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Review of unblock request and discussion of possible community ban

Unresolved

See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/CCI

This conversation concerns the handling of a prolific editor who has been found to have infringed copyright in multiple articles. Discussion is ongoing about the potential handling of this review, which will involved tens of thousands of articles. Participation in brainstorming solutions or joining in clean-up would be much appreciated. Moonriddengirl ^(talk)

User:FellGleaming

FellGleaming (talk · contribs) is disruptively editing Challenger Deep and Mariana Trench in the middle of two different discussions about his poor use of sources, the first at Talk:Challenger_Deep, and the second at WP:NORN. Now, Slatersteven (talk · contribs) has showed up and started tag teaming for Fell and making blanket reverts.[1] After a discussion about Fell's edits began at Talk:Challenger Deep, I helped Fell find reliable sources for his claims because he was having trouble understanding how we use sources. No offense to Fell, but the user has a long history of misusing sources and not understanding basic policies and guidelines governing their use. It is not quite clear why this problem has continued for so long, but his poor use of sources resulted in an enforcement request warning in April.[2] The concerns expressed in that warning are the same here:

• Failure to exercise basic due diligence in reviewing the content of sources before making assertions about them.
• Failure to be scrupulous in the representation of sources and the use of purported quotes from them.
• Failure to respond directly to the substance of concerns about the use of sources and quotations.
• Continued aggressive posturing when asked the above.

In any case, Fell didn't like the discussion on Talk:Challenger Deep and took this dispute to WP:NOR/N. Not liking the responses he received there, he began engaging in extremely WP:POINTy behavior, and duplicated the same disputed content[3] that was removed from Challenger Deep into Mariana Trench.[4][5] The result, is that FellGleaming is ignoring the concerns raised about his misuse of sources on Talk:Challenger Deep, and disregarding the problems raised with his use of sources on WP:NORN, and has now managed to copy the same disputed content into two different articles for no reason other than because he can. This is extremely childish and disruptive and with the addition of Slatersteven demanding that I prove a negative, and with Slatersteven supporting FellGleaming's disruption with tag teaming over disputed content, I think it's time for administrative action. Viriditas (talk) 13:48, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Response from FellGleaming

A short history of events:

1. Viriditas blanked a section of the article: [6]
2. After talk page discussion, Viriditas allowed restoration of some of the material, but would not allow a Berkeley Law of the Sea Institute (a group of legal scholars specializing in international sea law) to support the text that "nuclear waste dumping is banned according to the UNCLOSIII treaty. As of September 2010, the US has not ratified this treaty". I gave some additional sources for this, such as a NYT article. He still refused, on the grounds that none of these sources "were about Challenger Deep specifically". He also began making threats and personal attacks on the article's talk page ([7])
3. To seek conflict resolution, I took the issue to the No Original Research noticeboard ([8])
4. Another editor (SlaterSteven) saw the issue there, and responded by restoring the text Viriditas removed. (I note that this editor, rather than being a "tag team" helper, is an editor who has actually conflicted with me regularly in the past).
5. Viritidas responded by attacking that editor as well, and posting snarky comments to the editor's talk page: ([9]). He also began canvassing other users to search for complaints to use against me (See links from Collect).

I believe Viriditas' edits to be disruptive, and his talk page activity to violate civility and harassment guidelines. I ask for no formal sanction against him, but do request an administrator acquaint him with basic policy in this regard. Fell Gleaming^talk 14:22, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I have already succinctly explained the problem in my original report, but I would like to clear up Fell's misrepresentation of basic facts. To refresh Fell's memory, I originally removed poorly sourced material from Challenger Deep[10] and placed it on the talk page per best practices.[11] This was done because the solitary source used, did not support the content. FellGleaming, without replying on talk first, quickly restored the material,[12] adding an unreliable source to Helium.com as his chosen source, a "peer reviewed citizen journalism website". FellGleaming then begin making a series of very strange claims on talk, arguing that "the Helium source is not being used as a WP:RS for a science claim, but merely to support that the location has been suggested as a waste repository." Fell began trying to reinterpret and reinvent the concepts of WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:NOR on the fly, so that they would support his edits. Because Fell was unable to find a reliable source that supported the content he wanted to add, I felt sorry for him and tried to help him out. I found the Hafemeister (2007) source[13] and Fell was happy.[14] However, things quickly devolved into Jekyll and Hyde territory after I helped Fell find a source. At this point, Fell began to go off on bizarre tangents, arguing that any reliable source is acceptable to use in the article, even one that is not about the topic. I calmly explained to Fell, that per the policies and guidelines, we generally only use topical sources, mostly to avoid original research and drawing conclusions that aren't found in the sources. As it stands, Fell will not accept this fact. So now, Fell has added the disputed material into two different articles, and continues to ignore the concerns raised about his edits on the article talk page and on the OR noticeboard. Viriditas (talk) 14:40, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Ignore. CANVASS per [15], [16]. I have not seen anything nasty from Fell Gleaming. Charges of "tag teaming" should be weighed carefully, and discarded as chaff. Absent any real charge, and considering the CANVASS involved, I suggest the first word I wrote is correct. Collect (talk) 13:59, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

There has been no canvassing, and MastCell asked me to "bring it up elsewhere" because he can no longer deal with FellGleaming on both a personal and administrative level. Screwball23 has nothing to do with this report. Viriditas (talk) 14:05, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

CANVASS occurs even if the people CANVASSED do nothing. It is the contact which is the violation, not the result of the contact here. Collect (talk) 12:57, 19 September 2010 (UTC) ::

A simple question for teh alledged canvaser, did you ask anyone who has not been in conflict with fell? A si8mple question for the accuseer, has the user asked for comment or asked what he should do in both cases?Slatersteven (talk) 13:08, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

There has also been no tag teaming. I made Two edits, one imidialty after the other [[17]]. I ask that this blatant mis-representation is withdrawn.Slatersteven (talk) 14:14, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

And you blanket reverted my edits and restored Fell's. You tag teamed. And like Fell, you have not been able to answer the questions posed on the article talk page by myself, or on the NOR noticeboard by other editors. This is disruptive editing by the both of you. Viriditas (talk) 14:40, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

ONe making an edit you do not like (or restoring an edit you do not like) is not tag teaming (and I now belive this to be casued by the fact you cannot revert due to having used 3 reverts already, that you are attmepting to use this ANI to continue an edit war). Two I have answerd the questions, that you do not accpept the answers [[18]] (why this should be here) [[19]] (sources supporting the fact the nUS has not ratified the treaty) [[20]] (that the sectio with out the material about US nonratification mis-represents the situation) is not my problom.Slatersteven (talk) 14:50, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

No, I have filed this ANI because both Fell and yourself have ignored concerns regarding your misuse of sources on both the article talk page and the OR noticeboard, and have now duplicated the same, exact disputed edits in two different articles for no reason, which not only doesn't make any sense, but is a good example of the disruptive, POINTY behavior going on here. You can't just ignore talk pages and noticeboards that question your edits. You need to stop adding the disputed material and work towards resolution and consensus. Neither of you seem able or willing to do this. I don't know where you stand at this point, but I do know that Fell has some kind of difficulty understanding basic policies and guidelines, and from what I can tell, has no interest in understanding them. That's a bit strange for an editor active since January 2008. I mean, he's had plenty of time to figure things out, right? Viriditas (talk) 14:56, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

If you care to check I have only edited the one articel. I ask you to withdraw the accustion I have done this on two artciels as well.Slatersteven (talk) 15:05, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I was presenting that finding as a total, not as evidence that you yourself edited two articles, but you are correct, you have only edited one, but two separate articles between the both of you now contains the same content. Viriditas (talk) 15:09, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps also relevant, this discussion with FellGleaming about not so reliable sources for science articles on the Goddard Institute talk page. Count Iblis (talk) 15:21, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

GISS is not a "science article", and the text being cited is not a scientific point, but simply that a particular person works for GISS. Even worse is the fact that Ibis himself agrees the fact is accurate; he simply wishes to use a separate source for the citation. Fell Gleaming^talk 15:26, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

How can our article about the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) not be a science article? --TS 15:32, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

The notion that the statement "Steven Schneider once worked for GISS" is some sort of scientific method, theory or discovery that can only be verified by a Ph.D-authored science book is rather odd. Fell Gleaming^talk 15:38, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

The problem here is different, i.e. that you don't want to use a source which, while verifying the statement, covers the science related to the article's topic in a way that makes the book not a good source for the other information it contains. There may be cases where such a book is the only source available and you don't have a choice but to use that book. I think there exists a special tag for such references that indicates that one would rather have another source. But in this case we already have a better source. Count Iblis (talk) 15:48, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

In any case we have an apparently perfectly adequate source for the late Stephen Schneider's association with GISS. I agree that the source proposed by FellGleaming is a little odd for an article about a scientific institute. --TS 15:54, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

The source was proposed by another editor, not myself. As for the other source being "perfectly adequate", multiple independent sources are often used. Fell Gleaming^talk 15:57, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Why is this in the article at all? As far as I can tell he was at Goddard as a post-doc for less than a year in 1971-72? (according to his own CV). What particular relevance the GISS article has his brief stop there to do with anything? Put another way -- rather than argue about "what" source for this information, a more important question would seem to be "why this information at all?" (The place for it would seem to be the guy's biography, you know "Early career and education.")Bali ultimate (talk) 16:10, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

It's a very good point, Bali. I don't feel comfortable removing it myself because of this ongoing dispute, but if you (or anyone else) wants to excise it, I support the action. Fell Gleaming^talk 16:13, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Simple, but you need to understand the history. Cla68 is having a campaign to add as many facts to as many articles as he can, using Fred Pearce's book as a source. That is where this factoid came from [21]. See-also the next diff William M. Connolley (talk) 21:28, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

• I have encountered this editor before. He bears careful watching. Basically FellGleaming is so very strongly pro-nuclear power that he will bend or break WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:NOR to get a pro-nuclear slant onto articles. Tenacious to the point of tendentiousness, this editor will likely require the attention of Arbcom eventually. A SPA with an agenda, who treats our project as a battleground. --John (talk) 16:45, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

• • I agree with John. For at least the past couple of years, Fell Gleaming has gone from article to article in an attempt to pursue a global warming denial agenda. See: WP:COATRACK. For example, see his recent deletions from this article: Anti-nuclear movement in the United States. He also attacks the biography articles of climate change experts such as Joseph Romm (full disclosure: I am a friend of Dr. Romm's). -- Ssilvers (talk) 21:18, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

A question Is this about this specific iuncident or about Fells wider actions=?Slatersteven (talk) 16:52, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't know the answer to Slater's question, but I do consider it pretty disruptive to copy-paste a hotly-contested section from one article into a new one when you're right in the middle of a discussion at WP:NORN about that section. And since FellGleaming will no doubt respond by informing the world of it, I'll mention that, like John, I've had my problems with this editor before, and that I agree with John's assessment. For example, I requested full protection for Linda McMahon a couple of days ago because FellGleaming, along with two others, was engaged in a smoking-hot edit war over that article. ( I wasn't involved. ) The article was fully-protected for a couple of weeks, but FellGleaming has been right back to the talk page claiming "consensus" with her his same-side edit warrior, to whom she he gave a barnstar for his part in that war after the article was protected, and suggesting they approach an admin to ask that an edit they'd been warring for be implemented through the full-protect. Not pretty stuff at all, imo.  – OhioStandard (talk) 20:50, 18 September 2010 (UTC) ( revised by Ohiostandard at 21:35, 18 September 2010 (UTC). sorry, FG, just habit from previous assumption, which I apologized sincerely for, as you know. this is the only time I've made the mistake since I was informed of it; you've no reason to think it was intentional: it was not. )

The "smoking hot" edit war consists of my making a total of 3 edits in the past week: [22]. Ohiostandard, by the way, has been following me from article to article, misrepresenting sources with his edits, just as he did in this one [23], where he claimed it for "fidelity with what the sources actually say". The only problem is, they say no such thing. If he continues this pattern of harrassment and source misrepresentation (and continues to misrepresent my sex as well, despite repeated corrections to the contrary), I believe action will be necessary. Fell Gleaming^talk 21:17, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Okay, "smoking hot" was careless, and I'll retract the phrase. I was influenced, no doubt, by my great distaste for what you've been doing at Linda McMahon since the end of August. But anyone here can look at its history and decide whether you've been edit warring there, long-term, and whether the warring needed to stop. As to your claim that I have some kind of "pattern" of misrepresenting sources, people can take a look here for the facts, and refer to MastCell's enforcement remarks about your own "pattern" re sources. Further, I'm genuinely sorry if you feel "harrassed", but you're a very ubiquitous presence on boards like this one, I'm very familiar with your own "patterns", and I very strongly disapprove of them. So when I see you in places like this so often, up to your old "hijinks" (your word, since you like it so much), of course I'm going to comment. I'd rather not, actually; it's boring. But someone needs to. Anyway, my principal point in the post above was that I think it was disruptive to copy-paste a contested section from one article to create an identical new section in a different one, while you were in the middle of a discusssion about the section at WP:NORN. But as I said, this is boring; have the last word if you like.  – OhioStandard (talk) 01:05, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I have had run ins with thism user in the past but am not sure how relevant it is. I will say this on the current case. No one, it would appear, on Mariana Trench appears to have objected to this material being added apart from an involved user on the related page.Slatersteven (talk) 12:22, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

The Challenger Deep is a particularly deep spot in the Mariana Trench. The two articles are so closely related that it is hair-splitting to distinguish between them in this way. In case anyone wants to know my opinion (as an involved editor) about FellGleaming: This user appears to be an expert on nuclear power with a very strong POV, and a will to push that through. The user seems to be generally operating right at the edge of what is tolerated here, not unlike the way that some other editors are acting or have acted in the past to advocate mainstream, sceptic or pseudosceptic positions on articles related to fringe or pseudoscience. The main difference is that this user is now advocating positions that are very unpopular, overall. The main problem at the moment is that we don't seem to have an expert who can represent the other side and prevent articles from being skewed through highly selective information. This is the kind of explosive situation that is bound to end at Arbcom. Hans Adler 14:23, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Then (if they are that closely related) do a totaly different set of edds appear to edit one, but not the other, articel? With only a couple of edds on only one of those pages objecting to this aqddition? If the users actions are that out of order then would it not offend more then those with whome he appears to be (or have been) in content dispute with. I see this users actionsa as no worse then many otehrs who seem to enjoy huge amounts of indlugence, and I am operating from the posiiton of precidence. I agree that this users combative approach is problomatic, but no more so then (for example) the attitude of the accuser.Slatersteven (talk) 14:39, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Update

After my agreeing to acompromise version of the text that did not state the US had not ratified the UNCLOSIII treaty, (his original objection) Viriditas has taken to simply repeatedly blanking the entire section. Fell Gleaming^talk 05:30, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

FellGleaming appears to be on some kind of campaign, going from article to article, making poor edits that distort the sources and push a single POV. For only one of many examples, today on endocrine disruptor, Fell made the following edit:

The theory of endocrine disruption has been dismissed as junk science by some scientists, and there is no consensus that the concept is valid.[24]

However, that is not what the source said. The source actually examined and presented both sides, not one side as Fell did. The source that FellGleaming cited said:

Where science has left a void, politics and marketing have rushed in. A fierce debate has resulted, with one side dismissing the whole idea of endocrine disruptors as junk science and the other regarding BPA as part of a chemical stew that threatens public health.[25]

This is not a mistake on FellGleaming's part. This is part of a willful, purposeful campaign of misrepresentation of sources in article after article, and something needs to be done. Viriditas (talk) 02:55, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Note Viriditas already brought this issue to the NPOV NB [26]. The text Viriditas is complaining about wasn't even added by me; it simply was the prior version restored when I reverted out improperly cited material. Note that admin Mastcell at the NPOV NB agreed the claim was overstated. Further, given Viriditas has posted this to three forums, he seems to be forum shopping. Fell Gleaming^talk 23:58, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

This example seems to fit very well into my overall picture of FellGleaming: An excellently informed editor who is pushing an industry POV vehemently and with a strong focus on results rather than interpersonal conflicts. If the public relations departments of huge industry associations ever start paying people for editing Wikipedia, we are going to get a lot of editors here who will be behaving very much like FellGleaming. Come to think of it, it's amazing that we haven't reached that stage yet. Hans Adler 11:07, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Haven't we? Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:11, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Interesting data point: I asked FG here why he had added Being a subduction plate, the nuclear waste would slowly be pushed deep into the Earth's mantle. to the Mariana Trench article, as, quite apart from whether it belongs on the article at all (and I am officially neutral on the matter), it is somewhat poor English. He stated here that it is not his preferred version and I apologized for what I thought was my mistake, but then I checked and saw that he had indeed added the text. In fact he appears to have added this poor material three times to the article. Why would someone add text that they do not think should be added, then edit war over it? I am having trouble understanding what is going on here. --John (talk) 14:08, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

• After reviewing his latest efforts, I now believe that FellGleaming should be topic-banned from anything related to nuclear power, in addition to his current ArbCom restrictions. This is a POV-pusher and a combatant in an environment which should be a civil and collegial one. At the very least we need a lot more editors watching him and his edits as I am now doing. --John (talk) 15:35, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

To respond to John's many errors, (a) I am not under any "current Arbcom restrictions". (b) the grammatical error he refers to in Challenger Deep was not added by myself. It existed in the article prior to my first edit: [27]. In restoring a section which had been blanked, I merely did not take the time to cleanup the grammar. As to John's complaint on the nuclear article, I'm sorry I don't see it. I took a vague "scientists and engineers" statement and replaced it with the actual descriptions of these individuals, taken directly from their existing WP entries. Calling someone a "scientist" in a nuclear power article is not only vague, but somewhat misleading, when they are in fact a biologist commenting on nuclear issues. Fell Gleaming^talk 15:58, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

But "restoring a section which had been blanked, ... not tak[ing] the time to cleanup the grammar." is the very definition of edit-warring. You should think about it; you are no longer a newbie and should not act like one. --John (talk) 16:02, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Can we have a link to the policy as I cannot find this here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Edit_warring thanks.Slatersteven (talk) 14:43, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

You just made a link to it yourself, so I'll assume it is a problem of comprehension rather than not knowing where to find the info. We have "However, situations will inevitably arise where editors have differing views about some aspect of a page's content. When this happens, editors are strongly encouraged to engage in civil discussion to reach a consensus, and not to try to force their own position by combative editing (making edits they know will be opposed) and repeated reverting. It is the latter approach which is known as edit warring."

Help:Reverting has "On Wikipedia, reverting means undoing the effects of one or more edits, which normally results in the page being restored to a version that existed sometime previously."

This is one of three key problem areas in this user's editing, the others being misrepresentation of sources and tendentiously pursuing what appears to be a particular agenda. As these seem like long-term problems, I would push for a ban, but a topic-ban or a medium-length block might be kinder in the first instance. We certainly cannot go on like this, in my opinion. --John (talk) 15:43, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Forgive me but I cannot see the wording you have used in your comment of 16:02, 22 September 2010 so I cannot see how Fells action breach a policy that does not in fact exsist. Nor can I see how you above quotes can be seen as saying anything about restoing text or not altering bad grammer. So it would appear to me that you have mis-repreented policy.Slatersteven (talk) 15:49, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry you're still having difficulty with this. The solution may be in examining the word "restoring" (in my comment) and comparing it with "being restored to a version that existed sometime previously" (the language of Help:Reverting, my emphasis). Now look at "repeated" (from the policy you linked to) and compare it with my evidence that FG restored the sub-standard material three times. Can you see the similarity now? The grammar issue isn't that important, except that it shows an unsatisfactory combative streak; how easy it would have been for him to tweak the content rather than restoring a version he himself said was sub-standard, yet he didn't. The fact that he then lied about it when I asked him about it is cream on the pudding. --John (talk) 16:21, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

CForgi9ve me but teh grammer part is opart of your 'quote' so I fail to see how its unimportant. I agree that if he reveted to an exsisting versio that would be edit warring,, but there is nothing about not altering bad grammer so you did mis-represetn polciy. You claim he had breached a rule (or at least the way you interperate that rule) in a way that is not in fact aginst policy. Now if you are saing that he reverted text he should not have done (and that is all) then fait enough perhaps it might be usefull stike that part of your post.Slatersteven (talk) 11:07, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

• • And this was the Arbcom "final warning" given in April for misrepresenting sources and POV-pushing. That was six months ago. Has this editor changed for the better? I would say not. Topic ban please. --John (talk) 04:30, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Not that it excuses anything, but the CC noticeboard is backed by the community process, not by ArbCom. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:49, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I struck that part of the complaint. --John (talk) 14:39, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

• The bad behavior has not stopped and a simple topic ban will not work. FellGleaming is an advocate of "ignore all rules", which is fine, but he expects us to agree to his ignoring of all rules, which is not fine. This is an abuse of WP:IAR, as any attempt to clean up after his mess is met with hours of wasted talk page arguments and edit warring. This needs to stop. It's a huge time sink, and the editor does not help build an encyclopedia, but destroy it. Viriditas (talk) 21:21, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

• I have been trying very hard to work with Fell for some months now on articles relating to nuclear issues but recently had to abandon my efforts at Anti-nuclear movement in the United States, see [28]. This is the first time in my 3.5 years of editing that I have had to withdraw from an article because it became a battleground, see Talk:Anti-nuclear movement in the United States. I agree with John's thoughtful comments above ([29], [30]) and concur that something needs to be done. Johnfos (talk) 21:53, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Question: Can we consolidate this discussion and this one?: [31]. Here is my comment from that page: FellGleaming pursues a global warming denial agenda. He pursues his POV by attacking a series of related articles and, by removing support for a proposition in tangential articles, then go back to the main article and say that there is no support for the proposition in related articles. See also WP:COATRACK. For example, here is where he attempts to attack a bio article on climate change expert Joseph Romm by adding poorly sourced and unbalanced information [32]. He then tries to remove Romm's name from this article: [33] (see this: [34]) Full disclosure: I am a friend of Romm's. That's why I noticed FellGleaming's behaviour. -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:21, 23 September 2010 (UTC) -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:03, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the disruption is not confined to climate change articles, but includes many topics that touch upon energy and chemical industry subjects, as well as the politicians who represent those interests. FellGleaming is an experienced editor who understands the policies and guidelines as well as any long term contributor. The problem at hand is that FellGleaming is using his understanding to game the rules, to obstruct discussion, and to push an agenda. How should Wikipedia handle editors like FellGleaming and why hasn't anything been done? He was already the subject of a severe warning in a climate sanctions enforcement request, and by that reasoning alone, he should already be blocked. What is interesting is that he's even managed to game that warning as well, by editing articles just outside the topic but engaging in the same bad behavior and disruptive edits. This is wasting a great deal of time and energy of good faith editors who would prefer to work in harmony. Please do something. Viriditas (talk) 23:16, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

You're actually trying to dredge up an edit [[35]] from more than six months ago into the current argument? And my "severe warning" was simply a no-sanctions message to "be more careful". I looked into a source already in an article, and used the exact phrase "leaked emails" from the source. Admin Mastcell decided it was "misleading" because I put the phrase half a sentence away from where the inline citation was, even though two other admins said it was without merit. In fact, the only reason I didn't appeal such a ridiculous conclusion was simply because there were no sanctions attached to it, just a warning to "be more careful" ... which I always am, anyway. And Viriditas is simply upset because he's taken me to three different noticeboards in the past week, without once getting the result he wants. On the first forum, he even went so far as to begin personally attacking editors who agreed with me. Fell Gleaming^talk 23:38, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

My experience mirrors what several have commented on above. FellGleaming has an extremely aggressive editing style that makes it difficult to work cooperatively with him. He will argue a point over and over on an article's talk page, and when he doesn't get his way he deletes large swaths of material that he dislikes with a summary of "As per talk, deleting non-encyclopedic content."[36] His talk page discussions often employ an odd sort of circular logic that basically goes "the source that supports that statement isn't reliable, because a reliable source wouldn't say that" as in this example (note "BBB" should be "BBC"). This has been going on for too long, over too wide range of articles. Ideally FellGleaming would adopt a less aggressive and more cooperative approach on his own, but if not he should be given concrete incentive to do so. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:11, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Here's evidence of clear POV pushing and wikilawyering. Compare here where, to prevent the Heartland Institute article mentioning that it's often referred to as "right-wing", he says

"The principle touchstone here, Mastcell, is accuracy. A source that states something verifiably inaccurate should not be used period, no matter how reliable that source is in general. Further, a source that describes the subject as "right wing noise" is clearly biased. Why are you trying so ardently to portray Heartland as something they so clearly are not? I'm honestly curious."

with this from an OR notice board, where, to get an organisation labelled "left-wing", he argues

"you're confusing WP:OR with potential WP:RS and WP:NPOV issues. If a source labels an organization liberal, then its not OR to provide that description -- though the source's description can still be shown to be inaccurate or non neutral."

These comments were made within a couple of weeks of each other. Either viewpoint might be valid, but not both at the same time. Technically, no policy has been broken, but it's things like these that stretch the AGF of other editors.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 06:11, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I just came across this recent edit by FellGleaming; his talk page led me to this discussion. The edit is problematic on two levels:

• It uses a single painting to support a claim that a depiction was "common" among Medieval artists.
• The painting used is not medieval at all, but late 15th / early 16th century.

This edit from a totally different area shows FellGleaming's misuse of sources to push his own interpretations, violating WP:NOR and the specific warning that he is to "exercise basic due diligence in reviewing the content of sources before making assertions about them.... These are final warnings and further violations may result in sanctions." SteveMcCluskey (talk) 13:11, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Checking the archives I find that two years ago FellGleaming made similar edits here and here that were deleted after discussion. He's nothing if not persistent. SteveMcCluskey (talk) 14:19, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Unsuccessful enforcement request from April 2010

I append this which was rejected as being (just) outside the scope of the CC enforcement, as an illustration of the longevity of the problem, and in support of Viriditas' and Ssilvers' comments in the section just above.

1. User claims that this source states "the largest problem from Chernobyl was simply mental strain and upset, caused by fearmongering in the press that left people with the idea they were at far higher risk than they actually were."

   After I challenge this,

2. he invites me to "click on the link" After a further challenge,
3. points out that "It says the largest problem is mental health...", which was not the claim.
4. FellGleaming then repeats the mischaracterization of the source.

   After my warning, below, then

5. accuses me of making a personal attack, at which point I give up and come here. --John (talk) 23:27, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion

It seems as if an RfC concerning FellGleaming's POV-pushing and aggressive editing might be in order? Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:34, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Do we need an RfC to enact sanctions against someone whose conduct is so uniformly poor over such a long period of time, without any real sign that he learns from criticism, or even takes it in? He is currently blocked (his fourth block, and his second this year) for edit-warring at Christine O'Donnell, retrospectively claiming a BLP exemption (though he didn't mention it at the time he made the edits, instead using summaries like, for example, "remove pov presentation") I see he now has Mastcell down as being against him, the latest, presumably, in a long line of admins who have unfairly picked on him. When lots and lots of people tell you you are doing something wrong, it's at least worth considering that you might be doing something wrong. This obvious insight seems to be beyond the user at present and I contend that his next block should be for a 1 week - 1 month period and the next after that should be permanent. This modest escalation would give a fair chance for FG to reform, without binding us to wasting loads more time on him if reform proves impossible. --John (talk) 04:36, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

He has now removed for the second time my notice to reviewing admins to look here before deciding whether to unblock. I won't edit-war but I strongly think this notice should remain as long as the unblock template is in place. I was sorely tempted to decline the unblock myself but will let someone else handle it. --John (talk) 04:58, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

As someone who's run into the brick wall that is FellGleaming (on Indian Point Energy Center), I'm certainly not going to argue that any additional evidence is needed to show his obstreporous behavior pattern, but I'm also well aware that, with some frequency in the past, sanctions have been rejected if intermediate steps such as an RfC aren't taken beforehand. It's that auld demon process: some people just feel queasy about doing the right thing before all the T's have been crossed and the i's dotted. Me, I'm more interested in results, and see nothing wrong in sanctioning an aggresive POV-warrior at any stage if he or she is preventing the encyclopedia from being as accurate and factual as it can be – and that indeed seems to be the case here. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:02, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Process isn't just that there for the sake of it (WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY), it's there because it serves a purpose. In this case, an RFC seems called for, (a) giving FG a chance to reconsider his behaviour and not view criticism as mere point-scoring by content opponents (b) allow others, especially those sympathetic to FG, to see that he is given such a chance before more drastic measures are taken, if it is at some point concluded that they are necessary. Rd232 ^talk 15:54, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

If the date was April 2010 I would agree with this analysis. As the problem has been going on for several months since then, and the user seems to show no insight into the problematic nature of his edits after this time and after four blocks, I am struggling to justify the idea of an RfC. If that's the consensus I will go along with it of course, but I really don't see why in such an egregious case we couldn't just enact a final warning or a topic ban by community consensus right here, right now. --John (talk) 16:13, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Community Ban

I have been involved directly with this user in article having to deal with Climate Change. I'm surprised that this editor is also edit warring across numerous other articles. I just don't think he gets it. Are his contributions a net-benefit to the project? I don't think so. When that happens, it's usually time to consider a community ban. I don't think this is premature because I've looked at a lot of the evidence flying fast and furious through this thread and have also looked through his contribution history. I don't see anything redeeming. We've reached the last resort, IMHO.

ScienceApologist (talk) 16:58, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

• FellGleaming (talk · contribs) has just been blocked for 72 hours for edit-warring. I think the issues raised here require serious consideration (particularly in light of the repeated blocks for edit-warring on politically sensitive articles), but please consider that FellGleaming is currently unable to participate in this discussion. MastCell ^Talk 17:40, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
  • As I've pointed out at his talk, he can post any response there and someone will copy it over here. --John (talk) 19:56, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
• Support community ban - The clever POV pushers who know how to manipulate language and sources are way more dangerous than the overt vandals. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 18:42, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose There is no more depressing sight than an editor who has been in conflict with another try and use a separate incident as a chance to ask for a guy to get banned. This comment is aimed at the proposer, i do not know all those who are supporting this proposal and do not mean those who do support it are all in conflict with Fell mark nutley (talk) 18:51, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
• Support; I would have preferred a block or a topic ban before going to a full ban, but this is better than nothing. What we mustn't have is FG coming back in 72 hrs and continuing to disrupt. --John (talk) 19:33, 24 September 2010 (UTC) see below
• Support - IMO, FellGleaming is been disruptive at Libertarianism in addition to Climate Change related articles. Yworo (talk) 20:45, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose - FG's has an extremely aggressive and confrontational attitude, but only has 4 total blocks, two in 2008 and two in 2010. FG also has a undeniable passion for some subjects which may be harnessed to benefit the project. Rather than a flat ban, put them on a civility probation, to be monitored by a few uninvolved admins. Any, and I mean ANY, slip, for ANY reason, is a week long block for the first, indef for the second. They've had more than a few warnings and comments, but maybe, just maybe, a blunt smack to the face will change things. And maybe not, but with a block on site for any slipup, damage to the project is mitigated. (And for the record, I find their general actions on WP reprehensible, contributing to several problem areas). Ravensfire (talk) 20:54, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Civility is not the main problem here; more a case of edit-warring, tendentious editing, and systematically misrepresenting sources. --John (talk) 23:06, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
• Support - Yet another example of a civil-POV pusher, whose lack of a substantial block record is a result of gaming the system, and not because he or she is really interested in creating a NPOV encyclopedia. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:09, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. Does this editor pose problems? Sure. But I then conclude something differently from Ken's observation that the lack of a big block log is due to "gaming the system". If the system doesn't work properly, then that deserves more attention. Banning editors on an ad hoc basis is not a good thing. Ravensfire proposal makes more sense to me, but we also have to take a more general approach: Welcome the feedback that problematic editors give us here and adjust the system to deal with problems, instead of pointing the finger to the problematic editor and not fixing flaws in the system. For the problems in the climate change area, this means that Wikipedia needs to adopt WP:SPOV. Count Iblis (talk) 21:26, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the system needs overhauling, since it does not deal well with civil POV pushers, but to say that because the system is ineffective in fixing that proble, we should not take advantage of what mechanisms it does provide is just plain silly. I'd be all in favor of having a way that people like FG can be dealt with at a much earlier stage, without going through all the endless drama and disruptive palaver that CPOVs cause, but in the meantime, once things have come to a head, to back off simply because there's not a better method of dealing with them is harmful to the project overall. It's taken much too long, but a specific problem has been identified and needs to be dealt with, that's entirely a different proposition than fixing the system, which should be dealt with, but elsewhere, not here, and not as part of this discussion. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:33, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

• Support - I've tried to work with FG on many articles relating to nuclear issues, without success, and the POV-pushing and disruption has continued. Johnfos (talk) 21:31, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
• Support - I've seen plenty of caustic comments from this user. Enough. Toddst1 (talk) 21:33, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. Premature - RFC first, and see if FG can improve. Rd232 ^talk 21:41, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose, sort of broadly per Ravensfire. The real danger here is that FellGleaming will see failure of the indef block proposal as vindication of his actions. Better to withdraw the indef block proposal and instead put him on notice that he needs to clean up his act, and that there are admins willing to step in if he continues on his current path. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 22:41, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose As usual, draconian responses do not work. Moreover, the proponent is currently involved in an ArbCom case, and this may be seen as a way to sidestep the discussions there about both parties. Collect (talk) 22:43, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
• Support Editor has a poor record and does not observe neutrality, rs, AGF or 3RR, despite feedback from other editors and blocks. TFD (talk) 22:44, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose, basically per Ravensfire. I do not think that the Wikipedia community has a great track record with civility paroles, though. I would support a global 1RR restriction with a discussion requirement (block length aggressively escalated) + sourcing probation (immediate indef if a source is substantively misrepresented). RfC/U might also help - I have seen editors recover from worse. - 2/0 (cont.) 22:47, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose for a different reason. I do not know enough about this user to form an opinion of whether this editor is deserving of a site ban or not. I am opposing because they are involved in an ArbCom case. I think that the ArbCom case should be allowed to finish and see how any remedies and findings of facts which pass effect this user and whether their behaviour improves.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 23:47, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. While I am no fan of FG's editing, this is too much. A topic ban was proposed (below); the problem with that is that there are a number of topics where this editor has been disruptive. 1RR would be helpful, for instance, but perhaps an RfC is the way to go at this time. Drmies (talk) 02:24, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Only recently experienced him as an editor. He appears knowledgeble on Wiki policy and open to consensus editing but can also comport himself agressively. Editing as an assumed "sceptic" CC editor, his survival skill alone probably warrants merit. Civility parole might help but a ban is, IMHO, way over the top. JakeInJoisey (talk) 02:39, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose - if he acknowledges there is a problem and comment. Wikipedia has difficulty with this kind of civil POV editor. In the debate we're having now, the struggle is to describe in concrete terms the behaviour pattern that would lead to a ban, although I think everyone more or less is agreed that he's been a net detriment to Wikipedia's processes, and with intention. I'm uncomfortable in this instance with a wholesale ban. FellGleaming is knowledgeable, and has forced some article writers to be very careful what they say about fringe theorists and BigEvilCorporations in a healthy way - in addition to blatant POV editing. Such subjects can be subject to attack, just as much as articles on Obama or Acorn. Of course, if he does not acknowledge that there is a problem with his approach, then I would reassess my view - and I would urge others to do so. That said, I think it's worth looking at this summary of his edits. Although the first two bans were two years ago, FellGleaming was not editing regularly again until April this year. Each time he has become more active, he's experienced blocks for edit warring. I support suggestions of an indefinite global 1RR, and, based on what I've seen him do, a warning about misrepresenting talkpage consensus (must not be done) and about his warning other users of breaking policy (wikilawyering) - only to be done in absolute cast iron cases (e.g. blatant vandalism (obscenities etc.), including both talkpages and usertalk pages. He can always ask an admin to take a case up for him if it's genuine. Looking at his edit history, I think it' a case of WP:ROPE.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 03:08, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
• Mild oppose I have had run ins in the past with Fell. I do not see his actions as much worse then many others (inlcuding in truth the origional ANI poster). If he can demonstrate that he is able to learn from this experiance then I will oppose a ban. If however evidacen comes forward that he will not moderate his activities then this would change to Mild support.Slatersteven (talk) 13:07, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
• Mild Support I don't like to impose sanctions, but an editor who persists in pushing the same original research two years after it's been removed by consensus and two days after he's been warned to "exercise basic due diligence" in the use of sources, doesn't seem willing to operate within the Wikipedia framework. Given the scope of his problem edits, a topic ban won't suffice.SteveMcCluskey (talk) 14:35, 25 September 2010 (UTC); revised 15:01, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. Edits like this one, demonstrating an apparent unfamiliarity with WP:UNDUE, followed by this one, showing that the editor has at least heard of UNDUE, are a serious concern that there's an underlying problem (either with competence, or, more likely, with POV-pushing) that needs to be addressed. But that doesn't necessitate leaping to a community ban. Let's press on with blocks - we're only up to the 72 hours block stage at this point. TFOWR 15:19, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
• Support Probably the most POV pushing wikilawyer I have known. I have known both wikilawyers and POV pushers but FellGleeming has taken these tactics across multiple articles and venues using every wikitactic available. To simply suggest there is a problem that needs to be addressed is an understatement and fails to look into this editor's history in a meaningful way. This editor is not here to improve wikipedia. Polargeo (talk) 22:25, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
• Support. Very belligerent user, and both competence and POV-pushing are issues. I encountered him recently on the CC case; see his defensive response to a warning I posted on another user's page (a user I see opposing a ban above; no surprise there, I guess), without even waiting for that user to do his own replying.[37] When I requested diffs for his accusations from FG, reminding him that "it is unacceptable for an editor to continually accuse others of egregious misbehavior in an attempt to besmirch their reputation"[38], he fell unaccountably silent, so his character assassination had presumably been mere hot air. (I guess it's not only sources that he misrepresents.) I would like to see a ban, but one with a timelimit; sitebanned for three months sounds about right, IMO. Bishonen | talk 00:25, 26 September 2010 (UTC).
• Not support, not oppose, but comment and learning toward mild oppose I had a very recent run-in with Fell where he passionately and belligerently pushed his point. He threatened to excise an entirely section (that was very well referenced) and clearly did not agree with the consensus. He brought the issue to another noticeboard without notifying anyone in the local discussion, despite being specifically asked to do so. His civil POV pushing is usually that, civil, but he sometimes makes accusations of bad faith, which is clearly against policy. I do not think Fell needs to be banned, but there ought to be an RfC/U on the issue to gain wider community input. Basket of Puppies 01:19, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Fell Gleaming is only one amongst many great contributors who have been shoved out of Wikipedia for not going along with the elitist majority POV that pervade Wikipedia's articles.--Novus Orator 01:22, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Note, for the sake of the timeline, this ANI report was precipitated by the failure of a previous report opened by FellGleaming at WP:NOR/N on 13:22, 17 September 2010.[39] "Novus Orator", real account name Terra Novus (talk · contribs), created their account at 05:26, 18 September 2010.[40] This noticeboard report was filed by me at 13:48, 18 September 2010.[41] Wikistalk results for the intersection of both contributors can be viewed here. Viriditas (talk) 02:40, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Your point is? I can't see where these two edds have edited the discusion on the notice board (mentioned above) so I fail to see the relevance of this. Unless you are sugesting the Fell knew you were going to raise an ANI before you did so, so created an account for use here in advance.Slatersteven (talk) 15:33, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

My observation from being (unofficially) involved at SPI is that sockpuppeteers frequently create one or more account just before an administrative action, as insurance. Yworo (talk) 16:14, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

I may mis-understand the point your making bit this was not created before an action, this was created before a report (or even a warning of a report, indeed Fell was never issued with a warning that his actions might lead to an ANI). Thus its hard to see why he would have created an account 8 hours before he had any reason to think he might need one (rather then at a time when he actually was under threat, such as after the ANI started). Also see below, it seems that both these accounts have been used at the same time. Moreover I would like to see what Fell and the other account are in fact being accused of rather then some innuendo.Slatersteven (talk) 16:24, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. Community bans, IMO, are too often suggested and handed out before the escalation of blocks is properly implemented, and this is no exception. Doc9871 (talk) 15:38, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
• oppose Mob mentality manifesting. This guy can be dealt with a topic ban. Community ban is overkill The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 01:06, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose In the one article I've been working with FellGleaming on (The Great Global Warming Swindle) he has eventually shown himself amenable to reason. It's been time-consuming, sure; I've occasionally found him arrogant about a subject he hasn't done enough research on; and I think he should edit (and especially revert) with more care, particularly on controversial subjects. The article in question is definitely better for having someone questioning the previous balance in it though. I would support a 1RR, with warnings of more drastic action if he doesn't stop edit-warring; I would not support a community ban at this stage. --Merlinme (talk) 08:35, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose- Let's wait a little longer and try RfC. Tommy! 12:08, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
• Support I have had problems with this editor in the past. Does not seem to be able to work collegially. Jack1956 (talk) 14:03, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Alternative proposal

I already had qualms about the idea of a site ban, and some of the opposes have swayed me towards a more thoughtful idea. I originally asked for a topic ban, something along the lines of Fell Gleaming is prohibited from editing pages on nuclear matters, energy generation or related topics. This includes talk pages and raising matters relating to such pages at central noticeboards. This to be enforced by one further block (1 week - 1 month), with the one after that being indefinite. Let me repropose this as an alternative to a site-ban. --John (talk) 00:57, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

That's not nearly good enough as his edits cover a wide variety of topics, as his most recent 3RR violation shows, from energy to politics, from biographies to geography. Viriditas (talk) 02:21, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

It's pretty obvious that there are problems with FG's actions. But I think the first step should be "what can you do to help yourself?" See if FG is willing to commit to changes in his behaviour/restrictions that might solve this problem. Guettarda (talk) 02:50, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree also we should wait untill the end of the wider investigation. But I would suppoert a 1RR restiction.Slatersteven (talk) 13:08, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

It seems difficult to enumerate the problematic areas, as they are too many, and too fuzzy at the edges, so might my suggestion above for a time-limited siteban (3 months..?) be a less complicated not-so-draconian alternative? What do you think, John? Bishonen | talk 00:36, 26 September 2010 (UTC).

An RfC/U needs to be listed for wider community discussion. Until then, I suggest his unblock so he can participate. It seems only fair. Basket of Puppies 01:25, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

I think not. See above for new evidence. Viriditas (talk) 02:42, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

It’s interesting that both of these accounts make different edits on different pages, at the same time [[42]] [[43]] that’s some clever sock puppeting. I sugest that the 'evidance' is re-examined.Slatersteven (talk) 15:42, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Just what I'd do if I were going to sock. I don't know whether FellGleaming and this new Terra Novus account are the same person, but the simultaneous edit is no argument against their identity, imo, none at all, and the behavior does seem pretty quacky. We need a checkuser's help here before we can reasonably proceed, imo: if results come back negative then I'd agree with Basket of Puppies (my vote for best username, btw) that FellGleaming should be unblocked to be able to participate here (if not elsewhere, yet) for the sake of fairness. Since some pretty serious sanctions are being spoken of here, I also agree with Basket and others that a RFC/U is called for, perhaps with with an interim 1RR until that process can be completed.  – OhioStandard (talk) 21:51, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

A semi=technical question, how would you be able to do two seperate edits at the same time? its not imposible, but a lot of work to do (if the way I have figured out is true). Can a user log on with different accounts at the same time?Slatersteven (talk) 10:12, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Presumably with two different browsers, or very easily with two different devices - a computer and iPad/iPhone combination. Another example of Terra Novus' edits here (three diffs in a row combined) - which are clearly POV, and even include a conservative/libertarian motif. VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 14:07, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Numerous ways to do this: two computers, signed on to different IDs, for instance. But also, a reminder that WP's time stamp does hours and minutes, not fractions of minutes, which means that two edits done within 59 seconds of each other could be time-stamped with the same time. 60 seconds should be sufficient time, depending on the computer and the speed of the connection, to log out of one ID, log into another, and make an edit, but if the data is actually evidence of sockpuppetry (it seems interesting, but not overwhelming compelling to me), it's more likely that 2 devices were used.

I agree that a CheckUser should be run, but I'm not certain the results will necessarily be decisive – for instance, if two different connections were used. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:36, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

The two editors have been editing with the opposite point of view on Heim theory, see also the talk page of that article and see the Wiki-project physics page for details. So, if one is the sock of the other, then this must have been a deliberate attempt to create a cover. But that's a bit of a stretch to assume without strong evidence. Count Iblis (talk) 22:19, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:39, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't. Thanks for mentioning it, though. I looked at the pages you pointed out, and I can't draw the same conclusions you do; I could easily believe the one revert was staged, for example. The concordance of interests in an obscure article like Heim theory, the same political bent, the new account showing up to support FG so strongly; the chances of that occuring without intent driving it are just far too low for me to dismiss the idea of a blind. FG's an extremely bright chap, after all; if he were to undertake to sock let's give him credit enough to assume that he'd be very much more sophisticated in doing so than your average 14-year old who wants to get his bandspam to stick. I'd be pleased to be wrong about this, but I still think we need a checkuser's assistance before we can go forward.  – OhioStandard (talk) 23:40, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

The two edits were made 16 seconds apart, at 2010-09-19T04:41:14Z[44] and 2010-09-19T04:41:30Z[45]. 67.122.209.115 (talk) 00:19, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

This is all humorous!! I never guessed that I would be involved in something as silly as this. (They must think Fell Gleaming is superman if he is able to simultaneously edit and argue with himself! Here is an example of how close this supposed sockpuppet is editing with himself:

04:39, 20 September 2010 (diff | hist) Challenger Deep ‎ (compromise text as per talk.) Fell Gleaming

04:40, 20 September 2010 (diff | hist) Heim theory ‎ (We already mention that it was not published originally, and a search in Google Scholar does not determine the status of a theory. The proviso is welcome, it just needs to be more documented.)Terra Novus

' PLEASE run the Check user on me and him to show that I am not Fell Gleaming (though I sincerely sympathize with him, we have way to many editors on Wikipedia who think they can do whatever they want, and when they are caught they just initiate a ban..) and PLEASE turn this discussion into an objective analysis of both sides of the story (Fell Gleaming isn't the only editor with POV issues). If you don't, I might consider running an ANI on certain editors who are abusing Wikipedia's banning policy...--Novus Orator 04:01, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Assuming no evidence of sock puppetry is found, I would support a 1RR restriction with a clear warning that further edit warring may result in a long ban, up to and including an indefinite ban. --Merlinme (talk) 15:54, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

About Fell showing up at Heim theory, that could be explained by Fell following me after Fell, I and others were discussing the appropriateness of (i.m.o. problematic) sources for articles related to climate change. Cla68 was adding books written by sceptics as sources for rather trivial facts in science articles (e.g. in the article about the Goddard Institute). Around that time Terra Novus started a rewrite of the Heim theory article and that deserved some attention from me and others. So, Fell may have seen that I was also active on that page and noted that an issue about sources/fringe science was also being discussed there. Count Iblis (talk) 19:55, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

• Terra Novus has said that he's a former user who has a new user name, per "Clean start".[46] However he seems to be engaged in contentious issues. Perhaps it'd be helpful if he'd share his former username with a Checkuser or ArbCom member to make sure that he is following best practices.   Will Beback  talk  05:38, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
  • I would be happy to share my former name with a qualified Checkuser or Arbcom member..--Novus Orator 05:50, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
    • Then please go ahead and do that, and ask the person to publicly confirm that you've done so. Rd232 ^talk 12:00, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Summary of opinions

Comments seem about done, so a tally of the above might be helpful at this point. There were a lot of multi-option and not-very-specific views expressed, so it's hard to be exact without doing a very painstaking analysis, but here's an approximate count:

• 4 users appear to oppose any action at all
• 1 wants to wait for a different case's outcome
• 2 want only an RfC/U at this point
• 24 want sanctions of some kind now

Of the 24 users who have called for sanctions to be applied now, seven want a community ban, and the rest want 1RR, topic bans, or blocks ranging from one week to three months. Four of these 24 users also appear to be in favor of an RfC/U. The desirability of an admonition for a (really) final warning about exercising care in selecting or representing sources was also mentioned.  – OhioStandard (talk) 18:33, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

• Nice summary. I concur. I think we have community consensus for WP:1RR and a serious final warning about tendentious editing and misrepresenting sources. --John (talk) 18:35, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
  • I have refrained from commenting, because I've been involved in several disputes with FellGleaming and have formed a fairly strong opinion about his editing on that basis. I wanted to hear from uninvolved editors. That said, I think 1RR across the board is a reasonable start, since edit-warring is clearly a central aspect of the problematic behavior.

    Mostly, I'd like some follow-up. I don't expect FellGleaming to change his ways, given his aggressive responses. Much, if not most, of FellGleaming's editing seems motivated by a partisan political agenda, and the upcoming US elections will likely provide fodder for that agenda. It would be nice not to have jump through dozens of hoops to get clearly abusive editing handled if/when it recurs. MastCell ^Talk 20:30, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Whatever his past behavior seems to show, always assume WP:Good Faith until his future conduct tells differently...--Novus Orator 04:35, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

That doesn't make any sense, TN. FellGleaming has exhausted the patience of many editors here. Viriditas (talk) 04:38, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

It's just a naive, bureaucratic recitation of rules. Toddst1 (talk) 21:03, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

1RR proposal

• OK, then, suggested outcome: impose 1RR now (indefinitely, or at least til end of calendar year), and have an RFC/U later on, maybe in late October or November sometime. RFC/U outcome can then take into account FG's behaviour during 1RR restriction. The assumption remains that FG can improve, otherwise a community ban would have been passed. Rd232 ^talk 10:28, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
• Support That seems fair.Slatersteven (talk) 11:42, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
• Support I remain hopeful that FellGleaming can make a useful contribution to the project, if he learns to discuss things first, and gain consensus before making changes to controversial articles. --Merlinme (talk) 12:49, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
• Support, especially if someone initiates a RfC/U. I would prefer a time-limited restriction, and three month sounds about right. - 2/0 (cont.) 13:45, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
• Support: 1RR now (at least until the end of December), and an RFC/U (in Oct or Nov) sounds fair. Johnfos (talk) 23:21, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
• Support a reasonable 1RR until December (excluding legitimately minor edits to prevent inadvertant crossing the line) - as not being draconian at all. The RFCU is, however, moot as to desireability - letting things calm down is not aided by an incipient RFCU by any means. Collect (talk) 00:13, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
  • I think it can be taken as read that if an RFCU becomes moot through FG improving then no-one will bother. It should be left a while, so there is a sufficient opportunity for FG to make it unnecessary. Rd232 ^talk 10:28, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support per Collect; 1RR until 1/1/11; no more monkey business with misrepresenting sources; no need for an RFCU because by January 2011 this user will either have reformed or be indefinitely blocked. --John (talk) 00:18, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
  • FG's interest in the upcoming US election makes end December (3 months) a better choice. Rd232 ^talk 10:28, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
    • End December /start of Jan was what I meant by 1/1/11 above. --John (talk) 17:59, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
      • I guess I misread it. :) Rd232 ^talk 20:51, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
        • My fault for not being clearer. I should have said "January 1, 2011" instead of being cute with the special date. --John (talk) 06:11, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support as the best current chance of sending a message to this editor. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:36, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support. Hope it works. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:01, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support. Though honestly I don't think that 1RR gets to the other significant problems of non-verifiable edits, battleground editing style and ad hominem attacks on other editors. Until recently I had had no contact with this editor, but in the brief time that I have been, I have been singularly unconvinced that accurate, NPOV content and collaborative editing is this editor's goal. --Slp1 (talk) 01:05, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support 1RR for all the editors involved in the troublesome articles...--Novus Orator 03:19, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Trouble is, we agreed above that the areas of conflict FG was involved in were too wide to permit a subject restriction. So what "troublesome articles" would you propose? There are other means of getting broader attention on whole areas of the project, but this seems from the above to be one editor whose editing style creates problems wherever he goes. --John (talk) 06:11, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support. But we can't establish a pre-determined expiry date. FG hasn't edited since 24 September, and appears to be doing what some editors have said he did last time he was close to being banned over climate change articles: just bugging out for a while. His edit history via wikichecker is very "spiky". We need to see three months active editing under 1RR before we can tell whether it needs to be lifted or whether to proceed with an RfC/U. And I think 1RR needs to be construed very restrictively in this case, i.e. no "undo" edits of previously-added material beyond 1RR just because the material is not under current dispute or wasn't added recently.  – OhioStandard (talk) 07:38, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

• Comment. Good point. Could the 1RR restriction be made to last until Mr FG has completed a certain number of article edits—excluding any form of reversion—rather than expiring on a particular date? If so, what would be a reasonable number of such edits to impose the restriction for? 200? 500? David Wilson (talk · cont) 08:16, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

• In his last three months of editing (from the end of June to the end of September) he made roughly 550 article edits, so perhaps 500 would be an appropriate number of edits for the restriction to run. Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:24, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Well the intention of the 3 months' 1RR is to provide a restriction for 3 months of active editing, for the purpose of FG learning to be a better member of the community. It isn't intended to provoke a self-imposed exile for the period of the restriction, with a resumption of the status quo ante afterwards. So: any calendar months with less than 100 article or article talk edits don't count towards the 3-month restriction. Rd232 ^talk 12:10, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I sympathize with the sentiment here, but I think it is misplaced. If FG wishes to continue to contribute here, the burden is clearly on them now to do so within clearly expressed community norms. The point of the restriction is to lessen the cost to the community while they learn to do so, not increase it by requiring someone to count edits and months. - 2/0 (cont.) 14:34, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

So, are you saying that the restriction should be indefinite, not to be lifted until FG requests it and the community assents? Beyond My Ken (talk) 14:55, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I would accept that, but I would prefer a flat time (until the first of next year). If FG chooses not to edit during that period, then it will be up to their ability to recognize even without a formal active restriction that the community has spoken and edit warring in any form will not be tolerated. - 2/0 (cont.) 15:45, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Stevertigo's pattern of problematic editing

Unresolved

Moved entire section to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Stevertigo/September 2010 to centralize discussion and to save space on the ANI page. Do not add a timestamp until this has reached the top of the page. –MuZemike

Timestamping, as this is now an ArbCom matter. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite

I've removed the time stamp, as discussion on that page seems to be continuing, and there's no reason that the community can't consider sanctions while ArbCom is considering the case. If the community decides to do something, then reviewing that sanction will become part of the ArbCom case; if they don't, ArbCom will conduct its own investigation. Either way, there's no particular reason to let this pointer slip off the board until the community discussion is well and truly closed. Beyond My Ken (talk)

Re-timestamping: arb case is now open; further discussion should take place in the arb pages. 67.122.209.115 (talk)

No, this is not resolved until the consensus is enacted. Ncmvocalist (talk)

Hmm, I thought usual practice in this situation was the venue changed to the arb case, with sanction proposals and whatever else going to /Workshop. As GWH put it (re arbcom) "if they're going to take it then they preempt."[47] My bad if I closed that page improperly (I see you have reopened it). It's certainly inappropriate to act as if there is some kind of turf battle between ANI and arbcom, if that's what you're thinking. If they're willing to handle this thing, it has structural advantages, and I don't see any problem with moving it there. They arbs are themselves, as the saying goes, uninvolved admins; they can handle it just fine. 67.122.209.115 (talk) —Preceding undated

Yes, the closing summary of the discussion will include a link to the case, but it should also include the enactment of the current community consensus. The community isn't about red tape; when it comes to a consensus, it enacts that, and discussions tend to close without an outcome if there is no activity or no consensus for anything. Was there a community consensus to do nothing? Was there a community consensus to ban? Or, with the exception of about three users, did every editor (who participated in that part of discussion) consent to the revert restriction for now (be it as an alternative to something harsher, or as an alternative to nothing)? Especially if it's the latter, I don't see a reason why it should not be enacted. Ncmvocalist (talk)

Rich Farmbrough and unnecessary capitalization changes

Template:Formerly

Further information: [[:User talk:Dispenser/Reflinks#Reflinks conflict of interest with other bots|User talk:Dispenser/Reflinks § Reflinks conflict of interest with other bots]], [[:Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive639#Battle of the bots: Reflinks vs. SmackBot|Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive639 § Battle of the bots: Reflinks vs. SmackBot]], [[:Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard#Filling recent changes with pointless changes|Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard § Filling recent changes with pointless changes]], and [[:Wikipedia talk:Citation templates#Template caps: "Cite" or "cite"?|Wikipedia talk:Citation templates § Template caps: "Cite" or "cite"?]]

Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

SmackBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights)

Recently, the AWB bot has been making totally unnecessary capitalization changes. These were being "discussed" on Rich Farmbrough's page, here and here. He said that he fixed the problem, but a day later, it was back. When brought up again, his response was to blank (archive) the page. Therefore, I request immediate halt to this use of this bot until this issue is addressed. Q Science (talk) 20:54, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

• The fact that so many have complained to Rich about pointless template capitalization changes and other sundry changes such as == spacing around headers == makes it clear that these are not uncontroversial edits. As such, they represent a violation of WP:AWB#Rules of use #3. I had laid off complaining about R.F. botting from his main account, but only because the edits were by-and-large useful and uncontroversial. This is no longer the case. These types of edits that change articles from how they were intentionally set by other editors to suit one bot-op's personal preference should stop unless they are approved by BAG. –xeno^talk 21:00, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Would there be any objection if a regular editor simply hit the big red button on SmackBot's user page until an admin deals with the matter? Delta Trine ^{Συζήτηση} 21:03, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't see that Rf is blockable about this, but we can stop the bot if we feel there is a problem. S.G.^(GH) _ping! 21:06, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

• Done. Delta Trine ^{Συζήτηση} 21:08, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict × >9000)  Done... about a minute after you did. Never mind. I left an informative message about this thread though. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 21:12, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) I've blocked him until this can be resolved. This is clearly causing disruption. In addition to this, it has tagged the Main Page as uncategorized. According to the bot policy, automated bots cannot be run on main accounts unless approved by BAG (and AFAIK, this is not). (X! · talk)  · @926  ·  21:14, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) Done[48]. Communication with the bot owner is going to be exceedlingly hard, it is difficult to have a meaningful conversation with a user undertaking blanking and implementing 1h[49] (one hour) auto-archiving on the talk page designated as the point-of-contact for the bot. There were multiple threads open on the User_talk page on the topic at the time of blanking. —Sladen (talk) 21:18, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
• RF has a long history of controversial mass-actions and refusing to discuss them or even consider that anybody else might possibly be right. Suggest he simply be banned from running a bot or engaging in any automated edits, or edits that seem to be automated, for one year. At the end of that year, if he has demonstrated that he will actually discuss his edits and not summarily blank discussions, he may apply at BAG to have his bot reinstated. → ROUX ₪ 21:26, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
• Good, I warned him like 4-5 times about changing {cite foo} to {Cite foo} in the last two days, and he was still making them. In general, it would probably be a good idea to force him to do these AWB runs on a BAG-approved bot rather than on his main account. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:33, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Copied from user's talk

Neither the bot nor I are editing at the moment, nor will we be for some time. I have revised the ruleset on Cite templates, as I said. When people start destroying the structure of the talk page the choice is to revert or archive. I had 35 threads, all pretty much dead, it seems reasonable to archive them - all accessible and new messages can still be left. I have no revised the rulset further and removed the Cite templates completely, restoring the status quo ante. Rich Farmbrough, 21:16, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I advised him that he really shouldn't be changing the first-letter capitalization for any templates without consensus or approval; if a human editor used {{small case}} then it can and should remain small case. –xeno^talk 21:35, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

What is the point of doing that anyway? Does it help the server or something? Wknight94 ^talk 21:43, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

No. I think Rich's belief is that it somehow helps new users identify templates and improves readability [50]. My belief is that it just bloats the diff and makes it hard to see what the actual meat of the edit was, while imposing a personal preference that does not seem to be shared by the majority of editors. –xeno^talk 21:46, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

No, it is purely Rich's preference on the aesthetics of the templates. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:48, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I had noticed this being done before, and found it mildly annoying that my templates were being capitalised for no apparent reason, especially as personally I think {{cite news|...}} looks better than when it's capitalised anyway. I figured this had basis in policy somewhere so I didn't protest; the edit summary including a "build number" and being performed by a bot suggested that it had been community-approved. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 21:57, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

As far as I know, capitalization of templates hasn't been specifically approved. –xeno^talk 22:11, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I don't appreciate that it is only one user's preference, plus the fact I don't really see any gain from doing this. Truthfully, I am surprised that Rich has been so unresponsive in this matter. He has been helpful in the past, performing Admin duties in a clear and objective manner. So what about this appearance of being community approved? Since it was not community approved, perhaps that was not intentional. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 22:16, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

If the edits are uncontroversial there should be no difficulty in forming a Wikipedia-wide consensus, producing a policy, and then specifically authorising a bot to undertake the work. Wikipedia has processes for doing all of these. The large number of threads on just this one topic recently shows that it is controversial and therefore not something that is appropriate automated deployment (whether bot, or automated "manual" edits). —Sladen (talk) 22:25, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

• The ownership displayed in operating bots against consensus and removing avenues for discussion is deeply concerning conduct. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:50, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
  • We're not really that short of avenues for discussion. This has been on two noticeboards and one project space talk page, so far. See above. Uncle G (talk) 01:55, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
    • It isn't that we're short of venues; it is that the user is deliberately closing off the natural venue while making (to me) extremely controversial edits without consensus. I was noting that this is clearly a conduct issue. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:17, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
• My stalker of these many moons is currently turned off? I'd better sneak some writing in. ☺ In the meantime, I hope that everyone commenting on this is aware of all of the prior discussion, (now) linked to at the top of this section. Uncle G (talk) 01:55, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
• A bot being misused is as bad as at least ten regular vandals. Please don't tolerate such things. In case of repeated issues, impose a total automation ban (like Betacommand had back in the day) and/or an edit speed limit of 20 edits per hour or thereabouts, and generally urge the editor away from any repetitive editing of any type. 67.122.209.115 (talk) 08:20, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I have two questions:

• What happened with the SmackBot/Citation Bot conflict. Did Citation Bot switched to the capitilised Cite web or not?
• Does anyone know how many of the 200k Cite web templates are capitilised and how many aren't?

-- Magioladitis (talk) 11:19, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

• In order:
  1. Rich Farmbrough told Dispenser that Dispenser should fix Reflinks to conform to SmackBot. See the discussion on Dispenser's talk page linked-to at the top of this section.
  2. Possibly. It's possible to find out, but expensive in terms of traffic for mere mortals without toolserver access.
• Uncle G (talk) 13:33, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

My stalker is back

SmackBot is running again, it seems. I didn't manage to sneak in any writing, alas. ☺ Interestingly, as can be seen from this edit where {{silicate-mineral-stub}} was changed to {{Silicate-mineral-stub}}, it is still capitalizing the names of all templates. Uncle G (talk) 13:52, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Why is Farmbrough blocked but this bot isn't? Shouldn't it be the other way around if the bot edits are the ones people dislike? Wknight94 ^talk 14:36, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

He was blocked for running bot tasks on his main account; the bot itself hasn't been doing much wrong right now (though it does seem to be used for non-bot edits). Ucucha 14:44, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Angusmclellan just blocked SmackBot. Ucucha 14:45, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Uncle G's diff is from today and includes the sort of pointless case change complained of. Since RF can't now (and before the block, seemingly wouldn't) change this behaviour, there seems to be no reason to leave the bot running and add to the comedy. Angus McLellan (Talk) 14:57, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot is not following its own documented stop process, and I have just drawn Rich's addition to this.[51]. The instructions given at User talk:SmackBot are to place the string "STOP" in that page and a new section link is provided to do this. This "STOP" string continues to be the present, but the bot is making edits[52][53] including the these capitalisation changes under discussion[54]. A bot making edits while apparently stopped is a fairly serious bug as there is then no reliable way to stop the bot without resorting to an administrative block (as has had had to be performed here). —Sladen (talk) 14:59, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Unless Rich has reprogrammed AWB, editing the bot's talk page will stop the bot until the orange bar is cleared and it is restarted by the operator. I would guess this is what happened. –xeno^talk 15:01, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Same question as above but for Femto Bot (talk · contribs). Wknight94 ^talk 17:45, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

• Hm, it seems this bot does not have approval. (See also). –xeno^talk 17:50, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Blocked for now. Not sure if it's worth blocking the rest, I'll have a look through to see if they are editing. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 17:55, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
  • None of the other bots are active. So lack of approval won't be concern. As for Rich having access to unblocked account, I don't think that should be a concern here. IF he does start editing with one of them it's not going to do him much good, so not worth blocking the others, imo - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 17:57, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
    • It probably wasn't worth blocking even that one, to be honest. Part of the complaint here is that 'bot-like edits are being done through the main administrator-privilege account. The irony of blocking Femto Bot is that it was making edits that had heretofore been made through the Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs) account, apparently entirely uncontroversially, since at least May 2010 (list). It was a 'bot intended to do exactly what people have been asking for.

      I think that we're starting to lose sight of the goal here, as this snowballs into desysopping discussions and the like. The goal is not to stop Rich Farmbrough at every turn. It's to get xem to get SmackBot and other people's 'bots onto the same page when it comes to changing/retaining capitalizations. Uncle G (talk) 18:15, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

  • I don't see any reason to block any bot account that does good edits and have approval of the community. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:00, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
    • I don't see where it has approval? If Rich wants to move some approved tasks from SmackBot to Femto Bot, the appropriate course of action is to ask for a bot flag for the cloned bot at WP:BN. –xeno^talk 18:02, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
      • Actually, it's moving some regular monthly gnomish and robotic tasks from the administrator-privilege account, where they've been performed for months, to an unprivileged account. This is part of what you want, surely? Uncle G (talk) 18:19, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
        • Yep, it is ideal for the bot task to moved to a proper bot account, but it needs to be flagged and approved per the WP:BOTPOL. As I said, if the task is already approved (I'm not sure if it is, there are so many SmackBot BRFAs), R.F. can skip directly to BN to just ask for a flag as was done here. –xeno^talk 18:27, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
          • I was referring to the idea to block all Rich's accounts. For instance, Mirror Bot mustn't be blocked. Moreover, since edits that don't have consensus stopped I don't see any reason to keep the block and prevent Rich from doing other tasks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:31, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
            • I only pointed to the page listing the other bots, I didn't suggest they all need to be blocked. –xeno^talk 18:37, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Desysop?

Seems a bit silly to have an administrator in an indefinite block. If he can't be trusted to edit at all, why would he be trusted to be an admin? If he isn't going to respond to the concerns or even respond to having been blocked, it seems the desysop process needs to begin before long. Wknight94 ^talk 15:28, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

• Well (1) I don't believe that desysopping is within the scope of ANI (RFC / ARBCOM) and (2) as you know, indef doesn't mean infinite. Syrthiss (talk) 15:32, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
• I don't think anyone is concerned about his administrative actions at this point, merely his bot-like edits. –xeno^talk 15:36, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Ditto. No doubt he is distracted by something in RL and will take care of this in due course. Or he may be adjusting the programming as we speak. Once he solves the problem and implements it, there is no particular reason to keep him blocked.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:38, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
• This seems to be a bit overboard. The desired result is for Rich Farmbrough, Dispenser, and others ‎to get their tools singing from the same hymnal — no blocks, no desysoppings, no fuss, no acrimony. I made the point a week and a bit ago that this sort of thing is usually sorted out informally amongst 'bot owners. That's been my experience, as a 'bot owner. I'm rather saddened to see my argument undermined by the fact that this time, it as yet hasn't been. Uncle G (talk) 15:57, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

In my experience the user in question is unfit to be combining adminship and botting. Had an ordeal with it in Jan 2009 when it was inserting {{Ibid}} into 1000s of articles, which I was forced to revert with mere rollback. Stunningly, in one planned action the user behind it used rollback to revert these reverts and then Smackbot to reverse himself.One Example In general there are too many princessy bot operators who cannot be trusted with their tools. I'm sick and tired of dealing with the problems they cause, though of course bots in general are a net plus. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 16:07, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

The only reason I ask is the absurdity of having an admin indefblocked. If he's such a menace that he can't edit, surely he can't be an admin. Otherwise, if we're just waiting for him to return from RL distractions, then unblock him. Shouldn't have one without the other. Wknight94 ^talk 16:40, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I would guess the block was placed as a form of 'wake up call'. If R.F. were not an admin, his AWB access could simply be revoked (admins have implicit access). –xeno^talk 16:42, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

If you unblock him and he continues on without resolving/discussing, then nothing happens. If he unblocks himself and continues on without resolving/discussing then you have cause to ask arbcom for an emergency desysop. (This is about any blocked admin in general, not a judgement on the specific admin involved).--Cube lurker (talk) 16:47, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

If you unblock him and he continues, then he gets re-blocked. If an editor can't reliably keep himself in an unblocked status, they often get banned. They sure as hell shouldn't be an admin! Wknight94 ^talk 16:53, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

It's not about what should be, it's about what is. There's no desysop process outside of arbcom. If he needs desysoping you there either needs to be a case filed or he would have to cross one of those bright lines that would pass arbcoms emergency desysop test. Such as unblocking himself.--Cube lurker (talk) 16:59, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Well I guess I'm testing the waters for the viability of an ArbCom case. If no one is prepared to take that step, then he should be unblocked. I don't know Farmbrough and I don't care, but you simply can't have an indefblocked admin. Unblock or proceed to step 1 of desysopping. Wknight94 ^talk 17:14, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow your line of reasoning. Indefinite is typically chosen when a time-limited block would not necessarily have the desired effect. In this case, the user is indef blocked pending a certain outcome (a commitment to cease making edits of the disputed nature until consensus and BAG approval is attained for the same - see comments from blocking administrator). The commitment has not yet been made, so the user remains blocked. The fact that they hold administrative rights is entirely peripheral. –xeno^talk 17:23, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

So you're okay with leaving someone blocked forever - assuming they never meet your requirements for unblocking - even though they have a sysop bit? Wknight94 ^talk 17:29, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

You've posited a hypothetical situation that I doubt will come to pass in the present case (I expect Rich will agree to eliminate the disputed changes from his AWB matrix until consensus and BAG approval are obtained for them), but yes - if a user is indefinitely blocked because of their doing X and they refuse to agree to stop doing X, then they will remain blocked indefinitely (+sysop notwithstanding). If this were the case, one would have a case to ask the committee to consider removing the bit, but it's premature at this point. –xeno^talk 17:37, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

If you - the blocking admin - "expect Rich will agree to eliminate the disputed changes from his AWB matrix until consensus and BAG approval are obtained for them", then you need to unblock him. Wknight94 ^talk 17:41, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

X! (talk · contribs) was the blocking admin. –xeno^talk 17:42, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Eck, y'all and your X names.... Still, if the consensus here is that Farmbrough will break out of this odd trance, then he needs to be unblocked. Like now. For all we know, he is waiting to be unblocked before he'll even discuss. I don't see any comments from him about RL distractions. (Or are they offline?) Wknight94 ^talk 17:49, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

If you think the user should be unblocked you could ping X! (talk · contribs) for his thoughts. I agree that it may be ideal to have the user conditionally unblocked (conditional upon them not resuming their AWB tasks until the matter is finalized) so they can participate here directly, rather than by proxy. –xeno^talk 17:53, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

If my reading of the consensus is correct, it would be useful to unblock Rich and allow useful, administrator activity to proceed on the condition that Rich agrees to abide by BAG (that means no automated edits, no AWB, no Smackbot, no Army/*bot). For those worried that unblocking might be premature, perhaps we can agree (and document) that Rich would be blocked again immediately if any automated edits are made. That would allow discussion to continue, and for Rich to apply for suitable bot permission. If WP:BAG is being followed (in spirit and letter) then there is no longer a problem. For the avoidance of doubt, it should be reiterated in the process of unblocking that bot-like activity is not allowed from main accounts and the same for bot accounts that do not have up-to-date approval. The suggestion of <20 edits/hour may be a way to enforce this (although it is a technical solution to a social problem); without automation, the 10 edits per minute speed that I have clocked Rich at previously is unlikely to be attainable.

Above all, demanding punishment is the wrong direction: all that is being requested is simple compliance with Wikipedia policies. —Sladen (talk) 20:01, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

resp to Wknight94 17:29, 29 September 2010 (UTC) post - as far as I am aware, RF is still able to perform sysop functions (such as, but hopefully not, unblocking himself) but as blocked cannot post on any page other than his talkpage to say what he has done. RF can block, move over redirect, protect, and have access to The Chocolate Biscuit Jar, etc, as any other admin. It is his editing privileges only that are blocked. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:29, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

As Deacon knows perfectly well "Rollback" is a blunt instrument, which he was using against policy. Specifically it reverts all consecutive changes by that user. Moreover he simply mass rollbacked a bunch of articles without differentiating by edit summary. Had Deacon used "undo" - even blanket undo it would not have been a problem. As it was he created a situation where potentially very old, very complex, fixes for which the code no longer exists (because they were one-offs - eg importing population figures, or correcting RamBot grammar problems) could have been undone. Since any edit, however trivial, would now prevent the recovery of this information without manual analysis of every single history of however many articles it was, I speedily reverted the hasty patch wherever possible, picked out those articles that could not be fixed for manual analysis, and removed the "ibid" tag, that he found so offensive, cleanly, without damaging the articles in any other way. As I recall I spent a considerable time undoing his mess, whereas if he had simply let me sort it out it would have been minutes. Nice to see that he bears a grudge about it though. Rich Farmbrough, 13:43, 1 October 2010 (UTC).

My view

There seems to be a history of poor botop practices on RF's part here. This is not a new problem. This is a problem that has been going on for years. Bot operators are expacted to respond to concerns about their bots, and instead, he has reverted them as "vandalism". This is not appropriate conduct for a bot operator. What more, one should know that running one on your main account is prohibited, and that is also not a new problem. Even if the problems that led to the block are resolved, I would like to see some sort of action taken as a result of this. If nothing happens, this is just bound to happen again. It should go without saying that all of his fully-automated tasks are operated from his bot account and approved by BAG, for each and every task. If he refuses to comply, I think a reblock may be needed. I am reminded of Lightmouse in this situation: good intent, poor execution. (X! · talk)  · @728  ·  16:27, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

This is indeed not, as I commented above, a new issue. RF should be banned from bot or bot-like edits, period. Same as Betacommand was. → ROUX ₪ 17:54, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Minor technical question

Smackbot was doing what I thought were strange things to DEFAULTSORT for cats eg [55]. ie ÖBB Class 2070 became sorted as {{DEFAULTSORT:Obb Class 2070}} Which was fairly counterintuitive. (yes I know what Wikipedia:Categorization#Sort_keys says but if the bot had made no edits the page titles caused perfect categorisation anyway, whereas incomplete bot activity made a mess.) Whilst I had no real objection to what it was doing in principle the effect was usually to totally mess up alphabeticalisation of categories requiring remedial manual editing work .

Can I assume that no more edits like this will ever be made and I can ignore what the bot was programmed to do - and consquently stop having to make edits that fix problems inherited?Sf5xeplus (talk) 16:52, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

• This was a very good edit. Pagename has special characters and DEFAULTSORT needed to be added. Check also WP:CHECKWIKI that detects pages with special characters with no DEFAULTSORT. Let's stick to the initial subject of this discussion. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:53, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Sorry to digress. A good edit, but not in isolation , see Category:ÖBB - the rest were untouched. Can someone point a still functioning bot at the rest. Thanks.Sf5xeplus (talk) 18:24, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
    • Since we're on this digression: Why do you want all of the articles in that category under the same letter anyway? Surely it's better to sort by the number in that category, so that the 2070 is under "2", the 770 is under "7", and so forth? Uncle G (talk) 18:32, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
      • Ah ok. Yobot can do the rest as part of WP:CHECKWIKI error fixes and then decide how to handle the categorisation in the specific category. DEFAULTSORT is global. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:34, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
      • respond to UncleG - yes probably, I didn't create the articles, and a standard for categorisating these things doesn't seem to exist, but is needed. Otherwise I've left a note at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Check_Wikipedia#Yobot about the issue, for those who wish to discuss or solve this tangential problem.Sf5xeplus (talk) 18:52, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
        • Btw, I finished the task. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:57, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I've already brought this up with RF. I consider it intentional disruption. He make tiny meaningless changes throughout articles that break diffs and then changes them to something else the next day. He basically told me too bad. Changing the names of reflinks is one of his favorites. -Selket ^Talk 04:54, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Bah, editing too late at night. This was in the entirely wrong section and I was talking about a different editor. Please disregard. --Selket ^Talk 16:17, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

• • • • • • Thanks for that, anything like this can be brought up with me an quickly fixed. As for sorting under 2070 for that category probably a very good idea - the only caveat is that with large categories we should avoid sorts that diverge from the leading characters - i.e. fine to sort Henry IV as Henry 04 - because he will be where we would look for him, but not fine to sort him under "Anjou and Castille" - to give a flawed and improbable example. Rich Farmbrough, 13:28, 1 October 2010 (UTC).

Unblocking?

Rich wrote somewhere (I can't be bothered to find right now, I am busy in real life too) that he removed the cite -> Cite from SmackBot's code. Should we move on, unblock, let SmackBot keep doing its main tasks and re-report of there are still complains? -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:06, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

• Check User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough#Is_it_not_possible.... Rich removed the cite -> Cite and the spacing around heading from his fixes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:27, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
  • There's still a problem with other templates, like the stub one. Also, Rich was also blocked for running unauthorised bots on his main account, I'm yet to see any suggestion that this is going to stop, and it's an on-going issues, which he's messed up repeatedly. I think editing the main page like that (arguably making this an unapproved admin-bot) can not be ignored. Personally, I think that an edit limit of ~20 edits/hour, along with a(nother) stern warning that all automated tasks must be approved by BAG, would be a good way to go here. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 10:09, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
• I am opposed to unblocking him yet, per "My View" section above. (X! · talk)  · @491  ·  10:47, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
  • So what would satisfy your concerns? Let's come up with something concrete and actionable. Here's a starter that you can boldly modify: Uncle G (talk) 11:54, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
    • for context, "here" is referring to this section. (X! · talk)  · @553  ·  12:16, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
    • I would only support this is it was made explicitly clear that all automated bot-like tasks be approved by BAG. (X! · talk)  · @553  ·  12:16, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
      • Be bolder with the section! ☺ It's there to be edited. Uncle G (talk) 12:21, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
• I don't think unblocking is the way to go until/unless he agrees to some kind of restriction on automated edits. StrPby (talk) 11:23, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
• I have to agree. This response goes some way to addressing concerns but it does not go far enough. I have suggested an alternative, simpler, set of possible conditions below. I would like to try to minimise any chance of this problem reoccuring before unblocking. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:30, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Rich should be unblocked at least to comment in this discussion. I bet nobody believes that Wikipedia is at danger if we unblock him. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:28, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Conditions that would satisfy X!, Kingpin13, MSGJ, and others

1. No more changing the cases of the initial letters of any templates. No more changing {{for}} to {{For}}, or changing {{silicate-mineral-stub}} to {{Silicate-mineral-stub}}, or changing {{coord missing}} to {{Coord missing}}, or anything else.
2. No automated editing at all from main account. Specifically:
   1. All 'bot-like tasks, like this one, no matter how uncontroversial, to be farmed out to non-administrator accounts like Femto Bot (talk · contribs), and approved via Bots/Requests for approval.
   2. Use of a dedicated non-administrator account, in accordance with AutoWikiBrowser rule of use #2, if editing at speeds like 10 edits per minute with AutoWikiBrowser.
   3. Clear linkages be provided on the bot pages to the appropriate approvals through Bots/Requests for approval.
   4. No altering a bots function outside of the linked approvals without approval of the change.
   5. Scope and function(s) of the bot explicitly stated both in the application for approval and on the bot page.
3. A message to any bot's talk page stops the bot; the task is not restarted until the issue is resolved.
4. No unblocking one's own bots.

Small-ish suggestion re point 2:

Merged with above.

Looking at the preceeding discussion, it should be crystal clear regarding he be fully transparent and accountable in his use of bots.

- J Greb (talk) 15:31, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

• I support the modified conditions now that the BAG approval is added. (X! · talk)  · @914  ·  20:56, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
• I have to say, one of the things which I personally find wanting is Rich's attitude. He seems very reluctant to ever admit that he's actually done anything wrong (even after slapping a maintenance template on the main page..), for example, his first unblock request showed a clear lack of remorse, and his comments on his talk page display that he doesn't really seem to appreciate what he was actually blocked for, let alone be prepared to admit that he shouldn't have done the various things which lead up to the block. However, I do agree with the conditions above. Although I'm not completely convinced they would be enough, they're all basically already in policy, so Rich should be doing most of these already.. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 21:18, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
• I agree with the above and guess that User:Sladen would too, judging from RF's talk page. It's not really a complaint but I think RF's 'man on a mission, the only one who can possibly solve wikipedia's problems' attitude is starting to look a bit silly. I thought the unblocking was so that he could respond here, not so he could carry on with what he was doing before. Is this guy actually listening to anyone? Can someone suggest he post a short note to us mortals here on his own wp:ani section. Please :) Sf5xeplus (talk) 22:33, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Unblocked

Rich Farmbrough has finally agreed[56] to both participate in discussion here, and to cease doing the disruptive and unresponsive editing that got him blocked in the first place. So I've unblocked him. Wknight94 ^talk 20:07, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the unblocking. - it's hard to know where to start with this one. It is more about human nature than anything else - and text communication. So lets start with Wknight94's message above.

"Rich Farmbrough has finally agreed both participate in discussion here... "

OK so this is minor, maybe, and in good faith, but the implication is that I was reluctant to join the discussion. Obviously that is the impression Wknight94 picked up, probably from something said on my talk page by my unblock request. However I was in the middle of typing a comment here when I was blocked.

• 21:01 notification of ANI
• 21:03 - 21:06 started reply
• 21:09 - blocked.

As my comment (later forwarded by Xeno, for which thanks) said "Neither the bot nor I are editing at the moment, nor will we be for some time. "

-so I wasn't exactly reluctant to "cease doing" .. "that [which] got him blocked in the first place".

Further "disruptive and unresponsive editing" is rather jumping to conclusions, based on what others were saying.

More later as I am being pinged on my talk page (about responding here I think). Rich Farmbrough, 07:24, 1 October 2010 (UTC).

OK. I'm going to keep this short: I could write a book, but it would be TLDR - I hope the following is both informative and reassuring.

What happened? SB dates maintenance tags as it's most intensive task. It also does various minor cleanup as it goes - as people have said pretty unexceptional.

One of the features of templates - indeed all wikilinks - is that they are not simply literals but a minor grammar in their own right for example:

____ __ _ __ :____ __ _ __ Template____ __ _ __ :____ __ _ __ Citations____ __ _ __ needed____ __ _ __ is a perfectly good link to {{Citations needed}}. Particularly when SB's regexes were hand crafted for each template (back then merely 1000 , now well over 2000 counting redirects) dealing with this complexity meant canonicalisation of template names was the only way to go. (I thought dating a few templates was going to be trivial when I started.) Therefore standard functionality is to replace the clean up template names with a clean version, following redirects. This also has the benefit that the number of different possible clean up templates left after a run is 569 (!) rather than four or five times that number. It also means that the template is capitalised - an "arbitrary but intelligent" decision I made - yes I know algol coders, C coders, perl hackers just love lower case - and I have been all of those things - but for someone who has never coded it seems to me that the capital says "Here is a new thing starting that is somewhat like a sentence." - and it is not a great leap from {{Citation needed|reason=this seems unlikely|date=July 2009}} to "Citation needed, because this seems unlikely, request added July 2009" (Incidentally anyone looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Citation_needed&hidetrans=1&hidelinks=1 right now will see six articles that appear to redirect to Citation needed - these are almost certainly articles that have had the redirect placed at the top and the article text left in place - normally I would go and fix them, but I am being "chided" for not writing here as a priority.) Having canonicalised the templates - which - only takes (569 + a few) rules, dating them is simple - provided that they haven't already been dated, don't have an invalid date don't have "date" mis-spelled (SB will pick up "fate" but not "jate" - that is left for some poor human drudge to do - as being a very unlikely mispelling SB is pretty conservative to avoid errors, similarly it will pick up "date=Spetember" and correct it to September but "date= Josh is ghey" will simply get over-written with the current month and year) - so another 569 rules for the basic dating and a few hundred to deal with specials like "As of". Anyway some of the minor cleanups SB picked up were related to templates in wide use that either had oodles of redirects or were moved. Again pretty unexceptional. Foolishly on 6th Spetember (or September if you prefer) I added the Cite templates to this list - this was foolish because cites are an area where "angels fear to tread" much like dates and MoS - I have been foolish enough to contribute to MoS too. Having said that it was foolish, it wasn't mind-numbingly stupid, despite what others may think, I had been pleasantly surprised not to receive negative feedback on other changes, and there are a surprising number of redirects to , for example {{Cite web}} - 21 in fact. That's 21 templates - not 21 pages, the number of pages is 12,118 and the number of actual uses will be higher still. Moreover I knew that removing those four templates would be fairly trivial. So what was the response? Were seven different kinda of hell unleashed upon my talk page? Find out in the next thrilling episode. Rich Farmbrough, 01:51, 2 October 2010 (UTC).

I get the impression that you think the only reason you were blocked, or that people are concerned, is this recent problem with SmackBot's capitalisation, which I see this more as being the last straw. I think the underlying problems are: You ignoring bot policy, by running unapproved bots; running bots on your own account; not responding to concerns, which you are also expected to do as an administrator, but instead you blank messages, ignore concerns, claim to be too tired (even claim that you're always too tired), you even seem to play word games. These are the problems which need to be addressed, since they are what lead to problems such as the template capitalisation. It's no good just dealing with the result of these problems, as we know (from prior experience with you in regard to bots) that all that happens is problems arise again. This isn't a one-off mistake. That said... Looking at what you say above, it mostly seems to be explaining how the task works, that's nice, but really the question is can you prevent SmackBot from changing the capitalisation of all templates (not just the cite templates or whatever). You could maybe even use a regex find/replace after the other changes are made to effectively "revert" any capitalisation changes made (but before actually saving to the wiki)? - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 05:36, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

The point of explaining how the task works - which is pretty deadly dull - is to lay the ground work. Understand, for example, that powerful though AWB is, it is an application, not a programmers framework like Pywikipedia. SmackBot's rulebase runs to 750k+ of XML - let me find out how many regexes that is - 5067 rules plus some "advanced" rules. The suggestion you make above might be workable - while I try to keep the rules as simple as possible, there may be an elegant solution, but on the face of it I would have to pull apart the redirect consolidation rules and have a separate one for "Sentence case" and "lower case", and the same would apply to any specific rule - since there are about 2500 redirects and some hundreds of other rules this would mean a massive increase in the rulebase (possibly more than doubling it). I outlined what is easy and what is hard to change, on my talk page, along with the benefits. And I really don't hear a clamour for {{infobox... There are two reasons I find commenting here tiring: one is the fact that every word is hostage to fortune - as shown in your comment. And indeed every edit or lack of an edit: - I don't know whether its funny or sad to have people counting my edits between being unblocked and starting to comment here. The suggestion that it would have been better for the project to leave redlinked categories on a hundreds articles than to keep the ravening hordes of ANI waiting - especially when commenting on the volume of text here, let alone the 50k or so on my talk page was likely, and still is liekly, to take some time, may have some merit, but I can't see it. More later. Rich Farmbrough, 13:02, 2 October 2010 (UTC).

This reads a bit like "Smackbot is too big to be maintainable". If that's the case, break Smackbot up into small pieces running on separate bots that are individually auditable. If the answer is that individual smaller tasks would mean loosing the opportunity to discreetly make whitespace/capitalisation changes otherwise deemed without merit, then that's actually a positive; the minor changes brought your activities to a head—as Kingpin mentions (and I'll reiterate for the explicit avoidance of doubt) there is a wider general problem; which is one of interaction (acting on feedback, not disputing/arguing it; and participating in discussion to a closure). —Sladen (talk) 14:58, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Str1977 & Parrot of Doom

Str1977 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Parrot of Doom (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

To put it nicely, these two simply aren't getting along. I've been watching their fighting over the past couple of days, and it's becoming more and more of a problem, especially to editors who simply want to discuss changes to certain articles, not get involved in personal fights. The two main articles in question are two Pink Floyd albums, "Animals" and "The Division Bell" (though it is not limited to just those pages). These two don't seem to agree on anything, and the Str1977 recently started this discussion, a long rant which seems to be a cross between a discussion a personal attack. However, despite starting discussions on both pages, he has not stopped edit-warring. I personally see this as redundant. He opens civil discussions intended to avoid conflicts, and then continues to engage in those very conflicts. Parrot of Doom has responded aggressively, calling the accusations "bullshit" and the response "hilarious" His edit summaries have echoed this kind of sentiment, such as "better written my arse" and "just fucking pack it in will you?". Parrot of Doom's editing of certain articles has always often bordered on acting as if he owned them, and I'm not denying that I've had disagreements with him in the past, but his history as an editor clearly shows that he's made a vast amount of improvements to this encyclopedia as a whole. So I'm at a loss. I don't want to take sides here, so I hope this notice doesn't sound like a biased attack towards one editor or another. Getting myself sucked into the polarized fights on talk pages (or anywhere) doesn't sound helpful at this point. I'd really like this fighting to stop and I don't feel it's within my power to make that happen, so hopefully an administrator can resolve this issue. Thank you for your time. Friginator (talk) 22:26, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Friginator, for making a start.

I do agree with him that Parrot made a lot of valid and valuable contributions to many articles (and that only after having a quick look). But his achievements seem to have left him with the impression of ownership.

I have made several edits, mostly to "Animals" (the others are just formatting issues, though IMHO they do have repercussions on NPOV) but Parrot reverts basically everything I did, even minutae. I admit that I could have discussed matters at talk from the start but thus far this road has not yielded any positive results either. What I get is insult after insult (those were not responses to any attacks by me but what he did from the very start), no reply to some points while he at first seemed willing to at least have a look at some (but only some). He never did this thus far and for a while even refused this on a talk page formatting issue. But he still did so after I yielded to his demand. He usually blanket reverts everything. Even if he had agreed to something on a talk page (as he did to my compromise suggestion to spell out "United Kingdom" for its first appearance), he then simply reverted it, even making an extra edit for it.

I'd like this fightiging to stop too but how am I to react to things like "just fucking pack it in will you?" Yielding to such bullying is not helping Wikipedia.

I have desisted from describing the actual content disputes, as these are usually not welcomed at ANI.

Thanks for your patience. Str1977 ^(talk) 23:03, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

PS. One more thing: while my tone was indeed polemical and, given Parrot's treatment of me, increasingly angry, I did not make any "accusations". That term was introduced by Parrot. My talk page posting almost entirely consisted of the actual content points. My impression of OWNership and the word "obstruction" in the header were the only two exceptions. Str1977 ^(talk) 23:07, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

In what way is "just fucking pack it in will you?" bullying? You may (and others probably will) claim that it's uncivil, but bullying it is not. You and your friend have brought a content dispute here to ANI under the guise of something else. Malleus Fatuorum 23:11, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

• I'd just like to point out that none of this is in the "guise" of anything else. I'm not sure what you're implying. I know next to nothing about Str1977's previous history as an editor, and "friend" is not really a term I would use to describe him. Friginator (talk) 00:15, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

If he tells me what he did (the incivility of which is a matter of fact, not "claiming") and I yield, then it will be a bully getting his way.

The issue raised here by Friginator (with whom I have no previous acquaintance - hence he is not "my friend") are not about content but about behaviour. But what's it to you, Malleus?

Parrot by now has responded, on his talk page, apparently not bothering. Str1977 ^(talk) 23:16, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Very wise of him. Rather little of any real value happens here. Malleus Fatuorum 23:21, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Let's keep it constructive, please. It looks like a content dispute turned nasty. Having had a quick look at Animals I can see merit in the edits of both parties. Great example of how quickly things can get out of hand when folks forget the pillar of civility. --John (talk) 23:49, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

... and come here crying to teacher. Malleus Fatuorum 00:07, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Malleus - I appreciate your ongoing advocacy of your personal beliefs regarding civility and Wikipedia, but I would like to remind you (again) that you do not represent the consensus admin or community opinions, who agree that WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL are important and need to be enforced. There is a difference between advocating for changes to those policies and/or enforcement and telling people in civility disputes that there is no issue, when community consensus would indicate there probably is.

Parrot and Str1977 - You both seem on first investigation to be constructive editors, outside of this dispute. Would admins issuing an involvement restriction on you two, just keeping you from responding to or talking to each other for a while, help things?

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:21, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Let me remind you of something George. Your beloved civility policy is applied inconsistently and corruptly, and so the faux consensus you cling to to justify your mission is of no interest to me. Malleus Fatuorum 00:30, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

PS. "Would admins issuing an involvement restriction on you two, just keeping you from responding to or talking to each other for a while, help things" is simply insulting, treating grown adults like children. Now that's what I call incivility. Malleus Fatuorum 00:35, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

George,

on the contrary. Only dealing constructively with suggestions of the other can fix the problem. "Not talking to each other" is not a solution but actually - despite all the shouting - the problem. So, such a restriction is out of the question. That much is true in Malleus' cricitism (another part is true as well, but not as he intends it to be) but I can't help but wonder what business he has here. He's neither party to the conflict (is he?) nor an admin. Str1977 ^(talk) 00:44, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

There is no restriction on random Wikipedians participating here. Community participation is encouraged; in this case, Malleus represents a tiny community fringe viewpoint that the whole idea of civility on Wikipedia is flawed and/or wrong and should be abandoned as a policy. But he's part of the community. We should not forget that he's there with that opinion (not likely 8-), nor allow that viewpoint to interfere with enforcing the working consensus policy.

Regarding an appropriate solution, in many cases we've seen that editors were able to just avoid each other and thus not antagonize each other. However, if you believe that the two of you can or need to cooperate on the articles, obviously that approach won't work.

I would like to see Parrot of Doom comment here. What, from his perspective, is causing the situation to go in the direction it's gone so far?

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:54, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Avoiding each other would come naturally, given the experience, if the underlying problem was only solved. I know ANI is not for content disputes but the way Parrot simply blocks content edits he doesn't like has to stop.

And sorry, I cannot agree with what you said about Malleus at all. He is entitled to his opinion but should not disrupt any attempt to find a solution. Str1977 ^(talk) 01:10, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Don't make me laugh. Nobody comes here looking for solutions, they come looking for sanctions. Malleus Fatuorum 01:14, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I think that the only appropriate response is that you aren't a named party to the solution here, Malleus, and that you should take the meta-thread off to the ANI talk page and/or policy pages elsewhere. Poking at Str1977 isn't helping in any way. You had your say on the policy; you're now crossing the line into baiting them. Enough. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 01:22, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Keep your threats for someone who takes them seriously George, you know what I think of them. I understand that you don't like to hear the truth, but that's your problem, not mine. Malleus Fatuorum 01:32, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I asked Str1977 to stay out of PoD's way; the latter is a good editor but has an unfortunate turn of phrase sometimes. With any luck, whether or not PoD responds here we can be pretty sure he has read it. I'd be inclined to archive this as long as nothing comes up again in the next while. There's a content issue here which needs attention in article talk, a possible user conduct issue which can be avoided by these two avoiding each other until they can be civil; what more needs to be said (or done by an admin), unless either of them is silly enough to keep making the content issue (which doesn't seem that huge to me) a personal one? --John (talk) 05:42, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

John, and as I told you, your suggestion is of no use as it boils down to Parrot simply having his way. As long as Parrot blocks content edits and ignores the behaviour issue, there is no solution. Ignoring the problem, as you suggest, will not make it go away. Str1977 ^(talk) 08:53, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

As I said, there's a content issue which you could resolve if you handled it better; personalizing a dispute like this (as you did at the talk page) seldom leads to a productive resolution. If there's a long-term problem with PoD's behavior (and I am not saying there isn't), you need to file a RfC/U. Short term, avoid the problem by avoiding each other. While not perfect, this is as good as we will get I think. If either of you continues with this disruption, I'm sure someone will be along to block either or both of you as required. I really hope that isn't necessary. In terms of this noticeboard, I think we have done all we can do. --John (talk) 18:31, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

In other words: nothing. Str1977 ^(talk) 20:48, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Before the interpersonal conflict went sideways, there was some productive talk page discussion regarding the content issues. That is not yet resolved. I don't know that either of you is obviously right or wrong on the content issue in question, and I think that discussion needs to happen before the right solution evolves.

Just because there was some abusive language does not automatically mean you win the content dispute. The merits still have to be discussed on that. If the abusive language is over, the content discussion has to resume. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:50, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

George,

despite the rocky start I was and am open to discuss on the talk page. Parrot has responded once (to some points) but then repeteadly refused to deal with me, even after I yielded to his demand to restore his "reply between the lines" format. The abusive language has been entirely his (unless pointing to WP policies is now considered "abusive").

I am still open to discuss but, according to John's neatly thought-out "solution", I am supposed to stay away from him, which basically confirms the ownership problem and leaves the content problems intact. It is the latter I am most concerned about. Str1977 ^(talk) 08:51, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

If that's true then you're in the wrong place. The place to discuss content disputes is the content noticeboard. This is the place where you demand that sanctions be placed on your enemies. Malleus Fatuorum 00:50, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Are you unable to read or simply unwilling, Malleus?

"As long as Parrot ... ignores the behaviour issue, there is no solution."

I came here for help regarding the behaviour so that discussion on content (which Parrot blocks) could move forward. It is the content why we are all here on Wikipedia, isn't it?

But I guess, you have been right about this place here: nothing really ever comes out of it as people are just uninterested. Wonder why they became admins in the first place. Str1977 ^(talk) 08:41, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

As a community of mature people writing an encyclopedia, we don't deal in slapped wrists as such. I believe the content issue is being discussed more appropriately at article talk, nobody was hurt, and normal service on improving the article can be resumed. I call that a result. --John (talk) 06:50, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Sure the content issues are best discussed at the article talk page! Who said otherwise? But even now, they are not discussed: and not just with me - another editor also made an addition and was swiftly reverted, his point on talk brushed aside.

Nobody was hurt? You must be joking! Not only was I hurt but as long as there is no proper discussion and no correction of the false information, the project is hurt. Str1977 ^(talk) 08:01, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

RexxS behaviour

Please see [57] (revert without discussion, with denial there is any issue). This involves an issue I raised some two weeks ago about sortable tables not sorting correctly. At that time, even after repeatedly stated there was a problem with the tables [58], RexxS (talk · contribs) responded with a blatant denial [59] and a condescending insult [60] for which I reminded him of WP:CIVIL [61]. I have invited RexxS multiple times to refactor. Now, given [62] (denial of issue and uncivil demands) and [63] (more condescending insult), I submit RexxS behaviour merits at least a 24-hour block. Gimmetoo (talk) 17:21, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

See the article talk page & Gimmetoo's talk page (and here) for the efforts which RexxS and Rossrs have each made to resolve this issue. David Biddulph (talk) 18:03, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

• No prior warning (which I JUST gave), and as a neutral party I'd like to see the question raised by RexxS at the article talk answered, because without showing us that proof I can only assume that you are removing the sort altogether without a good reason. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 18:06, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Does not appear like block-able behavior to me. A warning will be sufficient. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:22, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Penwhale, RexxS was directly warned for civility twice ([64] and [65]). RexxS was also invited to refactor a couple times, which he declined. Gimmetoo (talk) 04:47, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

This seems like a very unfair complaint to me. Both RexxS and I have been asking for clarification for over 2 weeks and Gimmetoo has made vague and/or cryptic comments, has answered a question with another question, and 2 weeks ago withdrew from discussion. He's made statements and has been upset that they haven't been taken without question but has not offered clarification or explanation when requested. There are parts of WP:CIVIL that apply to him too. "(a) Taunting or baiting: deliberately pushing others to the point of breaching civility even if not seeming to commit such a breach themselves;" and "Editors are expected to be reasonably cooperative". This was a very small issue that could have been dealt with and finished 2 weeks ago, if Gimmetoo had been "reasonably cooperative". It should not have taken over 2 weeks of discussion in 3 different locations to arrive at the point we're currently at, which is still not clearly answered. Rossrs (talk) 20:53, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I went to the first item the OP complained about, and the sort features appear to be working - and I have an antique version of IE. So I wonder what the OP's issue is with those tables. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:59, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Apparently it has something to do with the dashes between years. But I went to Rex's last edit, and it works the way I would expect it to. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:03, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I too cannot see the problem. I've re-added the table. I couldn't find a clear statement of the problem. I've requested an explanation on the talk page. Possibly a misunderstanding? Let's see.Sf5xeplus (talk) 21:25, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

You do indeed need to read the discussions at the three talk pages to understand the issue. Penwhale, I accept your admonishment for my uncivil tone; in mitigation, I can only say that I am an experienced editor in good standing with featured content, and it was the result of complete exasperation at Gimmetoo's behaviour, which I believe warrants examination. Although I am annoyed that he chose to ask for administrator intervention here, I am pleased that other uninvolved eyes are now able to review the situation.

The initial behaviour from 15 September is documented at Jack Merridew's talk page. The issue involves the sorting functionality of two tables at Yvonne Strahovski. Jack was on holiday, and as a regular talk page watcher, I attempted to work out what the problem was with the sorting. As you can see from the edit summaries, following Rossrs's change of hyphens in date ranges to en dashes per WP:DASH, Gimmetoo decided to remove the sortability because he thought it was incompatible with the en dashes we use in date ranges. The fact is that sorting misbehaves whether hyphens or dashes are used. Here is the article using hyphens, dif-hyphen; and a version using dashes, dif-dash. As anyone can verify, clicking the sort icon twice (a descending sort) on the 'Year' column of the 'Television' table incorrectly puts the '2007' row before the '2007–present' row in both cases. The fix for that is to use a sort key – which I did, producing a table that now sorts correctly. See this version, which sorts exactly as it should. I explained all that to Gimmetoo, pointing out that's it's better to fix the problem than to remove the functionality. So far, perfectly civil, apart from what I perceived to be a rather curt attitude on the part of Gimmetoo. I accept that others may or may not see that the same as I.

From there it goes downhill. Rossrs asked Gimmetoo on Gimmetoo's talk page what he meant by his edit summary "Undo sortable then". Gimmetoo claimed "the type of dashes you put in a couple edits earlier were in some way incompatible with the "sortable" option. The dashes you added were in the year ranges; year ranges with hyphens do not have that particular incompatibility". As I have demonstrated above, this is simply not true, and I objected to Gimmetoo attempting to blame Rossrs for Gimmetoo's own lack of understanding. Gimmetoo then begins a sequence of cryptically asking if "this is resolved?". Although both Rossrs and I have asked him on each occasion to let us know what other issues he found, he has ignored the question until today.

Yesterday Gimmetoo once more removed the sortability from both tables (although only one has date ranges) with the edit summary "(two weeks, no response, still not fixed)". I know that the problem is fixed (as anyone who checks the version prior to his edit can verify. So I reverted his edit with the edit summary "(it's fixed - clearly state your problems on the talk page)". Instead of discussing his perceived problem on the talk page, Gimmetoo immediately re-reverted to impose his version without sorting. As I voluntarily observe a 1RR (for these very situations), I opened a section on the article talk page where I asked other editors to decide whether the tables should be sortable. I also posted on Gimmetoo's talk page expressing my dissatisfaction with his behaviour, and requesting he ceased the edit-war and actually got down to discussing what he thought the problem was on the article talk page. As you can see, Gimmetoo returned to his style of enigmatically hinting that a further problem existed without having the grace to explain what it was.

Today Gimmetoo dropped this little gem: "You are mistaken, and it appears you intend to stay mistaken. I said the sortability was incompatible with dashes. You've seen that diff, since you mention it above. If you wish to continue to ignore what I tell you, then you are currently not teachable. As I said above, your statement ("You may have found a problem with changing hyphens to dashes in date ranges that nobody else on the wiki is aware of; in which case, please enlighten us") reads as condescending sarcasm." which as well as containing a personal attack, completely ignores the facts – dashes or hyphens make no difference; the table has been fixed by the sort key. He still had not indicated the nature of what other possible issue may be present.

At last, Gimmetoo has claimed that the issue which he had kept us in the dark about for two weeks was "It does not sort correctly in some versions of some browsers." That, I'm afraid, is absolute balderdash. It is well-known that some very old versions of Safari will only sort on the first column of a table, but that applies to all sortable tables, irrespective of hyphens, dashes, or any other considerations. Apart from that, there is no other browser where the table does not sort correctly - and even on old Safari, it sorts correctly on the 'Year' column of the 'Television' table!

I am sorry that I expressed my consternation at this behaviour uncivilly, but I think most editors would recognise that you would need the patience of a saint not to become exasperated by Gimmetoo's behaviour.

I would therefore like to see other editors examine whether Gimmmetoo has been guilty of uncollaborative editing, misrepresentation of issues, using re-reversion to impose his view while failing to discuss his objections in any meaningful manner, and a blatant personal attack. I do not wish to see Gimmetoo sanctioned, but I do believe a stern warning to amend his behaviour in the way he interacts with other editors is deserved. He also needs to restore the sorting functionality to the tables that he has removed for no good reason. An apology would be nice, but I don't expect to get it. --RexxS (talk) 21:29, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

You're supposed to tell the other editor when you post about them on this page. I have done that for you. I'm beginning to wonder if this is one massive communication problem rather than an actual editor issue?Sf5xeplus (talk) 21:54, 29 September 2010 (UTC) wrong person Sf5xeplus (talk) 21:57, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I wanted to offer my 2 pennies because as Rexxs will tell you we've argued and compromised lots and have been locked in discussions for several days in the past. He is a fair user and all his edits are done in good faith. I accept that he could have played the situation better and used a more curtious selection of words but at the end of the day he is working to improve accessibility on wiki. -- Lil_℧niquℇ №1 | talk2me 21:31, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Reply

First, note that I first recognized a problem with the sorting, and fixed it in a way that kept the sortable functionality. I didn't think that was going to be an issue. When that was undone, I highlighted that hypthens and dashes made a difference, was reverted by a third editor with the edit summary "sortable works fine". So I opened up a thread on that editor's talk page to discuss the issue. My position at this point is that I have provided one workaround that fixes the issue, and if that's not acceptable to this editor, then we probably shouldn't have sortable enabled here until an acceptable fix is found.

• At that point, RexxS' became involved with this unsolicited response on that user talk page. Look at that edit. It includes a flat denial of my description that hyphens and dashes make a difference, and the assertion that "[I] can assure you that the table now sorts as expected." It also includes a "recommendation" to ask technical issues on Merridew's talk page - as a response to a thread I started, on Merridew's talk page, to discuss this issue. Rather kafkaesque.
• RexxS continually repeated that dashes and hyphens don't matter. For instance [66]: "Your statement above "year ranges with hyphens do not have that particular incompatibility" is patently untrue." This immediately follows my statement [67]: "Above, I clearly said that "year ranges with hyphens do not have that particular incompatibility". RexxS has not fixed the problem that refers to." Given that RexxS was unwilling to even consider the possibility that my explanation was correct, what more was there to do.
• RexxS replies continued to be obstructionist, until [68], in which he claims I might be too embarrassed to admit my mistake. It was this statement, which drips of condescension, for which I first noted WP:CIVIL.
• RexxS response above illustrates the same issues I am highlighting as a behavioural problem - the denial of a technical problem and the resulting obstructionism. Just to pick a few quotes from above: "The fact is that sorting misbehaves whether hyphens or dashes are used." "completely ignores the facts – dashes or hyphens make no difference; the table has been fixed by the sort key." I have stated repeatedly that dashes and hyphens do make a difference, and the table has not been fixed. And his direct response to my statements is: "As I have demonstrated above, this is simply not true." I do realize RexxS does not believe there is any problem, so of course he thinks that any changes I make cannot fix [what he thinks is] a non-existent problem. I am nevertheless extremely troubled that despite my frequent statement, RexxS continues to deny there is any issue, and continues to mispresent the issues.
• The problem is still not fixed. It exists in Safari 4.
• In summary, I long ago identified a way to resolve the issue for Safari 4 that was compatible with the sortability feature. I'm not tied to that particular solution, but if sortability is to be retained, then I do think some sort of fix is appropriate. If anyone genuinely wants additional details, please let me know. Gimmetoo (talk) 04:47, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

You're the only one that seems to be having a problem with the table, including the version you claimed didn't work at all. You've got to consider the possibility that the problem is at your end. To put it another way, if it works in every browzer but this Safari 4 thing, maybe the problem is within Safari 4. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:46, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that you made what you described as a "frequent statement" and expected other editors to blindly accept your statement. When you were asked to explain and clarify your point, you made comments saying that maybe the problem wasn't what RexxS thought it was. How was that helpful? I asked you to clarify and you didn't. Your comments looked very much like you had a secret and you didn't want to share it or even give a clue. You asked me if I thought the matter was resolved. I had no idea what you were talking about because you didn't say what you were talking about. You asked RexxS if there was anything he wanted to change in his comments, instead of pointing out what you disagreed with. You didn't make a single clear comment. If you had said two weeks ago, "it does not sort in Safari 4", this would not have escalated. It festered and got ugly because you failed to communicate clearly even though both of us kept asking you to make your point. Today is the first mention of Safari 4. How hard would it have been to reveal this two weeks ago, rather than keeping it up your sleeve like an ace you're waiting to play at the right moment. It's interesting that you call RexxS on civility. I have to admit that you are civil to a fault, but there is a lot lacking in the way you interract with other editors, and I think that instead of RexxS being given a warning, it should have been you for letting this matter escalate when you could have defused it any time. It sorts perfectly in Safari 5, by the way. Rossrs (talk) 06:50, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

If it works in everything except Safari 4, then the problem is not with the table, it's with Safari 4. The complainant should upgrade to 5, and then he should be fine, right? In any case, we can't cease using a function just because a buggy browzer has a problem with it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Upgrade. Exactly. But why did we have to go through all this drama just to hear the name of the buggy browser? Rossrs (talk) 07:23, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

That's the 64K question which the complainant needs to step up to the plate and answer. (Is that enough cliches for one sentence?) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:32, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Interesting. I am still met with denials and obstructionism. If I had not been met constantly by denials and failure to AGF, perhaps we wouldn't be here. And "upgrade"? This is an issue for readers - are we going to have a site-notice "best viewed in Firefox"? Safari 5 was released in June 2010 so Safari 4 is relatively recent. Anyone want to look up its browser share? In other discussions we typically support browsers/readers going back at least 5 years. I identified a fix that was compatible with sortable tables in Safari 4 - and yet, for some reason, nobody wants to use that or develop any other fix. Rossrs and Baseball bugs would seem to want WP to knowingly and consciously provide a broken table for some fraction of our readers when a non-broken version is available. Finally, for the editors who have stated it's just my problem - have any of you actually observed how the "sortable" function behaves on this table in Safari 4? I have personally verified this issue on 3 (three) different setups from three different associates. Gimmetoo (talk) 12:59, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, it works under Safari 5 under Windows Vista. Beyond My Ken (talk) 14:08, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Looks like you've isolated the problem to Safari 4. It doesn't make sense to not use a function just because there's a buggy browzer out there. But if you have a workaround that will work in Safari 4 and not cause the other browzers to have a problem, then what you should do is set up a copy of that table on your talk page, install your fix, and notify us when you've got it set up, so that we can test it with other browzers. If everything's peachy, then it could be implemented in the article. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:12, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

No, you were not met with a failure to AGF. You were met by two editors who had the nerve to challenge you on your edits and ask you to support them. Any editor has the right to do that and any editor, when challenged, has an obligation to the project to AGF and respond in a clear and constructive manner. You failed to do this, even while the discussion remained courteous, and the tone of your comments made it clear that it was because the editor you really wanted to respond to you, did not. You brought us here. We are here because you refused to reveal what your problem was despite being asked, and you have still not explained why you didn't just speak directly at the beginning when I asked you on your talk page. When I first asked you about it, I was thinking that if I had made a mistake, I would like to know what I did wrong so that I didn't repeat the mistake elsewhere. What could be more 'good faith' than that? All you needed to say was something like "the sortability doesn't work for all browsers, so for some users this could be a problem". You said that it was incompatible, but didn't say that you were referring to a particular browser, so I assumed you meant that it was incompatible entirely. I couldn't see that. It looked right to me, and although you could have easily clarified this, you did not. Where was your 'good faith'? Instead you posed questions that were completely unclear, blamed me for a problem I couldn't even see, and alluded to problems that I could only guess at, and all the good faith I started with was slowly drained to the point where, I'll admit, it's completely gone with you. And you feel that other editors are being obstructive? The sortability issue and your behaviour are two separate issues, and your behaviour still needs an explanation. You started this ANI to discuss editorial behaviour, not to resolve the sorting issue. You started this in an attempt to silence an opponent, and it was only after that failed, that you answered the question you had avoided from the start. Now the focus has shifted to the sortability issue and away from what I perceive to be the consistently poor behaviour on your part. Discussion of sortability doesn't belong here. It's a distraction, and is a technical issue that should be discussed elsewhere. Except we tried that already and you didn't want to participate. Now you do. That's interesting. One simple question for you and in the name of AGF which you have just invoked, an answer would be really nice - why did you not just spell it out two weeks ago for those of us clearly too stupid to guess what you were hinting at? Rossrs (talk) 15:06, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I was met immediately and consistently with point-black denials that there was any problem, and condescending, insulting remarks. After repeated attempts to get some acknowledgment of even the possibility that RexxS might possibly, just maybe, not have the full story, and getting nowhere, there really wasn't much else to do that let it rest a while and give RexxS and you an opportunity to save face. Gimmetoo (talk) 15:13, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

What "condescending, insulting remarks" did I "immediately and consistently" make to you? It's not only RexxS that you wouldn't give the time of day. No, that doesn't wash. If RexxS didn't have the full story, you could have just given it to him right at the start. You said something like "is there anything in your comment you want to change?" to RexxS a couple of times but how was he to know exactly which of his words you wanted him to change without explaining? You kept saying there was a problem and we kept asking you to explain what it was. I don't need to save face, and thank you for the thought, but you need never do that for me. What you actually said was that you would wait to hear from User:Jack Merridew. I think RexxS and I were just background noise and you didn't explain yourself to us because we weren't the editors you wished to discuss it with. Perhaps there was a danger that we might have resolved it, and then you'd have had nothing to take up with Jack. Rossrs (talk) 15:42, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Re: "Condescending, insulting remarks": I have never known Rossrs to behabe in that manner. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:13, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

It's becoming increasingly evident that it's the OP who's the disruptor here. Note in this diff[69] and lines above it, how he continues to make personal attacks and also persists in the notion that he should be allowed to do his testing within the article rather than on a test page; that if it works for him, that's all the matters. It's fairly evident that he's never worked in an I.T. shop, because that's not how things are done. You post a test version, make sure it works for you, and have everyone else test it. Then you can put it into production. The old saw, "If it works it's production, otherwise it's a test", is not appropriate in a high-visibility situation. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:46, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

BB, have you tested any versions of the article in the browser noted? Gimmetoo (talk) 16:23, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

How would I? And why would I? I have IE, which is the standard where I come from. Safari is apparently a Mac product. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:40, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't want to labour the point, but Gimmetto's "fix" doesn't work in any browser. The Safari 4 bug is documented here "With older versions of Safari a table can only be sorted by the first column: all sort buttons have the effect that only the leftmost one is supposed to have." Sorting still gives unexpected results on mixtures of numbers and words because of the javascript algorithm used, not the browser.

I've made copies of the tables from three different versions of the article at User:RexxS/Sorting. Anyone can try them out and see if Gimmetoo's fix (table 1) actually works. You can also see that hyphens or dashes (table 2) make no difference. And you can see that my fix (table 3) did work. That's for any browser using javascript and any operating system. That's the background. Gimmetoo was mistaken that his fix worked, and can't accept that my fix worked. What followed resulted from my attempts to explain this to him, with an increasing sense of frustration at his unwillingness to communicate just what he thought the problem was. Everything else is obfuscation. He still hasn't named the browser that he was using when he made his "fix", and it took two weeks for him to offer the "browser explanation". Gimmetoo, tell us what browser you were using and whether your fix actually worked.

I'll ask then, is Gimmetoo's behaviour in edit-warring to remove sortability from two tables (one of which had no issues) acceptable? Is his attitude toward two other editors who were only seeking to improve the article acceptable? Is his "If you wish to continue to ignore what I tell you, then you are currently not teachable" [70] an acceptable comment to make to a fellow editor? --RexxS (talk) 16:26, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

RexxS still denies there is a problem. If RexxS is wrong, will RexxS be blocked for obstruction and disruption? Would RexxS agree to accept a block? Gimmetoo (talk) 16:31, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Are you really trying to fix this problem? Would it kill you to set up a version on your talk page, OR RIGHT HERE, and see if it works for everyone? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:38, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I am. The problem I started this thread to address is RexxS' behaviour. I don't want to see it repeated. Gimmetoo (talk) 14:42, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

And you would be well advised to curb your own behavior, to stop hurling insults about denial and kafka and so on. You may think the world revolves around the Mac, but it doesn't. The key question: Does the table work for you now? If so, can this issue be marked "resolved"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:01, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

On the contrary, Gimmetoo has not been trying to fix the problem. None of his edits to the tables in Yvonne Strahovski have been constructive (reverting dashes to hyphens in date ranges contrary to MOS:ENDASH, repeatedly removing sortability from the tables). He did not explain what he thought the problem was, despite requests. He did not start a thread on the article talk page to discuss the problems he perceived; I had to do that. At no point has he shown any interest in improving the article, but has preferred to play games with editors who were trying to improve those tables. I fixed the article for almost all readers two weeks ago, and following suggestions from Ucucha, I extended the fix to cover Safari 4 yesterday. The community can rest assured that if I'm not provoked by obfuscation, baiting, and insults, you won't see incivility from me. On the other hand, unless Gimmetoo's behaviour is corrected, it won't be too long before he's back here yet again, with another frivolous accusation against good-faith editors, in a incident that he's manufactured. Wikipedia is a collaborative project to build an encyclopedia, not an RPG where you try to trap and damage your perceived opponents. --RexxS (talk) 16:50, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

On the plus side, he's now issued me a civility warning, so at least we know he's got a sense of humor. :) Life is tough when you're stuck with an outdated browser. Oh, wait... :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:34, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm uninvolved. But reading through this, Gimmetoo (the OP) is the problem here. He's basically playing games because he can't his way (apparently he can't be arsed to update or patch his own buggy browser). There's nothing else meaningful to say here.Bali ultimate (talk) 16:35, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Bali is not uninvolved, and I can provide details to anyone who wishes. In any event, the "fix" for any particular individual may be an upgrade, but this is an issue for readers. (And on what grounds do you claim it is my "own buggy browser" - what makes you think I routinely use Safari 4?). Gimmetoo (talk) 16:39, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Whatever point you had seems to have gotten lost in this convoluted mess. The solution for the readers is simple; if something doesn't display right here, and the cause is a known bug in an outdated browser, then it is time to upgrade. Simple? Yes. I'd suggest you move on before this becomes a WP:BOOMERANG situation. Tarc (talk) 16:42, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I just tested User:RexxS/Sorting in Safari 4.0.4, and found that the first table (Gimmetoo's version) doesn't sort properly in descending order (it gives 2007, 2007-Present, 2005-2006, 2004). However, version 3, supposedly fixed, doesn't work either: it sorts in the order 2007–Present, 2004, 2005–2006, 2007. Ucucha 16:52, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Finally, some progress. Could you please check version 4, along with the note explaining why the ordering of "2007" and "2007-present" was not the issue. And to repeat for those saying "upgrade" - this is an issue for readers. There is a non-trivial fraction of readers using Safari 4 who will see this issue. Shouldn't we do something to resolve the issue, if it can be resolved? Or is it WP policy that browsers more than 3 months old do not need to be supported here? Gimmetoo (talk) 16:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

No, I do not think that we should. 3 days or 3 months, outdated is outdated. Tarc (talk) 17:01, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

My old home PC uses a version of IE 6 that was probably installed 5 years ago. Yet the table works just fine on it. Another reason not to buy a Mac. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:13, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. Most people don't keep up with whatever browser updates appear, and we should strive to be accessible to everyone within reasonable bounds.

Gimmetoo, I am using version 4, as I said. Ucucha 17:04, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Ucucha. I see I was unclear. I meant could you check the 4th version of the table at [User:RexxS/Sorting]] using Safari 4.0.4. Gimmetoo (talk) 17:07, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

That one works perfectly. Ucucha 17:13, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. But please note again that the ordering of "2007" and "2007-present" is NOT the issue here. I think an argument could be made, based on the order of appearance dates in this case, that "2007-present" might come before "2007". I was quite happy with leaving that ordering random due to the ambiguity. Gimmetoo (talk) 17:17, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Can someone please check that on the actual page, which is not the same as version 3. All the same there's a basic issue here - it's a technical problem - hopefully to be fixed one day. Are we to delete all sortable tables using hidden sort keys because Safari v.4.04 doesn't work with them. (rhetorical question).

It might be more productive to take this problem to either Wikipedia:Bug reports and feature requests or Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). Sf5xeplus (talk) 17:07, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

You seem to have misunderstood the issue. There is a problem. It can be fixed. Should we have broken tables when they can be fixed? Gimmetoo (talk) 17:17, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

ok what is the fix - I'm assuming it's not to remove sortability?Sf5xeplus (talk) 17:20, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I just tested User:RexxS/Sorting. Items 1 and 2 don't work. Items 3 and 4 do work. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:21, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

BB, again, please ignore the ordering of "2007" and "2007-present", because that was not the issue. RexxS (or someone else, I can't recall now) chose to force an ordering of those two. That's a content issue, not a technical issue. (The only technical issue about that is in how to implement the content decision of a particular forced ordering.) Gimmetoo (talk) 17:24, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Looking again at User:RexxS/Sorting, my clunky old IE 6 browzer can sort ascending and descending on all columns, and it all comes out right except for issues with the "2007 to present" in the first column of the first two items. And (chrono)logically, "2007 to present" comes later than just plain "2007". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

This is getting off-topic, but the problem with sorting a table when using Safari 4 or earlier is that Wikipedia pages are XHTML documents. This produces unexpected results in Safari when javascript sets the innerHTML property of an element [ http://www.quirksmode.org/bugreports/archives/2004/11/innerhtml_in_xh.html]. Our script for sorting tables [71] unfortunately makes use of that technique. This is an incompatibility between older versions Safari and Wikipedia, and can manifest itself on any sortable table. It's a known problem, but not the issue here. If Gimmetoo had mentioned Safari initially, I could have explained that it's a site-wide issue. He chose not to do that, but to continually hint that "it was not resolved". If Gimmetoo wants us to abandon all sortable tables, because they may not work on Safari 4, he needs to take his campaign elsewhere. Nevertheless, how can he justify repeatedly removing the sortability from two tables on that basis? I've done what I could to improve that article, at least for 99% of editors, while Gimmetoo has only battled to remove that functionality from those 99%. --RexxS (talk) 18:11, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

If he resumes edit-warring over this issue, he will be stopped cold. If there's a bug in this Safari thing, then he needs to upgrade. If he doesn't want to upgrade (or better yet, dump the Mac and get a real PC), then he assumes the responsibility for the problem at his end. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:31, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

What you just said has been addressed multiple times. Gimmetoo (talk) 02:20, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Filmography

Here's the current version. Now I'll save and see if it works. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:34, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Films

Year	Film	Role	Notes
2007	Gone	Sondra	as Yvonne Strzechowski
2007	Persons Of Interest	Lara	as Yvonne Strzechowski
2008	The Plex	Sarah
2008	The Canyon	Lori	Release date: October 23, 2009
2009	I Love You Too	Alice	Theatrical Release: May 6, 2010 (Australia) DVD Release: October 6, 2010 (Australia)
2009	Shadows from the Sky	Jill	pre production
2010	Matching Jack	Veronica	Theatrical Release: August 19, 2010 (Australia) Previously "Love and Mortar"
2010	LEGO: The Adventures of Clutch Powers	Peg Mooring	Straight-To-DVD
2010	The Killer Elite		In production (as of May 9, 2010)

Television

Year	Title	Role	Episodes	Notes
2004	Double the Fist	Suzie	1	Episode name: "Fear Factory"
2005– 2006	headLand	Freya Lewis	26
2007	Sea Patrol	Fed Agent Martina Royce	1	Episode name: "Cometh the Hour"
2007– present	Chuck	Special Agent Sarah Walker	55

Yep, looks good to me... and I'm only on XP with IE 6. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:35, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Works for me, and I have the most up to date sooper dooper version of Firefox. Can we therefore safely state that even if Gimmetoo personally cannot sort these tables because he is using Netscape 2.0 on a 286, this does not give him grounds to delete the sortable table for everyone else, or to complain at RexxS and Rossrs for fixing it. Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:42, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

It also works on my laptop which has Windows 7 with IE 8. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:32, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Works with Safari 3.1.2, Opera 10.62 and Chrome 6.0.472.63, all under Windows Vista on a PC laptop. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:35, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Time wasted

This all appears to be to be timewasting and counterproductive bad-cheese because of some editorial decision User:Gimmetoo doesn't agree with. It's proved difficult for me to get a clear answer from them, User:Gimmetoo is clearly a stonewaller I'm not suprised that other editors have had difficulty remaining civil with them.Sf5xeplus (talk) 17:45, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

From Rex's detailed explanation above, it's clear that the problem rests with older versions of this Safari browser. One problem I have with IE 6 is that for some reason the lettering on wikimedia commons shows up very small and unreadable. On my IE 8 machine it's fine. So do I come here griping about it? No, because I realize that the problem is at my end. It's possible there's a workaround. But I wouldn't be right to demand that they stop using that font just because my old version has a problem with it. It's apparent that this is a known bug with Safari 4, and that's the way it is. Of course, if the OP can find a way to make it work for both his browser and everyone else's, that would be peachy. But removing tables just because he can't read them is disruptive, and I suspect will not be tolerated from here on out. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:29, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

What you just said has been addressed multiple times above. Gimmetoo (talk) 02:18, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Except that he never removed a table. Ucucha 18:31, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

He actually stripped the sortable functionality out of a table. Tarc (talk) 19:08, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

There is now a 5th item at User:RexxS/Sorting which the poster thinks should work for both IE and this Safari thing. It does work on my IE 6. If it still doesn't work on Safari 4, then G2 needs to either (1) get busy and figure out a way to make it work; or (2) find something else to work on. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:17, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

It does work on Safari 4; I tested it. I don't know why you feel the need to mention things that Gimmetoo needs to do. Ucucha 19:21, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Because he's the complainant here, and he has continually denied that the problem is at his end, and he has gotten everyone else to do his work for him. So if it still doesn't work on his browser, even though it works for you, then the ball is back in his court. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:28, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Many thanks to Ucucha. It seems that if every cell in a column has a sort key, then Safari 4 will perform the same process on each and the table will sort correctly on the key, regardless of the displayed cell contents. I've updated the Television table in Yvonne Strahovski#Filmography to have a sort key on each cell. Is there anyone now who doesn't get the order "2007–present"/"2007"/"2005–2006"/"2004" on a descending 'Year' sort? Apologies to admins & others for the off-topic post, but I believe there are more eyes on the issue currently here. --RexxS (talk) 20:05, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Works on IE 6 and IE 8. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:25, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Works in Firefox 3.6.10 on Windows. I note the first table features Class=unsortable. As I suck at Wiki markup (I can program in VBA, can't do wiki markup, go figure), could you explain what that's doing.Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:02, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

You mean ! class="unsortable" | Notes ? All that does is prevent sorting by the column of notes. see Help:Sorting#Making_a_column_unsortable That's standard proceedure, sorting by the notes doesn't make much sense.Sf5xeplus (talk) 22:17, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Elen of the Roads (talk) 09:14, 1 October 2010 (UTC) (who thinks her brane has fossilised)

Conclusion

My unbiased observation is this: Gimmetoo should have clearly provided the technical specifications when a table sort wasn't working. (Isn't that sort of standard procedure when troubleshooting software/hardware these days?) That, as well as the fact that you should not really warn people that you're having a discussion/dispute with. Any thoughts on this? - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 17:24, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, I just got a warning from him on my talk page, and I tell ya what, he's really thrown the gauntlet down now. I've got a good mind to call his phone and hang up when he answers; or maybe press his doorbell and run away. That'll larn 'im. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:30, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm content to accept the civility admonishment that you gave me as a neutral observer, Penwhale. I'm disappointed that Gimmetoo is unable to recognise the shortcomings in his own conduct, but expect that either he'll amend that or the community will lose patience with him at some point. Continuation of this thread seems likely only to provoke more drama and draw more editors into conflict – the opposite of what we should be spending our time on. I'd recommend to BB that the best course is not to feed any provocation, but to disengage. --RexxS (talk) 20:19, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

And I'd recommend that the discussion be closed. The OP wanted the problem fixed, and it's fixed. His complaints about civility don't hold water. So it's time to wrap. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:27, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Although one thing still puzzles me, and that is why anyone feels the need to sort a table with 4 elements in it. Not that it matters. This is a useful practical example of how to set up such a table. I wonder if it's possible to sort on two elements at once? Or more? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:36, 1 October 2010 (UTC) Answered on my talk page. All's swell. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:40, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

• Does Gimmetoo not understand that he should not be giving warning to people he is in an obvious edit dispute in? - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 00:54, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm glad the technical issue is resolved in a way that is satisfactory to RexxS. It's regrettable that it took an ANI thread to break through the assertions that my statements were "patently untrue", "completely ignores the facts", and "simply not true", and that "Gimmetto's "fix" doesn't work in any browser." Gimmetoo (talk) 04:02, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Much ado about nothing, really, and I hope this much heat isn't expended the next time someone feels the need to MacGuyver an outdated browser into functioning like modern counterparts already do. Tarc (talk) 04:55, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Incredible. You state you "first recognized a problem with the sorting, and fixed it in a way that kept the sortable functionality". That revision is dated 10:24, 10 September 2010 and changes dashes to hyphens. I copied the exact table from that diff as Table 1 in User:RexxS/Sorting. It doesn't work for me on FF, IE7, IE8, Opera, Chrome, Nautilus or Konqueror; it doesn't work for Baseball Bugs on IE6; nor for Ucucha on Safari 4. I stand by my statement that Gimmetto's "fix" doesn't work in any browser. Nobody commenting in this huge thread has found your statement to be true. What browser does your "fix" work on? --RexxS (talk) 05:11, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Incredible. I'll put it bold: The ordering of "2007" and "2007-present" was not the issue. Changing dashes to hyphens fixed the problem I was talking about. I expected we would be able to close this incident now, but you're still denying everything? And you even take credit for the fix [72], without giving me any credit. What, if anything, do you plan to do differently in the future as a result of this incident, RexxS? Gimmetoo (talk) 10:29, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

To clarify, I think I said that version (version 1 on User:RexxS/Sorting) didn't work because "2007" comes before "2007-Present" in both ascending and descending sorting. Perhaps you won't classify that as "not working", but I don't think it's good practice to have a different sorting order for ascending and descending sorts. Ucucha 12:21, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

This got blown way out of proportion, but I still maintain that Gimmetoo had the power to defuse the situation at any time with an open response to direct questions, and instead chose to make cryptic comments that did nothing to allow a resolution to evolve. Even if Gimmetoo was offended by the tone of RexxS' comments a more productive response would have been to offer his case clearly and without hesitation, instead of offering nothing stronger than hints for two weeks. I don't understand how that type of reaction could ever lead to anything but a negative result. Even if RexxS had disagreed there would have been a discussion and the resolution may have come more quickly and without such tension. That would have completely changed the course of events. I agree wholeheartedly with Gimmetoo that it's regrettable it took an ANI thread, but what is more regrettable is that Gimmetoo seems unwilling to acknowledge even the slightest degree of responsibility for the manner in which a relatively simple disagreement escalated. Gimmetoo also asks a good question, which maybe he'd also like to answer: "What, if anything, do you plan to do differently in the future as a result of this incident?" Rossrs (talk) 10:44, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Rossrs, I'm happy to discuss your comments off ANI, but have you tried to imagine yourself in my position in this scenario? Gimmetoo (talk) 10:52, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Can you point me to the version that you created that fixed this problem up front? I don't think I've seen it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:53, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I have. I try to see all points of view. We can discuss this on my talk, if you like. That's fine with me, and I will join you when I am able to. My time is limited and my availability unpredictable right now and probably will be for a while. I'm happy to discuss this with you, but I won't be able to commit to a timeframe. Rossrs (talk) 12:01, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Gimmetoo, what was the problem that think you fixed on 10 September 2010 by changing dashes to hyphens as you claim? Tell us the problem you fixed and I'll gladly give you credit. You need to give an answer to this, because it's not sufficient to say "the problem wasn't such-and-such"; you need to say what the problem was that you fixed, because nobody else here has seen it. --RexxS (talk) 13:59, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Ucucha has. With dashes, in Safari 4, if you hit the sort button, you get one of four options that cycle. The first "ascending" sort gives {"2005-2006", "2007-Present", "2004", "2007"}, an incorrect sort ordering. With hyphens (and no sort key), in Safari 4, you get {"2004", "2005-2006", "2007", "2007-Present"}. The descending sort have similar problems. As I have told you repeatedly, this has nothing to do with the ordering of "2007" and "2007-present"; that is a separate issue, and this fix doesn't address that issue. Combining my edit with your edit for the "2007" and "2007-present" ordering fixes both issues. Ucucha has confirmed that, too (version #4 on your /Sorting subpage). Gimmetoo (talk) 14:20, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your explanation at last. I do appreciate your desire to ensure that the tables work in Safari 4, but would point out that your fix (table 1) applies to less than 1% of the browser share market, and does not help the remaining 99%, while breaching our MOS convention for date ranges. Your fix still has the problem that the ordering of "2007" and "2007-present" is inconsistent between ascending and descending sorts on all browsers. Although I accept you may not consider that a problem, many others do, and my fix (table 3) resolved it for 99% of viewers. Ucucha most certainly deserves credit for describing the problem that Safari 4 had with my fix in a way that allowed me to test a fix and amend the article, which took less than 20 minutes. The article in its current state now complies with MOS and sorts properly for everyone who has commented. The only question remaining in my mind is if you had known about the Safari 4 bug since 15 September, why you chose not to fix the article yourself, but preferred to start an edit war on September 30 to remove the functionality from both tables? --RexxS (talk) 15:30, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I was met repeatedly with "patently untrue", if you recall. W3schools? Firefox 45%? Chrome 17%? And Explorer 30%? Users of a dev site might provide a little skewed sampling of browser use, perhaps? But ignoring that, when we have an identifiable situation that can be fixed, at what cutoff do we ignore those readers and intentionally not make that fix? Gimmetoo (talk) 16:32, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

wutevea; legacy browser, low usage, and falling fast. And Safari v4.1 was released for Tiger and includes v5's javascript enhancements. The buggy v4.0 will be all gone before we could deploy this to some tens of thousands of tables. Merridew 16:54, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I still think that it's patently untrue that a fix works, if it doesn't solve the issues for over 98% of the audience by whatever metric you choose. YMMV. --RexxS (talk) 18:03, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

0.8% and falling fast? And that's for August; September will be on the order of 0.6%. Fugetaboutit! It's not worth snotting-up the wiki-text and confusing editors. Merridew 15:58, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Nair

User:ChandranPillaiChandernagar is adding contents which are totally unhelpful and off-topic and personal attacks and i removed it twice and left him a warning here. He added the content back again with a pesonal attack in the edit summary. it will be helpful if a few would add the article to their watchlist. --CarTick 21:23, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

ChandranPillaiChandernager indefinitely blocked and edits to talk:Nair suppressed; racism and cultural xenophobia is not tolerated, even in instances where the contributor is from a minority group in regards to the editorship. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:09, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. --CarTick 23:36, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Edit-warring over hair removal products? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:39, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, someone should get to the root of this. Find out who's at follicle. HalfShadow 03:42, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Your puns are hair raising. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 04:20, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

That's the bald truth. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:50, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

If you look at the talk page, it is clear that it is user CarTick who is trying to insult other people and doing racial abuse. Admins should punish the real culprit, not the victim. See Talk:Nair#POV_tag and Talk:Nair#Misinformation_campaign. I am starting to lose my trust in Wikipedia, as users like CarTick are using it as a tool to abuse other ethnic groups and any one protesting against it is getting banned. And I don't find anything worth giving a life-ban in User Chandran Pillai's last edit. Anyway... you have your way... carry on. 203.131.222.1 (talk) 14:22, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

If, ip user who is of course not ChandranPillaiChandernagar, there are issues with another editors manner of editing - racial or xenophobic abuse, included - then you can bring up the matter on the article talkpage, the editors talkpage, or this page. What you should never do is insult or make racial aspersions regarding other races or cultures (women) in response. ChandranPillaiChandernagar posted xenophobic commentary regarding Christians and Europeans (described them as "Aryan/Nazi") and their lifestyles choices; as someone who is concerned with racist behaviours I am sure you are agree that blocking and deletion is the only possible response. LessHeard vanU (talk) 19:38, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

User:BlueRobe does not seem to get it

Resolved

 – user blocked S.G.^(GH) _ping! 13:29, 1 October 2010 (UTC) and now indeffed Black Kite (t) (c) 19:36, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

DIFF HERE

BlueRobe (talk · contribs · global contribs · logs · block log) Already blocked for incivility, it now appears that -- at the least -- he needs to be blocked from his own user pages, as well. BlueRobe failed to post a positive response to my warning. I have to say that he's making it increasingly hard to see how he will be a net positive to the project. BigK HeX (talk) 10:25, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I concur that comment from bluerobe was nasty--Lerdthenerd (talk) 10:29, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

He's been blocked and talk page access revoked by User:Bwilkins. --S.G.^(GH) _ping! 13:27, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

He wasn't blocked. Only talk page access was revoked. His block doesn't seem to be modified.--Crossmr (talk) 14:01, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I called this giant time sink 5 days ago . Why doesn't someone just indef him and be done with it. There is zero evidence that he won't continue the disruption when his block expires.--Crossmr (talk) 13:59, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I absolutely agree. Wikipedia, in general, has way too much tolerance for users who are unlikely reform. The number of warnings this user has received is staggering; do we expect a sudden change after the 20th warning? The 21st? Kansan (talk) 15:05, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

“ 13:13, 26 September 2010 Blood Red Sandman blocked BlueRobe (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 1 month ‎ (Personal attacks or harassment: Ongoing uncivil editing) ”

- looks blocked to me. S.G.^(GH) _ping! 15:01, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Yep. Though that was the block he already had prior to this latest indicator. BigK HeX (talk) 15:35, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I just read Bluerobe's latest comment in the diff above. Wow. I didn't realize it was that bad. I have to agree with User:Kansan and note that 1 month is not indef... This kind of blatant disregard for civility cannot be tolerated. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:21, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I also believe the block should be extended to indef and wonder whether we should have a community ban discussion. Enough is enough. Yworo (talk) 18:25, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Indef would be more than a enough, if he starts socking then we can have a Ban discussion. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 18:41, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I meant that his block wasn't modified from what it previously was, only talk page access revoked. There was talk before about letting him serve out his block to prove that he could change. Since he couldn't even do that his block should have been modified, which blackkite has now done, not simply just removing his talk page access.--Crossmr (talk) 00:13, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

• Indefinitely blocked. An unblock request may be submitted per note on userpage. Black Kite (t) (c) 19:36, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Longer rangeblock required

A couple weeks ago Avi range blocked two small IP ranges for two weeks for vandalism (the result of continued BLP violations despite multiple warnings). Straight off the block the IPs are back adding unsourced religious and descent categories to BLPs (example from today). Would it be possible to get another rangeblock applied? The original discussion can be found here. --Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 14:39, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

• Update: IP has now hopped to 166.216.130.80 to restore the BLP/EGRS violations that were reverted this morning here and here. --Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 15:14, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Is this the correct venue for this request? --Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 18:26, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

The IPs are still at it, but I have to log off shortly. I've been reverting the BLP violations for nearly seven hours now and seriously need a break. The last three I caught through my watch list were 166.216.130.32, 166.216.130.53 and 166.216.130.26. Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 20:52, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

166.216.130.64/27 (block range · block log (global) · WHOIS (partial)) and 166.216.130.0/26 (block range · block log (global) · WHOIS (partial)) blocked 1 month. T. Canens (talk) 05:09, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Bigbrothersorder shouting on the indian articles

Bigbrothersorder (talk · contribs) is shouting in their edit summaries and reverting some users at the indian articles, i encouraged them to come to the talk page but the ignored me and are still at it what do i do?--Lerdthenerd (talk) 14:59, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

From the looks of things he/she is being a bit dickish with these CAP LOCK edit summaries like "ITS A FACT LOOK IT UP". I left a message instructing him to cut it out, and explaining that the truth is not the truth without cites. Lets see what he does now. S.G.^(GH) _ping! 15:09, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

thanks SGGH --Lerdthenerd (talk) 15:10, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I reverted his changes to Meenas as they appear to be a bit overly dramatic for such a sensitive topic to not have any citations, given his clear agenda. I don't think I'll revert the more minor changes to other articles at the moment because I can't make as much sense out of it due to unfamiliarity with the subject matter. S.G.^(GH) _ping! 15:12, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

he is blocked for edit warring, now there is sock puppet case going on--Lerdthenerd (talk) 15:39, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

A lot of editors from the Indian subcontinent use all caps, it may have to do with Hindi keyboards, or I just may be rationalizing. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 21:47, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Persistant reference spammer - need some help

A few days ago I found 83.215.123.233 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) adding references to articles that where all written by the same author. When I looked into this further I noticed that similar IPs and one editor (noted on the IP's talk page) had also been doing this over several years and that a few references had been reference spammed all over the place in major biological articles like genome, life and others (see here for 50 instances where I removed them). Based on the long term spamming of these references, where no content was being added, and where they were often inserted into the lead of articles, I felt it was appropriate to issue a 4IM warning to the IP. I checked with another editor to see if they felt this was appropriate and they agreed. Today the IP has commented that I am "the mind police" and continued to add references to articles. Could someone take a look at this and decide whether I was correct to clean up every edit these accounts had made, and what if any action needs to be taken now. Thanks Smartse (talk) 16:16, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I am taking a look into this. LessHeard vanU (talk) 19:49, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I have asked a CU or two if they wouldn't mind reviewing this matter, as there seems to be a number of ip's resolving to a narrow geographical area all making similar edits. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:48, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Looking at a few of the changes, they seem to relate to Biocommunication, and views of biology as a communications system. There are links to semiotics, which seemed weird. So this looked WP:FRINGE. But the references are to books cited from Wiley and Springer, and articles from Nature, so these refs passed editing at major scientific publishers. The new references refer to multiple authors, so it's not obvious self-promotion. There's nothing obviously wrong going on here. I'd suggest referring this to Wikipedia:WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology. --John Nagle (talk) 21:41, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Even if the publication data makes an item usable as a source, it still shouldn't be added to an article unless it either substantiates some statement in the text (none of these do) or provides a good place for a reader to go to get an expanded understanding (none of these do). For what it's worth, I took a look at the preview of the Springer book in Google Books, and it's pretty shocking -- I have doubts that anybody actually read it prior to the publication. We're dealing with the academic version of a walled garden here. Looie496 (talk) 22:04, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Which references where from Nature? The references added today where the exact same ones I removed a few days ago where the only coauthor is Luis Villareal. I think it's also worth noting that the authors bio on de.wiki (edited by the same IPs) says they are a philosopher, rather than a biologist meaning that these aren't research papers, but opinionated essays. If you take a closer look at the list of edits I linked to, I think you'll realise that this was some pretty blatant self-promotion. I also forgot to mention that some where even references to books not yet published! Smartse (talk) 23:20, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Hm. You may be right.

• [73] adds ref to Springer Witzany G (Ed) (2011). Biocommunication in Soil Microorganisms. Springer. Future book. Not good.
• [74] Witzany, Guenther (2010). Biocommunication and Natural Genome Editing. Springer Seemed legit.
• [75]* Witzany, Guenther (Ed) (2009). Natural Genetic Engineering and Natural Genome Editing. New York: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-57331-765-8.'
• [76]Villarreal, L.P., & Witzany, G. (2010). Viruses are Essential Agents within the Roots and Stem of the Tree of Life. Journal of Theoretical Biology 262, pp. 698-710.

They look legit, but they're all "Witzany, G" and friends. His stuff in Nature is all in "Precedings", which is a place where people can post papers before they're refereed. [77]. He has an entry in the German Wikipedia at Günther Witzany Google translation Looks somewhat fringe. What's the comment from the bio experts? --John Nagle (talk) 01:21, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

The majority of his papers are single author, and Biosemiotics is a pretty questionable field of expertise. To be clear, he has definitely not been published in Nature, or any high impact factor journal. The Journal of Theoretical Biology (~2.5 impact factor) seems to be one of the less dodgy papers ([78]) but even here he manages to cite almost his complete works. Reading the paper, the ideas he proposes and conclusions he draws with regard to viruses being at the root of the tree of life are pretty bizarre and it's pure philosophy; no data, evidence or even logic is required in 'theoretical biology' it seems. But discussion of his works are not the focus here, he has unquestionably added self-citations to a large number of articles where they certainly would not be added by a neutral party, they add nothing to the articles. He's used many IPs and at least one account (Ynaztiw) and has substantially edited his own article on de.wiki. He made this comment to the user which warned about the references. The blantant disregard for COI, NPOV etc. and amazing persistance (over two years of self-citing) do require some attention from an admin Jebus989^✰ 14:55, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Please watch Stephen J. Cannell

News outlets are reporting that Stephen J. Cannell has died. IPs are starting to hit the article, I'm looking for folks to watchlist it and revert any OR or vandalism over the next couple days. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 19:36, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

WP:RFPP

Resolved

 – Backlog eliminated

Back log at WP:RFPP, seems no body has stopped their in about two and a half hours, 6 pages in que The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 19:56, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

User:Kafziel and administrative abuse

Resolved

 – nothing good all around. Toddst1 (talk) 21:14, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Kafziel (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

I am looking for comments on my blocking by User:Kafziel. I added a quote from a deletion discussions to my page. It is one of those arguments you see on the page on how not to argue during an AFD. The quote was: "If this guy is such a pillar of the Empire, why is he just now getting an article?" There are dozens of actual quotes that appear in the guideline on how to express your opinion at an AFD. It wasn't attributed to Kafziel on my page where I cut and pasted it. He blocked me for 24 hours for quoting him, citing the quote as harassment. Anyone have comments? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 20:02, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

(before the admin lynch mob pops up) Not a very good block by Kafziel as he was involved. That being said, that doesn't forgive or set aside RAN's conduct, especially [79], which I did feel was uncalled for. –MuZemike 20:08, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You didn't need to quote him like that, when you knew perfectly well it would aggravate him. He shouldn't have blocked you for it. You've been unblocked. Problem resolved. Unless you actually want to achieve some kind of action with this thread, then I will close it. AN/I isn't the place to come just to complain. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 20:10, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

• I blocked Richard for 24 hours for repeatedly posting that quote on the article talk page, on his own talk page, and in edit summaries. It is obviously a violation of WP:CIVIL and is in no way constructive (had he answered it in the discussion itself, that would have been different). This is hardly his first block for this sort of thing, and it didn't come out of the blue; I warned him about it specifically. He was fairly warned, twice, and then blocked for a (brief, considering your history) 24 hours. Situations like this have been discussed at the blocking policy page before, and there has never been consensus to prohibit admins from blocking people harassing them. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 20:13, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm the admin who unblocked Norton, just because of who did the blocking, not out of any judgment on the merits of the dispute. I've explained my rationale to Kafziel here, here, and here, basically that he should not be using his admin powers to determine that 1) someone engaged in a personal attack/incivility against him and 2) that this conduct was blockworthy. Incidentally, I only noticed the blocking because I had Norton's page watchlisted to discuss a category he created awhile ago;[80] the header "harassment warning" on Norton's talk page caught my eye. I wasn't involved in the AFD this acrimony seems to have sprung from (if it had a single source) and I don't think I've had any prior interaction with Kafziel. Cheers, postdlf (talk) 20:16, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) Wow, a relatively (but not completely) bad block and a bad unblock. Nice. Toddst1 (talk) 20:39, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

It's no coincidence that WP:BLOCK doesn't prohibit admins from blocking users who are harassing them. It isn't part of the policy for just this reason: Disruptive editors would use it to game the system. That's why it's limited to content disputes (and similar things). If you repeatedly warn a user about civility, and he repeatedly says "fuck you", why would you go running to another admin to block them for you? If some admin came to me for that, I'd tell him to handle his business. Frankly, as an uninvolved admin, you should have used your own judgment about his behavior, instead of just unblocking, copping out, and passing it on to yet another group of people to handle. That's why you have the tools. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 20:38, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. This isn't the American justice system where if the cops f-up, the perp is absolved. Toddst1 (talk) 20:43, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Nevertheless, the odds of an admin making a good block of a user they are in conflict with are considerably diminished. Despite the lack of prohibition in WP:BLOCK against the practice of blocking for harrassment, admins would still be best advised to seek an uninvolved admin to perform such a block. The results of not doing that are amply illustrated here. On the other side, I'm sure that RAN will remember that other editors' contributions are licensed as CC-BY-SA and require attribution if quoted, and avoid doing so again. --RexxS (talk) 21:08, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Talking strictly on the licensing issue — at least in the edit linked by MuZemike, he attributed it to the one who made it, so there's no copyright issue here. Nyttend (talk) 22:18, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Even more strictly, it's a plagiarism, not a copyright, issue. Richard did use the quote elsewhere without attribution and will realise that he shouldn't. --RexxS (talk) 00:19, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

This is the typical "gory discussion" described in WP:NOTNAS. Toddst1 (talk) 21:13, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Comment: reviewing this debate over the Wanless article's notability, as well as Kafziel's reasoning for blocking Norton, I can only roll my eyes. Quoting a part of Kafziel's comments to justify deletion of the article may have been a trivial and unnecessary edit by Norton but it was hardly 'harassment', and completely unworthy of an administrative block. I also noted Kafziel's extensive Wikilawyering trying to justify his AfD on the Wanless article, which went on far too long, IMHO. A bit of grace on the part of Admins will go a long way to smoothing over differences on AfD boards -and that was noticeably absent in this case.

As to the merits of AfDing the Wanless article, I've come across many dozens of garage-band music CD articles while doing a quality survey of random articles, plus equal amounts of many other articles I personally consider fluff. However one person's fluff can be another person's endearing lifework, and out of the thousands of articles I've looked at I've only AfD nominated a single one (for a gross OR violation), since virtually all of them can be improved. In this particular case it was immediately apparent, to me at least, that the Wanless article was notable via WP:GNG -Wikilawyering that a Missionary's Convention and the British Medical Journal obituary are unnotable to justify an AfD tag does considerable disservice to our overall project. As a comparison, Dr. Norman Bethune was almost unknown in North America until about 25 years ago, but he is almost worshiped as a deity by 1 billion Chinese for his role in helping China during WWII; however his lack of popularity in the western media (until 25 years ago) would hardly be cause for trying to exclude him from Wikipedia. Best: HarryZilber (talk) 21:21, 1 October 2010 (UTC) --- ---> with a bit of a language barrier. <--- --- appended wording from Kafziel.

Note the silly comment Kafziel appended to my post above. If he wants any respect he needs to do way better than that. HarryZilber (talk) 06:15, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Wow. That was a formatting error, nothing more. When I posted the response below, I had started to explain that the author of the article was a relatively new editor with a bit of a language barrier (which is why I explained things to him very thoroughly). The sentence was right after "two inexplicably outraged editors". I decided it wasn't necessary, cut it out, and somehow part of it got put at the top of the text when I posted it. What would that even have to do with anything you wrote? You think I took the time to write the response below, then came up with the bizarre non-sequitur above? Come on. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 17:18, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

This is about the block, not the AfD. But since you bring it up, discussing a disagreement about what constitutes significant coverage in reliable sources is not Wikilawyering. In fact, it's probably one of the most common activities at AFD. Asking questions (like "Is 75,000 surgeries a lot?" or "Are all the delegates to that convention notable?") is not Wikilawyering, either. Asking someone to be civil is certainly not Wikilawyering, and neither is being uncivil, for that matter. So where, exactly, is all this Wikilawyering you're talking about? Besides WP:BIO in the nomination and WP:CIVIL very shortly thereafter, I think the only guideline I referenced was about not being able to speedy-keep the discussion because there was another "delete" vote and I was an involved party... and I eventually did close it anyway. Most of the time I was just asking questions about sources, while being heckled by two inexplicably outraged editors.

I've been accused of a lot of things over the years, but never Wikilawyering. (Case in point, the reason we are here is that I supposedly ignored some imaginary policy.) But I'm always willing to improve when I'm wrong, so can you show some specific examples? Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 23:12, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't have an opinion on this block, but it has long been my opinion that admins who block opponents attacking them, except on repeat blockees, should immediately post notice of the block on AN/I. This mitigates the increased likelihood of bias in such blocks by ensuring fair treatment for the blockee after the block. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 22:20, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but I disagree. Unnecessarily adding to AN/I is not constructive; if someone has a problem with the block, they can (and will) bring it here themselves, as you can see. The result is absolutely no different. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 23:12, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

It's not a rule at present, so my opinion should not be taken as a criticism of yourself. Anyway, I obviously wasn't suggesting adding to AN/I unnecessarily, but leaving notice on AN/I to ensure that editors are protected against unfair blocks. The latter is achieved either by the AN/I notice itself, or probably more often by the foreknowledge that such a decision will be scrutinized for fairness by peers were a block to be made. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 23:27, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Don't you think that foreknowledge goes without saying? Every admin is well aware that all blocks will be seen by others (particularly in a case like this, where the user has been blocked several previous times). Blocks are supposed to be contested with an {{unblock}} tag (as it was); a debate at AN/I would be redundant. And an admin who isn't absolutely certain he's doing the right thing certainly shouldn't shoot first and ask questions later - he should ask around before blocking. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 23:57, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. Firstly, I don't think admins act like that. Secondly, sure you can ask around before hand, but with most blocks it'd just be a waste of time and, assuming you got feedback, what's happened since? If some anon or red-link is trolling you, just block them and post a short notice ... atm the more cautious of us, assuming we don't have IM links to other admins, have to go through a tedious process to get help or else get accused of admin abuse and have to spend half their wiki-day defending themselves (like yourself today). With my proposal there is safety for both blocker and blockee, and a quicker more efficient process. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 00:25, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I think we're saying pretty much the same thing, except that you think it's a waste of time to ask around before blocking, and I think it's a waste of time to ask around after the fact. But I definitely don't think we should be giving preferential treatment to admins who check in here after a bad block; a bad block has to be treated the same regardless of who reports it, or every block would just become a race to see who can get to AN/I first. In this case, I didn't even have time to post the block message before a) it was contested, and b) someone overturned it without even speaking to me. So I certainly would have lost the race to start a thread here, even if I had been inclined to do so. I think it's much better for admins not to block anyone until they are 100% sure they're right; I never do. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 01:13, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think there would be such a race were this implemented. Anyway, are you telling me you were 100% sure you wouldn't get a hard time for your block today? Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 01:43, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Not at all - I'm not concerned about getting a hard time. I'm concerned about being right, and yes - I was (and still am) 100% sure the block was justified. I have seen absolutely nothing here to indicate otherwise; nobody is citing any policies or guidelines, nobody is defending that user's behavior. The admin who overturned me has admitted he did so for no other reason than that I'm the one who blocked the guy, which means he misinterpreted Wikipedia's blocking policy. It's an easy mistake to make, but it's still his mistake, not mine. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 03:01, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

User:Kobutsu outing attempts

This user has attempted now twice attempted to out another editor as part of an external dispute between Zen Buddhists imported to the Eido Tai Shimano page and elsewhere. I did not notice the first outing (since oversighted) for about a week since it was on a user's talkpage, but left a warning that it was not to be repeated. Kobutsu has since made another attempt at outing (which has again been oversighted). I have blocked for 24 hours for what is an obvious attempt at harassment, but am concerned that the block should be for longer. Opinions please. --Slp1 (talk) 22:27, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Given that you didn't notice the first attempt for a week and then the user made another one after your (very clear) warning, clearly it's a problem recurring over a much longer period than 24 hours; a 24-hour block is unlikely to do anything to stop the behaviour. I'd probably suggest a longer block, or even indefinite, until the user agrees to stop. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 22:40, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, good advice. Perhaps others will weigh in too. I'll just add that the target User:Spt51 has not edited since the first attempted outing, suggesting that the harassment has indeed done its work. --Slp1 (talk) 22:53, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Indef for outing, where it is used to chilling effect as in this case. LessHeard vanU (talk) 10:16, 2 October 2010 (UTC) I have enacted the indefinite block, and noted same at both editors talkpages. LessHeard vanU (talk) 10:33, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your advice and help, both of you. --Slp1 (talk) 16:59, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Talk page disruption by Darkstar1st

Darkstar1st has started to engage in deliberate and uncalled for talk page disruption at Talk:Libertarianism. I replied to the OP of a thread agreeing with his comment with the words "Just so". Darkstar1st collapsed it without explanation. I reverted, and he collapsed it again with the edit comment ""just so" has no relevance to libertarianism.". This appears to be a WP:POINT violation and possible retaliation for my having reported him for edit-warring on the article Libertarianism several days ago. Could some admin follow up with him please? Yworo (talk) 01:47, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

We really need to have a list of his other disruptive behaviors regarding the topic of libertarianism. Like his creation of a WP:POV fork by at this diff turning a common redirect Libertarian to Libertarianism into a whole article reflecting the narrow view he has been trying to impose on Libertarianism for the last six months, most recently through continuing WP:Soapbox on his POV, ignoring of RfCs rejecting his POV, displaying obstreperous WP:Failure to get the point. I can provide lots of diffs if people think it's relevant to expand this complaint. CarolMooreDC (talk) 03:30, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

the whole section has now been closed and hidden by an uninvolved editor. Darkstar1st (talk) 08:18, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Turning a re-direct page into a POV fork is disruptive. After three RfCs confirming that left libertarianism should be in the article, all of which supported inclusion, Darkstar1st created a new discussion thread, "left libertarian is the lessor well known, thus a minority and according to WP:NPOV should not be given as detailed a description or as much".[81] This discussion thread presented no sources and I and another editor removed it for soapboxing. Soapboxing has been an ongoing problems in the this article. Editors discuss what libertarianism means to them and refuse to use sources. TFD (talk) 12:46, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

When to use rollback

I left a note on User talk:Paralympiakos, asking them to be careful when using rollback; in my opinion, in this particular edit rollback was not used appropriately. The same applies here and here and here. In my reading of WP:ROLLBACK, good-faith edits should not be rolled back; in my opinion, what was reverted in these edits was in no way vandalism. Let me make two things clear: first, I have rollback myself, and I probably have erred more than once; second, I am not trying to bring Paralympiakos up on charges, since they make many good edits and are a positive contributor. However, I would like for someone from around here to confirm that their response on their talk page is not correct (unless I'm wrong--in which case you should tell me!), and to confirm or explain that to them. Thank you. Drmies (talk) 02:13, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I doubt this is an ANI issue, but yes, I do believe the policy is rollback should only be used on non-constructive edits including but not limited to vandalism. Non-admin opinion. Strange Passerby (talk • c • status) 02:17, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

If you are asking my opinion, the entire rollback issue is completely pointless. In my opinion, every autoconfirmed user should get it, then we could just stop with all of this stupid bullshit about granting it like a reward and revoking it when somebody doesn't follow the arcane rules to use it. Look, all it does is save one mouse click when reverting someone. You can just as easily click the (undo) and then click the save page buttons and effect the same result. It's a complete waste of admins time to constantly have to police rollback's use, when not one edit warrior has been hindered by not having access to it. Total bullshit that we have to deal with this. That's my opinion on it. Policy is clear on its use, and Paralympiakos is probably usin g rollback against policy, but in my opinion policy is wrong in that it wastes time on a non-issue. --Jayron32 02:20, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Hear fucking hear. → ROUX ₪ 02:27, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

This isn't an AN/I topic unless it is an Incident. I can't see how this would need administrator intervention.?...--Talktome^(Intelati) 02:26, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

• I'm not sure what qualifies as in incident with a capital I. Intelati, if it were so that misuse of rollback was taken seriously, we'd have at least an incident, I reckon. But my question was answered: it's against policy, but nothing will come of it. Jayron, I can't say I disagree with you on the IAR part--still, the bit in the guideline about not leaving an edit summary being impolite (and in case of the first diff I gave, a bit bitey) has some merit. I have seen some editors getting rollback removed, though, which made me extra careful myself. Thanks to all, Drmies (talk) 02:35, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

See two posts above "User:Kafziel and administrative abuse." that's an example of an "Incident." and the only reason I commented on this post is that it intreged me, but I have no problems with the current setup.--Talktome^(Intelati) 02:37, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

The real issue is the lack of an informative edit summary and the fact that the default edit summary implicitly casts aspersions - and not anything about permission to use magic buttons "properly". The latter two reverts (to Michael Johnson (fighter) and especially to WEC 53 are bad because they're unexplained summary reversions that should have had an informative edit summary, but the reverts on Travis Browne and Brock Lesnar would have been done practically identically by anyone who encountered them, so the method of achieving those reverts is pretty immaterial. Paralympikos ought to be reminded that informative edit summaries cause a good impression and avoid extra work for editors who see them - and that's all that needs to happen at this point, in my opinion. — Gavia immer (talk) 02:32, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

The Johnson one is obvious vandalism. It's a fake bout and that's within even your rules of rollback. The Brock Lesnar ones are a pattern of nonsense edits and the user was warned. Rollback was best as it is vandalism. WEC was an accident, which as I've explained before, is because my browser pops upwards from time and time and I accidentally hit the button. Then, I've explained my view on the other edit. Paralympiakos (talk) 11:43, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) to both Drmies and Gavia immer: I am not sure that hitting (undo) followed immediately by [Save page] leaves any more informative of an edit summary. Assuming that an editor is repeatedly doing that to good faith edits, why is that somehow better than using rollback? --Jayron32 02:42, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

• It isn't. The two acts are essentially the same (as is performing such an edit manually or via a script) and equally inappropriate. —David Levy 16:25, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, it is an ANI topic because admins are the ones to grant and take away rollback. Technically, this is a fine forum to discuss appropriate use of rollback. Still stand by my feelings that Rollback is a bullshit issue, but insofar as the system exists as it is, this is the proper place to discuss its use and revocation. --Jayron32 02:29, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I've no opinion on the correctness or otherwise of the rollback guideline, but it's my belief that this editor doesn't understand them properly and hasn't been using it in accordance with them, so I've revoked the permission. We can discuss the relevance of WP:RBK on its talk page or another, more suitable forum. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:33, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Support. Strange Passerby (talk • c • status) 02:35, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Support--Talktome^(Intelati) 02:38, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm playing by the rules of rollback. It says that when a revert is self-explanatory, rollback can be used. It says "for example, vandalism etc", but that doesn't mean that it is limited to vandalism. Any sane person seeing a "tag: incorrectly formatted image" would easily know that it needs removing, so the change is just self-explanatory. If you disagree with that, then go and change the wording on rollback, so that people can't do what I did. As far as I'm concerned, I'm 100% right in what I did and this remove is farcical. Paralympiakos (talk) 11:30, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm also disappointed that action was taken whilst I was away. It would have been decent of people to at least wait so that discussion could take place involving me. Paralympiakos (talk) 11:43, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Please also see WT:ROLLBACK where I've asked that this farce of a discussion have some results. Paralympiakos (talk) 12:18, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

It's not self-explanatory to the person who made the edit, which is exactly the point of using an informative edit summary. Reverting without an edit summary, whether with or without rollback, is a form of biting a newcomer. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:24, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

No, it really is. They put an image down in the form of a hyperlink and see it doesn't work. I'd say they'd know why I performed a rollback. As has been said above, it doesn't matter whether it is via rollback or undo, the result is the same, just with an extra, unnecessary click involved. Paralympiakos (talk) 13:27, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

No, it really isn't. They made a good faith edit. "Something" went wrong - the image they expected to see didn't appear! Why? Don't know. Then somehow the edit they'd just made disappeared as well - the redlink they'd just added (Valley Center,California) turned back into a bluelink (San Diego, California). What on earth is going on?! There's no explanation on their talkpage, no explanation in the article's history - nothing. Just a confused newbie. Constructive or well-intentioned changes should not be reverted without an explanatory summary, as it is impolite to the author of those changes. Your rollback was inappropriate. It did not help someone who needed help. TFOWR 13:40, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

You know what then? Put that in the rollback summary! As I've said many times now with that quoted statement, I performed under the rules as they currently look. The sensible thing to do here would be to change the rollback policy/statement etc, revert the removal and chalk this up to misunderstanding/errors at the rollback page. Paralympiakos (talk) 14:07, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't believe there are any errors at the rollback page. I believe the error is in your belief that your use of rollback was "self explanatory". It wasn't. TFOWR 14:33, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

So you see an image that doesn't work, followed by a rollback and you need that explaining to you? I'm sure you'd find it self-explanatory. Still doesn't explain why the rollback was removed without so much as a hint first. As I've said elsewhere, you're quick to defend IPs, saying that things should be explained to them, but what about me? As far as I was aware, I was acting correctly, but instead of having it explained to me, I have rollback taken away immediately. That's poor. Paralympiakos (talk) 14:37, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

You're missing the point: you don't provide an edit summary for my benefit, you provide it for the benefit of the poor soul you're reverting. And that is explained at WP:ROLLBACK - Constructive or well-intentioned changes should not be reverted without an explanatory summary, as it is impolite to the author of those changes. - and it is expected that editors understand that before being granted rollback. This is being explained to you, and when you've demonstrated that you understand it I'll have no problem with you being granted rollback again. TFOWR 14:48, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I still maintain, to a degree, that that IP would know that a redlink image would be removed. Fair enough about pointing them in the right direction. Like I say though, it would be better if it was reinstated now, considering it never should have been taken away. Notification is far preferable to "at any point". Paralympiakos (talk) 14:51, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

As pointed out by other editors, if there is any doubt as to whether the reason for your rollback is completely self-explanatory, and the user is making a good faith contribution, it's a perfectly simple matter to undo the edit instead, giving the option of leaving an edit summary which would help the user. One of those edits was a red-linked image as the user had tried to insert a full URL as an image; it would have been a simple matter to undo it with an edit summary something like "Please see WP:UPLOAD and upload the image first, and make any test edits in the sandbox", and/or leave an explanatory note on the user's talk page. If you use twinkle as well, you have the option of rolling back multiple edits with an AGF edit summary. It's confusing and disheartening for good-faith editors to see their edits immediately reverted without explanation, when such an explanation would take a few seconds to write. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 16:10, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Could somebody please clear my name?

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

---

Resolved

 – Reverted anon edits, properly applied semi-protection, and Euryalus apologised.

An IP editor was vandalizing Project Runway (season 8) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) to add false information about episodes which have not even aired yet, claiming that certain people were eliminated when it's clearly impossible for them to have known that. I reverted them repeatedly, they kept reverting me to add their vandalisms. I reported them at WP:AIV, but nothing was done to block them. Instead, User:Euryalus has full protected the article and claims my edits were edit warring. It is not edit warring when vandalism is being reverted. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 02:23, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

As explained on my talk page, page protection was to prevent the ongoing reversions from both sides, and to encourage both parties to discuss their differing viewpoints on the article talk page, which is what that page is designed for. It is not an endorsement or criticism of either editor. The protection is also only for 24 hours, which is hardly mission-critical to the future of this page. Plus I notice that by chance, the protected version is the one preferred by User:Everard Proudfoot, so presumably he/she is happy with it as it currently appears. Lastly, semi-protection was considered, but as the reversions were from anon and established editors, semi-protection would have effectively endorsed Proudfoot over the IP.

But all other views welcome, as always. Euryalus (talk) 02:29, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

The full protection, and the reason for protection given, is a slap in my face, as if I'm a vandal or edit warrior. This was strictly vandal fighting. There is no possible way the IP editor could possibly support their edits. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 02:31, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Or is vandal fighting now not accepted, and every article which gets reversions of vandalism gets full protection? Everard Proudfoot (talk) 02:32, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

No, I am not happy, because you are making accusations against me. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 02:34, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry you feel that way, and that was certainly not my intention. No warnings or blocks have been made against you, and the only "accusation" is that yopu participated in an edit war. On this point, I might refer you to WP:EDITWAR - "Administrators must often make a judgment call to identify edit warring when attempting to resolve disputes. In general, repeated reverts made without the support of prior consensus or without sufficient discussion are likely to be considered edit warring."

The short version - an edit war was under way, as the article was being repeatedly reverted without discussion by either party. No one has been warned or blocked, but the article is briefly protected so there can be a breathing space for discussion. Euryalus (talk) 02:47, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Ah. I see. So I must now ask every single vandal to discuss their edits now before I can revert them? Do you do that? Everard Proudfoot (talk) 02:50, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I've backed it down to semi-protection. What's to discuss about uncited information being added about shows that haven't yet aired?--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 02:58, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Good-faith edits are not vandalism; did you even attempt to discuss the issue with the IP? Strange Passerby (talk • c • status) 02:38, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

What is good faith about false information? I am thoroughly flabbergasted by such comments. Making things up is now good faith edits? And please note that I was not the first person to either revert this IP's edits, nor to warn them for vandalism. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 02:41, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Just saying, how do you know they're making it up? Perhaps they found the information somewhere else and just didn't give the source. Not condoning the IP's edits, but personally, I assume good faith. Strange Passerby (talk • c • status) 02:50, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Are you aware of how reality shows work? Results are never released before the show initially airs. → ROUX ₪ 03:06, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

And yet, leaks are possible. There have been cases of leaks in the past, so... Strange Passerby (talk • c • status) 03:11, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Leaks by their nature not being verifiable kind of only reinforces my point. Honestly this whole thing is monumentally fucking stupid. Everard was reverting clear and blatant vandalism. I am astonished at anyone here who has been defending the IP. → ROUX ₪ 03:15, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Not only was it sourceless, reviewing the edits, every time he made his series of edits for April to win the season, there were *different* results for the intermediate episodes.Naraht (talk) 02:58, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, fair enough, as I said, not condoning the IP's edits one bit. Just that information on yet-to-air episodes could possibly be verifiable, so it might have been a good idea to ask the IP editor for his sources before reverting further (WP:BRD). As I noted below, the removal of the external links was indeed vandalism and that was reverted correctly. In any case, I don't think Mr Proudfoot's conduct is exactly up to scratch. Checking through the contributions of someone who's left a dissenting opinion isn't very nice. Strange Passerby (talk • c • status) 03:03, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I fully agree with Everard Proudfoot. He isn't the only editor to do a complete revert on the IP user. User:Inka 888 and User:Intelati did as well. Edits by this IP user included the complete deletion of the entire external links section as well as extensive WP:Crystal Ball violations. Even another IP user reverted him.Naraht (talk) 02:40, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what to say at this point, but I agree with Everard Proudfoot. :)--Talktome^(Intelati) 02:44, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Removal of external links is a different story, that would be vandalism, yes. Strange Passerby (talk • c • status) 02:50, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Evidence for this is at removal of external links section. I can come up with specific examples of WP:Crystal Ball, but just about every edit he made was something about results of episodes that haven't been shown yet.Naraht (talk) 02:54, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

In addition, several people commented on the IP user's talk page that what he was doing was vandalism.Naraht (talk) 02:42, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Seems the protection has been unilaterally reverted anyway, so the issue is a bit moot. Euryalus (talk) 02:58, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, it was unilaterally imposed... Really, three established editors reverting uncited future information, and you fully protected? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 03:03, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

the purpose of the protection was to bring a "breathing space" in what was an extended series of reversions. But on a lengthier reading, I agree that some of the IP edits were unconstructive, and have apologised to Proudfoot for any perceived accusation. Euryalus (talk) 03:05, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure if reverting vandalism is considered edit warring I would look at as a WP:IGNORE case even if it was considered edit warring. --Inka⁸⁸⁸ 03:10, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest that using WP:IAR on edit warring is not a good idea. That said, yes, reverting vandalism isn't edit warring. Strange Passerby (talk • c • status) 03:12, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Do you acknowledge that you mistook the repeated reversion of vandalism for an "edit war" and inappropriately applied full protection? —David Levy 03:14, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Who me? Yes. And I apologised to the editor concerned, both here and on his talk page. Euryalus (talk) 03:15, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay, that should resolve the issue. At one point, this discussion didn't appear to be headed in that direction (and your 02:58 message came across as a parting shot), so this is a pleasant surprise. Thanks. —David Levy 03:24, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Really? That also wasn't the intention either. I'm offending people right and left today. Might be time for a break away from the keyboard :) Euryalus (talk) 03:39, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Maybe Nisus can give you a hug. :) Drmies (talk) 05:00, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

HMS Euryalus, actually. But your classical allusion is appreciated :) Euryalus (talk) 05:21, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Another view

The contestants in question are living persons. Wouldn't claims that they were eliminated from a reality show without providing a reliable source be a BLP violation and therefore revertable without 3RR or ED coming into play or is this a wikilawyery stretch? --Ron Ritzman (talk) 03:32, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Seems a bit of a stretch to me. Strange Passerby (talk • c • status) 03:33, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Not so much of a stretch. When one is a performer, appearing on a show like this provides national exposure which can easily enhance or launch one's career. Claims on one of the top 10 most read websites in the world that one was booted off could quite easily have a negative impact. → ROUX ₪ 03:39, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Roux. I think that claims as Ron describes them are BLP violations and should be taken seriously--so seriously that they should be able to be reverted, in good faith, without an editor falling foul of 3RR. I don't think this is a stretch. After all, do no harm... Drmies (talk) 04:45, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

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

More Restoring Honor disputes

The article Restoring Honor rally was locked last month because of disputes over the Restoring Honor rally#Crowd size|crowd size section]]. The issues were discussed on the talk page and consensus was reached, despite a few loud editors in opposition. The article reached a relative calm a few days ago. However, two users who hardly participated in the talk page have walked in and reignited the same disputes and causing us to start all over again. For that reason I overhauled the whole section and compiled the estimates into a single table with references provided. However, these editors insist on beating a dead horse and adding undue weight to certain estimates. User:AzureCitizen has reverted my edits three times. I was unaware of that policy until another user alerted me to my own excessive reversion. Because the disputes have been unnecessarily reignited by editors who refuse to go back and read the archives and see that consensus has consistently been against their agendas for the article, I request that the page/section be locked until the issues can be resolved again, hopefully once and for all this time, or that the editors be blocked from the article for refusing to comply with consensus. Thank you. BS24 (talk) 03:40, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Fully protected for a period of 1 week, after which the page will be automatically unprotected.. In the future, you can take this to Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. Good luck. You may want to get some outside opinions, by starting a Wikipedia:Requests for comment. --Jayron32 03:58, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Did your page protection not stick? Or have I suddenly been granted the rights to edit protected articles? Perhaps you meant "Semi-protected"? Xenophrenic (talk) 17:36, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Talk page disruption by Born2cycle

Born2cycle (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has been soapboxing all day at Talk:Libertarianism. Now he is admittedly disrupting the talk page by hiding other editor's pertinent comments, with the edit comment "Fine, I can play this stupid game too. Carol's comment about UNDUE also applies to scope... hide it too" which shows it to be an intentional WP:POINT violation. Yworo (talk) 03:55, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

This is a misunderstanding (yet another I've been having with Yworo, but it's hard to work out differences when he deletes your comments from his talk page and requests that you not post there again) and refuses to continue discussion and answer questions in discussions he starts on my talk page.

1. That hide referenced above with the poorly chosen words in the edit summary was in compliance with a decision made by some editors earlier in the day and subsequent hides were made in enforcing that decision.

   The decision: Talk:Libertarianism#General_warning_regarding_disruption

2. As a result of that decision, you can see entire sections hidden on Talk:Libertarianism towards the bottom that say, "Discussion of Topic or Scope during the period 1 October 2010 - 1 April 2011".
3. A bit earlier I wanted to respond to an earlier discussion about what different sources indicated, and I found it to be hidden/closed not for the agreed upon reason, so I had to unhide it before I added my comments. Then Yworo deleted my comments. Is that acceptable?
4. As to the section I hid, is filing an ANI really necessary? When I disagreed with a hide, I just reverted it.
5. I'm disappointed that Yworo escalated to ANI without discussing his concerns with me first,. I suggest Yworo take a break, and then return open to working out differences on our talk pages before escalating to ANI or elsewhere. I'm confident we can work this out, except he unfortunately is apparently in a "battle" frame of mind, as made evident by this wikilawyering trick to accuse me of WP:POINT because of my poor choice of words in an edit summary comment. That is, if I had just commented "hiding per decision about hiding discussions about article scope", there could be no technical complaint.
6. Since we're here, any assistance would be appreciated. --Born2cycle (talk) 04:32, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I made that particular revert (3) because you removed the {{hab}} at the bottom of the collapsed section but not the {{hat}} at the top, hiding the entire rest of the talk page from the {{hat}} down. That's not the disruptive behavior I was talking about, which I very clearly indicated. However, the thread was collapsed for valid reasons and you shouldn't have been adding to it in any case. Still, you seem to be attempting to distract from the focus from my actual complaints. Yworo (talk) 04:45, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Really? It seems to me that you discovered and corrected that problem later (thanks for fixing that, by the way, though I still don't understand what I did wrong because you can see both hat and hab removed in the diff of my change).

Note the reason you gave for the edit summary (at 19:36) for the diff in (3) when you deleted my comments: "Undid revision 388214486 by Born2cycle (talk) discussion was closed)". Seems pretty clear to me.

Your edit to fix something by adding a hab occurred 13 minutes later at 19:49 with edit summary, "by removing the {{hab}} but not the {{hat}}, you collapsed the entire rest of the page, please pay attention to what you are doing".

What are your actual complaints? That I hid a section for discussing article scope in concert with the decision of some others (including you, apparently, because you implemented it too) to hide sections like that (see below)? If that's sufficiently disruptive to warrant an ANI, why not mention that you and Fifelfoo and everyone else who agreed with this is being disruptive too? Or is it because the comment in my edit summary indicated I was complying with the decision in order to make a point? Pardon me for disrupting you with my edit summary comments. How is that disruption? You couldn't instead put a friendly reminder about WP:POINT on my talk page? Is this really worth an ANI? Is this not WP:HARASSMENT?

Though I would not have filed an ANI for it, since we're here, I thought involved admins might want to look at your deleting of other users' comments, your ignoring or refusing to answer good faith questions (which is characteristic of WP:TEDIOUS), and refusal to work out disagreements on your talk page as actual disruption, since you're the one raising this ANI, which sure feels like disruptive harassment to me, especially considering the time and effort it takes to defend and explain my behavior. --Born2cycle (talk) 13:22, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

On 1 October 2010 I boldly instituted a general warning regarding the disruption caused by the continual revisiting of topic and coverage. The warning is in place until 1 April 2011, six months is a reasonable period after which to revisit topic and coverage. Two remedies were provided for: hiding threads to immediately shut down disruption, or taking the matter to AN/I as disruptive user conduct. The article has been through a very large number of RFCs and extensive discussions, all of which have supported the current broad topic and coverage. Attempts to change the topic or to narrow the coverage have been rejected as against the consensus of the article's editors. As "I didn't hear that" revisiting of achieved consensus were continual, and disruptive, I generally warned article editors, so as to allow editing and WEIGHTing discussions on the current article. Feel free to sanity check this, but imho, it shuts down the disruption without preventing editing or content disagreement within the current scope, and six months is a decent time to wait to revisit topic consensus after six months of disputation over what the scope should be. Thanks, Fifelfoo (talk) 04:41, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

• Born2cycle's point 3 is correct. I boldly hid a large body of text because it appeared to have (imho) descended into battleground mentality. Hiding this text was was not connected with any breaking the warning about topic or scope. Fifelfoo (talk) 05:02, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Since I was also accused (multiple times, not just in this ANI) for "soapboxing", I should also point out that I have no idea what this is about. I've read and reread WP:SOAP (including 2. Opinion pieces) and cannot for the life of me understand how that applies to anything I've ever posted anywhere in Wikipedia, much less "all day long" yesterday at Talk:Libertarianism. I mean, I don't deny having my own views and biases (who doesn't?), but I try very hard to adhere to WP:NPOV, especially with respect to how material is presented in the article, and so take some offense at these accusations. So, if someone can explain this to me, by citing my exact words (should be easy enough since I supposedly did it "all day long") and quoting whatever criteria in WP:SOAP that supposedly corresponds to my allegedly inappropriate behavior, and explaining how it applies, I would appreciate it. Otherwise, I think we have to conclude that this is just yet another form of WP:HARASSMENT. --Born2cycle (talk) 14:04, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

You added a comment to a discussion marked closed. Any editor may revert the addition of a comment to a discussion marked closed. Apparently I didn't scroll down enough and missed the second comment outside of a collapsed discussion. My apologies, that was a mistake.

As to your demands for answers, I repeatedly pointed out that I considered the whole scope argument, especially the "just libertarianism" and cat arguments, to be soapboxing. It was soapboxing, and all the threads containing those arguments have been collapsed. I don't have to answer soapboxing. Yet you kept harassing me to answer your soapbox questions after I made clear that I wasn't going to debate the "logic" of your soapboxing.

That soapboxing is major part of the disruption that I intended to report here, which is why I mentioned it first. Even after the agreement not to discuss scope, you brought up your scope argument in the middle of one of my discussions about definitions of libertarianism from sources, in an obvious attempt to disrupt my discussion thread. When you became frustrated that your soapboxing was being collapsed and wasn't achieving the effect you intended, you started to uncollapse threads and post less than civil comments. How is that not a pattern of disruption? Anybody who goes and reads the talk page will be able to identify your voluminous comments as primarily soapboxing. Yworo (talk) 14:23, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Born2cycle's edit summary, "Fine, I can play this stupid game too", shows an unwillingness to work cooperatively with other editors. He should accept the results of three recent RfCs and stop pushing his own POV about how the article should be written. TFD (talk)

Born2cycle also participated in the POV-fork of Libertarianism created at Libertarian, making these three edits to the forked article: [82], [83], [84]. Of course, primary responsibility for that POV-fork remains with Darkstar1st, who actually replaced the longstanding redirect with the POV-fork [85]. Yworo (talk) 14:38, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

yworo accuses others of hiding comments, yet he tried to hide an entire section which received 100+ edits in the span of a day http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Libertarianism&action=historysubmit&diff=388148762&oldid=388148380, including many by yworo. he has also reported me for hiding his 2 word comment "just so" as off topic, yet now that entire section was collapsed. Darkstar1st (talk) 14:59, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

"which received 100+ edits" That's a serious exaggeration. It received between 20 and 25 comments, and it wasn't particularly productive. If you disagree, please summarize the conclusion of the discussion and precisely how it contributed to the content or structure of the article. What was the outcome? Yworo (talk) 15:18, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Your collapse of "just so" was directed at a specific editor (myself) for no reason other than I dared to question your turning Libertarian into a POV-fork of Libertarianism. It had no justification. The later collapse of the whole thread was done based on the agreement not to discuss scope. If you'd collapsed the whole thread for that reason, it might have been justified. Collapsing a single editor's two word comment had no justification and was clearly a disruptive WP:POINT violation, and you edit warred to restore it after I reverted it. Yworo (talk) 15:23, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

the whole thread was disruptive, my edit was later restored as well as the rest of the thread being collapsed. Darkstar1st (talk) 16:39, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

That doesn't justify your collapsing a single comment of a single editor, replying to an established thread that was active at the time. Yworo (talk) 18:09, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

very well, i apologize for removing "just so", being from the ysa, i didn't realize it meant "agree", i assumed it was some kind of taunt of misplaced comment. may wind of a 1000 camels, fill your sails! Darkstar1st (talk) 18:26, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

TFD, that one edit summary comment (which is all you mentioned) in a moment of frustration "shows an unwillingness to work cooperatively with other editors"? I hope one has to demonstrate much more and much worse than one unfortunately worded comment to prove someone has "an unwillingness to work cooperatively with other editors". I suggest almost all, if not all, of my other edits on the talk page and article fall on the other side of that scale, clearly demonstrating I am willing and able to work cooperatively with other editors. As to my edits on the Libertarian article, I went there after someone brought it to my attention on my talk page, and made a couple of edits to try to improve it.

Yes, Yworo, I know it is your opinion that much of what I type is soapboaxing because you disagree with me, which apparently you use to rationalize your ignoring of much of what I'm say and ask you. As a contrast to how discussions with me go when someone else is equally skeptical but willing to cooperate, see this discussion with John K on his talk page. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:02, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Harassment by Justa Punk

User:Justa Punk seems to think that revenge is sweet. She had earlier on used a sockpuppet account and gave me a warning that I am in big trouble.[86] I ignored it and reported her to AN/I. A checkuser was done and she was discovered to have again created multiple accounts. [87] These accounts were blocked and her IP(which geolocates to the State Library of Victoria)[88] was blocked. As it is a dynamic IP, I'm requesting that the whole IP range be blocked/and or my affected user talk page be semi-protected.[89] Here is a diff of another of my report in AN/I regarding this case.[90] I might be overreacting, but I'm sick and tired of this intimidation and vindictiveness. Bejinhan talks 04:48, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

It seems to be in the range of 203.17.215.xx. Bejinhan talks 05:00, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

As I recall, in cases where a user elects to have their user talk page semi-protected, it's normal for them to set up a subpage of their user talk page that is unprotected where IPs and new users can still contact them. This might be a feasible option in this case. I think I remember seeing a user who had his talk page set up this way, but I can't remember who it was. Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 06:00, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Aha, found one...User talk:Kafziel is set up with this method that I mentioned. Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 06:20, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

What I meant was the archived talk page be semi-d. Leonard^Bloom has semi-d it for a week. To be honest, I seriously doubt it would stop here. This has been going on for months. Multiple blocks have been put in place but hasn't worked. Bejinhan talks 06:48, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Upped the protection time of the archive. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 11:48, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Major personal attack

Resolved

 – Admin attention not required; possibly a civility issue, but templates don't have feelings so not a personal attack. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 15:22, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

A big personal attack here : [91] should he be blocked? --Addihockey10 07:14, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

It was language directed against {{unreferenced}}. I believe that should the template post here indicating its offence at being characterized so, then yes, admins should take action as a personal attack. Until that happens, however, there is no personal attack here. → ROUX ₪ 07:18, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

^ Agree. The IP was attacking the tag, not a user, so I see no problem. By the way, you (Addihockey10) neglected to notify the IP of this discussion. Please do so now. Goodvac (talk) 07:20, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Also I have warned the IP and reverted the removal → ROUX ₪ 07:21, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I thought that something less absolute would ease tensions so i changed it to {{morefootnotes}} because that tag does acknowledge the existence of some references while still requesting improvements. delirious & lost ☯ ^~hugs~ 08:02, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

That was pretty uncivil and I think the IP probably needs to be more WP:COOL so as not to cause disruption to other editors, but clearly swearing at a template isn't a personal attack unless there's scientific evidence that wikipedia templates are alive. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 13:58, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Libeling in a BLP

This discussion is now at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Ram Sharan Sharma, per the edit notice for this page which directs BLP issues to the BLP noticeboard. Uncle G (talk) 12:00, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Advice on new user Cartersahomo

Resolved

 – Blocked indefinitely. Favonian (talk) 08:59, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi guys. Need some advice. I've never blocked a new user for first time vandalism. This user's edit filter log gives him away. Should this user be blocked for clear intent to vandalize? If yes, could some admin do this? If not, I'll be watching this page, do leave your comments. Thanks Wifione _....... ^{Leave a message} 08:52, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

And for patently offensive username. Indef, wave bye bye. → ROUX ₪ 08:55, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Favonian. Wifione _....... ^{Leave a message} 09:12, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Blocking of Law and Order Offensive Party by User:Tiptoety

User:Tiptoety uses his admin's privileges to remove sourced information [92] in order to support the views of User:Miacek [93]. --78.53.44.188 (talk) 11:39, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

No "admin privileges" were used in the diff cited. Tipoety subsequently semi-protected the article due to "excessive sockpuppetry"; the IP above seems to be another of these multiple socks. RolandR (talk) 11:57, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

WP policy allows editors to undo any edits by banned users. Nevertheless, what exactly is wrong with the IPs edits from a content perspective? The references seem to be in German - did they not support the term to which they were attached? The dispute on this article starts here: [94] - about a category. The article still has the text related to the category (without the references), so why was the category removed? Gimmetoo (talk) 12:05, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Tiptoety appears to have been involved at that article in a purely administrative capacity. Good on them for following up and monitoring after their earlier semi-protection expired. - 2/0 (cont.) 12:09, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I would still like some explanation of the content issue. Gimmetoo (talk) 12:16, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Is Dodo19 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) banned, or merely indef'd? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:23, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Uninvolved comment. As Gimmetoo said, no explanation given if the edit is legimate or illegimate. This is the trouble of Wikipedia, Bugs just yells "banned?" but fails to provide proof or explanation! Wikipedia is very childish in this respect. Too bad. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 15:45, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I didn't yell "banned", I asked if the editor was banned. Because if he's actually banned, quality of content is irrelevant. If he's merely indef'd, then automatic deletion of his edits is not necessarily allowed. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:36, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

• *Sigh*. Dodo is a faultfinding troll and massive sock puppeteer who is known for attempting to use every opportunity to launch frivolous 'reports' [95], [96] against his perceived enemies, often masquerading with ostensibly legitimate 'concerns' [97], [98]. In order to be able to act, he is keen on instigating edit wars, very often using argumentation based on WP:SYNTH [99] or sources that do not support the assumption he pretends they do [100].
  As for the Law and Order Offensive Party, I no longer have that page in my watchlist, so I didn't notice Dodo's insertions. I was asked to comment on my talk page. Tiptoety probably reverted Dodo's IP edits for administrative purposes, as 1) the user is prone to enter POV material, even if sourced [101] 2) is known for falsifications, that serve one aim and one aim only: to provoke his foes into edit wars. It is definitely healthy practice to semi-protect the articles affected by Dodo's sock puppetry and to block disruptive IPs for some days. On the other hand, I agree that his references in that particular case can be included after some scrutiny by constructive users (I've only checked a couple of them, not all); whether or not the party now warrants the category Dodo's sock introduced, I'm not sure yet. It should be agreed upon on the respective talk page.
  If Dodo19 is not technically banned yet, I suggest we fix the issue now. Users like this are not interested in writing an encyclopedia, they come here only to poison the atmosphere and to disrupt. Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (t) 12:49, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Uninvolved comment. Miacek refers to "often masquerading with ostensibly legitimate 'concerns' ". If there are legimate concerns, they should be carefully considered. If they are not legimate concerns, then they are illegimate (bastard/bitch). The concern should be evaluated foremost, not an attempt to smear the editor if you cannot come up with an unbiased evaluation of the concern. That said, I am uninvolved and have not evaluated the original concern. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 15:42, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

An insider comment: this was a case what I'd describe as an ostensibly legitimate concern that in effect amounted to harassment and caused some renewed sysop intervention that eventually led to the disclosure of his sock puppet farm. Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (t) 16:41, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Inappropriate sanctions imposed on Triton Rocker and LevenBoy

I would like a review of the administartor's noticeboard recently filed by User:Cailil. First, some background;

The fight between Irish nationalists and supporters of the pro-British position is a continuing and seemingly intractable problem at Wikipedia, as it is in real life. At Wikipedia the problem shows itself as continuing attempts to remove British Isles from the encyclopedia, the possible fabrication within Wikipedia of British Isles naming dispute (at best this is complete WP:OR), the systematic conversion of Londonderry to Derry (agreed in the MOS, but ongoing and unnecessary conversions guaranteed to cause trouble) and most recently an attempt by a number of editors to effectively downgrade the status of Northern Ireland by removing references to it being a country - see recent edits at Giant's Causeway. It is within this context that we have the so-called BISE page where interested editors will suggest articles to have British Isles removed, and more recently, and to counter the removals, other editors suggest articles for inclusion of the term.

Two editors, User:LevenBoy and User:Triton Rocker, have recently been voiciferous in their objections to removal of British Isles from articles and have drawn the attention of, amongst others, the admin User:Cailil. Cailil has tried to impose a version of civility on the debate, which, due to the nature of that debate, is arguably inappropriate. When LevenBoy complained to Cailil about his actions [102] he was immediately blocked, with Cailil citing a previous "transgression" [103] (would Cailil have blocked LevenBoy if LB had not made the comment on his talk page). Cailil then went to AN/I to put forward a case for civility patrol (see above) and alerted LB and TR as here User talk:LevenBoy#ANi September 26, 2010. Note that at this point both Triton Rocker and LevenBoy were blocked and could not therefore easily answer the accusations. Further, LevenBoy was even blcoked from editing his talk page (reason here User talk:LevenBoy#"At the risk of being snipped". Cailil knew about this but did not open the talk page.

Cailil claims consensus on the expansion of sanctions. I see no consensus whatsoever, and given that the targets of the sanctions were effectively banned from commenting on them, the idea of consensus is somewhat lacking. The majority of those in favour of the imposition are protagonists in the British Isles debates themselves and can be identified as being related to the Irish nationalist side. Nevertheless, Cailil has imposed the sanctions on Triton Rocker and LevenBoy, as per this notice; User talk:Triton Rocker#Civility parole. When TR tried to comment on the sanctions on his talk page [104] and [105] he was instantly blocked from editing his talk page (and his edits were reverted) by User:SarekOfVulcan.

I suggest the above actions by two admins fall short of numerous policies such as WP:AGF. While both LB and TR have arguably been aggressive in the pro-BI stance, the impositions which they now face are clearly far in excess of what's required. Both TR and LB have also been the subject of a series of unfounded SPIs. TR is the only editor currently banned from editing British Isles terminology and is now serving a month-long block with no talk page access for what was clearly a minor and technical transgression of the sanctions [106], if indeed it was a transgression at all.

Note that sanctions were agreed against User:HighKing, one of the main editors, perhaps THE main editor, opposed to British Isles usage, but never enacted.

I have raised the issue at the above AN/I thread of the need for independent oversight of the British Isles-related problems. I drew attention to the fact that Cailil is from Ireland (see his user page) and as such, and with no disrespect to him, should not be talking up the position or arbitrator in this matter. I likened the situation to that of a referee at a rugby match and it drew the following bizarre response from another admin keen to arbitrate the matter [107].

In summary I believe the sanctions imposed Triton Rocker and LevenBoy are far too severe, they do not have consensus, and the whole issue should be overseen by impeccably independent editors and admins (which would exclude all those currently involved). I also believe there is a strong case for Triton Rocker's sanctions to be reviewed. There appears to be a definite attempt (implicitly and explicitly) to silence those editors who take a pro-British stance on relevant matters. LemonMonday Talk 15:06, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

comment British Isles naming dispute needs to be destroyed - this topic could be easily dealt with using a note in the lead of British Isles stating that "the term british isles is not commonly used in the republic of ireland,(refs) and is a politically contentious term in some(clarify) circles(ref) and in UK-repubRIE diplomatic relations(ref)" (or something). Or an article "British Isles (naming conventions)", to call it a dispute is overblown. That's all. Sf5xeplus (talk) 16:21, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

The matter at issue with the Giant's Causeway is not a "British Isles" dispute. It's much, much more amusing than that. We have "Irish editors" taking the position usually adopted by "British nationalist" editors: excluding a "constituent country" of the UK from an article lead or infobox and insisting on including only the UK appearing there. And to double the fun we see "British nationalists" trying to add a "constituent country" when they'd normally oppose doing so. I rather object to any editors being blocked or sanctioned when they were putting on such wholesome and family-friendly entertainment. Angus McLellan (Talk) 18:27, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Support the blocks made by Cailil far to much time is being wasted dealing with editors who wont "get with the program". Mo ainm~Talk 18:32, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

• This matter has already been discussed and consensus for the above sanctions on LevenBoy and Triton_Rocker was reached here on ANi[108]. In that last ANi thread I warned the LemonMonday account to stop conflating users' nationality with content position (as it happens I have not edited in this topic at all and am not involved except to enforce sanctions).
  The LemonMonday account has less that 150 edits[109] but has been active as a single purpose account involved in the British Isles naming dispute since late July 2008[110]. In fact an ANi thread in August 2010[111] resulted in a topic ban for LemonMonday being discussed but not implemented.
  This topic has wasted too much of the community's time already and pointy threads like this are not helpful--Cailil ^talk 18:37, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
  Also for the record I blocked LevenBoy for incivility but not Triton Rocker. I brought the expansion of sanctions for the British isles probationary topic area here so that uninvolved admins could impose lesser sanctions where useful, and a harsher sanction of a full topic ban if necessary not just to punish these two editors. Furthermore there is an increasingly disruptive level of sock and meat puppetry in the Troubles and British Isles dispute areas--Cailil ^talk 18:45, 2 October 2010 (UTC)