community on this issue. They are making changes (or want to make changes) to a large number of articles from the perspective of those entrenched view but without any substantial knowledge of the topics that they are changing. To make matters worse, it now appears that the editors involved have taken it upon themselves to decide that any addition/removal of this term (by anyone, anywhere on the 'pedia) must pass through them on this page for approval i.e. it has turned into a cabal.
    If the page was a go-to point with questions on individual examples that would be fine but that is not how it is being used. The sanction last week was to stop systematic changes being made across the 'pedia on this issue. This page is a way around that sanction by wrapping it up in a tissue of "consensus" among a small cadre of editors involved in this issue over the heads of the rest of the community.
    Individual problems with use/non-use of this term on individual pages can be resolved at individual pages in the normal wiki fashion. The editors involved need to stop making systematic changes on this issue, per last week's sanction. That does not preclude them from discussing the topic or agreeing to common guidelines. But, please, no more systematic changes on this issue. --RA (talk) 08:36, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for taking the time to explain that fully, RA. I see the problem, and have no objection to amending the sanction. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:24, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I support this proposal, although it would probably be easy for us to do this on a voluntary basis if its not possible to get support for sanctions to be changed here. If that is not possible then voluntary agreement from "Involved editors" on the BISE page should restrict the number of cases each editor may bring forward. If one involved editor refuses to obey the limit, then rather than a sanction being imposed on that editor for raising it, all other involved editors who are prepared to follow the rule could simply dismiss and oppose the persons additional proposals beyond the agreed limit. No sanctions for "discussions" would then have to be enforced which some clearly have concerns about. BritishWatcher (talk) 10:12, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Actually RA, the proposal stops anyone proposing a change to the use of BI, or it shifts it back to the talk page of the articles concerned (and that was a disaster in the past resulting in multiple long running edit wars). As has been established there are clear cases where BI has been used improperly, and cases where it is illegitimate. There are lots of wikipedia issues where there is no end to the topics, none of those has been resolved by preventing people raising the issues. They have been solved, or disruption has been minimised by content based discussion using evidence. Here rationing the number of cases overcomes the issue of volume. Enforcing a process by which any central discussion is notified on the talk page of the article (something I proposed months ago) prevents discussions not involving the wider community. Calling people a cabal is name calling and not helpful. Making general accusations against groups of editors without being specific is unhelpful. Running back to ANI a few days after a ruling without trying to get things to work is also unhelpful. Just for the record I have not initiated a single proposal for change, but I have been prepared to work away at individual cases, we need more people doing that review process--Snowded TALK 10:39, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    @Snowded - the proposal does stop anyone from proposing a change to the use/non-use of British Isles in any article. What it does is propose to stop those who "systematically initiates discussions to add or remove the term". No-one has any problem with anyone opening a discussion on changing use of this term or that in any article or any central location. Just not one-article-after-another-after-another-after-another-after-another-after-.... The community said 'no more' to this kind of behaviour last week.
    @BW - a voluntary basis would be infinitely better - but how long do you think the editors involved would be able to stick to their promise? I wouldn't like to see anybody sanctioned under this proposal but a stick is needed IMO to remind editors to abide by their promise.
    --RA (talk) 11:30, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Define systematic --Snowded TALK 11:38, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Well [48] and [49] come to mind. BritishWatcher (talk) 12:26, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    RA, i think a voluntary agreement would work and it would be alot easier to get agreement on because some do seem worried about limits on the right to propose changes. Most people we consider "involved editors" never go around adding, removing or even asking for a change, we simply join in with the debates one way or another. There for if we were all prepared to agree that everyone has a limit to how many cases they can bring. The few editors that do seek to have lots of changes be it to add/remove, would be vetoed if they exceeding their limit by the clear majority of us. BritishWatcher (talk) 12:33, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    What is the limit? Five a day? So there'll be a hundred request in twenty days? Or five a week? And there'll be a hundred requests in twenty weeks? --RA (talk) 12:43, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    (ec)A limit won't work. The proposals for deletion would still keep coming, but at a slower rate. Ultimately there's just one solution to this problem. LevenBoy (talk) 12:46, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    lol i was thinking more like 5 a month per editor, or say that each editor is only allowed about 2 open cases at a time. That way we dont have to debate lots of different topics, we wait and see if its closed because there is support or opposition to a change, or if the editor in question wants to withdraw the request so they can bring something else forward they can. BritishWatcher (talk) 12:53, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    systematic: Proceeding according to system, or regular method;. Regularly checking Special:WhatLinksHere/British_Isles for 'violations' would seem to me to meet the definition of systematic. MickMacNee (talk) 12:43, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]


    We need to separate political topics from non-political topics and stop non-political topics from being dragged into what for some is obviously a politically motivated campaign.
    If you search at Google Scholar (click here) for British Isles, over 201,000 papers arise (probably only a fraction of the total). Basically, none of them are political in nature. They are geographical, biological, ecological, health-based, oceanographic etc. Political conflicts just do not come into it. It took me until about page 15 until I found one that just about did. British Isles is a convenient, widely used academic terms for a geographic region.
    The author above is correct. There will be no end of it unless we separate the non-political and non-nationalistic topics out of the debate --- except to stop those editors like the Irish nationalist HighKing or the Welsh nationalist Snowded from carrying Wikipedia wide campaigns or making needless and deliberately provocative full revisions.
    For any one focused purely on geographical, biological, ecological, health-based or oceanographic topics, it is an unfair burden to insist they pass through the gauntlet of nationalistically inspired editors for every damned weed or cottage on the Wikipedia. This is what is happening now. OK. Agreed. Political topics require sensitivity and neutrality. But that is all.
    Do the Scandinavians having the same bickering matches? It is a shame those on the fringes of the British Isles cannot adopt the same mature attitude. --Triton Rocker (talk) 13:44, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I am getting really fed up with personal attacks from this editor (its part of the overall problem). He was warned for personal attacks here and yet we get name calling again above. On the BI question I am one of the few editors who can show a balanced approach on both support and removal of BI. --Snowded TALK 14:21, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm with you on the personal attacks Snowded, if you make a change to remove BI or resist it's insertion you are accused of being a nationalist extremist. Please please please comment on the edits and not the editors. WP:FIVE Bjmullan (talk) 14:28, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Those of us who simply seek to prevent the continued campaign to remove British Isles from wikipedia get called a few things too, this aint all one way. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:06, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The fact remains that removers are also gaming to remove editors and this is what Snowded is doing here (again). Bjmullan has previous worked in cahoots with HighKing on this.
    Personally, I am not the snitching type so I am not going to make any personal issue out of it. So, instead, can we pleae return conversation to the serious focus of 'separating political issues from non-political issues' such as those relating to geographical, biological, ecological, health-based, oceanographic --- or even mythic --- topics mentioned above.
    Or is that what you are trying to distract from by engineering an personal attack or block against me? --Triton Rocker (talk) 17:31, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Just address content issues and stop making accusations against other editors and you will have few problems. I am not gaming to remove you, I was (and am now) responding to yet another personal attack and speculation on your part as to motives of other editors. --Snowded TALK 17:41, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Evidence of Snowded gaming again (WP:3RR) over a tiny British Isles related edit regarding to references he has obviously not even read, here.

    I am sorry, I cannot accept this. I am doing the work digging out the references --- which in the case include the oldest and one of the most well regarded in the field --- and all he is doing is repeat reverting. --Triton Rocker (talk) 19:04, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    An edit you have made has been questioned. WP:BRD applies and you should discuss the change not simply reinsert it. You were bold, I reverted when you did not respond to the talk page question but simply used the edit summary to assert your position. After that the idea is you DISCUSS. This is nothing to do with British Isles, its about the location of Avalon. --Snowded TALK 19:11, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Wrong venue

    I previously expressed my concern about the "general sanction" being discussed and implemented on ANI, and I am again concerned about the "amendment to the general sanction" again being discussed at ANI. ANI is a triage, a place where incidents requiring immediate administrator attention are handled, and in that respect many users do not watch it very closely or expect wide-ranging general sanctions to be implemented here. I think this really belongs at WP:AN and the discussion should be publicized at relevant locations. –xenotalk 19:19, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Agree. GoodDay (talk) 20:04, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    User:Waterflame96 and CopyVio

    This newer editor, Waterflame96 (talk · contribs) appears to have some serious issues with creating articles that violate WP:COPYVIO and adding copyrighted material to other articles, primarily revolving around Jennifer Love Hewitt's roles in films and Ghost Whisperer. I noticed him through his twice created The Client List article after he accidentally wrote it first at Category 7: The End of the World[50] that contained copyrighted material. His talk page is full of warnings, including automated, templates, and personal, asking him to cease his copyright violations, which he has primarily ignored, or dealt with by removing Coren notices[51] or logging out and using an IP to make minor modifications to remove the templates. His episode articles for Ghost Whisperer are clear copyvios combining plots taken from other sites such as SpreadIT.Org, IMDB, TV.com, CBS, blogs, etc[52][53][54][55][56][57] As editor continues to ignore all warnings and is consistently and blatantly violating basic copyright laws, it seems prudent to get some administration intervention at this point. -- AnmaFinotera (talk ~ contribs) 22:42, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    While I was writing the report, he is now claiming he wrote it all[58] despite clear evidence to the contrary. -- AnmaFinotera (talk ~ contribs) 22:49, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    You are right on the copyvio. The Client List could be salvaged as an article. Waterflame96 is a newbie that can contribute if he/she learns the rules. Waterflame96, listen and read WP:CITE, WP:RS, etc. Please comment here and let us know your questions about what is appropriate. RJ (talk) 23:13, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Yeah, the film itself appears to be notable, but almost think it would be better to delete again just to remove the taint of the copyvio's from it, and let it be recreated by an editor who will properly do so without the issues. As it is now, on the article's talk page, Waterflame seems to be trying to justify his actions or brush them aside. I have advised him to respond here to the overall issue instead of focusing on this one article. -- AnmaFinotera (talk ~ contribs) 23:27, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    As a note, a non-admin (and inexperienced though longer time editor) removed the CSD for copyright infringing, despite it being a word-for-word lifting from TV By the Numbers. I have since reworked the article completely to remove all remaining copyvio, clean up the creators bad use of HTML coding, etc. However, this does not solve the far bigger issue as this is not the first nor second time this particular editor has done this, and he has thus far continued to disregard all warnings and attempts to help him see the problem with what he is doing. I have again reminded him of this discussion and left him the "laws" welcome. -- AnmaFinotera (talk ~ contribs) 07:12, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    And I've explained that he really has to communicate and that he needs to respond here. And that I will, if he doesn't respond, reluctantly block him. Dougweller (talk) 08:03, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I am waterflame96, I just found this, so I'm sorry I didn't respond untill now. Particulary for The Client List - at first I copied the plot from the official site, but then when it got deleted I created it again and corrected the problem by writing my own plot. Then the source for the ratings - I knew it was unreliable but it was the only source at that time and I did not copy directy, I perifrased most of it.
    About Ghost Whisperer episodes - yes, for some of them I did copy some parts of the plot, other parts I've written myself and now I realize my mistake and I will make sure I correct all of the articles. Patriculary for the series finale I want to note that there's nothing wrong in the article, I wrote the summary myself.
    So, in conclusion, I am apologizing for copying some plots for Ghot Whisperer and The Client List. I have corrected the problem with The Client List and I will make sure that the plots for some Ghost Whisperer episodes are going to be re-wrtitten soon. 79.100.138.158 (talk) 14:30, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Suspicious behavior at Leland Yee again

    Leland Yee's article has had COI issues going on for a long time. I noted this at COIN here but essentially two "new" editors, User:Hookahsmoker and User:Salerachel, are just beyond suspicious to me. They have been adding very sophisticated accomplishments and awards sections [59][60], removing controversies[61], with Hookahsmoker's first edits being to keep a cleaner version of the article for his user page [where the "new" awards language came from] (which got some help). I want to block those two until I get some explanation (as I've worn out any good-faith as what's going on) but I'm too involved to want to get into it. At the very least, can I get some more experienced eyes to keep watch on a seriously problematic politician's article? If people think semi-protection is the solution, it wasn't a long-term answer in March 2009 when last tried. Also, please, someone else inform them, I'm tired of watching that article getting "cleaned" up every few months and I probably won't be nice about the notice. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 02:43, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Also, note that most of the additions are, if not direct copy-and-pastes, but substantially similar with, language at Yee's official website. Again, AGF is waning. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 02:47, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Comment Both users notified [62] [63]. Mauler90 talk 03:15, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Harassment by User:Epeefleche

    In May I raised an incident here where I was running into opposition when deleting unsourced items from Lists of Jews. While I was supported here by a large majority of editors, I ran into very vocal opposition from a small minority of editors, including Epeefleche (talk · contribs), who insisted that inline citations were not required for every item, and that one should not delete unsourced items, only tag them. The AN/I discussion can be found here: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive613#Wikidemon, WP:V and WP:BLP.

    The issue spilled over onto other pages, including onto the WP:RS/N board, where Epeefleche asserted that at least one of the GAs I had written was "poorly worded" and lacked footnotes, and asked "How would Jay feel if an editor came along and deleted all of them, and all similar sentences in all FAs and GAs he worked on? Rather than tag them?"[64] I pointed out that everything in the article was cited, and that "Footnotes sometimes cover two or three sentences in a row, or even a whole paragraph. This is the standard way of writing good articles; one does not repeat the same footnote at the end of successive sentences."[65] However, he now insisted that a citation at the end of a paragraph wasn't good enough, that every single sentence in every single article needed an inline citation, and stated rather ominously "You really have to stop being lazy, and start adding refs, or else assume your material will be tagged or deleted."

    Since then, I have slowly been tagging unsourced entries on the List of Jews in sports (and in some case, deleting unverifiable ones). Epeefleche, in turn, has been providing sources for some of these tagged items, but under protest; last month, for example, he again protested having to cite the list, claimed "the articles that you wrote themselves fail to properly ref each sentence."[66], and later stated "I also challenge you to attribute all items in the articles you created."[67]

    Today I noticed that dozens of the sources in the article were merely to the name of a book, not to any specific page in the book where the information could be found, so I tagged them with {{page required}} tags. "Retribution" was rather swift; later in the day, he suddenly started editing an article I had written and recently submitted for Good Article Review. Whenever a citation covered an entire paragraph, or more than one sentence, he added various spurious {{fact}} and {{by whom}} tags to cited material, 16 tags in all. When I removed them as spurious, and warned him I would be taking him to AN/I if he continued, he restored them, and then continued to edit the article, including adding dubious sources that were literally poor copies of reliable sources already in the article (see Talk:Congregation Beth Jacob Ohev Sholom#Emunah magazine source/Matzav.com). On the Talk: page of the article he insisted that every single sentence in the article needed to be sourced, and opened his first section with the rather threatening title "Improving citations; Bar to promotion to GA until addressed". While pretending that he was simply trying to fix my "failures to agree to follow wiki guidelines here" and "poor editing" so that the article could achieve GA status, he was obviously actually trying to disrupt that nomination. I invited him to confirm what I said about citations at the Talk:FAC page, which he did not do. I, however, did, and there they (unsurprisingly) agreed with me: Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates#Are citations required at the end of every sentence?

    He has now yet again tagged statements which are cited at the end of the paragraphs they are in.[68] Can I get some relief from this harassment? Jayjg (talk) 03:51, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    This is a little off the track, but I wonder if both you and Epeefleche would mind weighing on the discussion about sourcing, farther up the page:[69] ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:59, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I dont really want to get involved and but I must say that I've also experienced some of this from Epeefleche. During an AfD where I nominated IDF Tick Tock for deletion here Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/IDF Tick Tock which led to this discussion between him and another editor. The he was engaged in the following debates with User:L-l-CLK-l-l at [70] and me at [71]. The jist of my issue with the user was that he was appear to suggest that myself and User:L-I-CLK-l-l where somehow less qualified to give a POV or that our POV was less valid due to our age. I mentioned that his behaviour was patronising and that I felt an apology was owed as I felt it was uncivil to disrespect others on the grounds of age discrimination. The response was to go on the offensive. I just feel that in light of what has been written above I should make the incident known to admin. I must note that the user has made lots of good contributions to many articles but in light of my experience, L-I-CLK-l-l and Jayjg's run-ins with these editors perhaps Epeefleche is a little heavy handed. Note also that he went out of his way to find an article in poor state that I am attributed: James Wright (music producer) and nommed it for deletion but missing out the step which places the discussion template on the article and then tried nominating the page for speedy deletion. I don't know if it was deliberate or not, Possibly in retaliation as suggested above. (its not even an article I edit, instead I merely moved it from its old name). --Lil-unique1 (talk) 04:11, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Jay asked me out of band to take a look at this.
    In the game of WP:OWN vs WP:STALK, who loses? We all do...
    This is complicated, and without breaking WP:AGF it's not clear if either party actually has less than impure motives here, nor without staring at diffs for another hour is it clear if either is more precisely right on the sourcing / citing issue.
    What is clear is that the two parties involved are not getting along, and the article is becoming a battleground for that conflict.
    Epeefleche - I don't want to "blame you" here, but it's an article he started, and your participation there, even if well intentioned, seems to be becoming something unrelated to the content. Would you consent to moving on to other articles, or at least finding someone else you trust on source citations to help on this and restrict yourself to the talk page there for a while?
    Jay - Do remember WP:OWN. If a neutral citations expert can be found, or at least one who isn't Epeefleche, please take their inputs seriously.
    Thanks. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 06:00, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Violations by User:Jayjg of wp:own, wp:admin, and wp:civil, and wp:agf

    • Some facts:
    1. Jay had a difference of view with half a dozen editors, including me, between two and three months ago. He claims that is the proximate cause of a wikipedia MOS dispute he is having with me today. It isn't. At least on my part.
    2. His claim isn't simply wrong. It's nonsensical. In that discussion, half a dozen editors criticized Jay strongly for his deleting on a mass basis, rather than tagging, text he felt should have citations. These included Equazcion, Baseball Bugs, Wikidemon, Rich Farmbrough, and Greg. Jay was deleting text. Even when there was every reason to expect (which he never denied) that he knew the information he was deleting was true. He was encouraged to instead tag the text (or even move it to the talk page). He never expressed any appreciation of their concern.
    3. Note: While Jay was mass-deleting information, failed to take any constructive steps to improve the article.
    4. Oddly, Jay now claims that because months ago I suggested he should tag (rather than delete) certain content, my tagging (note – tagging, not deleting) unreferenced content months later, on a wholly unrelated article, is somehow retribution. That makes zero sense.
    5. Even more peculiar: Jay and I had a great deal of contact over the past three months. We made dozens of edits at articles in overlapping fashion, and had a number of talk page discussions. Almost all of his editing involved him tagging text. Almost all of my editing involved me supplying the refs he called for. All without incident.
    6. Now to today's events. I was making myriad improvements to an article. Fixing all manner of errors. The article, for example, mentioned only one of the two names of the institution it describes. A rather fundamental piece of information missing. I supplied the other name. The article violated a number of wikipedia MOS rules, wp:overlink (badly), grammar rules, ce rules, MOSNUM, mixed tenses, used "who" when it should have used "whom", used "until recently" which is not appropriate, said a living person was known as x (without saying "know by whom"), etc. I fixed nearly all of these errors myself. I supplied new, appropriate text. I supplied new refs. All my editing was geared to improving the article.
    7. I also pointed out that I felt that some sentences should have refs, using the fact tag. I didn't, however, delete one word of "his" material (Jay's approach). Even when unsourced.
    8. Jay's reaction? He expressed ownership of the article. He threatened me. Writing: "if you screw around like this with one other article I've written, it's straight to WP:AN/I". Violating wp:civil. Violating wp:admin, which requires that he model proper behavior. And he deleted the tags.
    9. He did not discuss the matter on the article talk page.
    10. In the face of Jay's hostility and reversions, I brought the citation issue to the article talk page. There, I explained at length the common sense reason for refs to be supplied; especially, as we are seeking GA status for the article. I emphasized how this is especially the case with quotes. I quoted for Jay the relevant guidance: "Wikipedia:Verifiability says: "All quotations and any material challenged ... should be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation." And furthermore: "You should always add a citation when quoting published material.... The citation should be placed either directly after the quotation... or after a sentence or phrase that introduces the quotation." This couldn't possibly be clearer. I suggested that, to make it easy, we work together and address those instances where there were quotations, but not refs.
    11. I asked Jay to please stop being uncivil with me, being hostile, and edit warring.
    12. Some of his response was: "And what exactly would you know about writing FAs and GAs? I've written 13, how many have you written?" [The answer was that I've worked on a number of FAs and GAs; possibly more than he has. But the real answer is that his question was a completely inappropriate response to my pointing out the guideline that required refs for sentences with quotes.]
    13. I reiterated my above points. And closed with: "Let's work together to resolve this dispute about the article, and improve it to GA status".
    14. In response, Jay brought this AN/I against me.
    15. Jay's threats, behavior, edit warring, and retaliatory AN/I with regard to an MOS dispute are, IMHO, violations of wp:civil, wp:own, wp:agf, and wp:admin. And whatever guidance that I am missing, that covers bullying and using AN/I for an MOS dispute (one in which, as the above guideline quote demonstrates, Jay is without question wrong as to references for quotes), in an effort to bully and cow other editors into not speaking up. I would appreciate it if his behavior were reviewed in this regard.

    --Epeefleche (talk) 06:45, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Sorry, not really credible. You didn't like my tagging the refs you (I assume) added, so you ended up at an article which I created, and was almost the sole editor, one which I had just taken for GA review. How was it, exactly, that you found that article anyway? Are you really trying to claim it had nothing to do with the fact that I wrote it? You also threatened to start tagging statements in articles I'd written,[72] even though it has been explained to you that they were properly cited, and you went ahead and did so.[73] You suddenly claim you are interested in bringing the article to GA status, and are showing me what will stop the article from attaining it, but apparently have never actually been through that process (much less the FA process) before, much less having written a GA or FA. Why the sudden, new interest in bringing this specific article to GA status? Also, if you really only wanted the sentences with "quotations" cited, why did you tag all those sentences that had no quotations? And why didn't you just duplicate the citations yourself, since you knew they were at the end of the next sentence or end of the paragraph? And finally, I've been all over the Talk: page of the article. Jayjg (talk) 06:59, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Completely absurd. You have been tagging articles I work on for many weeks. Dozens and dozens of tags. Perhaps hundreds. I've done nothing more than dutifully supply refs where you have left tags. For weeks. In the vast majority of cases, they haven't even been to material I added.
    It's frankly absurd that you suggest that once you passed some threshold of tagging – what was it? ... 300 tags? ... 7 weeks of tagging every other day? – that suddenly I would completely reverse course. And exact "retribution" by editing an article, improving it greatly, fixing all manner of errors, and requesting that the article comply with the requirement that sentences with quotes have a ref in the sentence itself. Utterly absurd.
    And as to the talk page, you threatened me in an edit summary, and called the article your article in an edit summary, and completely ignored the article talk page until I started discourse there.
    And then as you had threatened you brought this wholly baseless AN/I. About an MOS dispute, no less. Where you are without question completely wrong on the merits – something you seem to have an aversion to ever admitting. But read the guideline; I will quote it for you a third time, as you keep on ignoring it -- this is the entire basis of our dispute that triggered your AN/I ... the guidelines says:

    The citation should be placed either directly after the quotation... or after a sentence or phrase that introduces the quotation.

    That couldn't be clearer. Your reaction when I quoted it to you? You brought this AN/I.
    You also continue to have an illusion, which your raise here yet again, that you are uber-special and your opinion is one that others must bend to because you have worked on one dozen FAs/GAs. As I told you before, I've done so as well. So what? But more to the point – your trotting that out as a reaction to me quoting the guidance suggests that you misunderstand the issue. "Jay" does not get a "whatever I says goes" card if he works on 12 more, or 5 more, or 2 more FAs than the next editor. That's not the way it works. What matters is adherence to the guidelines. Which, as to refs in quotes, are indubitably clear. Your response to my quoting the guideline to you ... of ignoring the guidelines and saying "mine is bigger" ... is completely off-base.
    You are IMHO doing a less than commendable job in adhering to your obligations under wp:admin. I'm troubled by the thought of how you might be treating our newbie editors, and how many of them we will lose if you take this haughty un-admin-like approach with them.--Epeefleche (talk) 07:38, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I wrote this article. I brought it to GA. A few hours after a GA reviewer agreed to review it, you start tagging it, and adding inconsistent citation styles and dubious sources. Now the GA reviewer has suspended his review. Well, that really helped the GA process. As for "my obligations under wp:admin", you're an experienced editor, with over 40,000 edits, so you well know that I neither used my admin tools, nor even threatened to use them. So, that dog won't hunt. Jayjg (talk) 07:57, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, I have some experience with wp:admin. Including discussing wp:admin at arbitration with regard to the behavior of an admin. So I'm well aware that wp:admin does not only apply to abuse of admin tools. I'm frankly surprised that you are not aware of that. Some of the relevant language of wp:admin is as follows:

    Administrators are expected to lead by example and to behave in a respectful, civil manner.... [and] to follow Wikipedia policies ... sustained or serious disruption of Wikipedia is incompatible with the status of administrator, and consistently or egregiously poor judgment may result in the removal of administrator status. Administrators should especially strive to model appropriate standards of courtesy and civility .... Administrators who seriously, or repeatedly, act in a problematic manner or have lost the trust or confidence of the community may be sanctioned or have their access removed. In the past, this has happened or been suggested for ... Breach of basic policies (attacks, biting/civility, edit warring... etc) ... Repeated/consistent poor judgment.

    --Epeefleche (talk) 08:25, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    You're the guy who recently told me that removing material that violated WP:BLP was "abusing [my] powers", after I stated it was an administrative duty.[74] I don't think you are a good judge of when people are or are not complying with wp:admin. Jayjg (talk) 12:44, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I've got to say that jayjg's account looks correct here. Epeefleche's account of the previous action is completely inaccurate, and ignores that many people could see nothing wrong with what jayjg had been doing (removing unsourced entries from lists). Epeefleche is completely wrong in their interpretation of the MOS - their latest point is talking about quotations, not general prose. (WP:CITE says " If the material is particularly contentious, the citation may be added within a sentence, but adding it to the end of the sentence or paragraph is usually sufficient.") Jayjg has been working on these 'List of Jews' articles for a while now, and there is not evidence that he went there to follow Epeefleche. It seems pretty clear however that Epeefleche only went to this article by following jayjg, and proceeded to tag-bomb the article, with spurious citation needed tags. Quantpole (talk) 07:55, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    And since he did it just after the GA review started, the GA review has now been scuttled. Jayjg (talk) 07:57, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The reviewer gave the fact that this AN/I is taking place as the reason for delaying the review. I, of course, was not the one who brought this AN/I, so Jay's above suggestion that the GA review was scuttled because of me is perhaps somewhat less than accurate. Nor was it really scuttled; rather it was put on hold while the AN/I is still being discussed. But for the referencing issue, IMHO the article is now in GA-shape.--Epeefleche (talk) 09:31, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    An article can't pass GA if it's unstable, or has unreliable sources, or uses inconsistent citation styles. For example, if someone slaps 16 {{fact}} and {{by whom}} tags on an article just after it starts GA review, and adds sources of dubious reliability, and cites them using completely different styles, that's going to disqualify it. Jayjg (talk) 12:44, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Quant--hello again. I think what I said was completely accurate. Half a dozen editors, who supplied most of the discussion, said in "long" what I said in "short". Others largely weighed in with "there should be refs", which begs the question. But the discussion is linked to, for interested parties to refer to. As to my discussion of MOS--perhaps you misunderstand. In my edits and talk page discussion that immediately preceded Jay bringing this AN/I, I focused (and invited him to join me in focusing on) solely those instances where there were quotations. Jay's reaction? He told me that he had worked on 12 FAs and GAs, suggested I hadn't worked on as many (likely, false, but that's besides the point), and followed up on his threat by bringing this AN/I. Now, if your are focusing on the facts, and not just supporting Jay, I would hope that you will say ... "Gosh, you're right ... I apologize, retract what I said, and say the opposite". I'll be interested in your reaction. BTW--if you look at my edit history, the articles that I work on, the articles that I worked on that day, you will note a strong connection to the article in question.--Epeefleche (talk) 08:11, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Maybe jayjg didn't react in the best manner, but you barge into an article in a very combative manner, writing long screeds, which are largely wrong. I see nothing in your recent contributions that linked to this article, so how exactly did you come across it? Your actions and manner in dealing with this were making it a battleground from the start. Quantpole (talk) 08:29, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Ummmm ... I fixed perhaps two dozen MOS violations, grammar errors, spelling errors, etc., while supplying new info that touched on the basic--such as the name of institution the article describes. Barged in? Combative? You're tossing around characterizations, without substance. But the point of the matter is I've been a productive contributor to the article. And Jay brought this to AN/I because I suggested enforcement of the rule requiring that refs be supplied in sentences that have quotes. That's a bit beyond Jay "didn't react in the best manner".
    As to how I come across the article, as you will note from my DYKs and articles created and my 46,000 edits of 7,600 articles, this article deals with both Jewish topics and New York topics, which you can see from my edit history is a crossroads of some of my top areas of interest. I've edited other NY and Brooklyn synagogue articles before, including another one today I believe before I touched this one ... the Union Temple article. I believe I went from that article to the Category: Synagogues in Brooklyn, thought of editing East Midwood (which I believe I edited before), it seemed in good shape, went back to the category and turned to another synagogue with which I was familiar (there are only a dozen in that cat) ... this one ... and edited away. So -- that's the answer to your question.
    As to your characterization, i's completely false. Is it your prior relationship with me or with Jay that would have you so dramatically mischaracterize the facts? Anyone can see, from the edit history and from the talk page, that I have been civil with Jay, and he has been -- from the outset -- threatening and completely uncivil, and now brought this AN/I against me in reaction to me quoting him the rule that supported my edits.--Epeefleche (talk) 09:16, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I have no prior 'relationship' with either you or jayjg. The only previous interaction I can think of with you is here, and when the 'List of Jews' articles got discussed at ANI last time. Insinuating that I have some history or grudge is manifestly incorrect. You are welcome to disagree with my opinion on the matter at hand but can you keep your ponderings as to my motivation out of it. The only reason I looked at this was because I was aware of the previous discussions regarding the list articles, and saw your misrepresentation of what happened. Indeed anyone can look at the talkpage, and see your heavy handed approach, misinterpretation of policy and what I can only think as baiting behaviour (inserting spurious citation needed tags, and saying that it would not meet GA until your hoops had been jumped through). There may be a reasonable explanation of how you came across the page, but it certainly has the appearance of you following jayjg to it, and your approach once there has been far from collaborative. Quantpole (talk) 10:17, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    If people wish to judge who has been "civil" with whom, they might want to read this recent Talk: page interchange:Talk:List of Jews in sports#Owners, coaches, sportcasters in the article but not in inclusion criterion. Jayjg (talk) 12:55, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Balderdash. Everything I said was accurate. The policy requiring a ref in or at the end of a sentence that contains a quote is not a gray one--it is perfectly clear. And your misrepresenting it as a misinterpretation of policy is bewildering. It says that plainly. The citation should be placed either directly after the quotation... or after a sentence or phrase that introduces the quotation. How in the world you view a plain reading of that as a "misinterpretation" boggles the mind. So we know your mis-statment is not due to bad faith. And we know further that it is not due to biases against me (for the incident you cite to above), or for Jay. What is left? Because the language is indubitably clear.

    An article should conform with MOS before it meets GA. How you interpret that as "jumping through my hoops" leaves me (nearly) speechless. This is wikipedia 101. It's not my hoop. It's the guideline. Which is clear. "Spurious" citation tags? Ridiculous. The sentence is clear. This feels like the big lie technique. I wasn't collaborative? Nonsense. Did you look through all my fixes, of perhaps two dozen errors, that were bars to it being a GA-level article? That's not disruptive behavior, my friend -- that is proper editing, improving the article, and helping it reach GA status. Precisely the opposite. My pointing out the MOS? That's not disruptive behavior either. It's the way we get an article to GA. "Far from collaborative"? You have it backwards. Jay was the one leveling threats, uncalled for, and not opening up discussion on the talk page. I was the one who opened up discussion on the talk page discussion. That's collaborative. I quoted the MOS rule for him. That's collaborative. He replied by telling me how many GAs he had worked on, and asserting (incorrectly, likely) that I had worked on fewer ... You think he is the collaborative one? Forgive me if that made me wonder as to the reason for your mis-characterizations, one tripping over the other. And your failure, when I pointed out your misunderstanding above, to say "oh, in that case, you were quoting the MOS correctly, and were in the right, and I apologize for incorrectly maligning you". You have this all backwards.--Epeefleche (talk) 10:26, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    You added 16 citation needed tags (I believe). In some places you split paragraphs and then inserted a tag, rather than add the citation yourself. There were only 2 or 3 places where there were quotes, and even those it seems clear to me that the quote is from the book that is being summarised. Those two or three may be worth discussing, but the rest were entirely overboard and heavy handed. That's it from me for now, there is little point us carrying on in circles, and I would rather other people have a look and contribute. Quantpole (talk) 10:37, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I added tags. (BTW, Jay himself--as I'm sure he will be happy to tell you--has added perhaps hundreds of tags to articles I've worked on these past few weeks ... and I've not complained, simply calmly filled in refs wherever he applied tags, so in the scheme of things 16 (if that is what it was) is not a cause for alarm or at all heavy-handed). I discussed with Jay the rationale behind the refs, in a discussion I opened on the talk page. I then limited myself to the clear violations vis-a-vis the sentences with quotes, where the MOS without question requires refs either in the sentence or at the end of it. That's where the discussion stood. His response? To tell me how many GAs he had worked on. And bring this AN/I. The only thing at issue at that point in time were those sentences where we had a clear direction from the MOS.--Epeefleche (talk) 10:54, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I have not worked on any of these articles but I find many of Epeefleche's edits bizarre. For example this: she changed Torah Umesorah – National Society for Hebrew Day Schools to Torah Umesorah–National Society for Hebrew Day Schools. Now, if MOS really compells us to change the hyphen (which seems odd in an encyclopedia where the #1 rule is ignore all rules), isn't the solution to ifx the hyphen in the title of the article being refered to? Here we have a paragraph on one specific topic (a hostile relationship between two men) with a citation at the end, but epeefleche felt the need to stick in the middle a tag asking for a citation. In fact, she seems to do this a lot, adding "citation needed" tags in the middle of paragraphs that already have tags.
    I do not think that Epeefleche's edits are all bad and even think sometimes that she really just wants to improve articles, but some of these edits are hard to explain, except that they all involve calling into question in some way Jayjg's work. Now, none of us are perfect and all of us do work that can be improved upon but in my experience Jayjg is an impecable researcher, this is one person who really takes our content policies seriously and strives to write serious well-researched articles. I do not know why Epeefleche is on this vendetta against Jayjg but it is the only thing that I see that explains this pattern of editing. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:42, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • SLR -- don't you think this is going a bit off track? Are we really going to discuss the fact that MOS:EMDASH states: "Do not space em dashes"? And that you find that bizarre? Or that you find bizarre that when I first sought to comply with MOS:EMDASH, the edit gave me a red result, and as my computer was slow the faster fix was to fix the article (as I wanted it to pass GA) than to worry about the greater world of wikipedia, and not get to my next meeting? Would you find it bizarre to learn that I've received the "don't space em dashes" comment in GA reviews in the past, citing MOS? And that what I was doing was in the interest of the article passing GA review? Perhaps you would even be surprised to learn that personally, I prefer the look of spaced em dashes, and often fail to space them in talk page discussion, and that the only reason that I conformed it was to hue to MOS. Would you be surprised to know that I in no way thought that that edit was calling into question Jay's work (did he really write the underlying article? I had no idea -- nor would I have thought that the case). But that it was all about improving the article, per MOS, which is what GA reviewers happily refer to in my experience? (and no, they are not generally keen on the "ignore all rules" response to their request that MOS be complied with). And if you have really looked through my edits on that article, you have seen a host of MOS errors, grammar errors, spelling errors, etc., that I fixed (not knowing who made them). That is all geared to making it a better article. BTW -- I don't expect, that for some tens of thousands of edits now -- I've added any sentence with a quote that was bereft of a ref. That happens to comport with MOS as well. I think that this entire discussion of dashes is, quite frankly, silly. Are you taking me to task for conforming with MOS? As to whether Jay is a great researcher, I'm sure he is. That's not been a question. But I fear this conversation is straying far afield.--Epeefleche (talk) 11:09, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Comment by Greg L

    Tags can be used two different ways on Wikipedia. They can be used to alert the community to a ‘sleeper’ of a problem with an article that should, in one editor’s opinion, be improved. These are typically used by editors who lack sufficient understanding of the subject material to resolve the situation them self. In edit wars, tags can also be used as “neener-neener” graffiti to frustrate editors who are laboring on articles. We’ve all had this happen.

    These two editors have now encountered each other in the alleyways many, many times. It strikes me that Jayjg rather enjoys driving along, planting little flags that say “This lawn needs fertilizer” and “This lawn is too mossy”. It seems too that Jayjg rather enjoys it when Epeefleche takes offense and tries to stand in front of Jayig’s car in opposition since that provides Jayig an opportunity to run over Epeefleche’s toes.

    In short, this is an edit war between two editors who don’t like each other. That much is clear. Either we have an attitude transplant or we separate the editors. Wikipedia is a collaborative writing environment where cooperation is required for the good of the project. It is clear that it is exceedingly easy for an editor to slap an article with a tag; doing so creates an attendant time-consuming duty on what we might call “shepherding editors”, who care about certain articles and who therefore want to have *clean* articles free of tags. Shepherding editors must (*sigh*) and address each tag as it comes along. It is clear that Epeefleche is the shepherding editor on these Jewish-related lists and has been willing to step up to the plate and do the heavy lifting.

    It would be very nice if, instead of tagging articles, Jayig might instead volunteer to do some of the time-consuming duties of better citing entries in these Jewish-related lists. Perhaps, if he had to devote that much effort, he might lose interest in these Jewish-related articles. Or, perhaps not; the project as a whole would greatly benefit from having two shepherding editors hell-bent on ensuring these lists are accurate. If a time investment of that magnitude is not so palatable, then I wonder if Jayig would alternatively be willing to walk away from the Jewish-related articles so far as tags and deletions go; there are plenty of other editors who are capable of using tags when they see shortcomings and are at an utter loss as to how they might solve it on their own. Greg L (talk) 14:41, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]


    P.S. That last paragraph is really a challenge and a solicitation to Jayig. Can you edit in either of the two alternative fashions I suggested? I would appreciate a response. Greg L (talk) 17:00, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Christian SPA's Team-warring on various articles

    I am getting pretty frustrated of accounts whose contribs logs show 90% Jesus-promoting edits tag-teaming on Jesus-related articles. For example: [75]. ReaverFlash and Ari89 are aggressive to the point of ridiculousness in pushing religious slant. The majority of sources they add are Christian theologians and Evangelicals. They revert every attempt to identify some of these sources to the reader. They mass-delete referenced text that doesn't promote their view. They are not their to build to consensus , and they will revert every edit I make. They will canvass from other articles [76], and they will (probably) follow me around to other articles to revert me there. (I say "probably" because it is very plausible that they just have every single Jesus article in their watchlist). So what, exactly, are editors supposed to do against tag-team editing and the most fervent bias known to Man? Please do not tell me it is possible to build consensus that the existence of a real Jesus is controversial with a group of Evangelical Christian editors. Of course, I supposed what's really going to happen is that this plea for help is going to be ignored, I am going to be unable to edit the article, and I am going to get fed up and blocked again. Thanks for the help. Noloop (talk) 06:13, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I have notified the two editors of this discussion. Basket of Puppies 06:21, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm open to discussing proposed changes in the talk page. Both me and noloop, as well as Ari, among others, have discussed this on the talk page. Noloop's assumption that I and other editors are POV pushers makes collaboration extremely difficult: [77] His characterization of sources as propoganda is also problematic: [78] especially since I'm fairly sure E.P. Sanders is Jewish, and not Christian per his edit. Flash 06:30, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    It's quite difficult to discuss the articles with someone who hostilely labels everyone else as Christian fundamentalists and "a group of Evangelical Christian editors". That kind of propaganda and argumentum ad hominem will accomplish nothing. But I guess that's the kind of tactics you resort to, when all other arguments have dried up. Antique Rose — Drop me a line 07:30, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    My suggestion is that for a week all editors editing in this area edit only in the Israel-Palestinian area, and vice versa. And if that goes well, we extend the experiment.--Epeefleche (talk) 09:00, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with what Rose and RF said about Noloop's accusations of Christian POV pushing. Here's an example, where Noloop implies that Christian scholars can't be trusted to be unbiased, and therefore must be "outed" in any Wiki article having anything to do with Jesus. I provided a huge amount of quotes correcting his misunderstanding, but I guess he missed it. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 09:40, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Shit. This likes more of this "Jesus didn't exist" tinfoilhat POV-pushing. I've a research background in Biblical studies (I don't edit articles because of the nutters who do) - I studied with very liberal scholarship and indeed atheists. None of them, no textbook, no serious academic monograph, even engages with this nonsense. Seven years of my studies and it was never mentioned once - yet every Jesus article on Wikipedia wants to present it as a valid and notable view. It's a bit like insisting we put "alleged" before each mention of the Moon Landings, and list the conspiracy nutters along with scientists and historians of NASA. This is a minor and unscientific theory pushed by hard atheists with no scholarly credentials, or peer review whatsoever - it probably merits its own article (since we have articles on most quack theories here) and maybe perhaps the odd "see also" on articles on the Historical Jesus (although even that's pushing it). This is the type of silliness that chases serious editors (like me) a million miles away from contributing to such articles. Anyone pushing this should not be editing this field. --Scott Mac 10:58, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    It has its own article: Christ myth theory. Anthony (talk) 11:04, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Which sums it up nicely: "the BBC's Today programme once asked N. T. Wright if he would appear on-air to debate Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy concerning the thesis of their book The Jesus Mysteries. Wright, whom Newsweek once deemed "perhaps the world's leading New Testament scholar",[125] declined, saying that "this was like asking a professional astronomer to debate with the authors of a book claiming the moon was made of green cheese."--Scott Mac 11:14, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    It would help the credibility of these articles if editors could cite, wherever possible (and it usually is with historical Jesus stuff), sources who are historians rather than biblical scholars, and avoid priests and known Christians. Not that there is anything wrong with Christian historians . But if the same point can be made using known atheist or even CMT proponents, well, we wouldn't be here now. And we won't be back here every month until someone finds the video of the sermon on the mount. Anthony (talk) 11:19, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Here's another quote that shows how silly the CMT is:
    What about those writers like Acharya S (The Christ Conspiracy) and Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy (The Jesus Mysteries), who say that Jesus never existed, and that Christianity was an invented religion, the Jewish equivalent of the Greek mystery religions? This is an old argument, even though it shows up every 10 years or so. This current craze that Christianity was a mystery religion like these other mystery religions-the people who are saying this are almost always people who know nothing about the mystery religions; they've read a few popular books, but they're not scholars of mystery religions. The reality is, we know very little about mystery religions-the whole point of mystery religions is that they're secret! So I think it's crazy to build on ignorance in order to make a claim like this. I think the evidence is just so overwhelming that Jesus existed, that it's silly to talk about him not existing. I don't know anyone who is a responsible historian, who is actually trained in the historical method, or anybody who is a biblical scholar who does this for a living, who gives any credence at all to any of this. (Bart Ehrman, interview with David V. Barrett, "The Gospel According to Bart", Fortean Times (221), 2007)
    And, Anthony, your "video" comment had me ROFLMAO!!! Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 11:42, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Clearly the claim/theory that Jesus, historically, never existed is not worth much credit in an article about the historical figure :) unless of course it can be backed up... which it can't. On the other hand, as I commented on the article talk page, it seems logical to include references to the consensus from a broad range of scholars, just to avoid such headaches :D --Errant Tmorton166(Talk) 11:48, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    @Bill the Cat 7: Your quote by a professor who is convinced the historical Jesus existed does not show that CMT is silly. It mainly shows there is an ongoing debate in which both sides have serious problems in accepting each others arguments on face value. Naming it silly based on this one interview would actually support the feeling of Noloop that (s)he is fighting an uphill battle against editors who simply discredit any sources that do not align with their belief..
    @Tmorton166, of course the problem with finding support for the non-existence of things is that it is impossible to find (see e.g. Russell's teapot. The Christ Myth people do not look for backing of their claim of non-existence, but take the position that non-existence should be default unless proven otherwise. With that start they scrutinise proof of Christs existence. As such their efforts are extremely valuable, because if they succeed in eliminating all current evidence of existence this will prompt believers in the existence of Christ to look for newer and better evidence; and if they find arguments they cannot disprove this will strengthen the case for a historical Jesus very much. Again naming this as silly or irrelevant may give the view of a POV. Let's keep this discussion on the facts. Arnoutf (talk) 11:59, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Arnoutf, I just dumped a whole bunch of quotes (by both Christians and atheists) on your talk page that clearly demonstrate that the CMT is not simply rejected, it is rejected with contempt by essentially all of academia. I hope this clears up the misunderstanding that only a few Christian scholars are the only scholars who reject the CMT. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 12:15, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Arnoutf, the "Christ Myth" theory is separate, if related, to an article discussing historical research/evidence into christ. My last girlfriend was a religious history student so I read pretty extensively on these topics; there is a pretty broad consensus that a historical figure Jesus exists (dispute over who he was and what he did is also broad :)) amongst the relevant scholars. I'm simply arguing that it cannot hurt to comprehensively source the fact that there is consensus so that the casual reader is able to see it does exist (rather than rely on a single source). --Errant Tmorton166(Talk) 12:22, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    let's not overdo this, my main point is that calling some POV "silly" is not going to help cool down the debate . I am aware that at the moment the vast majority of scholars are convinced of a historical Jesus, and that attention to Christ myth theories is undue with our current knowledge base. Arnoutf (talk) 12:40, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I do agree :) I don't think I ever called it silly. My only argument is that it seems fair to back up that statement with more than one source - particularly if the sources could be broad/varied & respected --Errant Tmorton166(Talk) 12:45, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    @Anthony. "Biblical Scholars" are (in the main) historians who specialise in first century history and texts. So, I'm not sure what you are wanting. You are right that a quote from a Christian preacher or apologist may attract suspicion, but we're talking often about secular academics appointed by liberal arts institutions. If you are going to look at whether such people go to church, then I think we've got a problem. There are certainly atheist among such people, but again finding a quote is difficult. I mean, you find me a quote by a leading astrologer to refute the theory that the moon is made of green cheese? As I say, these types of demands are exactly the problem. I've got a PHD in this field, but I will not edit any such articles because some agenda pusher with a Jesus-was-a-man-from-mars theory comes along and demands I interact with his crazy marginal nonsense.--Scott Mac 12:33, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Sorry, Scott. I meant the branch of theology of that name. I know that the religious affiliation of a genuine scholar doesn't matter. I'm suggesting Ari and Bill choose, when they have a choice, sources whose ideology is not going to leave any doubt about their neutrality. Bill can cite 2 or 3 CMT proponents who say unequivocally CMT is very fringe/held in contempt by the mainstream. If the articles cited those scholars, this thread (and countless others) wouldn't be happening. Anthony (talk) 13:13, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    SM said, ...I will not edit any such articles because some agenda pusher with a Jesus-was-a-man-from-mars theory comes along and demands I interact with his crazy marginal nonsense. Then I strongly recommend against doing anything on the Christ myth theory page. You would be surrounded by POV-pushers who have attempted, and are still attempting as we speak, to raise the CMT from a crazy-ass fringe theory to one of being a respectable minority theory. And reasonable people like Anthony, who made some excellent contributions, were the exception, not the rule. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 12:49, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Topic ban for Noloop?

    If anything the editor who started this thread, User:Noloop needs to see some sanctions for continued disruption. This is the upteenth disruptive thread he's started in the last few days revolving around this issue and his own beliefs which amount to a fringe theory -- Christ myth theory. He just came off a block for edit warring on one of the related entries and immediately he ran back to Jesus, Historical Jesus and Historicity of Jesus and on to community boards like this one to complain and waste more of everyone's time. People who are sympathetic to him to some degree asked him to cool it on his talk page, but that apparently had no effect. Enough is enough. A topic ban seems to be in order.Griswaldo (talk) 12:32, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I can feel the frustration of Noloop as putting critical notes on religious articles tends to be extremely difficult because these articles tend to be guarded by believers. Nevertheless that does not make the behaviour acceptable. So I tend to agree a topic ban would be well suited WP:OUCH. Arnoutf (talk) 12:45, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    If you want to feel frustration, then try editing the Christ myth theory page to say it's a fringe theory!!
    Don't think this is necessary yet. Noloop is not just - not even mostly from what I've seen - advancing a Jesus=Myth position. He/she is also making some very valid points about sourcing (see my comments below), because this is an area which it is almost impossible to approach without a personal viewpoint that lies in the emotional spectrum rather than the scientific, both for editors and sources.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 12:54, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    No, he doesn't seem to be advancing it yet. However, he is implying it. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 13:01, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    That's a rather biased position to take Elen. What makes this subject matter particularly difficult to study in a dispassionate manner? Every time editors make these types of proclamations about human behavior based on their own intuitions they're discrediting the social sciences. I get it (please read the next sentence facetiously). In the hard sciences we have real neutral experts but when you start talking about literature and history its just opinion, and when you start talking about human behavior and human emotions everyone is an expert. I happen to disagree with that and I happen to believe that unless there is valid evidence to back the type of assertion you have made (in good faith I have no doubt) then its just one editors opinion. Let's stop assuming we're all psychologists here who have done detailed studies of the correlation between religion affiliation, emotion and academic bias. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 13:04, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Ho Griswaldo. I disagree with you here. First of all, natural scientists are as biased (if not more because they think it does not influence them) as social scientists (see for example an editorial in Nature a few years ago where the editor acknowledged that Nature had rejected breakthrough papers of many (later) Nobel laureates because they were unacceptable to the beliefs of the reviewers). Secondly I agree social scientists (at least good ones) are trained to keep track of their own beliefs, how this may influence their vision on events and how to separate fact from opinion. However, Wikipedia editors are in majority not scientists, neither natural nor social. And I do agree with Elen of the Roads that the majority of editors take their personal POV with them in these discussions. Arnoutf (talk) 13:15, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Arnouft my whole point was that I do not think this academic context is any more biased than the natural sciences but I believe Elen was saying that this one was indeed inherently more open to bias in her comment -- "because this is an area which it is almost impossible to approach without a personal viewpoint that lies in the emotional spectrum rather than the scientific, both for editors and sources." Hence my disagreement with her. I also agree that Wikipedia editors are not social scientists which is what bothers me about statements they consistently make about human behavior and psychology as if they are up to speed on the relevant literature when they are clearly not and simply commenting based on their own opinions. No one is unbiased, we had this discussion already, but there are better ways to know how bias plays out in human practice than simply to make assumptions. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 13:20, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict)I thought it was merely an observation of human nature. It's been a premise of the meta theory of science for some time that even apparently 'pure' scientific theories are always affected by the viewpoint or belief of the proponent. The normal way one conducts any scholarly work (thesis, experiment, archaeological excavation) is to advance a theory and see if the evidence supports the theory, not to assemble a pile of evidence and then attempt to sift a theory out of it. All I'm saying is that for most editors and scholars, where something like Jesus is concerned, the theory they choose to advance is based on their viewpoint - their meta-interpretation of the object of enquiry. There's nothing wrong with that. WP:NPOV does not require that editors have no point of view, nor does it require that sources have no point of view. It does require that one recognise where there are conflicting points of view, and take care to adequately reflect them in articles. There are a lot of conflicting points of view over Jesus, and in many cases the conflicting points of view arise from well defined meta-interpretations held by those advancing the views.Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:25, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Unless there is a correlation between a specific "meta-interpretation" and types of scholarly conclusions we should be very weary of this kind discussion. It is one thing to recognize the general principle that we are all biased, or that "scientific theories are always affected by the viewpoint or belief of the proponent" and it is quite another to make insinuations about specific viewpoints and specific conclusions. As I've pointed out elsewhere there appears to be no significant correlation between holding the mainstream viewpoint about the historicity of Jesus and personal religious affiliation. It would be highly misleading to mention the religious affiliation of scholars who take this stance because it would suggest a meaningful correlation where there is none. What you mention generally can be tested in specific situations giving us much better understandings of how bias might actually play out in certain situations. Until we have good evidence we should not be insinuating bias based on such general principles.Griswaldo (talk) 13:36, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Not intending to insinuate bias. Just observing that this is a topic where views are frequently contentious, and one source may not be adequate to support a position that an apparently contentious view is in fact mainstream.Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:23, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I would agree with a topic ban. Noloop's edit-warring, complaints to ANI and POV-pushing are disruptive. I noticed the same behavior on Anti-Americanism, although that article has far fewer editors involved. TFD (talk) 13:14, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

    I think it is fairly clear that there is a mainstream consensus among scholars studying the historical Jesus that there was some chap in Galilee underpinning the whole edifice. On the other hand, there has been an extended attempt (Talk:Historical_Jesus#Minimum_historical_facts) by one of the editors listed in the intitial complaint to argue on the basis of one source that there is a consensus among ALL (Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Venusian) scholars studying the historical Jesus that (among other things) :-

    • he proclaimed the kingdom of God and warned of a looming catastrophe in Israel;
    • he insisted on a radicalized ethic of love;
    • he selected a group of twelve to symbolize a renewed Israel;

    In this case, there was an insistence on one side that the list was being rejected because the source was Christian and therefore considered not reliable, whereas in fact the issue was that there was only one source, and therefore it was the view that this was mainstream that was queried, not the validity of the source itself. From the perspective of this discussion, one can see why allegations of being a Christian SPA are being hurled - and the other side is hurling allegations of anti-christian bias. It would help if everyone could stop hurling (I recommend Pepto-Bismol) and agree that this is an area where there are A LOT of mainstream viewpoints. Focusing on that - and the fairly slender consensus in the mainstream - would make it easier to identify fringe viewpoints without falling into accusations of pro- or anti- anything.Elen of the Roads (talk) 12:50, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Elen, if there are legitimate gripes to be had then Noloop has pretty much sabotaged his own credibility in making them at this point, and that is a shame, but its true. Noloop tried to insert the Christ myth theory into the second paragraph of Historical Jesus. That's starting in the fourth sentence of the lead of that entry. As I pointed out in the last disruptive thread he started here on ANI, Noloop has also made statements that are only a hair separated from the Christ myth there. See my comment to Cyclopia at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Ari89:_Repeated_bad_faith.2C_personal_remarks.2C_etc.. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 13:13, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I think the problem is that everyone is moving to extreme positions. Unfortunately, I agree that if Noloop is moving faster that everyone else s/he is the one going to end up topic banned. Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:27, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Elen, there is a clear bias in what you just presented above. For example, you are stating that a reliable academic in the field is not able to provide a consensus statement because they are a Christian. Good for you if you personally disagree with the consensus of scholarship, but that is no reason to out of hand dismiss Christian sources. To again repeat the WP policy on academic consensus:
    "The statement that all or most scientists or scholars hold a certain view requires reliable sourcing. Without a reliable source that claims a consensus exists, individual opinions should be identified as those of particular, named sources. Editors should avoid original research especially with regard to making blanket statements based on novel syntheses of disparate material. The reliable source needs to claim there is a consensus, rather than the Wikipedia editor. For example, even if every reliable source states that the sky is blue, it would be improper synthesis to write that there is a scientific consensus that the sky is blue, unless sources cited also make such a claim (e.g. a reliable source states, "consensus is that" or "the literature shows that" the sky is blue)."[79]
    I fail to see the exclusion clause regarding Christian scholars or those that disagree with Elen of the Roads. --13:32, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
    While not wishing to rehash the argument here - you have this one source that says that ALL scholars in the field agree that Jesus "proclaimed the Kingdom of God". That seems very unlikely, given that it is couched in specifically Christian language (indeed, it is a piece of Christian 'shorthand') that is unlikely to be used by a scholar not from a Christian background. But when asked to provide more sources, you tried to turn it into an argument about anti-christian bias, rather than a request for more sources, and tried to argue that questioning the POV of a source was equivalent to questioning the reliability of a source - which it plainly isn't if you read WP:NPOV, which recognises that reliable sources may represent multiple mainstream viewpoints. It is this behaviour which is leading to accusations that you are a Christian SPA, and while I think that is unreasonable, I cannot agree that there is no issue with your behaviour.Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:47, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    As I said, we go for verifiability not what Elen of the Roads personally believes. Your argument here (other than innuendo against myself) is your own personal doubts about the acceptance of Jesus' kingdom preaching. When we test your personal opinion we find out that it is factually wrong. James Dunn writes that "The centrality of the kingdom of God (basileia tou theou) in Jesus' preaching is one of the least disputable, or disputed, facts about Jesus." (Dunn, Jesus Remembered p.383) --Ari (talk) 14:09, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, "Kingdom of God" is a wide-spread first-century Jewish shorthand, used by many contemporary with Jesus. Just to quibble.--Scott Mac 13:53, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Agreed, although 'proclaimed the Kingdom of God' is Christian shorthand. It was the fact that 'Kingdom of God' requires unpacking because it has a Christian meaning that is different to that Jewish shorthand (and subtly different in the different denominations of Christianity. I think I said at the time that you'd have to first write a book defining the term) that made me want to see another source that supported the contention that ALL scholars agreed that Jesus 'proclaimed the Kingdom of God'. If the source had said all scholars agreed that Jesus 'made statements relating to the Jewish belief in the Kingdom of God', it might not have been so contentious, although even so, a number of scholars do not believe that either Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, or that his disciples believed he was the Messiah. On that basis, it was my opinion that there would be numbers who would not sign up to 'proclaimed the Kingdom of God'. WP:V and WP:NPOV both agree that the thing to do where a statement is contentious is to get more sources. Had more sources been forthcoming to support the position, I would of course have accepted this as the mainstream view.Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:06, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    "it was my opinion that there would be numbers who would not sign up to 'proclaimed the Kingdom of God'." Yes, your opinion. And your opinion does not trump verifiable sources as Wikipedia is about verifiability (yes, actually read the policy you link to.) That you view your personal opinion as superior to reliable sources is completely ridiculous. --Ari (talk) 14:33, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    You're still not getting it, are you. I'm not saying my view is superior to reliable sources. I'm not even saying your source isn't reliable. I'm just saying your source isn't reflecting the mainstream view (even though it says that it is). I am entitled to do that. If I think something looks hinky, I am entitled to ask for more sources. In the case of contentious views, more sources are better. If only one source exists, a contentious view cannot be regarded as mainstream. In this case, others in the debate found sources which did not support your source, which supported a much more limited consensus, or which did not venture to state what consensus if any there might be (other than perhaps the assumed 'the man existed'). That's how Wikipedia works. Someone says - that looks odd/wrong/suspect/like it needs sources. Can you provide more sources.Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:41, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, your personal opinion disagrees with the source. Your personal opinion has no place on Wikipedia, while reliable sources do. Your personal opinion was that the source was incorrect because you do not believe most scholars believe Jesus preached the Kingdom. Even when I entertained your attempt at granting your personal opinion supremacy over published sources, it turns out that they were wrong. I note you have constantly refused to deal with WP policies, including those extracted for your convenience.
    Furthermore, all the information on what most scholars believe in the article is backed up by multiple sources so your personal distaste for Dickson and pov complaint is pointless --Ari (talk) 14:52, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    That's nicely disingenuous. I think anyone reading the thread can see how the debate actually went, and anyone reading the lede can see that it doesn't say what the starting statement was. Better sourcing has shown that the starting statements made on the talk page needed to be tempered before making it into the article. I'll say it again. THAT IS HOW WIKIPEDIA WORKS. Nothing to do with my opinion or your beliefs. More sources are the way to go.Elen of the Roads (talk) 15:25, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Excellent, you have (again) resorted to calling me a liar. Your personal opinion against the source was not just shown to be incorrect, but your personal opinion is meaningless in trumping reliable consensus statements. You don't have a clue what you are arguing about. --Ari (talk) 15:50, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    As Tank Girl put it "I win!" Really, do stop it with the twisting other people's words. You did it on the talkpage as well. I'm not calling you a liar. You're just putting the best possible gloss you can on an argument that you lost -you said one source was sufficient, but it's evidently better with more. So Wikipedia wins, because more sources are always better, I win, because there are more sources, even you win because there are more sources. Remember, more sources is the way to go. Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:01, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    And I thought this could not get any more pathetic. (1) "More sources" - there are five or so other sources in the article backing up what other scholars believe. As I have said before, you haven't a clue what you are arguing about. (2) One reliable source on a consensus statement is sufficient. Try reading wp:rs on consensus statements. The fact that you see this as a game of "I win" where you don't hesitate to repeatedly call other editors dishonest is pathetic. Your personal opinion about the "mainstream" such as with the Kingdom preaching were wrong, deal with it. --Ari (talk) 16:19, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    OK, seeing as you've amended the PA (yes, I did see it) I'll leave you to have the last word. Like I said, other people can read and come to their own conclusions. :) Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:28, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Ari is correct—one RS source on a consensus statement is sufficient. Here's the specific part of WP:RS that speaks about academic consensus. Additional statements can be added, throughout the article as well as in a FAQ, but only one is necessary. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 16:42, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I emphasised that multiple times but, sadly, it fell on deaf ears. I even extracted the entire section on multiple occasions but received the same rhetoric. The editors have either not read wp:RS or the source provided. Which one I am not sure, but what is certainly clear is they haven't read a word I have said! --Ari (talk) 16:57, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I had the last word something like 24hours ago as it is evident that you haven't the faintest idea what I have been talking about for the past 234238402843 comments. But if it makes you sleep better at night calling me dishonest I wish you all the best :) --Ari (talk) 16:31, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Hey! I have not called you dishonest even once. And didn't your mother tell you a million times not to exaggerate. Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:33, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    You only said I was intentionally repeatedly misrepresenting everything, right? Massive difference. I wonder when you are finally going to come to the realisation that (1) not once I advocated copying the Dickson list into the article; (2) the Dickson citation has been in the article all along with multiple other references and (3) that the citation meets the requirements for consensus statements per wp:rs. And this is without having to revisit the issue that academic consensus statements > your personal opinion. --Ari (talk) 16:50, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Great, now Ari's mom is being brought into the discussion. What's next? Allegations that he's anti-Semitic, followed up by implications of pedophilia for good measure? Hey, why not go for broke and throw in Nazi too? LOL. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 16:42, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    And yeah more evidence for Godwins law. Arnoutf (talk) 17:14, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    ...grandma is lying in the gutter

    Speaking of Pepto-Bismol...a long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away), I used to do shots of whiskey. These days, the only shots I'm doing are of Pepto-Bismol. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 13:40, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Sympathises. Stick to editing articles on Dry glue or High shear mixers and save yourself an(other) ulcer.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:30, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Oops! Forgot to sign previous comment. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 13:40, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Just to clarify a few points

    • I have no strong opinion on whether there is a historic basis for Jesus. There is a historic city of Troy and and mythic one, probably a historic King Arthur and a legendary one, and so on. There can certainly be a historic basis for Jesus--in addition to the myth (obviously, I'm not a Christian). I've said this repeatedly, and all the editors who say otherwise know damn well that I've said it repeatedly. They are misrepresenting my position.
    • However, these articles are full of sources who are Christian theologians and Evangelicals asserting there is no dispute at all the Jesus really existed. That has been my objection. My objection has mostly not been to remove the sources, but simply to identify non-neutral sources as such. When I've added notable sources who dispute the existence of a historic Jesus, the text is mass-deleted. Maybe there is a widespread view that it is a "consensus" that Jesus really existed because any referenced text to the contrary is immediately deleted.
    • Most of the editors above demanding I be banned from Jesus-related articles, for trying to identify theological sources to the reader, are Christian SPA's. They edit almost no articles other than Christian ones and with no POV other than promoting their religion.
    • Example from Talk:Jesus. This is the bio of one of the sources used for a factual claim:

    "Francis August Schaeffer (30 January 1912 – 15 May 1984)[1] was an American Evangelical Christian theologian, philosopher, and Presbyterian pastor. ... Opposed to theological modernism, Schaeffer promoted a more fundamentalist Protestant faith and a presuppositional approach to Christian apologetics, which he believed would answer the questions of the age. A number of scholars credit Schaeffer's ideas with helping spark the rise of the Christian Right in the United States.....Schaeffer popularized, in the modern context, a conservative Puritan and Reformed perspective." [6]

    This is the allegedly neutral source for the claim "scholars have used the historical method to develop probable reconstructions of Jesus' life." I didn't try to delete the source (although that's clearly defensible). I just tried to explicitly identify the source for the reader.[80] It was immediately reverted. In Talk, Antique Rose — Drop me a line tendentiously denies that the text above supports describing the source Evangelical and fundamentalist. [81]

    • I believe all these concerns of mine are supported by Wikipedian principles. If I am wrong,, then I should be banned, because I really don't understand how things are supposed to work and can't edit within the rules.

    Noloop (talk) 15:22, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    With all due respect, Noloop, you should be banned merely for your refusal to acknowledge facts (as Cyclopia does below). See I didn't hear that. You said above, "...these articles are full of sources who are Christian theologians and Evangelicals asserting there is no dispute at all the Jesus really existed." WRONG!! I pointed you to abundant sources that quite frankly contradict your assertions clearly and conclusively. Are there Christian scholars too? Sure. But there are also non-Christian, even atheist, scholars that concur. And to keep asserting that "I have no strong opinion on whether there is a historic basis for Jesus" just brings to mind this line from Shakespeare, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks", meaning this. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 17:22, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    While it is not the purpose of Wikipedia to itself examine the evidence that a historical Jesus actually existed, the article on the historical Jesus should include sources that have examined the evidence. Quite a number of the cited sources start from an axiomatic premise that Jesus must have existed, or that his existence is not up for debate, or they simply do not start from that point (eg starting from "what evidence is there that he was born in Nazareth", rather than "what evidence is there that he was born"). Without wishing to embrace the whole Christ Myth thing - which has descended to ridiculous levels in some areas - there ought to be cited sources that address the evidence for his existence in a scholarly way.Elen of the Roads (talk) 15:34, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Agree. There is a definite problem, for example, in Talk:Historicity of Jesus. All I am trying to argue is that if a consensus exists (which I believe is true), we should nonetheless indicate the background of the scholars, make it clear that the consensus exists across the spectrum of backgrounds, exactly to swipe away reasonable doubts of cherrypicking biased sources. I am meeting unexplicable resistance for that, something that in theory should reinforce their position. User:Griswaldo for example denies the very possibility of religious bias in the study of the historical Jesus, a position which looks naive, at best, from me. I have even suggested that, on the opposite side, if we talk of Bertrand Russell support to the Christ myth theory, it is reasonable context to make it explicit the atheist position of Russell. It seems to me that a number of editors refuse a priori that such information should be disclosed, a baffling proposition. --Cyclopiatalk 16:35, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Oh please. I do not "deny the very possibility of religious bias". There is absolutely no evidence that there is a correlation between such bias and the position that Jesus was a historical figure. By all signs the baseline position that he was an historical figure cuts through religious bias. There are all kinds of biases in every field of study but we don't go around insinuating specific biases. We discuss such biases if there is good reason for doing so. Good reason for doing so is not based on our own assumptions but on other reliable sources. This is why I stated else where that we leave it up to academic communities to sort out biases -- that is to identify them and to discuss their relevance. This is how we should treat any subject per WP:V and WP:NOR. Cyclopia has provided various comments by biblical scholars about historical biases in Biblical studies and the historical hegemonies of patriarchy and Christianity in biblical studies. That's wonderful, but none of the sources discuss Christian bias in terms of the question in hand. In fact previously Cyclopia provided sources that negated the notion that such a bias exists in the present day. His sources point out that there was a theological bias at the turn of the 20th Century but that this bias is non-existent today. It is getting very frustrating to read all these distortions. The fact is that a fringe minority question the basic foundation of historicity of Jesus, and religious affiliation appears to be pretty irrelevant within the mainstream group of scholars who are not part of this fringe group. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 17:17, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    By all signs the baseline position that he was an historical figure cuts through religious bias. : Exactly. Why do you refuse to make this explicit by providing sources with different backgrounds all agreeing? --Cyclopiatalk 17:53, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Agree. Using Christian pastors to represent the consensus of historians is foolish. Allowed if they are widely respected historians, sure, but foolish, when there are atheist historians just as credible, who are not going to generate this perpetual nonsense. I'm not advocating any particular change in text, just the citation. Why won't editors agree to sources that will stabilize these articles? Anthony (talk) 16:52, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    The problem is that some of these sources are historians who happen to be pastors. I think that's what's tripping up this whole debate. And what's getting people upset with Noloop. Insisting that you must dismiss sources that happen to be Christian is like dismissing Jewish scholars from articles discussing the Holocaust. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 17:01, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    While we should accept sources who "are historians who happen to be pastors" we should be extremely cautious about accepting sources who are pastors who claim to be historians. The holocaust comparison is not flying here (if ever), as we are no longer talking about all Christian scholar but specifically about those who are also pastors. Arnoutf (talk) 17:07, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • How many times do I have to say this? I am not DISMISSING theologians as sources. I am IDENTIFYING them as sources. When theolgians are used as sources for factual claims, I want that CLARIFIED for the reader. In this entire debate, I think I've tried to remove one source, and it was a non-notable person who is the head of a MEDIA company dedicated to (his words) "promoting" Christianity.
    • They do not "happen" to be Christian when they are writing on whether Jesus existed. Christians are biased on whether Jesus existed. Is that really disputed? The existence of Jesus is not analogous to the Holocaust. A better analogy would be to question the near-exclusive use of jewish scholars when discussing whether God gave Israel to the Jews. Noloop (talk) 17:09, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • @HandThatFeeds, for every priest- or pastor-historian cited in these articles, there is an atheist- or agnostic-historian just as notable and authoritative, saying the same thing. Why won't editors agree to use atheist or agnostic sources when they are available? We (most of us) get the point: Nothing wrong with genuine scholarship from Christians, per se. But for our sake (look at the time consumed on this crap), if you have a source that is not out of a seminary, use it. Anthony (talk) 17:26, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • That is a fair consideration for those editing the article. Cut down on the BS by making sure that you cite non-Christians whenever possible. Don't cut the Christians out but just add extra references to non-Christian sources. If it helps to keep people like Noloop from doing this then its a great idea.Griswaldo (talk) 17:43, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • OK, fair enough, but what we have been arguing about, I think at this point in a pretty silly fashion but maybe you are less self-deprecating than I am, is whether or not they need to be attributed inline as Christian, etc. Anyway I need to stop the senseless bickering over this. Time for me to move on. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 17:57, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Please avoid referring to the religious affiliations of genuine scholars in the article, because it actually is irrelevant. Use it on the talk page, if necessary. Anthony (talk) 18:18, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • It is not irrelevant at all. It is relevant context. Scholars do not live in a vacuum, a Christian priest will have a definitely different perspective on Jesus than a Jew, or an atheist. --Cyclopiatalk 21:08, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Noloop, while I can agree with favoring secular sources, there is no reason to exclude "religious" sources. And I seriously object to in-line identification of the sources religion or heritage. We don't identify scholars of works on the Civil rights movement by color, do we? — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 21:16, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    This time grandma IS lying in the gutter

    Noloop just tried this edit. Fortunately, Cyclopia caught it and reverted. Is is time to vote for a ban/block yet? Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 17:41, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Are you going to explain exactly what is the problem with material that is 1) referenced, 2) related to the historical Jesus in an article on the historical Jesus, 3) based on reliable, notable sources, 4) based on non-religious sources in an article that suffers from a shortage of non-religious sources, 5) placed where the context is the consensus (or not) of theories on the existence historical Jesus....? And, why exactly I should be banned for placing such material in the article? It is telling that you will start a section calling for a ban, but you have never started a section to discuss the content. Noloop (talk) 18:11, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    You mean other than it is blatantly false? Did you miss this entire thread? Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 18:33, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Noloop, the problem is that it is overwhelmingly considered a fringe theory. It should be discussed as such. Putting it in the lead violates WP:UNDUE. --Cyclopiatalk 19:05, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Document that with neutral, reliable sources. Until that is done, mass deleting referenced material based on content is POV-pushing vandalism. Noloop (talk) 20:12, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Are you seriously trying to argue that it's not a fringe theory? — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 21:35, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Noloop, sorry but you are completely and utterly wrong bringing in Christ Myth theory to that page; regardless of any merits of the theory. It documents solely historical records/reconstruction of Jesus as a historical figure. It is like adding elements of that page to the Christ Myth page :) which, clearly, is not required. See also links are fine --Errant Tmorton166(Talk) 21:50, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    At this point, what I am seriously arguing is that nobody has documented it meets the definition of fringe theory. I can certainly believe that it is a minority theory, and an extremely unpopular one, but neither of those features make something fringe. As for "Christ Myth theory" as far as I can tell, that's just a POV fork. Theories that challenge historicity are immediately classified as "Christ myth theory" and moved to a different article. A violation of Wikipedian principles. Obviously legitimate scholarly theories that Jesus is not historical are part of the topic of historical Jesus. Noloop (talk) 23:38, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    According to Wikipedia's definitions, WP:FRINGE applies to minority, extremely unpopular theories. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:45, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    This seems to be covered at Historical Jesus#Criticism as myth (which links to the main Christ Myth theory page). Anything more (especially a full paragraph in the lede) strikes me as giving undue weight to a fringe theory. Maybe a slight expansion of the section I listed but I am not convinced that is necessary. Mauler90 talk 23:57, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Typical example of objectionable editing

    Here is a typical example of the sourcing in these articles. Wanting to disclose and limit it is proposed as grounds for banning me. Consider this paragraph from Jesus [82]

    "The principal sources of information regarding Jesus' life and teachings are the four Gospels. Including the Gospels, there are no surviving historical accounts of Jesus written during his life or within three decades of his death.[119] A great majority of biblical scholars accept the historical existence of Jesus.[120][121][122][123][124]" (emphasis added)

    • 119 is just a Web site called "http://www.rationalchristianity.net" It is non-neutral, and also not reliable. There doesn't even seem to be an author for the page.
    • 120 is "Dr Robert E. Van Voorst a Professor of New Testament Studies at Western Theological Seminary, ... received his B.A. in Religion from Hope College ... his M.Div. from Western Theological Seminary ... his Ph.D. in New Testament from Union Theological Seminary "
    • 121 is published by Trinity Press (sounds secular, huh), and the author is a theologian [83]
    • 122 is something called Christianity in the Making: Jesus Remembered, published by eerdmans.com an exclusively religious publisher [84]
    • 123 is a book called An Evangelical Christology: Ecumenic and Historic, by a publisher that self-describes as "seeking to educate, nurture, and equip men and women to live and work as Christians"
    • 124 is Marcus Borg, A Vision of the Christian Life, who states: "God is real. The Christian life is about a relationship with God as known in Jesus Christ. It can and will change your life."[85]

    Historical articles are supposed to be based on peer-reviewed research. All of these article are shot through with "research" that is Evangelical and proselytizing. If objecting to that is ban-worthy, then ban me. Noloop (talk) 18:58, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Totally agree with Noloop on this -this is a clearly biased collection. 119 should be removed on sight, and 123 and 124 are problematic as well. 120,121,122 don't know, but should be put together with other sources from other backgrounds. That said, Noloop, editors gave a multiplicity of sources about the consensus on the existence of Jesus on the various talk pages. --Cyclopiatalk 19:03, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Does no one even bother to find out what the overwhelming majority of scholars think? I don't know how often I need to post this, but I guess if I post it enough, someone will take the time to inform themselves. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 20:11, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    You miss the point. This has nothing to do with what is actually the consensus, but with the sources used to document it in the article. The information may be OK but the sources used there are not. Since you collected a lot of sources in your FAQ, you can take outstanding ones from across the spectrum and substitute them to the ones currently present. --Cyclopiatalk 21:03, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with Cyclopia here. There is no reason to have poor quality sources in this article.Griswaldo (talk) 21:07, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Also agree, I highly doubt there is a lack of sources out there. 119 should be removed and probably 123 and 124 as well. If possible it would be best to either replace the other ones with better sources or supplement them with some good reliable sources. Mauler90 talk 00:02, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Topic Ban 2

    Proposal Topic ban User:Noloop from all pages related to Jesus and the Historicity of Jesus.

    • Disagree. While Noloop behaviour is concerning, I doubt a full topic ban so soon would help. I would appreciate an "half-ban", on the lines of "Noloop is required to propose changes on the talk pages and discuss them there, and edit on the article only when absolutely certain that consensus between editors is reached on his edits". Despite all the noise, he also gave some useful input and seems to act in good faith. We could try that, and see if it helps. --Cyclopiatalk 17:58, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Some kind of article probation of a sort? Do you want to draft an alternate proposal of a sentence or two and put it below? I think this might be a fair compromise depending on what you're thinking.Griswaldo (talk) 18:00, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Disagree - This whole thing seems like a gigantic content dispute to me. I don't see why Noloop can't add the sourced content he tried to add (as discussed under the heading a couple spots above). It doesn't immediately strike me, as a third-party with no dog in this fight, as pushing a POV or disruptive, it actually looks like interesting, scientific material to me. Kindzmarauli (talk) 19:01, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose pretty much per Kindzmarauli. This seems a very complex content dispute that should be sorted out through mediation and not by simply topic banning someone. Salvio ( Let's talk 'bout it!) 19:06, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose. The historicity of the figure of Jesus is open to debate - banning someone who wants to add reliable sources that discuss this looks very much like religious censorship. This isn't Conservapedia. Asking for sources from genuine scholars rather than Christian evangelicals seems reasonable! Sure, you can mention that Christian apologists believe that Jesus was an historical figure, but it's the academic view that should hold weight in articles. As for the Christ myth theory, surely Wikipedia isn't presenting the events in the Gospels as fact, is it? And are Thomas L. Thompson and George Albert Wells fringe theorists, or are they rather academics? I rather think it is the latter. Their ideas might be inconvenient for Christians, but that doesn't make their arguments at all "tin-foil hat". Fences&Windows 19:23, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose As this thread evolved it became clear that all parties here go way beyond what we would like to see. Noloop seems to be in the minority position who demands to see more evidence for the actual existence of Christ, but on the other side editors are pushing their POV that Christ not only existed but conducted indeed (historically) a lot of things attributed to him. I think all involved editors should probably stay away from these articles for a few weeks to cool down, but singling out Noloop is too harsh. Arnoutf (talk) 19:32, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose Most of the points have been made above, but most importantly there is considerable academic opinion that questions the historicity of Jesus and it is legitimate to note this appropriate articles. Frankly I find it worrying that a ban or limitations should even be suggested.--SabreBD (talk) 19:30, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • It was suggested because it is usually thought to be disruptive when people try shoving fringe theories into the leads of legitimate entries. Apparently you all don't think it's a fringe theory. That's news to me.Griswaldo (talk) 19:32, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • oppose - disclosure, I found a link to this on the fringe theories notice board, where such issues usually start. This is a good faith content dispute with name calling. EVERYONE needs to do better both with sourceing and clearly keeping to the edits and material and not each other. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 19:53, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    comment -- These debates have been ongoing for years I'm sure, but the reason why several noticeboards have been clogged up with this nonsense, and two separate threads at AN/I have been started in the the last couple of days is because User:Noloop has initiated them. I do not think that everyone who believes the Christ myth theory should be topic banned like this, I simply thought that Noloop was unable to handle editing in this environment given the ridiculous amount of clutter he's managed to initiate so far. See:

    He was also blocked recently for edit warring on one of these pages, and went directly back to it, even making the same warring edit, as soon as the block expired.Griswaldo (talk) 20:12, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Return to original topic

    My original concern is that it will never be possible to reach a consensus on these articles. The reasons should be apparent. A consensus process will never work for an even-handed approach to the world's most dominant religious belief (remember, Muslims believe in Jesus). I think the most blatant illustration of the will to win with sheer popularity was when Ari89 canvassed editors from Jesus to oppose my perspective on Historical Jesus (nobody else seems to care much about it, but I found it disturbing). So, what happens when the consensus simply doesn't support Wikipedia's principles on an article? Noloop (talk) 23:54, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Concern: Request for fake third-party websites

    On Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/J-sKy, an astute editor noticed that the page's author has requested fake third-party websites to make a topic look notable. There seem to be lots of issues here. How to handle this? — Timneu22 · talk 12:26, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Not much we can do. I don't suppose it happens much. The advantage is that such requests are likely to be discovered by wikipedians and cause us to take a long hard look at the article in question. We're more likely to identify bs if people post like this than if they simply fill the article with invalid sources that are never reviewed.--Scott Mac 12:43, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Given that any deletion discussion would result in people checking the references to make sure they were reliable (i.e. not plasterboard mockups), I agree that this doesn't need special treatment in general. In this particular case, where the author has already been found out, it's even less likely to escape scrutiny. I have notified the user of this thread, though. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 12:51, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Indeed, unless he gets his fake pages hosted by reliable organisations (e.g. on hte NYtimes pages) editors will easily see that the pages are indeed fake, hence not reliable, hence of no relevance to the notability issue. Arnoutf (talk) 12:56, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    There's a bid on the request: "I am User:SqueakBox on wikipedia with over 50,000 edits to my name..." (User is already notified of this thread.) MER-C 14:02, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    • SqueakBox has apparently previously written a Wikipedia article for payment [86] [87]. Not immediately obvious who the artist was, so don't know if there's a problem with the article - it might be an impeccably sourced offering on a notable artist that just didn't have an article. Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:31, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Looks like it's Mario Zampedroni. The dates (The bid was on March 18 and the article created on March 19) and the fact it's an Italian artist fit perfectly. Now, how notable does that article look to other people? The phrase I'm reaching for already is "borderline". Black Kite (t) (c) 14:33, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • I was thinking more along the lines of this, actually... NW (Talk) 14:36, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • Agreed. The only thing close to a claim of notability there is the six art prizes, and for all we know, that just means he was voted the top artist in his high school class. If not A7, I see a Snow AFD delete in that article's future. As to the original topic, the requester obviously doesn't understand Wikipedia's rules for reliability. He can pay to fake any website he wants, it wont be notable, and he can't fake real coverage in reliable sources. Resolute 14:42, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • [88] sounds like those art prizes were just for coming top of the class.Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:48, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • For what it's worth, I was going to drop SqueakBox a note suggesting that it would be prudent to withdraw that bid immediately. But I didn't find the article that Black Kite found above, and in light of recent events was wary that this might be someone impersonating SqueakBox outside of Wikipedia. (It's already happened, after all.) The assumption of good faith leads to the conclusion that SqueakBox simply mechanically bids on everything that contains the keyword "Wikipedia", and hadn't paid too close attention to the tender. (It's not even a request for a Wikipedia article, notice.) This would be reinforced by SqueakBox taking immediate action, as soon as xe becomes aware of this, to withdraw any bids for writing fake articles. I hope (and indeed expect) that we will see exactly this happen. Uncle G (talk) 15:03, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Unfortunately solicitation such as this isn't too uncommon. Our best defense is vigilance and we need to point it out whenever we spot it. As regards SqueakBox, I've spoken with him about this in the past and he has given his word that he will edit within our guidelines. Since that time I haven't seen any disingenuous editing coming from him, although I have found it odd that he continues to bid on freelance jobs. I suppose we can't prevent him from doing so, as long as he abides by our guidelines when on our site. ThemFromSpace 15:48, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • freelancer.com is absolutely acrawl with bids from employers to create Wikipedia articles. As an impoverished freelance writer myself, I admit I'm both fascinated and nauseated by the idea that people are doing this and getting away with it. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:15, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • No problem with that, I would say, if the work is 100% policy compliant. If a really notable person wants some experienced editor writing a neutral, sourced article on him and gives some money to an editor for that, good, it doesn't harm anyone. Of course the case discussed here is an entirely different thing. --Cyclopiatalk 16:40, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • I agree with Cyclopia; if the creator of an article abides by our policies (npov, verifiability, notability and so on), then the fact he got paid is a non-issue for me. On the other hand, an editor who wrote article not abiding by our guidelines would be a problematic user, even if he did that gratis et amore dei. Salvio ( Let's talk 'bout it!) 17:23, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Isn't it time that one or the other of the proposals at WP:PAID were formalised, if this is so commonplace? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 16:59, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • I think it's happening all the time. How many companies aren't tarting up their pages? What responsible PR agency would neglect a client's page? WP:N and other policies are all that is needed. Anthony (talk) 17:10, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • It's happening, if the comments about the employee's manager are true, in the section of this page immediately below this one. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 17:30, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • The spammer even identifies himself by name while explaining that his spam has been deleted and his manager is angry at him; but in this case, the spammer is apparently an employee, not a hireling. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:32, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    WP:NLT block on a corporate spammer

    User:InformationNC is an admitted COI account for an employee of Cedar Fair Entertainment Company (NYSE:FUN). A new spam article of his was deleted, and he demanded that it be restored (his manager is very upset!) or he will sue us. I gave him his second no-spam warning (he'd already gotten one for multiple edits to the company's article), and blocked him under WP:NLT. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:16, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Right on. Toddst1 (talk) 15:49, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    If you felt like being sassy, you could have told him to go the manager of our complaints department, Helen Wait. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:19, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Outing

    User:Commator is obsessed with outing one of our editors (see User talk:Commator). I've given him a one-week block, but his method of "appealing" the block is to repeat the same outing information over and over, with the assertion that it's okay because the editor once admitted that this was his real-world name. Would somebody not previously involved take a look at this, especially since (full disclosure) the outed editor is somebody with whom I share some real-world contacts? I'm tempted to blank everything outing-related and take away Commator's right to edit the talk page; but I want the judgement of other editors to supplement or correct my own inclinations and make sure I'm not biting the nube. (For one thing, his native language is not English.) --Orange Mike | Talk 16:32, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Strange goings on with Eliteimp and 90.207.76.207

    As I'm involved then I can't use my prodigious admin powers, so I am bringing this here.

    Yesterday, I was involved in a discussion over inclusion or exclusion of negative but sourced information on a BLP. I was in favour of including it, which article this was is by-the-by. Following this an IP user (90.207.76.207) tried to get me to intervene at Brian McGinlay, where there was also a dispute over some negative details (diff). I declined to do so as I felt it was improper canvassing; I may not have been as polite as I could have been, but I'm not interested in being toyed with. The IP responded by citing WP:BITE and calling me a "fool" (diff; I was obviously shocked by this and I gave them an NPA warning, which they blanked, as is their right. I wondered whether anyone familiar enough with Wikipedia to cite WP:BITE can be said to be a newcomer, and then I blanked the section on my talk page as I considered my involvement in this matter to be at an end.

    Today, User:Eliteimp undid my section blanking and berated me with the edit summary "rp", which is a standard abbreviation for "reply". This is odd as I had not previously addressed Eliteimp. Then the IP replaced Eliteimp's signature with their own. At the BLP noticeboard, they have blamed a "shared computer" (oh, that old excuse: Wikipedia:My little brother did it). Off2riorob and Tmorton166 both kindly commented on how both the IP and Eliteimp are active on the BLP noticeboard, and how the IP has been attacking other users. Note that at Talk:Rangers F.C. the IP recently supported Eliteimp's position, and the times of the edits by the IP match the peak of editing by Eliteimp.

    I think the IP is only here for disruption and that it is the sockpuppet of Eliteimp, or else Eliteimp's account is compromised. I have not opened an SPI as I think this so clearly passes the duck test, and also because the issue is not only sockpuppetry. Fences&Windows 16:33, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Yep, support Fences and windows comments. Strange goings on indeed, loudly quacking and uncivil to boot. Off2riorob (talk) 16:44, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Some extra background. I ran into this user over edits to Hugh Dallas, Gordon Strachan and Brian McGinlay; he/she was adding material with inappropriate wording & unsourced allegations. We had a fairly polite spat over the content and I asked for outside help from DGG because I was unsure of the best approach (and if I was even correct in my actions). On his advice I took some of the issues to BLP/N which is where Off2riorob become involved. After that petered out things seemed fine for a bit till yesterday an IP was back making similar additons & rollbacks which then extended to other BLP cases I have been trying to help with. It has not concerned me up till now - the use is addign some good content/sources and, to my mind, is just a bit over-zealous in wanting to add allegations of BLP articles. But with the addition of these edits by Eliteimp I am less sure the user is acting in good faith. One final comment: at the time when I asked DGG for help (in good faith) the IP user was a bit put out by it - citing (IIRC) WP:CANVAS. I responded by telling him I would encourage him to bring in other uninvolved editors to provide a wider consensus - this may be what prompted the message to Fences. Uh, hope that is helpful. --Errant Tmorton166(Talk) 16:54, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support Block - The contribs of IP and Eliteimp have a similar language and style, and same preoccupation with UK football. Passes the WP:DUCK test. Support block for edit warring, personal attacks, and sock puppeting. LK (talk) 17:52, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree this new found information regarding the IP user and User:Eliteimp is very very strange. The IP has used various addresses in the past couple of weeks User talk:90.194.100.16, User talk:194.80.49.252, User talk:155.136.80.35, User talk:90.197.236.12, User talk:90.197.224.58. Ranging from referenced additions to blatent vandalism. And is certainly not a new user.
    I did find it odd that someone who has taken such an interest in Wikipedia all of a sudden has not created a user account (are they trying to hide something or not let users track their additions) and in these differing addresses the person is somehow using the same computer as User:Eliteimp? Odd. Monkeymanman (talk) 17:56, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Block We are far to patient with these trolls. There is a clear pattern of disruption here. Block Eliteimp until/unless we get a promise of civility, and a no-contact agreement. Block the trolling IP's outright and give them the standard offer. I am not for punitive blocks, but we have to stop problem editors in their tracks, put them on the right track, or block them. --Adam in MO Talk 23:15, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Asterisk schools

    There's a disturbing trend here. Look at my recent move log; three articles by three different people were about schools where the article title started with an asterisk. I don't think this is coincidence. Are these sock puppets? Maybe there's a page creation template wrong somewhere? What the heck is this? — Timneu22 · talk 18:40, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Since it was overlooked, I went ahead and notified all three about this thread. —DoRD (talk) 19:31, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    User:Golan heights is not occupied‎

    Resolved
     – Blocked by Edgar181 (talk · contribs). -- ChrisO (talk) 23:49, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Could someone please block Golan heights is not occupied‎ (talk · contribs · count)? This troll is obviously the same individual as User:Golan heights is our (talk · contribs · count) which was itself blocked for block evasion. This troll has now gone and vandalised Belfast but has curiously not edited Golan Heights in this incarnation, only its talk page.

    And no, I've not notified the user's talk page. If you look at the edit history, it will be obvious why a bit of quick squashing is needed rather than giving them more chance to troll.

    There's something a bit odd with the bad English and the behaviour, it may be worth a Check user in the longer term to see whether this user is really someone else.--Peter cohen (talk) 23:46, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I've indef blocked for the trolling, but having a checkuser take a look might be a good idea too. -- Ed (Edgar181) 23:50, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks Ed.--Peter cohen (talk) 23:52, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Administration action needed to stop an AFD edit war

    Resolved
     – No edit war, just a very, very bad closure that was swiftly and correctly reverted HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:07, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    HJ Mitchell is voting to delete this so closing this ANI thread is a huge conflict of interest. Wikipedia can't be corrupt like this. MVOO (talk) 00:18, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    The AFD was concluded as no consensus. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AArticles_for_deletion%2FDick_Cheney%27s_health&action=historysubmit&diff=374611126&oldid=374611081

    Maybe there was an off-wiki effort because the no consensus closure was removed and a flood of delete votes poured in. Whatever happened, people are edit warring to remove the original decision and keep the 7 day AFD open. This kind of anarchy is no good.

    I read the AFD rules carefully and there is no rule that says AFDs can be re-open. It says that AFD disputes are sent to Deletion Review.

    So an administrator should seal the oil leak and shut down the AFD to it's original conclusion, i.e. no consensus. If you don't like it, deletion review.

    I personally believe it is not a no consensus but a keep because the article, Health of Dick Cheny, meets WP:GNG because it there is significant coverage year after year, the coverage is reliable, the sources are ironclad like CNN, it is independent of the coverage (the sources of his heart attack is not dickcheney.com). Just because the article is not perfectly written does not mean it gets deleted. Otherwise 70% of Wikipedia gets deleted. MVOO (talk) 23:53, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    This seems to be a mistatement of the actual situation. Yes User:RN, closed the AfD then changed his mind about the closing and reopened it himself[92] and noted so himself[93]. You then came in, voted keep[94] and then tried to close the AfD as no-consensus[95]. This is a blatant violation of policy as you should never, ever close an AfD that you yourself have voiced an opinion in, nor is it appropriate for you to try to do a non-admin closure on an AfD that an administrator choose to allow more time for comments. Nor is anyone edit warring over it. A different admin, User:Courcelles, reverted your very inappropriate attempt to close it which goes against the guidelines of Non-admin closure.[96] -- AnmaFinotera (talk ~ contribs) 00:01, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Indeed. As would nay administrator in their right mind, especially when the editor attempting to force the discussion to a halt at their preferred point is the creator of the article that is the subject of the AfD! Admins are perfectly within their rights to change their mind about their own actions. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:07, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Continued unrelenting personal attacks by Sweetpoet

    As one can simply see by checking this user's block log, and their talk page, they have a history of personally attacking others. They continue to do so even as I type this report. I am reporting this user as an uninvolved user. I was alerted to them when as I have an Dougweller's talk page on my watchlist, and noticed them post there with a long insulting screed calling Doug an idiot, stupid, insane, a creep, dopey, a stalker, a troll... the list goes on. This needs to end now.

    Now, as this user has been blocked several times for the same, as noted above, something like a week-long block may be needed. Perhaps longer, as they don't show any understanding that what they have done, and continue to do is wrong, or any remorse regarding it. They indeed show no signs of stopping.— Dædαlus Contribs 00:10, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    and I never WILL stop, as long as I'm provoked by RELENTLESS IDIOTS AND STALKER-TROLLS, such as yourself....as I made it clear to a number of editors and Admins that I SIMPLY DON'T CARE ANYMORE REALLY.... this matter on my talk page was ALREADY REPORTED and discussed.... And they said to just leave it alone. You decided to chime in like a creep and give me your self-righteous (and inaccurate) lectures... I pointed out that user talk pages are NOT exactly the same as any other page, and verbatim WP policy that a user has a right to remove or retain anything he wants on his own user page. Maybe you need informing.......I DON'T CARE ABOUT THIS NONSENSE.....BLOCKS......UPTIGHT PSCYHOTIC STALKER-ISH EDITORS.....SLOPPY ADMINS.....AND ARTICLES REALLY. For real... So block away... I have more time for other things. But this is the thing.....when nutballs like Novaseminary, Glarfaklas (or whatever his name is), and now this Daed Head creepazoid, come to me and harass me with garbage, I'm only human.....and I'll tell them off for it. WP policy or no.....cuz as I said, I'VE HAD IT WITH THE BS......and I don't really care much anymore. peace out....Sweetpoet (talk) 00:20, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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