Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
This page is for urgent incidents or chronic, intractable behavioral problems. Before posting: Read these tips for dealing with incivility If the issue concerns a specific user, try discussing it with them on their talk page Try dispute resolution Just want an admin? Contact a recently active admin directly. Be brief and include diffs demonstrating the problem Do not report breaches of personal information on this highly visible page – instead go to Requests for oversight. When starting a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page; pinging is not enough. You may use {{subst:ANI-notice}} ~~~~ to do so. Closed discussions are usually not archived for at least 24 hours. Routine matters might be archived more quickly; complex or controversial matters should remain longer. Sections inactive for 72 hours are archived automatically by Lowercase sigmabot III. Editors unable to edit here are sent to the /Non-autoconfirmed posts subpage. (archives, search)
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Gastrich Socks

Can someone PLEASE put an end to Gastrich's pattern of serial sockpuppetry? How in the hell has the current CVU allowed Gastrich's BigBear (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) account to make 19 edits, all of which are policy-violating vandalism, or removal of sockpuppet notices? Hexagonal 03:32, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

He does seem to be a growing problem: here is the latest: JLATLC (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). I think a lot of us weren't aware of this person until very recently, but now he's showing up a lot when I RC patrol. Antandrus (talk) 04:16, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Wow. He's been at this a long time. And now he's at it again. Persistant little bugger. --DanielCD 04:39, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

It hasn't been mentioned so I will. There is an active arbitration case against Jason and people are welcome to give evidence. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 06:46, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Heads up! Here is another one, just came alive- Barry_Hatchett (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). JoshuaZ 04:45, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

And here's another one that needs blocking: Mary_Smith (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). JoshuaZ 02:38, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

You may want to check up on Raisinman (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), another possible sockpuppet of this user. KHM03 18:35, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

For the information of all conerned, someone is doing something (honest!). There is an RfC which came ot a strong consensus for strong action, including blocking of socks, and since this community-based decision does not seem to have had the desired effect it is now with ArbCom, who at present look likely to endorse the block-on-sight, revert-on-soght approach used for other serial sock-puppeteers. I know it is incredibly hard to assume good faith, but we have to allow for the fact that some of these might be genuine editors albeit likely brought in by Gastrich's external efforts. It's probably best to give them enough rope to hang themselves, especially since the Gastroturfing is now at a much lower (i.e. containable) level. I've blocked a couple of the more obviously abusive ones lately, but one of those was for gratuitous personal attacks. If you feel that a suspected sock is a problem (e.g. edit-warring over tendentious edits to controversial and previously Gastroturfed articles), leave a note here using the {{vandal|user_name}} syntax (replace spaces with underscores) and someone will have a look. Tolerance levels for Gastrich and his hosiery is at a low level. Just zis Guy you know? 10:11, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

User:KDRGibby

This user was the subject of a recently closed arbitration case [1], in which he narrowly escaped a ban for disruptive and abusive behavior but was put on personal attack parole and probation. [2]

Just 3 days after being unblocked (he had been blocked for a week shortly before the close of the arbitration case, then unblocked early in order to be given a second - or 1567th - chance [3]), KDRGibby made this comment on Talk:Classical liberalism:

Like what? From our last conversation it seemed you tended to favor a host of centralization programs, social programs, and trade barriers that original liberals would have found to be anti-freedom and anti-individual. Please explain what a European liberal is like now? Because after talking with you it appears that European liberals don't hold on to the true meaning. Especially since you conflate minimal government interference with having a government that cannot punish cartels or break up monopolies (Bad bad bad electionwood!...you are making the socialist free market conflation mistake! free market limited government advocacy does not mean anarchy! Stop that fallacious assumption please). (Gibby 03:28, 21 February 2006 (UTC)) [4]

[emphasis mine; "electionwood" refers to User:Electionworld]

I may be accused of pessimism, but I sincerely doubt that KDRGibby is about to reform in any way (he made no promises to reform; in fact he boycotted the arbitration case because it was "a total circus" [5]). As such, whenever I run into misbehavior by him (which has happened saddeningly often in the past, perhaps because our watchlists share many common articles), I will record it here.

I would like to note that I was not a party in the arbitration case, and I do not go out of my way to find incriminating evidence - it's just very hard not to bump into it at every turn. -- Nikodemos 06:43, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Update (as of Feb 25, 2006). KDRGibby has done it again... He made the following comments in edit summaries and the Talk page of the articles market economy and free market:

• [6] "the complaint is actually...stupid"
• [7] "The neutrality complaint is stupid. [...] Nikodemos is simply on a communist hell bent anti libertarian tirade." (emphasis mine)
• [8] "Ironically you make the same sophomoric arguement that you complain about. Free markets are only an impossibility if you don't understand what the word means."

-- Nikodemos 08:14, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Update (as of March 1st, 2006). KDRGibby is now flaming left and right as if the arbitration case never happened. Here is just what I saw on the talk pages of 3 articles I watch:

• [9] "I've got a word for you, its BULLSHIT. You are not allowed to do this. You guys make so much shit up all the time to get rid of stuff, its creative, but it really shows you guys are running out of intellectual steam, arguements, and freaking material."
• [10] "You lefties are so gd amazing! ITS NOT MY POV that is expressed... The section of the article is REPORTING the views of Brink Lindsey of the CATO INSTITUTE. He has a published book which you can read!!! THIS IS NPOV. STOP ABUSING WIKI RULES TO CENSOR MATERIAL YOU DON"T LIKE!"
• [11] "This is the problem with people like you. [...] Nothing is deleted because I reverted your vandalistic censorship like deletions."
• Disrupting wikipedia to make a point: [12] (added "only because citing free market economists is obviously pov" in a NPOV tag).
• [13] "There is no neutrality dispute you are simply ignorant of the meaning of NPOV and neutrality. Reporting what other people think does not violate this. Learn the rule!"
• [14] "ANd it is, your own ignorance is no excuse however. Citing and reporting an author is not POV. Stop it. Stop the total bullshit!"
• [15] "Nati, you are making up crap again. You are one of the worst editors here and you have a knack for deleting content you don't like for any reason you can think of."
• Refusing to keep a NPOV tag on a disputed article: [16] "the tag is evidence once again that only left leaning views are acceptable here. Leftists hate information that contradicts their own poorly held views. The tag does not belong because the criticism section is already NPOV."
• [17] "Niko just wants to delete Friedman because he conflates Friedman with libertarianism rather than understanding that Friedman is an economist who just so happens to scientifically prove that markets work better than any alternatives and that free markets are the best form of market economies. Thats it. He wants to delete this information because he disagrees with it. BUT REMEMBER NIKO...we are only reporting what Friedman says. But seriously, I think your scared people might start to see how rational his thoughts really are and just might start agreeing."
• [18] "Don't bitch about cited Friedman and Hayek material you disagree with. You are starting to irritate me with your lazy deletion censorship-like methods."
• [19] "Its the circus I refer to on my user page. Its also called BS." (referring to the actions of a number of users)
• [20] "If you are in fact a leftist of some sort, it is very likely you would not understand or want to understand if Friedman himself explained it to you."

I do not believe any further comments are necessary. -- Nikodemos 05:59, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

User disrupting & subtle vandalism

Resolved by agreement between parties ^Talk - The Original Invisible Anon at 86.10.231.219 10:41, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

A registered user is repeatedly disrupting an RfC, making attacks and false accusations seemingly to start a huge and irrelevant row in the middle of an RfC. This more subtle form of vandalism is from an experienced User Michael Ralston who knows what he is doing. It includes false accusations of anti-semitic allegations.

Evidence:

• the purpose of RFC is summarised [[21]] for this user
• after each further disruption, this user is requested three further times to stay on point [[22]], [[23]], [[24]]
• here in a fifth attempt at disruption and causing argument [[25]] he makes a false accusation and pretends he is the one asking for others to stick to the point, whereas that is not the case.

86.10.231.219 10:22, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to inquire how, precisely, adding to a talk page is vandalism of any sort? Disruption, perhaps, but certainly not intentional.

As for "false accusations of anti-semitic allegations", I'm curious what, precisely, "Here he accuses all jewish people who hold to religious customs of child abuse" is supposed to be other than an allegation of anti-semitism. (The location of said text is in that "summarization of the purpose of RfC", so I won't bother relinking it).

As for the claim that it's "not about Midgley's behaviour", I'm curious what [[26]] is supposed to have to do with the topic, then. Michael Ralston 07:01, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Firm action would be appreciated against this disruptive user Michael Ralston. He will not take the hint.

Despite repeated polite requests (evidence links above) to Michael Ralston to use user talk pages instead of an RfC Michael Ralston now insists on using the Admins noticeboard as well. Note the false allegation of anti-semitic remarks. The only person mentioning anti-semitism is Michael Ralston and it is clearly done to bait and start irrelevant arguments in the middle of an RfC instead of dealing with the main issues.

Further request for Admin action posted by User:86.10.231.219 10:36, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Reposted by User:86.10.231.219 11:12 24 February 2006 - for details see [[27]]

I do believe I have the right to defend myself against your accusations, 86.10.231.219. And declaring that someoone accuses all religious Jews of child abuse is, in fact, declaring that person is anti-semitic. You did that well before I even commented on that RfC. Michael Ralston 22:56, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Here [[28]] is direct evidence of bad faith editing by this disruptive user Michael Ralston. Here also is the link [[29]] to the sixth and seventh times Michael Ralston disrupts and raises anti-semitism. But now he is arguing this is part of the RfC when it has nothing to do with it. User:86.10.231.219 16:41, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

No, I am arguing that you repeatedly link to the diff in which you declare Midgley to be anti-semitic, and declare that diff is what the RfC is about; therefore, you are claiming that Midgley's behaviour is part of the RfC. If you were not claiming this, as I have pointed out, you would present a diff or a new post that does not mention Midgley, or at least does not mention Midgley in reference to religious beliefs. As you continue doing so, I am forced to assume you do believe Midgley's behaviour is part of the RfC. Michael Ralston 22:56, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Admin intervention would be appreciated as this is now very concerted harrassment by Michael Ralston:-

• Michael Ralston now together with User:Midgley have, in further harrassment, collaborated on simultaneous and equally inappropriate unjustified AfDs [[30]] and an MfD [[31]] as well and

- both are for deletion of my user talk page and

- both applications are made out of thin air without warning, discussion or evidence

• as seen immediately above Michael Ralston continues the same incorrect accusations in this page as he does in the original page and which have been demonstrated to be incorrect
• the AfD and MfD come just a short time after a prior "thin air" attempt by an anon (sockpuppet?) to list the talk page for deletion [[32]]

^Talk - The Invisible Anon 05:35, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Will an admin please say something on this topic? At this point, I don't care what's done or not done, I'd just like to see someone say they've seen this and what should be done in regards to it, so that I can stop worrying about having to verge on wikistalking someone to defend myself against accusations. Michael Ralston 06:23, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Looking into it now. Ok. First of all, to an outsider this looks like a total mess. Here are a few recommendations based on a first (and possibly wrong) impression:

• 86.10.231.219 (talk · contribs) a.k.a. "The Invisible Anon" is strongly encouraged to register a username. Anons don't "own" their user pages and talk pages the way registered users do. The notice on top of 86.10.231.219's talk page ("Attention: The Invisible Anon's Talk Page") is inappropriate. If you want your own talk page, register an account. I believe you can still claim your anonymous edits later.
• Nominating 86.10.231.219's talk page for deletion was not a good idea. If the talk page is used in violation of Wikipedia policy (this is a hypothetical; I haven't looked into this), please bring it to the attention of an admin. Since anons don't "own" their talk pages, stricter standards apply than for registered users. However, registered users are also bound by Wikipedia:user page and other policies and guidelines.
• It's not a good idea to paraphrase somebody's utterance in controversial terms. Saying something like "parents who have their children circumcised are child abusers" may or may not qualify as antisemitism (for purposes of this discussion I will make no assumption on whether it does or doesn't qualify). But antisemitism is a rather serious charge, and since it rests on shaky foundations it is best avoided. That said, I have not seen any evidence that Michael Ralston was acting in bad faith when he made that accusation.
• Not only is there confusion about what the anti-vaccinationism article is about, there is also confusion about what the talk page RFC (which would resolve the first kind of confusion) is about. Michael seems to think (and again I see no evidence of bad faith) that the behavior of editors is partly at stake. That may or may not be the case, but in this case I agree with the anon that such disputes should be resolved in other venues, not on an article talk page.

Admins won't be able to help you with the content disputes. The only actionable item I see is whether 86.10.231.219's talk page was used inappropriately. If you think it was, please present concise evidence. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 07:07, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

There is no confusion. This is straight-forward conduct. There are no content issues here. I have shown with specific evidence that Michael Ralston has eight times engaged untrue personal attacks, disrupting an RfC and harrassment.

Here is further specific evidence of stalking by Michael Ralston. Within less than ten minutes of my posting here this further report [[33]] of the harrassment by combining a second AfD within 24 hours with an MfD, Michael Ralston asks here [[34]] for the AfD to be a "speedy keep". Having been caught red handed here [[35]] he admits to stalking me, but there has been no justification for that.

If I had been doing what Michael Ralston is and has been doing, I would have been blocked in seconds.

I will be happy to consider registering a user name as soon as I see some proper enforcement of Wikipedia policies against serial registered abusers of those policies. This is not an isolated case. All other aspects are of less importance than that prime one. Here is a clear case of double standards.

Isn't there a current AN/I report against MarkSweep here [[36]]

^Talk - The Original Invisible Anon 12:22, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I haven't stalked you. I've strongly contemplated wikistalking you in self-defense, but I haven't yet done so - and given that I know now there's at least one administrator who's looked at this case, I don't think I'll have to. I do have this page on my watchlist - after all, there's an accusation against me! I'd darn well better be keeping an eye on this. As for me asking for the AfD to be closed in your favor... do I have to point out I also stated before then, on your talk page, that an AfD was improper, as it was not an article? Someone wondering about the timing might be advised to take a look at my contributions - I've been doing a moderate amount of editing the past few days, and most of my posts that in some way, shape, or form have something to do with this IP have been at the same general time as other edits. As for "untrue personal attacks", I can't even think of any personal attacks I've made, at least not lately. Claiming that you said Midgley is anti-semitic is not a personal attack - it may not be entirely accurate, but it's not a personal attack, especially when it is and has been perfectly clear what I'm referring to at that point. Claiming that Midgley is not anti-semitic is also not a personal attack, to my knowledge. Michael Ralston

All that said... Anon, can we try to work this out somewhere it belongs? Because it definitely doesn't belong here. Given your apparent opinion of me (and, I'll admit, my opinion of you), I doubt mediation would be effective. If you'd like to open an RfC on my conduct, I will willingly waive the two-person requirement as long as you'd be willing to agree not to report me for any further alleged misconduct elsewhere without first notifying me on my talk page. Does this sound fair to you? Michael Ralston 19:57, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh - and I'll be willing to reciprocate and cease my discussion on the MfD for your talk page, as well as any similar locations that may come up. Michael Ralston 20:02, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I checked again: I don't see any evidence of personal attacks, wiki-stalking, or bad faith on Michael Ralston's part. Judging from 86.10.231.219's comments above, it seems you are more interested in escalating the underlying dispute rather than resolving it. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 21:52, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

There appears to be an ad hoc mini-mediation taking place here [[37]] which looks very promising and positive. Lets see how that goes? ^Talk - The Original Invisible Anon 08:46, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Money money money fat fat fat

User:Money money money fat fat fat has been blocked indefinitely for uploading a photograph of me with fraudulent sourcing and for being a disruptive troll. Phil Sandifer 15:45, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

1. He uploaded a photograph of you? While very wrong and certainly blockable, from afar you have to note the humor in such an act (of course, I say that having not seen the actual photo). – ClockworkSoul 14:09, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

It was a high quality troll. He got the photo from my webspace. Phil Sandifer 16:40, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

A picture of you spinning snow? Ral315 (talk) 05:09, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Block of User:Grue

A short time ago, User:Kelly Martin blocked User:Grue because of this comment on an RfA, for 24 hours. While I don't believe the comment helped anyone, I don't believe that blocking Grue does either. Grue wasn't warned, and I think it is a fairly poor reason to block a perfectly decent user (and good administrator). I've removed the block, although Grue may want to reconsider his choice of words on that RfA. Esteffect 15:20, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Here's a great example of why "never unblock without bringing it up with the blocker" is a bad idea. This block was obviously inappropriate, and it's proper that it was undone quickly. Kelly, not sure what you were thinking, but if you must block, please be more reasonable about it. Friday (talk) 15:29, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree - worse comments have been said and no one got blocked. --Latinus 15:31, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Grue's remarks were a breach of WP:AGF, WP:NPA, and WP:CIVIL, there is no excuse and a perfectly decent user (and good administrator) ought to know better. In the current climate we need to choose words with care, and avoid such inflammetory remarks. However, a stern waring, an invitation to retract, or failing that an extremely short block would have been better. I believe Kelly acted in good faith, but too severely, and the unblocking was justified. --Doc ^ask? 15:36, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

The remark was snarky. It may reflect poorly on Grue in some folks's eyes. That is all the sanction that is needed in such a case. Friday (talk) 15:43, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with what Doc said. Blocking was perhaps too harsh, but Grue owes everyone an explanation for why he apparently no longer assumes good faith. Mackensen (talk) 15:48, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Friday. The remark was certainly snarky, possibly uncivil. It was not a personal attack. I believe Kelly acted in good faith to try to move us towards more civil discourse, but the comment by Grue did not merit a block. Johntex\^talk 15:50, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

The situation was discussed on IRC. I believe the block was warranted. However, I'm not going to get into an extended fight over it, and frankly am not even interested in discussing it at this time. Whatever resolution the community decides is most appropriate in this situation is fine with me. Kelly Martin (talk) 15:50, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Your attitude horrifies me. Secretlondon 19:38, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Here's an idea for resolution....Apologize. You were wrong. Just because you don't agree with someone is not a reason to block them.(And I assume that one of his/her allies will block me for speaking my mind, since that's been the nature of the cabal in the userbox wars.)Karmafist 18:23, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm...nobody said that they blocked due to disagreement...and most of us agree that the RfA comments where not civil or "snarky" at best. The issue is whether they warranted a block. And bringup up cabal userbox comments is borderline trolling.Voice-of-All^T|@|ESP 23:53, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

You assume bad faith, you mean? Don't. Dmcdevit·t 18:29, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Wow. I see a few things I very strongly disagree with: 1) the idea that the block was warranted, and 2) the idea that discussing it in a chat room somehow makes it better, and 3) the willingness to block without an accompanying willingness to discuss the block on the wiki. Blocking is quite controversial, as we should all know, so if you're not presently willing/able to be involved in the wiki much, you shouldn't be using the block function. Friday (talk) 16:52, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Just let it go. I don't agree with the block either but he's unblocked, so we can now all go about our merry way. Demanding apologies isn't getting us anywhere. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 18:35, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

So, the story from my perspective. After making the above remark, I decided to go into IRC to discuss the recent RfA voting patterns and I saw people discussing just that, and also the blocking of some guy. Before I decide to ask whom they're talking about, I was informed, that it's me who is blocked. I was like WTF and indeed, I was blocked (this is the first time I saw what happens when you try to edit a page while blocked). Thankfully I was unblocked rather quickly. I won't call for Kelly's head, but I think that making sudden 24hr blocks is not the practice that should be encouraged.  Grue  19:09, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

It is disconcerting, isn't it? My first time was last year during the affair which eventually led to Stevertigo's desysopping. It really threw me for a loop. Anyway, I would agree that the block for unnecessary, but I kindly ask that you assume good faith in the future. Best, Mackensen (talk) 19:15, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

If it happens once, it will happen again. - Mailer Diablo 12:13, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Grue made a particularly unhelpful remark in an RfA (minus two cookies to Grue), Kelly over-reacted (minus one cookie to Kelly), Grue was swiftly unblocked, the story is over. Everyone go home and enjoy your remaining cookies. --Doc ^ask? 19:20, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

You made a grammar mistake. IIRC, the correct preposition is "from", not "to". Minus one cookie crumb from Doc. Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (Be eudaimonic!) 19:24, 23 February 2006 (UTC).

Grue's comment was snarky but not uncivil and not directed at any specific person. Blocking him for it was completely and totally out of line, and I am shocked that it happened. This intimidates participants in RfA. I will endorse an RFC if it is opened. Jonathunder 19:26, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh FFS, what good would that do? --Doc ^ask? 19:33, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

It would further point out that RfC is more and more broken. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 23:49, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

For one incident? That's a bit overboard. To me, it's a simple matter of, if you're not willing to use the sysop tools responsibly, don't use them at all. This is not an unreasonable expectation. The drive-by blocking with the cavalier attitude of "It was justified and I don't have time to discuss it" is completely inappropriate, so I don't think it's unreasonable in the least to ask Kelly to refrain from using the block tool. The sysop buttons are not toys. Friday (talk) 19:38, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Ah, IRC rears it's ugly head again. Were the massive oppose votes after closing the result of IRC action? -- Cecropia 19:32, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

No, not as far as I know and I was one of the first in the quick burst of opposes. I found some edits I felt were uncivil enough to oppose. Grues comments were uncivil....and snarky and empty of any good faith. The block may not have been justified but I for one am getting really discouraged over the lower and lower standards of communication on Wikipedia. I can understand the frustration she might have felt, people can be as sarcastic and biting as they want and somehow it's seen as an acceptable way of communicating. Rx StrangeLove 19:47, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Harshness in RfAs has increased lately (see this comment which really was incivil) and it is something I have spoken out against, even when done by those who voted the same way I did. In fact, I voted the same way KM did in the RfA in question, but I really am concerned blocking Grue for his comment will intimidate voters. Let the 'crats run RfA and leave any blocks for disrupting it to them. Jonathunder 20:00, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Blocking User:Grue merely for that comment he made in that RfA is unacceptable. Lowering the bar on bans so low — down to the ankles — will damage Wikipedia. Alexander 007 20:06, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm shocked that someone was blocked for a WP:RFA vote. Sadly, I'm not particularly surprised at this point, nor am I particularly surprised as to whom the culprit was. This is a blatant attempt at voter intimidation. We need about half a dozen good desysoppings to keep these people under control. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 20:44, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

No, Cecropia - This happened after the restart. Esteffect 22:51, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

No way to know for sure Cecropia; some admins thought it would be a swell idea to have a private channel for admins only, so if some attempt at vote stacking were made there, non-admins would have no way of knowing. —Locke Cole • t • c 00:27, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Can I make an attempt at perspective? Grue said something he shouldn't have. Kelly said something she shouldn't have. Both mistakes were reversed. No long-term harm was done except whatever bitterness people choose to make themselves. Everyone makes mistakes and infallibility is not a prerequisite for adminship. I found the sudden rush of votes to oppose Djr's nomination distressing, but RFA is probably the single area where Wikipedia drama does the least harm.

Since people are quoting Jimbo's opinions on userboxes until they're blue in the face whenever the subject comes up, here's one of his views I remember:

"[Adminship] should be no big deal".

This spat is making it into one. --Malthusian (talk) 22:27, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Agreed.--Doc ^ask? 22:42, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Adminship has been getting a bigger deal since IAR became fasionable. No big deal is dead.Geni 23:08, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Agree with User:Geni 100%. As admins become increasinly enamored with IAR, and as we become increasingly contemptuous of consensus and process, adminship becomes a bigger and bigger deal. "No big deal" is as dead as a doornail. Babajobu 08:00, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

The basic problem is that in many instances we have outgrown our policies, they haven't scaled, no big deal almost certainly fits with that to. Yet our basic set up is very resistant to change since most proposals are effectively scuppered by a few who disagree, and many not caring, making consensus difficult to reach. We also face the problem of many users believing process to be the end itself rather than the means to an end, and the rather bizarre belief that consensus is some how a trump card which overides common sense and the basic project goals. But this is nothing new, the "no big deal" line has been trotted out frequently, ususally on failing RFAs, which to me indicates that the person themself does believe it to be a big deal, in much the same way that WP:BOLD is often trotted out when someone knows they have over stepped the mark. --pgk^(talk) 08:28, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with much of what you say, except that I don't think we really have a problem of users who believe that process is an end to itself. I think that's a bit of a strawman. I think users who make a good faith effort to participate in the various processes that have developed in Wikipedia would like admins to generally respect those processes unless they have a good reason not to. Admins who go trampling on process for no good reason whoatsoever win a lot of respect among other admins, but infuriate non-admins and make Wikipedia a less pleasurable, less interesting experience for them. But I agree with you that WP:BOLD, like WP:IAR, is often trotted out in defense of actions that serve no purpose. Babajobu 08:37, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

The Monty Hall problem shows that "common sense" is flawed and thus there is no reason no to overide it.Geni 09:00, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Then I'll be more specific: Becoming an admin may be a big deal, but not becoming an admin certainly isn't. --Malthusian (talk) 09:33, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

WTF? Grue is one of the good guys! Somethign is borked and no mistake. Just zis Guy you know? 23:57, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Sigh...I really didn't want to wade any deeper into this, but since it's the latest in thing to do, I'll shoot myself in the foot. Kelly was wrong. Grue was wrong. Both have had their mistakes undone. It's finished. This is living proof that the wiki system works -- any mistakes (which are always inevitable due to our humanity) are undone as soon as possible. Stop living on them and go write the encyclopedia. Also, please don't blow this out of proportion. Kelly clearly stated she was blocking for incivility, not for the vote. AGF plzkthx. Johnleemk | Talk 09:52, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Kelly's block for incivility strikes me as somewhat inconsistent considering that just a couple of days ago she was calling people "idiots". [38] When the personal attack was removed Kelly disapproved saying that "WP:RPA is controversial". She even took the time to explicitly "stand by" her original comment that certain people are "idiots". [39] It's true enough that RPA is controversial. But blocking without warning, reference to the blocking policy or review at WP:AN/I is pretty controversial too as has been pointed out here. Blocking is a big deal. Please use it carefully. Please apologize when you get it wrong. Haukur 10:51, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Seconded. Grue's comment hardly even qualifies as a personal attack, though it was a bit incivil. Blocking him for it without so much as a warning or a prior request that he chill out was rather a bigger faux pas than his comment, especially considering Kelly was on the opposite side of the debate and absolutely shouldn't have been carrying out a block even had it been warranted. "Blocking is a big deal. Please use it carefully." Babajobu 12:16, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Question: Why have Kelly Martin's administrative privileges not been revoked? Silensor 19:17, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Association of British Counties continual reverts

By sockpuppets of banned user IanDavies. Can this page be protected temporarily until he finds something better to do? Owain (talk) 12:27, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Semiprotected.--File Éireann 13:22, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

The blocklog says IanDavis has been blocked as a sock of User:Irate. Secretlondon 15:39, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Woohookitty unblocked this article earlier today - and IanDavies reverted it within the hour. Can we at the very least have it semi-protected again, and perhaps fully protected? - there's really not much more to add to the article as it stands. Can the IP range be added to the list of sockpuppets and blocked temporarily?

User:IanDavies (and User:Son of Paddy's Ego [40]) are sockpuppets of User:Irate, who was banned indefinitely by Jimbo Wales. Aquilina 14:16, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Not really - that's all of Bulldog Manchester and so presumably covers Liverpool as well (where Irate lives). That's a popular ISP with millions of users, and we can't really rangeblock the whole thing - David Gerard 12:31, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Erwin Walsh (talk · contribs)

User insults me at random not once but twice. Also incivil towards other users as well. Many examples are avalible but these should be sufficient.

He has a total of 532 edits of which only 66 ae in articlespace. Those edits were mostly vfds.

A partial list of his vfds: Quad Electroacoustics Anal masturbation,Massage therapist, 2003 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships

User has been blocked 4 times so far. Of which 2 of the cases due to vandalism

I do not see a reason why we have to put up with him. Please end his misery. --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 15:35, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Will anyone at least comment? --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 11:54, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

He was blocked a half-fortnight by Curps for personal attacks. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 12:12, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Kaiser Permanente

Can someone take a look at Kaiser Permanente? One user refuses to allow anyone to include an image of Kaiser Permanente's logo in the article, or to allow people to link to the company's homepage from the infobox. This is disruption. Rhobite 19:34, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Wacky. Left a {{3rr}} at User talk:Pansophia. Jkelly 19:54, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

If things continue like they have, I see no good solution short of banning Pansophia from directly editing any article related to Kaiser. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 21:12, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

The 3RR rule was not, however, applied to MarkSweep. A good process for ensuring balanced editing was worked out yesterday, but today Rhobite ignored it. Rhobite and MarkSweep also seems to be stalking me on other pages. This is a (double-teamed) attack on myself as a user in order to weed out an editor to win an editorial dispute. --Pansophia 21:54, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I reverted 3 times. If you believe that I reverted more than 3 times, please post the diffs. Rhobite 23:31, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I believe it's important to point out that that "good process for ensuring balanced editing" had, thus far, largely allowed User:Pansophia to replant her POV into the article proper (removing the organisation's logo from infobox because it's an "ad," repeatedly reinserting her LiveJournal blog as an external link, etc.). It's also notable that this is not the first time other editors or administrators have "(double-team..) attack[ed]" User:Pansophia, at least by her own assertion... Justen Deal 23:58, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing out this is not the first time that this has happened. No one has done anything about your false accusation of sock puppetry, by the way. I assume you're only here to try to "get me" by other means? --Pansophia 01:07, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

See also Pansophia's rant from 3 days ago, above. --Calton | Talk 05:05, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

"Tag teaming" as it regards 3RR is no crime. In fact it is explicitly excluded from 3RR policy because 3RR is designed to keep one editor from hijacking an article against the wishes of a consensus of other editors. · Katefan0^(scribble)/poll 05:28, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I take it weasel wording (re:rant) against other users is also within the letter of the law? --Pansophia 09:49, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Speedying of TIME magazine images

User:Ta bu shi da yu has decided that most uses of thumbnailed TIME magazine covers is, by his definition, not fair use, and has taken to removing them from articles and speedying them. I'm happy with someone disputing their fair use status, arguing for a rewrite of the template, or removing them from the article and letting the orphanbot get them if they stay un-used for a week or so. But I think that the approach being taken here is somewhat out of procedure -- copyvio speedies are for blatant violations, and none of these low-res TIME magazine covers are, under our current Wikipedia:Fair use guidelines, as such. Speedying them as orphans is not intended to be used in this way -- if you remove the image from an article, it does not automatically become a speedable orphan, in my opinion. In any event, I'd appreciate it if someone else could look at his/her behavior on this, because I have not seen any open explanations of why he has decided to start doing this, and we all know that image deletion is much harder to reverse than any other admin actions. I'm of course very concerned with Wikipedia's proper fair use compliance, but I don't think this admin's approach is correct in this instance, at least without some discussion first either at WP:FU or WP:WPFU. --Fastfission 17:26, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

There was discussion of this issue at WP:AN#TIME Magazine covers. You're right that the main issue raised was removal, not deletion. However, there is a general consensus that we have too many TIME covers over all, and that something had to be done about this. Ta bu shi da yu is not really acting unilaterally; he has the support of a number of admins, including me, and, I gather, some people at the Foundation as well (you should ask him about that). Yes, if it were me, I would have listed them at IFD instead of deleting them straight off. But something had to be done and I'm glad he's taken the flak and done it. Chick Bowen 17:36, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) What Chick Bowen said. Mackensen (talk) 17:38, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Unless the images are being used to illustrate an article on TIME magazine itself, fair use does not apply. Did you discuss it with TBSDY before bringing it here? User:Zoe|^(talk) 17:40, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, that's not really true. If the article discussed someone's selection as Man of the Year or something similar, then there would probably be a valid fair use claim. Just using the image as illustration would not be fair use. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 18:22, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, of course I left a message for TBSDY first, but was disturbed that other people have asked him about it and he referenced only e-mails from Jimbo as his justification. I think something like this should be discussed on Wikipedia:Fair use -- many of the images he deleted (I made a brief survey of them) were used in ways which were acceptable under the current fair use policy, IMO, or were at least close enough to it that discussion would be necessary before speedying them.

And I wouldn't have brought it up here at all if I thought he was only deleting clear cases of non-fair use. In any case, I don't think that's the right way to handle fair use claims: they should be put up at WP:PUI, not speedyable. If taken in good faith they are not blatant copyvio in the way that someone listing a copyrighted image as GFDL or PD would be. --Fastfission 21:08, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

And hey -- as anyone who is familiar with my work on the Fair Use policy both here and on the en mailing list would know, I'm extremely sympathetic to the desire to lessen the number of fair use images used on Wikipedia and to keep our use of them thoroughly in a legally safe zone! I just think that many of the images deleted are completely in accordance with our current policy; if the policy is bad, we should change that first before going around and speedying dozens of images. --Fastfission 21:10, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

It would have been much preferable if someone had taken the trouble of explaining what was going on, in the talk pages of all articles affected. And I'm not sure all of those covers should have been done away with. I'm having trouble understanding why William Lawrence (Massachusetts)'s picture on the 1924 cover of Time wouldn't be fair use. I mean, come on! -Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 06:09, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Fair use is not a black-and-white thing, and discussion is the best way to resolve these things (and I do quite a lot of this). Out-of-process action with regards to fair use violations in the past has caused some ill will, so I think that some more discussion would have been a better idea. JYolkowski // talk 15:42, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, how's the best way that I could get into some discussion in regards to the instance that I just mentioned? -Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 03:27, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I believe that legal matters like this might not be appropriate to discuss in the same light as our normal view of consensus, because there's an external reality (the law) that we're dealing with that we *definitely* want to stay on the right side of. It might be good to have a discussion, but I believe it's probably best not to include in it a vote or poll because such things cannot influence that external reality, and not many Wikipedians are lawyers. --Improv 03:37, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

If you have trouble understanding why Lawrence's picture on TIME's cover is not fair use, you have not understood fair use at all. See my comments on WT:RFAr. Johnleemk | Talk 04:03, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Further discussion should go on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Ta bu shi da yu 2. Thanks, JYolkowski // talk 22:16, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

• I just want to note, on this, that in looking over the deletion policy again there is currently no basis for speedying copyvio images (WP:CSD specifically allows speedying of blatant copyvio articles but not images). So I think whatever one thinks of the interpretations of fair use, speedying along this lines is well outside the bounds. Now I don't know if TBSDY was aware of this (for some reason, I had thought that images were speediable as copyvio), and I haven't seen anybody else mention it, but I've posted it around a little bit (we could also use a little boning up on WP:CSD now and then) so hopefully from this point forward it can be a matter of discussion in this instance (that is, I am not implying that it necessarily should be applied backwards in a punative manner). --Fastfission 01:12, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Wheel Warring - In progress?

I found the following sentence on the talk page of Catamorphism, and I think this is an attempt to organise a wheel war. Also this doesn't seem right, because I've tried talk on the talk page of parental notification and even revised my version for neutrality. It is just that the version currently up (if Catamorphism has heeded Alienus' call) lacks some information. Chooserr 18:16, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Chooserr has continued to revert the same low-quality version of parental notification repeatedly, and I don't want to violate 3RR. Please jump in. Alienus 18:11, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I also wanted to post the alienus' accompaning comment from the summary bit - Parental notification call to action. Chooserr 18:21, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

You mean User:Catamorphism? That girl has always been rude. Lapinmies 18:53, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

help requested

I have become involved in a situation on the articles Total Olympics medal count and Summer Olympics medal count where 2 users have been pushing the inclusion of a POV statement in a purely numerical list of medals won. Please see examples of the edits here and here. The two users involved are User:Medalstats and User:Them medals.

The first has been employing rather insulting and inappropriate language to further his arguments, see here for example. The latter of these, Them Medals, has been editing only for a day or two after the conflict started and has not made contributions other than supporting and replacing Medalstat's edits. I suspect him of being the same person as Medalstats. I have left a note on Medalstats userpage but he has not gotten back to me yet. I am unsure what to do short of becoming involved in a viscious circle of reverting each other's edits and I would appreciate an admin looking into it. Thank you for your time,--Kalsermar 18:29, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

But he does have a point and makes sense. Lapinmies 18:47, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Using offending language and inserting POV statements without source only to make a point is having a point and making sense?--Kalsermar 19:00, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I suggested a compromise on the talk page: A column with the number of Olympics each country has particapated in. That way the point is made without adding POV edits like this county dominates that country. Rx StrangeLove 19:05, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Please see also here for today's latest personal attacks on me by User:Them medals. How best to deal with this without running afoul of 3RR myself?--Kalsermar 23:21, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Uri Geller

User:Earthacademy showed up at the Uri Geller article claiming to be Geller's representative and added a bunch of ranting about "intellectual bigots" and so forth. I left a polite note about NPOV, legal threats, etc. but wanted to give everybody a heads up in case this escalates. Gamaliel 19:28, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Looks like the user is also 217.46.167.13 (talk · contribs). --cesarb 22:18, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

User:Swedenman

User:Swedenman (contribs) has been involved in several edit wars and is at the moment removing other users' comments from his own talk page. User:Swedenman is identical with Filipman (contribs) on Swedish wikipedia. So far he has been blocked 8 times (sv:block log) for rabid edit wars and for abusing other wikipedians. Several users have vainly tried to reason with Swedenman. Probert 22:55, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

User:Harry Potter and the Gold Fires

User:Harry Potter and the Gold Fires (talk) has been adding the {{libel}} tag to several articles including Kelly Clarkson and Avril Lavigne. (See contributions) Since the account has only recently begun editing Wikipedia, it is possible that the person behind the nickname could be an indefinitely blocked user in an attempt at reincarnation. —Eternal Equinox | talk 23:43, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Account has already been blocked by Gamaliel for 24 hours. The user placed both {{WoW}} and {{MPS}} on his/her user page; I removed them but was tempted to actually block indefinitely for claiming to be those two vandals, but didn't. Thoughts? Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:47, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm... I shall keep an eye on the situation. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 23:49, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, because the user chose to place the templates on his/her user page, they must be familiar with operating Wikipedia. Although I don't want to, I'm going to be placing their talk page on my watchlist for now, but I'm sincerely no fan of playing babysitter. —Eternal Equinox | talk 23:56, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

It's the latest in a loooong line of accounts from a vandal that some people call the Hotrocks vandal. His MO is to put provocative tags (NPOV, totally disputed, delete etc.) onto a range of articles. He particularly (dis)favours Girls Aloud (check out its history), and he clearly reads this page and ViP, as he often apes the vandalism of whomever is the vandal-of-the-moment. As with dozens of his other accounts, I've made the block permanent. He'll be back tomorrow (at around 10am). DOn't be surprised, incidentally, if he adds a fake apology to the mix once in a while. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:54, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Should this user account be indefinitely blocked then? —Eternal Equinox | talk 23:57, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

This account is blocked indefinitely, but he'll create another one. And another... -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:59, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

All right, well, we do what we have to do. —Eternal Equinox | talk 00:10, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

• Woah, vandal-vandal war going on? I remember blocking User:Wikipedia is Girls Aloud! some time back. Well whoever wins, Wikipedia loses... - Mailer Diablo 01:58, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
• I've blocked the 'Hotrocks' vandal using the HOSTS file on his user account, so he can't access Wikipedia! Problem solved! --Craig Whitford 13:55, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

• Note that whoever Craig Whitford is, he is likely being almost completely ficticious, since the IP address he has also edited (and edited from) — User:82.42.237.114 &mdashh does not check out to being used across the whole United Kingdom as a shared IP: [41]. -Splash^talk 20:54, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Ted Wilkes violated his probation

User: Ted Wilkes has violated his probation, as he is continuing edit warring and has removed content from the Nick Adams page which deals with Adams's supposed homosexuality. See, for instance, [42], [43], [44], [45]. Wilkes also included some additional passages in the Boze Hadleigh article which try to denigrate this author who has written on the homosexuality of celebrity stars. See [46]. The arbcom clearly said that "Ted Wilkes and Wyss are banned from any article regarding a celebrity regarding which there are significant rumors of homosexuality or bisexuality..." and that "Ted Wilkes and Wyss are banned from making any edit related to a person's alleged homosexuality or bisexuality." See [47] and [48]. Wilkes also removed an external link to a Crime Magazine website which includes the best account of Nick Adams's life, presumably because this webpage makes mention of Adams's supposed homosexuality. See [49]. Onefortyone 03:40, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Could someone offer a third opinion on Matt Leinart

Jossi blocked User:Davis21Wylie for violating the 3 revert rule on Matt Leinart. Davis21Wylie was not warned, and was blocked nearly 4 hours after the fact. Also, I have tried to explain to Jossi that this is not a content dispute at all, but a case of pure vandalism. Several trolls have been inserting information that Matt Leinart is gay. This information is unsourced and their persistence in re-inserting it amounts to vandalism. I think User:Kbh3rd, User:Wahkeenah, and User:IanMcGreene will vouch for Davis21Wylie that this is not a legitimate content dispute. Davis21Wylie was acting in good faith and should be unblocked. Could someone take a look at the situation and offer their opinion? thanks, --Alhutch 04:09, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I understand the point about the attempts by anons and user:Cooldc19 to add material without sources. Nevertheless, the tone in the talk page and the comments made by Davis21Wylie in the edit summmaries are not the way to proceed in these cases. If you want to remove the block, please go ahead. Just make sure that you explain to that user that regardless of vandalism, there is no need to escalate things by feeding the trolls, and that there is always semi-protection to deal with IP vandalism. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 04:11, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

The page was already semi-protected while these reverts were going on. The anon had created an account and waited several days so as to get past semi-protection. Since you have assented, Jossi, I'm going to go ahead and unblock Davis21Wylie because he was acting in good faith during the whole episode.--Alhutch 04:15, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

No problems. Just make sure to cool off the air and remind Davis21Wylie that even if he considers an edit to be vandalism, and there is a need to revert, to not feed the trolls by writing things like Straight-up rv'in, baby, Yeeah, this is how we do... rv., Illin' like a villain... rv, Word to your mother... rv, and other. These comments were the ones that prompted me to to check the edits and assessed them to be a violation of WP:3RR. Thanks. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 04:22, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

• Additionally, I have blocked User:68.48.237.65 for vandalism/3RR, for adding the exact same stuff back in repeatedly, and adding basically a trolling message to the talk page, trying to further stir things up. --W.marsh 05:12, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
• Just as an update, the guy keeps coming back under various IPs. I don't consider it a content dispute at all, this is simple vandalism/trolling, so I have blocked several of the IPs after they've demonstrated they're just here to re-insert the attack. --W.marsh 05:11, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Anderson12 (talk · contribs)

I suspect Anderson12 (talk · contribs) is a sockpuppet of banned user Lightbringer (talk · contribs) Ardenn 04:38, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Blocked for 24 hours for 3RR violation, I'd like another administrator more knowledgable in the Lightbringer case to let me know if the sockpuppet claim is true, in which case an indefinite ban is in order. Ral315 (talk) 05:40, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

User:Megaman Zero and his forged award

I attempted to have a discussion with Megaman Zero about his editing of an "award" on his user page -- he had changed a weird "bicycle" award into first an exceptional newcomer award and then, in response to my talk, a series of motorcycles (?). He has also edited the post of the user who originally posted the award.

More seriously, he has turned to simply deleting my posts [50] [51] [52] from his talk page, as he does not seem to want to acknowledge the issue.

User:Prodego has also commented to Zero that what he's been doing amounts to forgery.

Just to be clear, I did edit Zero's user page twice [53] [54] to restore the original award; once along with my original post to his talk page and again after he first deleted my talk. This was what attracted Prodego to the issue.

I have again attempted to restore my comments to his talk page, but at this point expect him to simply delete them again. Please see:User talk:Megaman Zero#bicycle award and this oldid in case he deletes my talk again. I'm done trying to have a talk with an American teenager about ethics, but hope that others will comment on his, and my, actions.

Thank you,

--Moby 09:13, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I urge both parties not to be a dick. Alphax ^τεχ 09:44, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Better? Thanks for the interesting link. --Moby 10:48, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Its okay. I will delete his post, and I will continue to delete it. It offended me, and furthrmore, is an false accusation on my intregrity. I don't tolerate trolling, especially when it deverges from the subject of the well-being of the encyclopedia. I made an in-depth expanatory thesis concerning this on my talkpage.

Moby Dick is most likely an nice chap, but he's taking this furthur than it needs be and the situation amounts to nothing. I've a mind to delete the whole conversation, as it amounts to nothing in concerns to the encyclopedia. I also decline to take advice from an user with an scat 100 edits who proceeds to accuse me of untrue fallacies. -Zero^Talk 09:51, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion, altering another user's signed comment is not appropriate. — Knowledge Seeker দ 10:08, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree, but it was in Megaman's own talk page, not in an article discussion, and IMHO, User:Moby Dick will now see that he shouldn't edit anyone elses userpage without their permission aside from reverting vandalism. Hopefully these two can "shake hands" and this will end it.--MONGO 10:19, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I fail to see how it matters whether the comment is on an article talk page or a user talk page. User's signed comments should not be altered, with the possible exception of obvious typographical errors which you can be fairly certain the user would not object to. — Knowledge Seeker দ 21:29, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

In one of my deleted posts to his talk page I stated that the misattribution was the crux of my complaint. I have already said to Prodego that I will not edit Zero's user page again. --Moby 10:48, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Hopefully we can place this behind us and proceed to be on more friendly terms in the future. I was quite dissapointed to rub you the wrong way over something as nonsensical as this. I really hate to engage in concerns that don't involve the well-being of the encyclopedia, as well as offend others. That's silly. -Zero^Talk 15:31, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

You could help this by restoring my comments to your talk page. --Moby 07:41, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Certainly not. I cannot restore inflammatory content. -Zero^Talk 11:43, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

diff --Moby 12:14, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. Certainly I intend to go on deleting trollish and inflammatory discussion where it traduces the rpa policy or the civilty policy. What of it? I'm not in your club and I don't have to subscribe to its rules where they diverge from those of Wikipedia. -Zero^Talk 14:20, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm curious what you meant by the American Teenager/ethics comment? Rx StrangeLove 15:36, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

In the course of reading his user and talk pages (including some of the history) it became obvious the Zero is a teenager and is an American. And it is my view that his actions — messing with an award as well as deleting my comments — are highly unethical, something I don't see much of in that group.

My original complaint to him was about his having obviously changed his user page to imply that a user had given him an "Exceptional Newcomer Award" when this, in fact, is not the case. It is also highly unethical of him to have repeatedly deleted ^{latest diff oldid} about half of my comments on this subject and gone on to post his own extensive spin on this both on his talk page and now here. --Moby 07:41, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I believe he's refering to my exhaustive thesis which I've copied over from my talkpage:

---

Amounts to forgery..? Oh this is just so much tosh. Take Moby Dick's conversation with me on my talk page:

• Moby Dick falsely accuses me of inappopriate liberties on my own userpage [55]. He tells me its okay to vandalize my web page under an act of honesty[56]. He seemed to have a problem. He wanted the award kept but he had thought up some process-based reason why he should replace it without asking me the true purpose of the substitution. A good, solid bureaucratic reason no doubt, but not a reason for him to decide. It appears to me, the exact opposite of what I thought was merited on an simple transmogrification for my preferences.

• I explained my view to him [57]--that I merely wished an better image of my own preference. I added some emphasis on the purpose of the fact it was my userpage and I withold the right to merely change an image. It was an incorrect fallacy to state I was claiming the newcomer award.

• He replied that he thought that that didn't matter and I was still claiming the award (hoo boy!) [58]. He raised a good point about me playing with captions as an motive for mischief. He said that he thought that this was nonsense (it isn't, and I think that it's significant to note that it wasn't even the intention he summerized). He said I playing around with award images amounts to "forgery" (duh!)

• I explained the true meaning of my transmogrification [59]. I corrected him on some points of fact (I find I have to do this a lot, it wasn't just the oringinal post). I edited my prior comment to fix an spelling mistake which he mocked me on as well. He also trollishly asked me if I recieved all my awards this way. This really is not an nice thing to do, but asssume good faith...

• I then proceed to remove the trollish comment [60]. Moby replied that he hadn't a clue what I was talking about and proceeds to replace it with another mockerous comment about an nice conversation [61]. He again tried to reason by incorrect analogy. He thought that any attempts to change images was wrong and therefore any attempt to sabotage my userpage would be justified, only to find himself reverted. Nice try, no banana [62]. He went on a bit. He said I didn't understand the meaning of an award.

But now Moby Dick seems to believe that we were just talking past another, and no serious discussion took place. He also seems to have mistakenly placed the management of my own user and talkpage as his own business. How odd. I believed that I had indicated that I understood his qualms and agreed with them, and that it had nothing to do with the encyclopedia, as well as any of his concern. -Zero^Talk 13:50, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

---

-Zero^Talk 15:59, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

If you don't like the award, you either leave it on your talk page or you remove it completely. Changing the image is like painting gold over your silver medal and pretending you came first (to put an Olympic spin on it) or giving yourself a Barnstar award and trying to claim some "fame" off that. There's nothing wrong with removing an unwanted barnstar from your page (someone's done that with a barnstar I gave him), but there's everything wrong with changing that barnstar into something it's not. Maybe you should have asked the person who gave you that award to change it to something else, and letting that person do it. --Deathphoenix 16:20, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Deathphoenix needs to do his homework. I've already made an exhaustive summary of my intent which is almost the direct opposite. Could you please tell me how you came to your conclusion out of thin air..? Its quite baffling. I' m afraid you don't understand the situation at all. I merely changed an image. Its not an barnstar at all. It also not an attempt to change the award to an higher presitige of status. Please understand the entire situation before making utterly incorrect comments and accusations such as that in the future. -Zero^Talk 16:30, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Fine. No more comments from me about your actions in this regard, except for one. Sorry. --Deathphoenix 17:00, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I believe you had it right before you struck the above out; please see my above post and these: ^{latest diff oldid} --Moby 07:41, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Stirring words from an editor that has not constructed one edit to mainspace in the course of this entire ordeal [63]. I have explained my actions in full on the my talkpage and here. Please assume good faith; of course I'm not going to assume you are taking this to the extreme, though possibly somebody else will. Please get back to working on the encyclopedia and reflect on *why* exactly you are here. -Zero^Talk 08:11, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes. — William James

--Moby 09:15, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely! When I screw up, I don't sit around and wring my hands. In the meantime, I've more articles to write. -Zero^Talk 14:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think you'll get anywhere by adopting these antagonistic attitudes towards me or pursuing this nonsense. I'll certainly continue to assume good faith in regards to your actions, but I expect the same from all others involved. I'll not give this misled situation anymore of my time, and I humbly inquire the same of others. We're here to increase the productivity and educational value of the encyclopedia, not discuss kindergarden issues.

Your contributions in article space are quite noteworthy. Unfortunately, you are trolling, as exemplified by the actions you concern yourself so much with, and such actions are becoming far too common on Wikipedia, and they must die. I invite you back onto my user and talkpage with civilty and legitimite concerns in regards to the encyclopedia. Hopefully you will undoubtedly learn these in your experience here, and meanwhile you will, I hope, find time enough to construct more of your productive edits. I wish you the best.-Zero^Talk 14:46, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Another sockpuppet of Wik

User:Riveraz is almost certainly another sockpuppet of User:Rivraze, who is apparently a sockpuppet of Wik. Rivraze was blocked 18:04, 13 February 2006; Riveraz's first edit was: 21:43, 13 February 2006, three hours later, to the same page. I'd block, but I wanted to get a second opinion. JesseW, the juggling janitor 11:26, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Now permablocked, by User:SushiGeek. JesseW, the juggling janitor 06:20, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

User:Officeskank and User:24.160.180.50

Officeskank (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Officeskank is a sneaky vandal. During 4 hours time period started 2 articles to vandalize them. Sharon Rocha and Almond roca. Continued vandalism with false edit summaries. [64] [65] I cleaned up the mess and I left a block warning. Will an administrator follow-up and block if Officeskank returns? Thanks, FloNight ^talk 13:11, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

• I'm thinking that we should block on inappropriate name alone. In fact, I'm going to be bold and do that now. The usual "I know I may be undone" applies, of course. – ClockworkSoul 16:30, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

24.160.180.50 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) User:24.160.180.50 is vandalizing the same articles in the same way. [66] [67] From the look of IP user talk:24.160.180.50 page, same vadal several other times in Feb. FloNight ^talk02:04, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Could an administrator review the contributions of IP address 24.160.180.50 and block this account. Every edit is vandalism or nonsense coments on user or article talk pages. Appears to be vanalism by a single user. Most of it is nonsense, such as insisting that people are named after tasty treats. The most serious was adding the comment that Bodie Miller admitted on 60 minutes that he skied drunk. thanks, FloNight ^talk 19:15, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Is it necessary to have libellous mad ranting?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=81.158.53.200 Midgley 16:12, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Linuxbeak pagemove vandal

Just a note that I indef blocked Whitmair (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) after his fun moving User:Doc glasgow and User:Mindspillage around some, to pages in Linuxbeak pseudo-space. -Splash^talk 17:23, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

He's back as Discodiva900 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and blocked. --Sunfazer (talk) 00:17, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Use of rollback in format dispute

User:Ambi has been reverting my edits using the rollback function.

• I've had enough of this. As of now, I will rollback each and every single edit of yours unlinking dates. How much of your and my time you choose to waste in continuing to do so is up to you. Ambi 01:22, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
• Did you think I was kidding? Every unlinking you made today is gone. The same will happen every day until you actually start to talk and work towards some sort of compromise, rather than sticking up your middle finger at anyone who disagrees with you. Ambi 09:57, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
• ...and again. Ambi 05:09, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I have also had to accept swearing from Ambi and from other admins. I not a prude and will survive, but it is not nice and it is almost certainly counter-productive to dispute resolution. Fortunately, only one side in the dispute engaged in bad language.

I am not sure when rollback started to be used by Ambi, or by any of the other editors that have disagreed with my edits. Wikipedia:Administrators says Do not use one-click rollback on edits that are not simple vandalism, not even to reverse a mistake of your own making. Please use manual rollback with an appropriate edit summary.

She even started using rollback to remove my comments for user talk pages. Perhaps that was an error.

The issue of the edit content itself is being deal with elsewhere. Please do not regard this as a major complaint, I get the impression that Ambi is an experienced editor that is respected by many. I am merely asking for clarification so that everybody knows whether this powerful tool can be used like this in future. bobblewik 17:27, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Admins can revert just like anyone else, I don't see what possible difference it makes if someone uses three mouse clicks as opposed to one. Gamaliel 20:09, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

'Use rollback only against vandalism' is a generally useful simplification, but the real criterion is 'use rollback only where there's no need for an edit summary'. Ambi seems to me perfectly within her rights. Mark^{your words} 21:15, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Stop removing date links and there will be no problem. You have no consensus support to be doing what you're doing, and I suggest you stop, or you will be blocked from editing. User:Zoe|^(talk) 00:30, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I gave bobblewik permission to do whatever he is doing with the links if the articles are under my supervision (such as Belarus). While he should ask for permission first before he does whatever it is that he is doing, I would not mind if he does whatever he is doing to the articles I oversee. However, I do wish to point out that what bobblewik is talking about in his complaint took place at Flag of Mexico with this edit: [68]. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire) Fair use policy} 00:42, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

On a related note, hasn't there been some stress recently toward not over-linking years, per WP:MOSDATE#Avoid_overlinking_dates? EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 00:48, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

There is no consensus for that suggestion. User:Zoe|^(talk) 01:41, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedians by alma mater:Catholic education:Christian Brother

Obviously far from empty, yet user insists on reinserting {{db|empty}} even though it's not empty--64.12.116.65 20:17, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

It's far from empty because a set of users - in, by odd coincidence, your IP range - keep adding junk pages to it, by spamming templates and empty talkpages. I fear some WP:POINT going on. Shimgray | talk | 20:30, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

That's uncommonly generous. I call it vandalism. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 20:30, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, in the current climate, a "Wikipedians X" category, people editing userbox templates, screaming about deletion... I assume they must be trying to prove something. I noted that one template hit was {{User female}}, and got the reply "Oh great, just what we need, another rogue admin trying to delete harmless userboxes..." - yay! I never touched userboxes until tonight, and already I'm a rogue admin! 20:47, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm working on cleaning out anyone who was obviously added without their consent. Many of these additions are on user talk pages. (ESkog)^(Talk) 20:42, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

After removing everyone who had been spammed in by that range of AOL IPs, the category was indeed empty, and I have thus speedy deleted it. (ESkog)^(Talk) 20:54, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

User talk:Bishonen

Could someone see what's up with that page. Every time I try to look my browser (IE) freezes up. I'm at work and I don't have another browser. Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 20:55, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

It wouldn't load for me...so I opened it in edit mode (changing the URL). Some troll had 100 pictures of George Bush on it. I fixed it...seems to work now.Voice-of-All^T|@|ESP 21:07, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I knew who it was but couldn't look at it. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 21:16, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, guys. I didn't even notice till after Voice fixed it. :-) Bishonen | ノート 00:53, 2 March 2006 (UTC).

Aha! That's what it was! (100 pictures of Bush? I suppose that is worse than the usual pictures they like to plaster on pages.) Geogre 02:11, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Rosario Poidimani, redux

The article on Rosario Poidimani was deleted on 24 January 2006, and the notice that it should not be recreated placed there, per AFD. This was reviewed on the "undeletion" page, and the deletion upheld. Now the identical content has been placed at Rosario Saxe Coburg Gotha Bragança. I would do a speedy delete and a similar "salt-the-earth" maneuver at that name, were I not involved in the preceding debates. As I was, I think it might be a better idea if another admin did the deed. Anyone amenable? - Nunh-huh 21:39, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I've deleted Rosario Saxe Coburg Gotha Bragança. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-02-26 21:55Z

Thanks, much appreciated. - Nunh-huh 22:19, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

User:67.160.17.29

This user has mentioned in his edit comments that he does not accept the license which all Wikipedia submissions must agree to. Perhaps this requires, for legal reasons, that all of his edits be reverted and the user blocked? Anyway, he's claiming to be David Quinn (Actor) and making legal threats... another one of those types. *Dan T.* 22:26, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

There have been other editors who were permablocked for refusing to accept the license. He has no grounds for refusal and should be banned. User:Zoe|^(talk) 01:43, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Squidward vandal

Is hitting a massive attack of blanking right now. Six articles or so a secons, and a load of IPs. Obviously help is needed to contain it. Esteffect 22:23, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Reverted a few dozen myself from half a dozen IPs. Someone has too much time on their hands (well, besides me). — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-02-26 22:47

The attack was contained and cleaned up. Now we just need to go through the logs and extend short blocks, since these are all open proxies. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 22:51, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I originally blocked for 1 week each but they should probably be extended if they're open proxies. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-02-26 22:56

I did the following, all indefinitely:

• 202.44.32.11
• 70.32.173.100
• 216.18.71.12
• 170.171.250.51

violet/riga (t) 22:57, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

If anyone needs an open proxy check, list them at WP:OP and they'll be scanned and if open, blocked. Tawker 23:21, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I think all the Squidward open proxy IPs are now permablocked. They are not all tagged as open proxies. David | Talk 23:34, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I reverted and blocked User:59.26.117.103 for just a week. Please perma block this as well if appropriate. Martin 23:48, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

A permablock is what the vandal, or vandals probably wants. Oh well. Have fun. Karmafist 23:50, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Clean IP's

The following were blocked as open proxies but are clean according to a proxyscan

• 82.210.160.234
• 80.95.106.173

NSlookup shows the first is from a Polish telephone company called Aster Website in Polish. The second is registered to a Czech IT company called logos English website. David | Talk 00:53, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

IP addresses involved

The following list includes every IP address used by the vandalbot(s). These 72 addresses averaged about 19.5 edits each, totalling 1406. Many aren't open proxies, so I assume them to be zombies or closed but unsecure proxies. Note that some of these may not have been blocked yet.

Such attacks are quite useful in flagging compromised addresses, in my opinion.

The list of proxies is hidden; select show to expand.

// Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 01:00, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

All but one of the addresses are now blocked; roughly fifteen were either unblocked or blocked for a short period of time. One is a possible imitator attempting a denial of service to a shared address. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 01:58, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Other IP's I blocked: Are these blocks correct?

The following is a list of IP's I blocked indefinitely. These were all involved in "squidward" vandalism, and I've blocked them on the assumption that they are open proxies, and that we want to block all open proxies. However, the "open proxie test" provided by the link seems to fail. I would like confirmation from others that these blocks are correct. By the way this list seems more or less disjoint from the above list, so I'm not sure why Pathoschild claims that his list "includes every IP address used by the vandalbot".

The list of proxies is hidden; select show to expand.

Paul August ☎ 21:50, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I specifically stated that "Many aren't open proxies, so I assume them to be zombies or closed but unsecure proxies". The list I provided included all the IPs used in the latest attack at the time, not every IP address ever used. Note that I'm currently tracking these IPs and blocking them on Wikipedia and Wikisource at User:Pathoschild/Projects/Open proxies. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 08:03, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I hadn't noticed that the above discussion was talking about a Suidward attack that occurred around seven hours earlier than the one I was dealing with. Thanks Pathoschild, for clearing that up. Anyway my primary concern was to make sure all my indefinite blocks were appropriate. I take it that you think they were? Actually I now see that User:Freakofnurture has unblocked/reblocked most of these (although I don't know why). Is there some recommended procedures for implementing these blocks for future attacks?

User:Shakirfan, image copyright problems

User:Shakirfan is uploading a large number of images as public domain that are quite clearly not. Would someone help me sort through the list? Thanks. Chick Bowen 00:46, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Account Unjustly Blocked

I have discovered that my account "Happyjoe" is blocked from editing due to some sort of misunderstanding over the Big Spring, TX article. I am uncertain who to contact to have this mistake fixed. Please remove this block so that I may complete necessary editing on other articles. Thank you for your timely assistance in resolving this problem... Happyjoe 69.145.215.206 04:27, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Note: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Happyjoe pschemp | talk 04:35, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Note also Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Account Unjustly Blocked. Chick Bowen 04:44, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

"Raymond Samuels" vandalism, posting of personal information and legal threats

See [69] and [70] and [71], and probably other examples.

This person (who, it should be noted, may not be the real-life Raymond Samuels) needs to be contacted by his ISP or the appropriate authorities. This needs to be handled by someone at Wikimedia. - Curps 06:11, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Still at it: [72]. -- Curps 19:35, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

And again [73]. Obviously, any Wikipedian could contact his ISP (which appears to be Bell Sympatico, the largest ISP in Canada), but really there should be some "go to" person at Wikimedia who handles such cases and, crucially, can speak in the name of Wikipedia and not merely as a private individual. -- Curps 03:28, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Splash assuming bad faith in TFD closure

Could a neutral admin please look at the closing for If defined and others? 4 keeps and 3 deletes and Splash (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) closes it as delete because he discounts my keep (and subsequent keeps by others) because he attributes bad faith to my keep explanation. —Locke Cole • t • c 09:49, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

• If these are indeed meta templates, shouldn't the templates using it, be fixed BEFORE this is deleted? - Mgm|^(talk) 11:37, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
  • They were already orphaned; the problem is that they used to be used by other templates which were moved to less accessibility-friendly methods of row-hiding (they use CSS-based hacks which can spew out unintelligible crap to text-readers/screen-readers). The idea in keeping them around was so they could be consulted when I had time to go around and try to fix the templates that were moved to these CSS-based hacks. Regardless, it's wrong for him to impose his point of view over people who gave their point of view honestly in that debate. Further, he indicated he was using the result of this debate to decide whether or not to delete some other meta-templates. It's highly inappropriate for him to decide to ignore the results like he did. (Please note that WP:AUM is no longer policy and the issue with meta-templates causing server load has been largely dismissed by Brion). —Locke Cole • t • c 12:43, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
    • Hmm. Deletion review is that-a-way! --Doc ^ask? 17:37, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
      • Yeah, thanks.. God forbid this is something that could just be fixed since it's obvious. I'd better go use a process that requires seven days and a poll that requires a 3/4 super-majority to overturn the closing admins result. Good idea! —Locke Cole • t • c 00:29, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Block of Striver

I am requesting review of MONGO's block of Striver. While I realize that several of Striver's edits have been odd and biased, I have the following objections to the block:

1. The gaming of the 3RR was of the making three reverts in 24 hours type, not the making four reverts in 25 hours type.
2. The block came five hours after Striver had finished editing the article.
3. One of the Striver's edits on the said article Cynthia McKinney was reverted by the blocking admin MONGO [74].
4. When I queried the validity of the block, it was in part justified by IAR.

Any thoughts? Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:45, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

In my blocking summary, I stated that gaming of 3RR was the reason...it is for many more reasons than that. Over the past two weeks I have received numerous complaints (19) in both my usertalk and in email about Striver (talk · contribs) and my block was solely to allow this editor to cool off since no one has been able to get him to do so. I see little chance for mediation to work and if the block is overturned, I'll seek arbitration in this matter. He has been disruptive, has been pushing a conspiracy theory agenda with reckless abandon in regards to events surrounding the September 11 2001 attacks article, where he floods the talkpage with the same nonsense over and over, threatnening to never go away and continuously reposts the same tired comments even though the clear concensus there is to not have any of it in article space. Most of the editors have simply gotten tired of his commentary and revert his "contributions". His behavior is disruptive to the point that it interferes with the ability of numerous editors to work on and enhance articles. He has created what accounts to an attack Wikiproject (Wikipedia:WikiProject Conspiracies Guild) (see also the discussion page of the Project [75]) that acts as a posting board to to protect his created articles from deletion. He has solicited other users in their talk pages to vote keep on his articles and he even posts links in at least one afd to another one of his articles under afd.--MONGO 11:01, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. I just read Talk:September 11, 2001 attacks. You're even more involved with the arguments with him that I'd seen from the other articles. Mongo, I really really think you need to recuse yourself. You are in the consensus majority on the talk page there, but you're obviously ridiculously not neutral on judging what Strider's doing right now. Georgewilliamherbert 11:30, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, the 24 hour block is a nice way to handle the situation...there are at least 15 editors that are ready for arbitration and I think that to save everyone the process and a possible permanent banning of this editor, I have actually done him a favor and maybe appeased the appetites of many other editors that really want to see him banned for good. See also this edit from just a week and a half ago, where he tells all the other editors (in an article I have nothing to do with) "fuck you".--MONGO 11:46, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

That's a great edit - David Gerard 12:24, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with David (again). I think that edit was highly incivil. Sjakkalle (Check!) 13:05, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

No, you agree with me. I meant that it was a superlatively bad example. (I should be clearer.) See also the several other mentions of Striver on this page; an RFAr may well be in order, but I personally suspect based on similar cases that the arbcom will simply say "reject, just block the abusive fool" - David Gerard 13:53, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm in agreement with the block. This editor is disruptive, and Wikipedia is not a platfor for tinfoil-hatted conspiracy theories, as information must be verifiable. David, since you have CheckUser access, why not run a CU on him and see if we can't catch him using a sock? Blocking him for using a disruptive sockpuppet is much more straightforward than blocking him for controversial edits. Hexagonal 14:29, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think CheckUser works that way. You must have a specific and good reason to suspect a sockpuppet before you can use it. Otherwise, using it is intrusion upon the contributor's anonymity. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:39, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Possibly and possibly not, and not at all. Revealing information from one might be - David Gerard 14:52, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

To clarify: seeing multiple names from an IP is not by itself evidence of sockpuppetry in violation of policy, particularly if someone uses IPs on DHCP. Almost all sock checks are because of a suspicion of sockpuppetry based on edit patterns; an IP check is just additional evidence. (e.g. in some cases, if an IP check appeared to show no match, I would suspect a change of ISP or the use of an open proxy rather than that two different editors having the same distinctive pattern.) "CheckUser is not magical wiki pixie dust" - me. - David Gerard 15:02, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

If you see other accounts coming in from the same IP, and they show similar editing patterns, then can't they be blocked as disruptive sockpuppets? Hexagonal 17:54, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

They can. The problem is in spotting the similar editing patterns; in general, Checkuser is only going to be useful as the final nail in a case that's already nearly strong enough to get someone blocked for disruptive sockpuppetry. Out of curiosity, does Checkuser as it's set up now allow us to cast a 'wide net' and check who has ever edited from a given IP or IP range? I was under the impression that it just allowed people to see IPs of one user at a time, and that they had to do all the other footwork themselves. --Aquillion 00:14, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

While it will be a welcome break today from discussions on Talk:September 11, 2001 attacks, I think that someone other than MONGO should have blocked and that arbitration is the way to go. With 11,000+ edits over the past year, I don't think this is a case of sockpuppets (though, you never know). -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 14:49, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I never expected my action to be popular but I stand by it. I am NOT one to act unilaterally in situations and had Sjakkalle overturned my block I would not have reverted him. I have to agree with the comment of David Gerard that arbcom will just say to block him...the time span of the block will be the question, for as Kmf164 has brought up, the editor has 11,000 plus edits and I can't possibly imagine they have been all as disruptive as many of the ones I have seen over the last few weeks. I am especially worried that two other complaints that I wasn't aware of have been posted here in the last week, unrelated to my interactions with this editor. [76], [77].--MONGO 15:12, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

This has just come up on wikien-l as well: [78][79]. I am personally inclined to suggest "bad MONGO, did not touch third base, no biscuit" and prescribe a calm edit elsewhere far away from Striver and possibly a nice cup of tea - you can be sure his every move will be watched like a hawk for a little while - David Gerard 15:33, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

This is the best edit I've ever seen on Wikipedia. --Golbez 22:27, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh no, I haven't blown a gasket...I don't get mad...in all sincerity, I'm hoping this editor returns to the "fold" and quickly reconstitutes to where he was in terms of quality editing a few weeks ago. I had word that arbitration was imminent and hoped that a break for all would maybe lessen the chances of this happening...oh well.--MONGO 15:40, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

OK, you get a calm thermos of tea to take out onto the field while you dust off third base and polish it nicely ;-p - David Gerard 16:06, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and you get a suitable wifi-enabled device. Anything with Palm Web Browser 3.0 or greater should be eminently usable - David Gerard 16:22, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

While I'm not as experienced with such debates and Arbcom, I think maybe Striver would/could be banned, for some time period, just from editing articles including/related to September 11, 2001 attacks. As annoying as Striver has been, he has extensive contributions to Islam-related articles. From a random sample of those, it seems Striver may have problems with NPOV there too, but Striver also brings a much different cultural perspective to the discussions than mine. Where Striver seems to be coming from in the debate on the Talk:September 11, 2001 attacks page, is perhaps a somewhat widespread opinion in countries, including Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. I would suggest maybe just citing this poll in the September 11, 2001 attacks article. Striver might not accept leaving it at that, given tendency for POV pushing and refusal to respect Wikipedia policies such as Wikipedia:Verify and citing sources. I think it's worth it for Arbcom to take up the case, consider all these factors, and hopefully come up with a solution other than an outright indefinate ban from all editing. -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 16:19, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

It would be for the best, yes - David Gerard 16:22, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Maybe MONGO's block was somewhat out of process because he was "involved" in the dispute, but the block was clearly justified so I think there's not much reason to get upset here. I would like to echo a reminder to MONGO that in the future, he should ask a neutral admin to look at the situation; because heck, in a case like this, it shouldn't be hard to find an admin who is willing to block anyway. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 02:45, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

---

I'm the editor Striver was cussing out and I've continually butted head with him over his edits to Islam-related articles. That said, I think Mongo was unfair to Striver in imposing the ban. Striver hadn't broken the 3RR rule yet and there is no explicit rule against creating a flood of articles supporting one's position -- though I wish there were. Mongo should have recused himself, as he seems to have been protecting HIS edits against Striver's conspiracy theories.

However, I must add that Striver has been a disruptive editor wherever he goes, and that his many edits do not reflect a substantive contribution to WP. His English (a second language) is atrocious and his reading limited to what he can google. He creates useless stubs with abandon and all too many of his articles clog the AfD process. He doesn't seem to know how to work WITH other editors, or how to compromise, and is prone to grandiose schemes and unilateral reorganizations without prior consultation. While I intially welcomed his input (he was one of the first of the Shi'a editors to challenge a Sunni consensus in the Islam-related articles) I have since despaired at his attempts to turn Wikipedia into Shi'apedia. He seems to thrive on conflict (much of which he creates) and feelings of persecution. He never questions his contribution to the controversies in which he is constantly embroiled, but attributes all criticism to bigotry and hatred of the Shi'a, or resistance to his conspiracy theories.

I get the feeling that he is young and might, perhaps, develop into a useful editor. I don't know how to curb him without banning him. One step might be to revoke his privilege to create articles. Any other ideas? Zora 20:56, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

---

I want to register a general complaint about the way 9/11 conspiracy articles are being treated right now. Hexagon's comment above, about WP:NOT tinfoil hat club, is the problem. The 9/11 conspiracy articles aren't notable and worthwhile because they're correct. I don't believe any of the conspiracy theories, and have worked actively to disprove Prof Cole's analysis for example. However, these theories are notable because they are contrarian and widely held. Widely held beliefs do not have to be correct, or truthfully verifyable, in order to be notable. Religions are not factually verifyable, nor conspiracy theories such as UFO sightings, or Elvis sightings or Bigfoot. All of those are notable. Clearly, enough people believe that something is hidden about 9/11 that it's a notable field.

A whole lot of 9/11 conspiracy related articles which have been around for a while are suddenly being AfD'ed, which is what started this argument off. This seems to have started with Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Scholars for 9/11 Truth (second nomination), a second AfD within nine days of the close of the first, which was a keep.

Hexagon's attitude is all too common in what's happening here. It's tinfoil hat conspiracy, ergo it is junk and should be deleted. The number of editors voting to flat out delete stuff rather than cleanup or merge, and are outright stating beliefs similar to Hexagon's, is a majority of the Delete votes.

I do not believe there are conspiracies as in the conspiracy theories. I don't believe there's a conspiracy to delete conspiracy articles. I do believe that there's a lynch mob forming which is unreasonably nuking 9/11 conspiracy articles rather than seeking a NPOV consensus on what's notable and what isn't. I do believe Striver's initial reaction to add material to support claims was good. I believe he's gone past reasonable into WP:POINT of late. The anti-conspiracy-article lynch mob doesn't make his actions right.

But his actions don't make the lynch mob right, either. Without comment on the articles he's created since the AfD wars started, the older articles seem to me to be close to NPOV presentation of legitimate notable collections of opinion and people's work on their beliefs that there were 9/11 conspiracies. If there are too many articles or they aren't neutral enough, those are OK points to make on talk pages and work through normal processes on edits, merges, redirects and the like. This collection of events has strained and abused the AfD system, and it's now being used to attempt to enforce by mob rule an exclusionary centrist point of view.

Wikipedia process should not be used to whitewash an issue which a lot of people feel legitimately and deeply is real. One does not need to believe in 9/11 conspiracy theories to understand that there are a lot of adherents, and that they are notable and significant as a result. One can even vehemently disagree with the conspiracy theories and still feel that they're clearly notable.

Striver's getting the short end of the stick here, because I believe that he's the representative of the small minority who do believe those theories, and he's both a capable and energetic enough editor to singlehandedly work the process to try and get them represented fairly. And in diong so is rubbing a lot of people the wrong way. He's reacting unreasonably to the lynch mob events now (shame on him), but those acts are in my opinion equally abusive of WP policy and goals (shame on all of you).

If instead of one Striver, we had ten legitimate other 9/11 conspiracy believers collectively making the same set of arguments and edits Striver has, we would not be having this conversation here and the AfDs would have stopped. This would be going for consensus on talk pages.

Lots of people believe some aspect of the conspiracy theories; see the various news reports (including archived at Zogby) on the Zogby poll of New Yorkers from last summer, in which nearly half of New Yorkers believed there was some type of coverup regarding 9/11. 49% of New Yorkers may be wrong, but 49% of New Yorkers is notable.

Striver may be the wrong person to carry this forward to a reasonable NPOV consensus given how things have gone with how he's reacting and how people see it, but I believe that the current lynch mob behavior very strongly should not stand as the final word. Georgewilliamherbert 21:14, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

George...at the top of this page, it clearly states "Please make your comments concise. Administrators are less likely to read long diatribes. Please be aware that these pages aren't the place to bring disputes over content."--MONGO 22:10, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps we need an RfC on the whole set of issues. However, I haven't got time to start one this week. This seemed better than not saying anything, as long as the comment ended up being. Georgewilliamherbert 22:17, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

"A whole lot of 9/11 conspiracy related articles which have been around for a while are suddenly being AfD'ed" That's not the case. It isn't the older articles that are up for deletion; it's just Striver's flood of recent creations. Striver has usefully contributed in the past. If he'd stop disruptively pushing his viewpoint, he could again. I think a cooling off period will do him (and the rest of us) good, if he will take advantage of it. I support Mongo's block. Tom Harrison ^Talk 22:48, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I recalled the Scholars article dating back to last year, but on review of its history it was initally created by SkeenaR on 6 Feb 2006. I sit corrected. That said, that article is not a Striver created article; it dates back to before this all started, was created by someone else, and his first edit of it seems to have been 3 days ago. This article's multiple deletion nominations, the first by MONGO and the second by Aaron, seem to be what provoked the small tidal wave of other articles from Striver as he attempted to put a better framework into place linking the various 9/11 conspiracy theory players. Cause, effect... Georgewilliamherbert 23:02, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

That's part of it, and the AfD for 'Scholars for 9/11 Truth' was probably inappropriate. But I think the cause of all this was Striver's desire to rename September 11, 2001 attacks to 9/11 Bin Laden conspiracy theory. Tom Harrison ^Talk 23:13, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

As one of the early AFD'ers, I will say my motivation was from reading the talk page for September 11, 2001 attacks, seeing his flailing at windmills, and then attempt to back up the notability of believers of his theory....by creating articles for them. That was my motivation. I've restricted my editing of conspiracy theories to keeping snide comments and other vandalism off the main page, and have been content to let the conspiracy theorists run their own articles, but the rampant creation of articles for not very notable individuals was the trigger for me. I have no doubt that from his perspective, Robert M. Bowman appears to have an impressive resume, but as an American I recognize him for being a hack and an also-ran misrepresenting his awards and accomplishments. My attempts to correct him on the matter were not taken very well, as you can see on that article's talk page. --Mmx1 04:53, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, conspiracy theories are prevalent, but that doesn't mean they can be included in the encyclopedia as fact. Stating that some researchers have issues with the current explaination of events is NPOV and verifiable. Stating that x% of people have reservations about an official explaination is NPOV and verifiable. Stating conspiracy theories within the article as possible fact is not, and in my opinion, should be governed by WP:HOAX. Please refer to the following two statements:

"Wikipedia requires articles to be verifiable. The burden is on the article author to prove the claims in the article"

"Wikipedia does have articles about notable hoaxes describing them as hoaxes. That is completely different than an article presenting the subject as truth. Hoaxes must be notable to be described by Wikipedia . for example, a hoax may have received sustained media attention, been believed by thousands of people including academics, or been believed for many years."

Unless you can substantiate these theories with concrete, verifiable facts, then they need to be relegated to a page concerning 9/11 conspiracy theories, in the context that certain theories by certain people have received widespread media attention. There are tons of gaps in facts concerning the JFK assassination, but we certianly don't list every conceivable explaination within the article. Rather, we present readers with the fact that some scholars and experts believe that the official explaination is incomplete, and offer the reader a link to investigate further. Including text of conspiracy theories and/or hoaxes within the context of the article lends them more credence than they deserve under the verifiability policy. Hexagonal 23:36, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

From Scholars for 9/11 Truth :

"The group believes..."

"Their conclusion is based on the results of their own scientific and political research."

"These experts contend that..."

"They believe that..."

I believe from the edit history that Striver put that content in, with the neutral POV phrasing. As a severe critic of conspiracy theory factual conclusions, I agree with Striver's phrasing as being neutral and a fair representation that these are the group's own opinions and beliefs, not established consensus fact. Georgewilliamherbert 00:07, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

• I will follow WP:AGF and respond on the assumption that Georgewilliamherbert made two honest mistakes when he first claimed that the consensus on the first Scholars_for_9/11_Truth AfD was to keep (as you can see, the result was no consensus), and then claimed it was my second nomination of that article which "seemed" to have "started this argument off" (which has already been shown to be untrue above, and for which I will be more than happy to present detailed evidence should any admin request it). Just skimming my own edits, I see at least four other 9/11-related articles that were in AfD before I nominated Scholars_for_9/11_Truth again, and I want to make it extremely clear that I read through all the relevant guidelines and policies regarding renominations before I did so, and found nothing that said it was out of line. In fact, all I found was a single line stating, "There is no policy or consensus for a hard time limit before an article can be renominated, but some people are likely to state 'keep' for the reason that it was already discussed last week." I decided that, given the circumstances of the so-called growing amount of so-called "9/11 crankcruft" that was getting AfD nominations, it was worth putting this article back up for discussion in the hopes that we could get a consensus as much of it as possible without dragging out the overarching issues for weeks or months on end. Will I put the article up for a third AfD very soon if this one closes as "keep" or "no consensus"? No. Am I going to have trouble sleeping tonight for having given it a second nomination at all? No. --Aaron 00:43, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

• Clarification: I don't think I said it was your second nomination, I said it was the second nomination. I can't find anywhere that I stated it was you doing it twice (if I did, I apologize, it wasn't). You're correct that it was NC. It was kept, as is normal after a NC, but it was a NC (roughly 14/12/3 delete/keep/merge or other by quick count). I sit corrected. Georgewilliamherbert 01:24, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

• Oh, no, I don't mean that I thought you said I made both nominations; I just wanted to make clear that it wasn't nomination #2 (which happened to have been made by me) that was the beginning of this whole mess. There were already several other 9/11 articles in AfD at that time, and at least two more that were heading in that direction (via talk page discussions and {{prod}} tags). My apologies to you if my phrasing made you infer otherwise. --Aaron 05:01, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Been following some of Striver's article creations and his interactions on the 9/11 Conspiracy theories and similar pages. What I've noticed is that Stiver is an energetic advocate for his positions, engaged on multiple fronts. Yes, he strays into POV-land often, but not because he's trying to deliberately mislead anyone -- it's born from his perspective. Stiver and I are on opposite ends of most political debates, and I have voted for deletion of several of his articles, but his voice is valuable here. Sometimes when someone gets the notice of one administrator, a kind of piling-on occurs, often with the subsequent commentators jumping in with little or no information. The guy is not perfect, but he's valuable nonetheless because he represents an obviously non-Western editing perspective. I implore you to grant him some grace and ease up, despite his infractions. We are all learning here. Thanks. Morton devonshire 01:22, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

"strays into POV-land often"`? Can i have a single example of me straying into POV land? Thanks. --Striver 10:00, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Incivility and perhaps sockpuppetary on Armenian Genocide

The situtation on this article is out of control. There is a great exchange of personal attacks such as here, and little discussed has anything to do with changes on the article. Also some people (such as user:THOTH) only contributes to the talk page and overal only taunt others.

A massive flushing is necesary. Please assist. --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 16:25, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Yikes, that page is out of control. Someone who is familiar with the history of the dispute needs to take this situation to WP:RFCU immediately, and get those socks out of the system. Hexagonal 18:03, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Incivility raising its ugly head on deletion debate…again

Could someone reasonably neutral take a look at the train wreck that WP:AFD/Neglected Mario Characters is becoming? The nominator seems to be jumping all over anybody who dares to vote "keep" and the whole thing is descending into farce. Are we really wanting to drive every single WebComic article into the sea? HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 17:07, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

You know, there is so much horrible spleen over this, that I no longer care whether this is speedy deleted or made a featured article. Gaaaah. --Doc ^ask? 17:34, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

• All in a day's AfD. I have personally seen worse. - Mailer Diablo 01:01, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Myspandexparadise@hotmail.co.uk

This user has been making personal attacks [80] , removing speedy tags from nonsense articles he's created [81], blanking an AFD page for another of his articles, [82], and generally making a nuisance of him/herself. -- Vary | Talk 18:04, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Blocked for 48 hours. I may extend to indefinite after I go through the rest of their contributions. Chick Bowen 18:37, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I have now blocked this account indefinitely, since all edits were vandalism, attacks, or other disruption. Please review. Thanks. Chick Bowen 21:04, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Personal attack and original research charges against prominent researcher

Septentrionalis has a strong aversion to the results of professor R. J. Rummel's research, that democracy decreases the risk of war and mass murder. See for example this old edit summary: "Revert from incomplete inaccurate and dishonest piece of Rummel-worship" [83]

He now insists that the talk page of the article about R. J. Rummel should continue to have accusations of him being a Fascist. He also insists on keeping a long section making many very serious accusations against Rummel's scholarly research. All of these accusations are original research. The relevant sections are "Rummel->Freedomist->Libertarian F*****t?"[84] and "John Grohol" on the talk page [85].

I have suggested that these things should be archieved and commented them out. He has opposed and reverted this.[86][87]

Septentrionalis has on the page itself inserted a template stating that "Criticisms of and controversial statements by Rummel are systematically suppressed". and linked to my attempts to comment out the Fascist accusations and the original research accusations.[88]

As such, I request that Septentrionalis should be briefly blocked or warned to not continue these accusations in Wikipedia against a living person.Ultramarine 19:07, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

To be accurate:

• Until today, there was one section on Talk:R. J. Rummel which twice used the word "facist" [sic], once in Libertarian facist? and once in Ultramarine's outraged response.
  • I produced neither of these; I can spell Fascist.
  • The matter has now been discussed, so it now also appears in the discussion.
• Ultramarine has used this to three times comment out extensive sections of the Talk page
  • first blanking
  • second blanking
    • The other blanked paragraphs have nothing to do with "Facism". They are critical of the article, and of Rummel's theories. Ed Poor's post is specifically and solely critical of the article, and those flaws have never been mended.
  • Third blanking
    • This time Ultramarine only commented out the offending paragraph, and today's discussion. But blanking of whole sections is still unacceptable, especially since the paragraph contains other matter.
• I did revert these blankings.
• The only claims of original research are Ultramarine's, justifying removal of criticism of Rummel from the article R. J. Rummel.
• I replaced one use of "Facist" with F*****t, although this seems to be touching the edge of WP:NOT. This is a talk-page, after all.

I am genuinely puzzled by the charge that anyone has accused Rummel of OR. As far as I know, he is not a Wikipedian; and professors are supposed to be original.

Am I right in thinking that this blanking of whole paragraphs from a talk page is at least close to vandalism? Which vandalism page would be the relevant authority? Septentrionalis 19:37, 27 February 2006 (UTC) revised 19:52, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

It is not vandalism. I believe Ultramarine was acting under something like our Wikipedia:Remove personal attacks policyguideline. This policy is controversial, however, and for good reason--as you say, Pmanderson, talk pages are the place for discussion. I would advise you both to let it go--this just doesn't seem that big a deal to me. You can archive the talk page if you prefer. Chick Bowen 22:21, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Spam, phishing, browser hijacking attempt?

On the ice hockey article, I've come across 24.222.25.186 adding gibberish and replacing some wikilinks with external links to qklinkserver.com (accompanied by javascript). Edits include [89], along with some others that I've reverted. Wikipedia isn't interpreting any of this javascript. I've also done some google searching to find out what qklinkserver is, and found this edit from February 15th, [90] by a different IP on the File sharing article. It seems like an attempt at browser hijacking or something malicious. Has anyone else seen anything like this? -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 19:45, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Looks to be a spammer, trying make a few dollars with click-throughs. I would classify it as vandalism, trying to sneakily change links like that. I guess it could be his browser is already hijacked, but unlikely. Block him if he continues this behavior. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-02-28 08:48Z

This behaviour is perfectly consistent with other cases of spyware-added links I've seen before (the edits genuinely change something else other than adding the links, and it uses the HTML link syntax). The best response (in this case, and in all other similar cases) is to ask some meta admin to add the site to the Spam blacklist, before someone gets wrongly accused. --cesarb 14:24, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer. This site is on the spam blacklist now, and resolved the issue with the user in question. -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 16:07, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Complaint about admin actions by Gamaliel

Hi -- I'd like to report major harassment and abuse by Wikipedia sys-op Gamaliel against me for political reasons. Gamaliel is a vocal Democrat and has been harassing me since I am a Republican ever since I joined because I edited one of his "sacred cows" in an article about a liberal pundit he likes. We had a dispute there at Chip Berlet over what the article should say when I clarified it to show that Berlet is not a lawyer because the old version left an assumption that he was. Gamaliel quickly turned this into a personal campaign against me. I was immediately attacked there with all sorts of rude personal comments accusing me of "fabrication" and deceit -- which Gamaliel ignored -- but when I responded with a single sentence that the Republican view was being censered Gamaliel rudely threatened to ban me! That's when his campaign against me intensified and it hasn't stopped.

Gamaliel then followed me over to another article -- the National Lawyers Guild -- which has been vandalized for several days by an anonymous editor who sometimes logs in as user:Carlosvillareal and sometimes edits anonymously as 169.237.161.209, but only does one thing -- he blanks 3/4ths of the National Lawyer's Guild article without discussion and explanation. Carlosvillareal and his isp number have been doing this on February 23rd - 26th. I count 9 different times that this article has been blanked by this same vandal in those days, plus 7 or 8 times somebody else has done it.[91] All in all this article has required the watching by several of us simply to keep its text from being wiped clean. Over this period 4 editors have been fighting this vandalism - me, user:MSTCrow, user:Latinus, and user:Tawker. We've all posted warnings that Villareal and his anonymous accounts were doing vandalism and he's ignored them all.

On February 24th after a long day of undoing all the damage by this vandalism Gamaliel followed me to the National Lawyers Guild article. It had been blanked 9 times that day alone including 6 by Villareal and his ISP account, but each time one of us restored it. Gamaliel singled me out for this and accused me of violating the "3RR" rule of Wikipedia by undoing this clear vandalism more than 3 times. He posted another block threat on my userpage for supposedly violating this rule and then claimed that the anti-blanking rule on vandalism only applied when the entire article was deleted [92]. I quickly showed him that this is not true and Wikipedia:Vandalism says it is also blanking when "significant parts" of the article are deleted without reason [93], which is what Villareal and the vandal accounts were doing with 3/4ths the text. I also showed him that WP:3RR says it is not a "3RR" violation when you are reverting to undo vandalism. Three other long established editors agreed with me that this is the case with Villareal at the National Lawyers Guild and were active reverting these same vandals too, but Gamaliel singled me out for harassment.

He ignored all the rules showing that this was indeed vandalism that Villareal was doing, that 3RR did not apply to it, and that 3 others were involved in fighting this same vandal. Then Gamaliel singled me out and blocked me for an accused "3RR" violation -- [94]. I believe that this was a major abuse of his administrator powers and it was only done to harass and cause harm to me. Nothing I did at the National Lawyers Guild article was inconsistent with wikipedia policies -- it was all done to fight a vandal who has been a major disruption to that article for most of the last week. Gamaliel blocked me only because of our fight on the other article and he singled me out because of my politics clashing with his.

I believe he is also harassing me elsewhere on WikiPedia -- Gamaliel also tried to start secretive investigations of me and now he's got me listed on an "enemies list" that he created here -- [95]. His main issue with the people on it seems to be his disagreement with their politics because he is such a partisan Democrat.

Somebody with power to do so -- please reprimand this guy as he is out of control. I personally think he is abusing Republican editors and making Wikipedia a hostile environment for them to edit in. He should also be de-sys-opped for abusing his powers to block me and to protect a vandal who has been a major problem at National Lawyers Guild.

See here for the blanking that was happening there and that Gamaliel reverted to preserve -- [96].

Somebody please help! -- ColonelS 19:47, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Chip Berlet is not "a liberal pundit I like". I have never read anything written by Berlet nor have I even read the Berlet article in its entirety. I have Berlet articles on my watchlist because I chipped in to help back when they were under attack by Nobs, Congnition, et al.

I spent a great deal of time trying to explain to ColonelS simple rules like civility i.e., don't accuse people you disagree with of censorship or vandalism. I also explained to him that he was defining "blanking" incorrectly and that this "vandalism" (which included established users like User:Calton and not just User:Carlosvillareal as ColoneS incorrectly described) was actually a content dispute. ColonelS had been previously warned about the 3RR by User:SlimVirgin.

User talk:ColonelS speaks for itself. Gamaliel 20:11, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

ColonelS is already back to describing edits he doesn't like as "vandalism" [97]. It would be nice if some other administrators explained to him that this was inappropriate. Gamaliel 20:18, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Gamaliel is clearly being deceptive here. While he did advocate "civility" and accuse me of breaching it for a simple complaint that liberals were censoring that article, Gamaliel completely ignored it when liberal editors were uncivil to me -- including accusations of "fabrication" and namecalling. He is also not being fully truthful when he says he "explained" I was using the term blanking incorrectly. He did no such thing and only declared on his own definition that deleting 75% of the article without explanation is not "blanking." I showed him the rule from WP:Vandalism that defines blanking: "Blanking - Removing all or significant parts of articles (sometimes replacing the removed content with profanities) is a common vandal edit." He ignored this rule and continues to insist on his own definition. Also on National Lawyers Guild Calton reverted to the blanked version 3 times versus 6 by Villareal and anonymous ISP (up to 10 now!). It's also worth noting that even though 3 other established editors also undid Villareal's blanking as vandalism (MSTCrow, Latinus, and Talker), Gamaliel ONLY TARGETTED ME FOR HARASSMENT. You can see this documented on my talk page, along with all of Gamaliel's rude and harassing block threats for "violations" that are minor or fabricated. This guy is clearly out of control and seems to be out to drive me and other Republicans off wikipedia. Just look at his "enemies list" page, which is all the people he has political disagreements with. He needs to be de-sys-opped because he is abusing his power to persecute people for their politics. -- ColonelS 20:26, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

One more thing -- Gamaliel says I was given a "3RR warning" by Slim Virgin. Yet I did not violate "3RR" there either. She posted it saying I was "about to violate" 3RR because I had reached the 3 revert limit, which she had also reached on the same article [98]. At no time did I cross it though. Gamaliel is simply lying and using that as an excuse to enforce a politically motivated block. -- ColonelS 20:37, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I did not say you violated the 3RR on any other article besides National Lawyers Guild, I said you were warned about the rule by SlimVirgin, which your talk page shows you clearly were. Feel free to apologize for your accusation that I lied. Gamaliel 21:16, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Colonel S, when people warn you about 3RR, they're doing you a favor because you're a new editor. If either Viriditas or I violated 3RR, we'd be blocked without warning, because we know not to do it. Insofar as you're attracting the attention of other editors and admins, it's because you've arrived with a chip on your shoulder about certain pages, apparently convinced that only you can save them from their horrific left-wing bias, and you've leapt into making controversial edits on disputed pages with no editing experience and no knowledge of our editing policies. I've already advised you to spend a few weeks editing less exciting pages so that you gain a bit of experience, then return to the ones you're more interested in. I can assure you that no one cares whether you're a Republican or a Democrat. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:45, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

• Comment by uninvolved party: Speaking as a dirty scummy Republican myself: If this is at all representative of the the sorts of edits you've been making and Gamaliel's been reverting, I don't think your complaint is going to get very far here. It was a blatant WP:NPOV violation and didn't meet WP:V standards either. --Aaron 20:19, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

• Comment by uninvolved party: I have not looked at the specific edits in this case, but I can't see that there is ever a good reason for an admin to block another editor that he/she is in the middle of a revert war with. Thatcher131 21:52, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree, but that is not an accurate description of what happened. I was not "in the middle of a revert war" with ColonelS, nor have I been editing any of the Berlet articles. My sole edit to these articles was to revert ColonelS's fourth revert, as I customarily do with 3RR violations because I feel to leave a 4R in place is to reward a 3RR violator. Gamaliel 22:34, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Thatcher131 -- Actually Gamaliel was in the middle of a different revert war on the other article where I first met him - about liberal pundit Chip Berlet. He was arguing with me there on the talk page [99] and a few moments later followed me over to my own message page to post rudely worded threats of banning for a very minor offense [100]. After a lengthy argument there he followed me over to National Lawyers Guild and blocked me for 3RR violations when I was doing nothing more than undoing a blanking made by a vandal who has done the same vandalism over a dozen times. As WP:3RR clearly indicates, undoing cases of simple vandalism do NOT count as 3RR violations. I've shown that rule to Gamaliel several times, as well as the one that shows that blanking is the removal of a significant part of any article (and deleting over 3/4ths of it is certainly "significant") but he keeps dishonestly claiming something else is the rule when it very plainly is not. Also notice that Gamaliel is not enforcing any of these "rules" against anybody but me on these articles. On Chip Berlet: When User:Cberlet insulted me repeatedly in the Edit Summary box and in his talk page posts, Gamaliel didn't lecture him on civility or threaten to ban him for it. When User:Slim Virgin and User:Viriditas both reverted up to their 3 revert limit on a deletion that ignores the talk page objections of several others, Gamaliel didn't post any 3RR warnings to them or threaten to ban them if they make a 4th. When 3 different editors on the National Lawyers Guild made the exact same revert of the blanking done by the vandal operating there Gamaliel did not send them warnings that falsely claimed his blanking wasn't really vandalism. No. Gamaliel only does that sort of thing to me, which is for the sole purpose of harassing me. -- ColonelS 03:48, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Aaron - Actually the only part of that I added was the last paragraph, which is a quote about the NLG. It is linked to give it a source too. The rest was the existing text of this article before I edited it. I'm sure it could be improved, but that is not the problem here. The problem is that an anonymous vandal who sometimes logs in as Carlosvillareal keeps blanking 75% of the entire article -- part of which is the quote I added. Also Gamaliel is not the one doing the reverts except for that one, which he did after imposing an abusive 3RR block on me for fighting Villareal's vandalism that had been going on all day. -- ColonelS 20:32, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

The substance of this seems pretty clear. There are two separable reasons that the block should not have been made by the administrator who made it:

1. A 3RR block for reverting vandalism is invalid, since WP:3RR expressly permits making multiple reverts of vandalism.
2. Administrators are expressly forbidden under WP:BP from blocking someone they are in a content dispute with.
   • Note, the rule isn't "admins may not block someone as part of a conflict" -- it is, rather, that they "must not block editors with whom they are currently engaged in an editing conflict." It doesn't matter if the blocking is over a different issue.

In other words, it seems that the block in this case was (1) invalid, that is, not called for; and separately, (2) specifically prohibited in policy. Even if there is reason to block a person with whom an administrator is in dispute, that administrator is specifically forbidden from doing so. He or she should instead raise the issue to other administrators for review and action. --FOo 05:19, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I wish people would investigate the issue or at least fully read the comments here before commenting. It is irresponsible not to do so and only encourages frivolous complaints. You are correct when it comes to policies, but these policies do not apply here.

1. ColonelS was not reverting vandalism. It was a content dispute, as I explained to him before the block. Even if you do not accept my judgement that it was not vandalism, it certainly doesn't fall under any definition of simple vandalism.
2. I was not in a content dispute with ColonelS. I have not been editing the Berlet articles.
3. I was not in a content dispute with ColonelS on any other article.

If you don't believe me, investigate for yourself, but please do so before commenting. Gamaliel 05:55, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Please do investigate. Gamaliel is being less than forthright in his characterization of this dispute, as he has been all along.

1. The National Lawyers Guild stuff is a clear case of vandalism by every measure. This is what the vandal was doing - blanking the majority of the entire article without given reasons and without participating in a discussion. A content dispute takes a discussion and the vandal was not doing so. Furthermore, the vandal was using a combination of anonymous ISP's and a username created ONLY to edit that article. You can look and the ONLY thing they did at wikipedia is blank that article [101] [102]. This same guy seems to be using those ISP's and an account user:Carlosvillarreal to do only one thing on WikiPedia - blanking the National Lawyer's Guild article. He also alternates between logging in and making an ISP vandalism so as to avoid 3RR, even though he's accumulated about a dozen different blankings of the article since last Thursday. Carlosvillareal has also been warned about vandalism and urged to discuss his desired changes by three other long established editors plus me but he's ignored it.
2. Gamaliel was involved in the content dispute with me on the Chip Berlet article when this whole mess started. He made posts several times on Talk:Chip Berlet to me and in general. -- ColonelS 06:16, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I posted on Talk:Chip Berlet to attempt to get you to act in a productive and civil manner with other editors, not to participate in a content dispute. I did not edit any of the Berlet articles. Gamaliel 06:20, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

• It seems a shame Gamaliel should have to waste time responding to these Mickey Mouse charges, which are based on multiple misunderstandings of policy (to be very charitable and assume good faith very hard) on the part of the accuser. I'm changing the header from random attack to description, in accordance with the policy of this page. Bishonen | ノート 06:55, 28 February 2006 (UTC).

I don't think Gamaliel has purposefully acted in a malicous manner, but I do think that perhaps he has made some unwise decisions, and a bit overzealous in his odd persecution of ColS.

MSTCrow 01:42, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Additional new user complaining about admin actions by Gamaliel

I'm also adding to my complaint against Gamaliel that he has broken the Wikipedia:Harassment rule. This rule says

"Harassment is defined as a pattern of disruptive behavior that appears to a reasonable and objective observer to have the purpose of causing negative emotions in a targeted person or persons, usually (but not always) for the purpose of intimidating the primary target. The purpose could be to make editing Wikipedia unpleasant for the target, to undermine them, to frighten them, or to encourage them to stop editing entirely."

Here are the things that Gamaliel has done to foster all of the things described by this rule:

1. He threatened to ban me over the most minor infraction imaginable - a single case of "incivility" when I complained a sourced quote was being censored from an article.[103]
2. He followed me to my message page and to another article (National Lawyers Guild) to continue an argument on Chip Berlet
3. He made a secretive request for investigating me and accused me of being banned editors, which I am not.
4. He tried to intimidate my attempts to undo the blanking of a vandal who has blanked the majority of the National Lawyers Guild article a dozen times in the last week by misportraying the anti-vandalism rule and claiming it didn't apply when it does.
5. He blocked me under "3RR" for undoing that same vandal's blanking, when the 3RR rule says undoing vandalism does not count as a bannable revert. This was also on an article Gamaliel followed me to.
6. He added me to an "enemies list" he maintains against Republican and Conservative editors on his homepage.[104]

All of this behaviour is aimed at harassment, and as proof that he is targetting me you can look at any of those pages and see that Gamaliel let several liberal editors get by with breaking rules while he was singling me out. He seems intent on driving me off of Wikipedia for political reasons and he is abusing his sys-op powers -- such as blocking -- to accomplish this. -- ColonelS 04:02, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

• 1. Warning you not to be incivil is not harassment. WP:CIVIL is one of the primary rules here, and admins share the job of enforcing it. (Whether it really was incivility is another question entirely.)
  2. Your "message page" is where he's supposed to talk to you; how could he follow you there? At any rate, it's hardly surprising that when an admin detects what he perceives as incivil behaviour, that he checks to see if it was part of a general pattern of incivility, or just a momentary lapse of manners.
  3. What is this "secretive request"? Everything's pretty public here.
  4. What you describe as "blanking" is not blanking as referred to in Wikipedia:Vandalism; it is a content dispute between representing an organization as a "human rights" association or a "radical far-left" association. 3RR applies strictly.
  5. See previous.
  6. He keeps an eye on angry new users. You're an angry new user.
• There's no harassment here. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 06:23, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
• Harassment? Bah humbug. I've changed the foregone-conclusion accusatory header to something more descriptive. Bishonen | ノート 06:43, 28 February 2006 (UTC).

Bishonen and jpgordon, I'm sorry that you're so immediately dismissive of this new user's feelings. Wikipedia has a don't bite the new user policy, and ColonelS obviously feels bitten. Gamaliel is an administrator, and is subject to a higher standard here. After stepping back, I think the problem arises from Gamaliel not drawing a bright line between his substantive editing activities and his use of admin powers. One solution which I hope that all will consider is to ask Gamaliel to avoiding even the perception of crossing this line, because crossing or bumping up against the neutrality policy makes users feel very comfortable. Whether or not Gamaliel has violated policy is an issue in dispute, but what is not in dispute is that many users (see Gamaliel's enemies list) feel like Gamaliel abuses his admin powers. I have been on the receiving end of his attack runs, and know what it feels like. It's not good, and makes me not trust the Wiki admin review process. The simple solution would be for Gamaliel to voluntarily draw a brighter line between his admin and editing activities. If he agrees to that, then no sanctions would be necessary. Thanks. Morton devonshire 19:56, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

• I hope you've read this user's contributions, as well as Gamaliel's interactions with him, to come to this position. I certainly wasn't immediately dismissive; I studied what had happened and came to my position in an informed fashion. As far as his "enemies list" is concerned, Gamaliel is one of our best NPOV enforcers, and his page is a useful record and tool in that fight. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 20:25, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

We've already had this conversation, Morton, and as I explained to you then and as is the case now, that "bright line" is already there. I am not editing the Berlet articles and thus this conflict you allege does not exist. My "substantive editing activities", which all administrators engage in, have nothing to do with the Berlet articles. I'm not sure how a brand new user like ColonelS would be made uncomfortable by or even be aware of my substantial edits to other articles when I ask him not to be combative and uncivil.

As far as you being "on the receiving end of my attack runs", I have only had two interactions with you. The second was our conversation about User:Bigplankton, when you accused me of oppressing him for asking him not to personally attack me and not to accuse me of all manner of nonsense. The first was when I submitted for AfD your article about an insignificant T-shirt slogan. Your response was to label me a "pedantic asshole" and "weasel" on your user talk page, accuse me of being a sockpuppet of Will Beback, Guettarda, and Golbez, and place me in the "cult of mumia" despite my not editing that article nor expressing any opinion on the matter. At no point have I had any administrative interactions with you. Let's be clear about who is on the receiving end of what here.

Administrators should be cautious about the feelings of new users who are unfamiliar with our rules, but what you and ColonelS and likeminded users have done is labeled me an oppressor for merely just asking people not to act like rampaging assholes. The job comes with a certain amount of hassle and abuse, but this is just utterly absurd. Gamaliel 20:32, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Rather than expend all of this energy in justification, please consider adjusting your practices to avoid this kind of conflict with new users. Morton devonshire 22:26, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

He can't and shouldn't. He's doing what administrators are supposed to do. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 22:53, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

The Invisible Anon blocked

I've blocked The_Invisible_Anon (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) indefinitely. Please review. For background see #User disrupting & subtle vandalism on this page. The issue is that 86.10.231.219 (talk · contribs) has been signing many of their posts as "The Invisible Anon". They have been asked several times to register an account but have not done so. Now somebody else came along and did register that username. Ordinarily I would say "tough luck, you should have registered it first if you want that name". However, it appears that The Invisible Anon was registered by someone who is engaged in an ongoing dispute with 86.10.231.219, apparently in an attempt to cause confusion. An attempt to use an account in a deliberately confusing manner violates Wikipedia:User name#Inappropriate usernames, and I've blocked the account The Invisible Anon indefinitely. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 20:04, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good. It's either a troll trying to wind up 86.10.231.219, one of 86.10's adversaries, or 86.10 creating a sock for himself; in any case, it should be blocked. I've placed a CheckUser request, and I'm hoping that it gets expedited service. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:21, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

CheckUser confirmed that Midgley (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is behind this. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 21:48, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Anti-vaccinationists (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) just when i thought wikipedia had run out of stupid things to have edit wars over--64.12.116.65 22:43, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what the right policy is for the abuse perpetrated by Midgley, but surely the offense is graver than a 3RR? Having said that, I'm not sure what point 86.10.231.219 is trying to make, but he/she would have saved everyone some trouble by registering. --Leifern 23:57, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, this should not be taken as vindication of 86.10.231.219. Midgley is wrong. But it looks like a reaction to weeks of goading by a group of anti-vaccination POV warriors in Talk:Anti-vaccinationists. Please could some admins apply attention there, to warn these people off the continual personal attacks and accusations of conspiracy (in breach of Assume Good Faith).

The contributions of 86.10.231.219 (talk · contribs) should be studied more closely: little contribution to article space, but a lot of attempts to stir up procedural wrangling. His recent posting to Wikimedia, Growth of Powerful Subcultures in Wikipedia, suggests he is involved in some kind of breaching experiment to prove the existence in Wikipedia of "hierarchical sub-cultures operating on tribal lines" and to "to try to use the normal procedures to see what happens". A case for invoking Wikipedia:Don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point? 213.130.142.21 00:59, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

You know that's pretty amazing, seeing as how this is your first ever edit of wikipedia--152.163.100.65 01:22, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

As Doolittle says to Bomb#20, "the concept is valid no matter where it originates". TenOfAllTrades can confirm that this is just the latest spat in a longer dispute in which 86.10.231.219 has been very far from blameless. Note the warning three weeks ago 213.130.141.24 03:21, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

This incident is not about 86.10.231.219's behavior; it's about Midgley's. No matter what 86.10.231.219 did - and maybe especially if his/her behavior is so bad - there is no justification for malicious sockpuppetry, impersonating another editor, and deliberately confusing the discussion. If we are going to allow that accusations against one editor justifies bad behavior by another, we're setting a very dangerous precedent. --Leifern 03:34, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm seconding Leifern here. I've had my own difficulties with 86.10 - just look up the page to see! - but when one deliberately violates WP:POINT, this is a problem, no matter why. It can, at most, be partially excused as being provoked, but that remains partial, and would be something for an RfC or maybe even an RfA to resolve the degree of. (As a side-note, my POV places me far closer to Midgley than Leifern or 86.10 on such issues as Anti-vaccinationists, as is surely obvious to anyone who cares to investigate. This conflict obviously started as the result of POV conflicts - but it has escalated beyond that, and must be stopped.) Michael Ralston 03:40, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I may well regret this - hell, I'm sure I'm going to regret this - but I'll see what I can do to mediate and ensure that articles agree with Wikipedia policy. There is far too much heat and not enough light on these articles. TenOfAllTrades has warned Midgley about this particular incident, and I think that's enough. Everyone, on both sides, needs to calm down. --ajn (talk) 07:18, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Andrew, I appreciate the offer and will certainly cooperate with you. As a telling indicator, I am also involved in articles on the Arab-Israeli conflict, and things are going much better there. This is an area that requires a great deal of intellectual integrity. As far as next steps for Midgley is concerned, let me ask this question: if 86.10 had, say, registered as "Midgely" and done exactly what Midgley had done, would he/she have gotten off with a warning? --Leifern 11:38, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

There are no "next steps for Midgley", other than the next steps which will apply to everyone - an end to personal attacks (including the loose ad-hominem stuff about conspiracies), and a rigorous course of treatment consisting of WP:NOT, WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:CITE and other relevant policies and guidelines. This "he did it so I'm doing it" tit-for-tat behaviour has got to stop. I am going to think about this further over the next couple of days, and sort out some firm proposals. In the meantime, any more nonsense from either side will result in people being blocked. --ajn (talk) 12:52, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Ehm, please try to read what I wrote - I wasn't suggesting that anyone do what Midgley did - quite the contrary. Other than that, I'm sure Midgley will be gratified to know that rules about sockpuppetry, etc., don't really apply to him as long as he does these kinds of things to people others already are annoyed at. --Leifern 15:46, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I didn't think you were suggesting anyone should do what he did - what you are suggesting (also here) is that he hasn't been "dealt with" to your satisfaction. I think several people who have looked into the background have come to the conclusion that there has been some severe provocation going on, some of it by people with very little history of constructive contributions to Wikipedia. There are two ways to go with this. One is to draw a line under everything now, and try to move forward assuming good faith, and sticking to verifiability, neutrality, and so on. The other is to go for a request for arbitration, which I suspect would see several of the people caught up in this being severely censured. I'm quite prepared to go down that route, if people don't stop needling each other. --ajn (talk) 16:57, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I guess what confuses (and concerns) me is this: we routinely block people for impetuously violating the 3RR rule and generally ignore protestations about being "provoked." The principle we are trying to engender is this: no matter how provoked you think you are - or have reason to be - certain behavior is unacceptable. Maybe I have a warped sense of justice, but it seems to me that malicious sockpuppetry, impersonating another user, confusing a discussion, and trying to preempt an MFD through all this bad behavior has to be one of the worst things I have personally seen here, with the exception of admins blocking editors in a content dispute. Yeah, I think Midgley got off way easy - and I also think there are plenty of editors who simply would have been banned indefinitely for the same offense. --Leifern 17:35, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

User:Jacrosse's Disruption

I'll try to keep this brief for the sake of the administrators. User:Jacrosse has engaged in highly uncooperative behavior since coming to Wikipedia last year. The last straw for me was the first of the bullet points below:

• Has been removing {{NPOV-section}}, {{dubious}}, and other dispute tags from articles. Examples: [105] [106]. He does this despite being warned on his user talk page [107] and on the articles' talk pages [108].

He claims that dispute tags are POV [109] and therefore he has a right to remove them.

• User has done similar reversions when people attempt to remove disputed material until disputes can be resolved (examples: [110] [111]). He is bordering on 3RR/edit wars on some pages.
• User brazenly inserts POV and irrelevant/questionable facts onto pages, usually concerning Trotskyism and Neoconservatism (on one article, he goes so far as to use the obviously un-MoS term "uber-neocon" [112]). When asked to cite sources or discuss, he gives curt answers or gives sources that don't state anything relevant to his claims. He also deletes relevant information, attacking other editors' writing style etc. in the edit summaries. Warnings from other users abound on user's talk page.
• User has also engaged in uncivil attacks on talk pages, examples of which are rampant on the Talk:Neoconservatism page. Has been warned on his talk page by an administrator.

The user has been blocked before for his unwillingness to listen. Mediation is pending on at least one of the pages that he's removing dispute tags from, so I'm really losing patience fast. I think a warning shot to Jacrosse (perhaps a 24-hour block) would suffice for the time being. I'd appreciate any help you can provide. Thanks --metzerly 18:38, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

IP claiming to be banned user

203.122.217.41 (talk · contribs) has been making various edits on the wiki since yesterday, of which some appear to be harassing other users. The IP seems to be identifying itself as User:Zordrac (see, for example, [113]), which is a banned sockpuppet of a banned user. I'm not 100% sure what the appropriate response is—the IP looks static, though, so I suspect a good long block is the right answer—so I'll leaving dealing with this to someone else. -- SCZenz 21:17, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

He is also blanking warnings [114] and encouraging editors to visit Wikipedia Review (not that that's that big of a deal. Rx StrangeLove 21:40, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I gave the IP a short block. Rx StrangeLove 22:09, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Bigfoot-related retaliation vandalism, possibly User:Beckjord

Anon IPs from AOL have been editing Bigfoot, and it seems this may well be User:Beckjord, in violation of ArbCom ruling not to edit this page (see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Beckjord). In apparent retaliation against User:DreamGuy, this AOL anon has been vandalizing various articles, including:

• Jack the Ripper (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Mythology (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Cheese (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (note, this article also being vandalized by other anons)
• Butter (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Black pepper (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

The edits and edit summaries make it very clear that this is a vendetta against DreamGuy [115] [116] ("DG pages will never be left alone") and also User:Bunchofgrapes, both of whom are involved in editing Bigfoot. It would be useful if more people added these to their watchlist.

In the case of Cheese, there is some background vandalism by other anons, but also some clear AOL IP retaliation vandalism, more or less saying (paraphrased) "stay out of other people's pages or else vandalism will never stop" [117] [118]. The vandalism style has the same sort of intentional patent nonsense that is seen in various contributions to Talk:Bigfoot. -- Curps 23:22, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

As a long-term field researcher of the wiley Beckjordus crackpottus, I can confirm with near certainty that the AOL vandalism pointed out here is from from him. He occassionally goes after Wikipedia:WikiProject Baseball players to annoy Android79, as well. Thanks, AOL. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 23:59, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Regarding that last: Oh noes, Darth Vader wants to destroy WikiProjects! android79 03:17, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I've got all these on my watchlist. It's pretty obvious when he comes around. Maybe I just haven't noticed all of it, but I think he's doing it less frequently now. I <3 AOL. android79 03:08, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

He's also appeared on the Yeti article once or twice[119], though he hasn't been there in a week or so.

--Toffile 14:39, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Removal of personal information

I have recently been informed of the policy to not include any personal information. I have subsequently removed all references to any real people in various talk pages. These are at User talk:Caster Troy and at Talk:Download Festival. I have been told that I should inform on this page so that the appropriate action can be taken to permanently remove this information from the archives. Masud 00:48, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Unusual behavior from User:RhomboidFive

User:RhomboidFive has engaged in some unusual behavior. His/her very first edit [120] was to someone else's user page. He posted a message on his user page implying an association with the GNAA [121] then removed it. More problematic is his use of incivility, including anti-Semitic incivility. See [122] and [123] for run-of-the-mill WP:CIVIL violations in edit summaries. He made at least two blatantly anti-Semitic edits: [124] in which he vandalized Who is a Jew? by changing "jewfaq.com" to "jewfag.com", and [125] in which he called the other user a "moron" and hyperlinked that word to Jew. He also created a misleading copyright template [126] which is now up for deletion. Can someone look into this? Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 01:36, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Blocked for 24 hours for vandalism. Most of their useful article contributions seem to be minor corrections. Consistent with troll behavior. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 02:18, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Naja Haje - compromised account?

Naja Haje (talk · contribs) appears to be a compromised account. I have blocked that account indefinitely until this issue can be resolved. --Ixfd64 04:41, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Review needed

A user I blocked for a 3RR vio, User:Michael Martinez, has requested to have other admins review the block. I would like someone to kindly do so. Thanks. —BorgHunter ^ubx (talk) 05:11, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Did he break 3RR? I would say so, on Middle-earth. Did CBDunkerson, whom he was editwarring with, block 3RR? No. Was CBDunkerson blocked? No. However, both are coming very close, occasionally overflowing, the common sense bounds that are the 3RR. Both parties should be reminded that the 3RR is not an allowance, it is a guideline. IMO, the articles should probably be protected if this moronic fight continues. Also, I very much dislike it when people call anything but vandalism "vandalism", and that's an extra strike on Martinez. Please don't do that, it really distracts us from fighting the real vandals.

Long story short: Looks like a valid block, but both parties are gaming the system. --Golbez 05:21, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I did let CBunkerson know that he was on thin ice. I agree with your assessment. —BorgHunter ^ubx (talk) 05:26, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I'd definitely say that protection is in order if they keep it up- but they should start hashing it out on the talk page soon, before they have no other choice. So this is a good block, but both should remember to discuss disputed changes on the talk page. That is why it's there, after all :).--Sean Black ^(talk) 05:31, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

This user continues to insist that his version of the article is the only correct one and that all others are vandalism. Despite several uninvolved administrators reviewing his request, he insists he be unblocked despite his violation of WP:3RR, and has assumed bad faith of everyone involved, including myself, when I addressed his request to be unblocked on his talk page. He also continues to replace the unblock template on his talk page after several administrators have reviewed the situation and removed it. —bbatsell ¿? 06:06, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

When I saw where this mess was going I walked away to sleep on it. Apparently a bit too late to avoid 'being on thin ice'. For the record, there has been discussion on the talk pages and I have attempted to compromise with neutral wording. I have a problem allowing Michael's edits to stand because even if we were to assume that he's right, his assertions could never be verified. He is arguing for the inclusion of things that he believes an author meant... but never actually wrote. Personally, I think that ample evidence has been provided that Michael is simply wrong, but even if we assume that the author changed his mind or meant something different there will never be any way to verify it because the man is dead and he never wrote the things Michael wishes to include. That said, I tend to think that 3RR blocks cause more problems than they solve so I'll continue to leave the articles in the 'wrong' version and wait until Michael's block expires before resuming efforts to settle this. If someone wants to remove his block early I think that could only help. --CBDunkerson 11:59, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Normally I would, but I think he should serve the full 24 hours to give him a chance to cool down. His last comment was still fairly agitated. There's not much of a block left anyway; he's almost there. —BorgHunter ^ubx (talk) 14:07, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Blocked anon IP is evading the block

Should we allow anons to evade the block so easily and get away with it: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR#User:69.160.17.133. Thanks and sorry if this is not the proper place for this. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 09:09, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Now he uses IP 69.160.1.178 (talk · contribs). ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 06:27, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Slander, voiding and self-aggrandizement

While trying to create the page 'Attila the Hun to Charlemagne', which did not exist, I received a 'hand-in-stop-sign' icon. The page had not been being worked on, until I started to create it. This was placed by Ghirlandajo. I completed the page. It took quite some time, because there was much information to format. I had come to this page by way of 'Descents from antiquity' [sic], where I had also tried to add some information and a bibliography. The bibliography was removed overnight, with the note on the changes/history page that 'charlatans' had been removed. The entire bibliography! Since I was one of those half-dozen charlatans, I was (justifiably) offended by the slander. Especially when one considers that I was the author of one of THE three seminal works creating the field. The other charlatans are also all very well respected in the field. Since Ghirlandajo claims to have written the page, he should be aware of this fact. The work which I did creating 'Attila the Hun to Charlemagne', was entirely removed, and replaced with other material, (which was not nearly so helpful); and Ghirlandjo takes credit, on his page, for having created 'Attila the Hun to Charlemagne'. He also uncorrected spelling, grammatical and punctuational errors, returning them to their original incorrect state.

Ghirlandajo takes credit for a great many things on his page. I wonder how much of it is deserved. He also, as one can tell by reading his discussions, is very heavy-handed, and smuggly self-righteous - as is mete for one as knowledgeable as he claims to be. He also proudly states that he is not an administrator, and does not wish to be. Then let him behave accordingly!

Frankly, I shall just quit contributing ANYTHING to wiki, from this point forward. That includes related projects, (such as MeroWiki), or any of the other topics, to which I might have contributed, as in the past. I simply will no longer be slandered, and have hours of work undone, by one who is not the expert that he wishes the world to believe.

Indignantly, 'though with sincere best wishes, Stanford Mommaerts-Browne

We can't help you, this is not something I see as actionable on. NSLE _(T+C) at 09:38 UTC (2006-02-28)

It might help get things reviewed if you gave us some links to the articles and user page in question (by bracketing). This appears to be partly a content dispute, and many of the admins here will not consider it worth attention. However, any removal or replacement of info should be explained on the article Talk page. Did G leave an explanation? Removal by a editor without explanation of a sizable contribution of a new editor would certainly warrant our attention. The best place to ask for community review is at wp:rfc, where you can list the article and ask for review. Your work is not lost. It is in the article history, and can be resurrected. Give us a little more info and some of us will take a look. alteripse 12:27, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Not worth the trouble. Seems to be original research anyway, trying to construct some line of descent from Attila to Charlemagne. Tin foil hattery, IMO, and at the lousy title "Attila the Hun to Charlemagne". The summary Ghirlandjo left there just about covers it. Lupo 12:47, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Thepcnerd, revocability of the GFDL, legal threats

Thepcnerd (talk · contribs), upon discovering that the article for the web site he runs was deleted [127], attempted to withdraw the GFDL licensing [128] [129] [130] on the images he uploaded and listed them on Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2006 January 7, which of course didn't work.

He seems not to have discovered that it didn't work until today, when he again listed them at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2006 February 28, and furthermore made irate legal threats on my and Garglebutt's talk pages. Given that he's a seventeen-year-old and clearly released the images under the GFDL himself (per MediaWiki:Uploadtext in addition to the above diffs), there's no real bite to his threats, even with his outlandish claims that someone else licensed them as GFDL using his account. There is sort of a case for these images to be G7'd, but they clearly weren't mistakenly contributed. —Cryptic (talk) 10:46, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Should "I have hereby revoke (sic) permission for wikipedia to use my photography" [131] be removed from his user page? While we all know it's utterly meaningless, you never know whether someone else might come across it and not know that. --Malthusian (talk) 11:17, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I would not remove it, but rather add a note to its ineffectiveness. It's better to have all this out in the open, I think.--Stephan Schulz 11:41, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I added a note to that effect [132]. Please reword (or indeed revert) as necessary. --Malthusian (talk) 14:38, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Probably, the most diplomatic thing to do is to find replacement images. Thepcnerd's request, though petty and groundless, is reasonable. Perhaps it would be best to write a message on their talk page saying that the images will be taken down as soon as replacements have been uploaded, and that, in the meantime, Wikipedia has no obligation to take down images that have been licensed under GFDL. — Gareth Hughes 15:51, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Looking at the images' files more closely, it could be argued that they were not explicitly placed under GFDL. When they were first uploaded, CopyrightedNotForProfitUseProvidedThat was used. When Thepcnerd discovered that this unfree licence would lead to a quick deletion, they removed it with the edit summary GFDL or whatever the official wikipedia copyright terms thing is. I beleive that anything uploaded and not otherwise tagged is under GFDL, and the edit summay implies that such a licencing, although not understood, is sought. — Gareth Hughes 16:03, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

IANAL, but "the official wikipedia copyright terms thing" is surely either GFDL, or there isn't one. In the first case, the pictures are GFDL. In the second case, we go back to what's on the other side of the 'or' conjunction and they're still GFDL. (It sounds like we agree on this point, hope I don't sound argumentative as I frequently do.)

As for the question of replacing the images, it's entirely up to whoever wants to use them now. On the one hand I sympathise with the user, and replacing the photos if it's easily done would be a nice gesture. On the other hand I think he's learnt two sorely-needed lessons: 1) read the small print 2) don't threaten people with the almighty Western legal system like it's everyone's universal bigger brother because it annoys people, especially those who have chosen to make themselves accountable by using their real name. --Malthusian (talk) 16:17, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

User:Robsteadman's talk page was twice vandalised today by an anonymous IP that has been traced to Aquinas College, Stockport [133] [134] that placed references to "Jesus" and "homosexuality".

User:Deskana has been indispute with Rob on the Jesus pages and is a student at that college - as evidenced by his user page age/location profile (User:Deskana) and his editing of the article associated with that college [[135]. This is too much of a coincidence. Either Deskana was the perpetrator or knows the perpetrator.

This is unacceptable harassment of another user. I have no idea what is usually done in these circumstances but appreciate your help with making sure the user in question knows how unacceptable that sort of behaviour is. SOPHIA 13:06, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

If this is true, it needs to be dealt with swiftly. Would an admin please verify if Deskana has ever used that IP address and, if so, deal with it appropriately. Thanks.Gator (talk) 13:37, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

seems straightforward enough, I would block Deskana for a day for user page vandalism. dab (ᛏ) 13:41, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think I would. I'd like to hear what User:Deskana has to say first. Simple vandalism even to a user page is best delt with by reverting. Blocking can be used in persistant and difficult cases. As for harassment - that's a bit extreme. Childish vandalism of a user page happens quite a lot on Wikipedia. It's not to be encoraged or condoned of course, but it's not what I would call harrassment if it hapens on this scale. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 14:51, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

well, 12 hours then; logging out to vandalize a userpage is pretty bad behaviour, we don't need to assume good faith to the point of surrealism, and being blocked for a few hours isn't exactly a cruel punishment. But if he stops vandalising without being blocked that's fine with me too. dab (ᛏ) 14:58, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

It's worth knowing some of the background. The Jesus page is currently locked and there are some pretty heated discussions going on at the moment on Talk:Jesus of which Rob and Deskana are on opposite sides. Deskana is a regular contributor to the pages and has voted in current attempts at consensus. Rob was not a random victim - hence the accusations of harassment. I'm not out to lynch the guy but I do think anonymously editing someones user page twice shows at best a complete misunderstanding of the purpose of wikipedia. SOPHIA 15:46, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Anselm College has quite a few students. One should not jump to the conclusion that, because an editor goes to school there, he or she must be the vandal. At the very least, a check of Deskana's IP address and that of the school should be done. In addition, before any admin takes action, they should read all the Deskana posts on the talk:Jesus page and its archives and on the talk:Robsteadman page and its archives. In comparison to other editors (this one included) he has been polite and only occaisonally involved in the discussion. --CTSWyneken 17:00, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree that a check needs to occur. We don't want to assume that someone is violating policy merely because they may have a similar IP address as another user (SOPHIA can attest to the injustices that such assumptions can create), but suspicion here is warranted. I'm eager to see what Deskana has to say about this and silence will not be his friend.Gator (talk) 17:10, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm also with you. It's worth checking. But since it's only been four hours and the user appears to be a college student, his silence so far is not significant. --CTSWyneken 17:25, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

That check has been done. It's gone now but earlier there was a special page for that IP address showing all users who had used it - Deskana was on that list - hence the admins saying above that it was a pretty clear case. SOPHIA 18:03, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

It can't hurt to see what Deskana has to say. I haven't worked with him too much, but it seems to me that he politely dealt with Robsteadman's continual violations of WP:CIV, WP:NPA, WP:NPOV, and WP:AGF, longer than most before finally just giving up on Robsteadman. For that alone, he deserves the benefit of the doubt. That said, if he's guilty of vandalizing the userpage of Robsteadman, he should be blocked temporarily. He seems to be a nice guy; I hope he would just come clean if he's guilty. KHM03 18:30, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

You're right, I attend Aquinas College, Stockport. I was talking to one of my friends about a user called robsteadman and how he is convinced that a cabal of editors are protecting the page on Jesus to not conform to a certain POV in violation of WP:NPOV. I pointed my friend towards the talk page for Jesus. He searched the page for Robsteadman, and proceeded to his user page. At this time I was called by my teacher (that was the reason I was in the IT room, I was demonstrating my computing project to my teacher). Once the interview was over, I logged off the PC and went to registration.

I was browsing Wikipedia later and was pointed to messages on User talk:212.219.123.32. Checking the contributions I saw that when I was being interviewed Robsteadman's page was vandalised. I didn't actually have anything to do with the vandalism of Robsteadman's page.

I'm disgraced at my friend for doing what he did. I had logged on to check to see if I had messages, and was talking to my friend. I never actually vandalised any pages myself. Nor did I edit Robsteadman's page. I am somewhat frustrated that after attempting to offer guidance to Robsteadman (see the archives on his talk page) on matters such as dispute resolution, that I am being accused of this. Although I can see why the questions should be asked about my logging on using that IP address, I feel that attempting to get me blocked is somewhat unfair. If you want me to comment further, I will. Deskana (talk) 18:36, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Deskana, why didn't you immediately revert the vandalism or, if it had already been reverted, immediately inform Rob that you weren't directly responsible and offer apologies? KHM03 18:49, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I was browsing Wikipedia during registration, and didn't actually have time to log in as I had a lot of work to do. At the minute I'm feeling a little annoyed that people aren't assuming good faith as I have tried so hard to do with Robsteadman, and aren't exactly in much of an apologetic mood. I feel that this may ruin my chances of becoming an admin one day, and for that I'm actually quite pissed off. I feel my reputation of months and over a thousand reliable edits has been vandalised for some edits not even from my account on an IP which I have to use sometimes, as much as Robsteadman's user page was vandalised by the IP! Deskana (talk) 18:56, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Could the admins with access to the special page I saw earlier confirm the time lag between Deskana logging off and the vandalism taking place. Since this vandalism was done twice and from what Deskana has said there should be no record of any registered user making edits immediately before or between the two incidents. SOPHIA 19:05, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Can I make it clear that I was probably still logged on while this was going on? As I said above, I was still logged on to my computer when I was demonstrating my project. This would include my account being logged on to Wikipedia. You can check Special:Contributions/Deskana and Special:Contributions/212.219.123.32 for the edits of the accounts in question. Deskana (talk) 19:14, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Your account was not logged onto Wikipedia - the edits were done anonymously - it's the timings of the history log for that IP that should confirm your account. SOPHIA 19:26, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Are you not referring to the information on Special:Contributions/212.219.123.32? I'm not certain what you're referring to. Deskana (talk) 19:28, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Let me weigh in with my opinion. Deskana has been one of the milder voices on the Talk:Jesus page; milder than mine (I am, after all, the one who recently shouted "stop being binary!") I find Deskana's account to be reasonable, so I leave it to others to decide whether this matter should be pursued further. The anon IP who vandalized Rob's page went on to vandalize User:Ben_W_Bell, who to my knowledge has not been involved on the Jesus page. I should also point out that User:Garglebutt was also vandalized, by a different IP, shortly after Garglebutt decided to leave the Jesus talk page. I submit this to point out that Rob is not the only one who has been vandalized. I have nothing more to say. Arch O. La 19:57, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok, the vandalism occurred in a 12 minute uninterrupted time period between 10:28 and 10:40 on the 28th (today). Deskana last edited (with his user name) on 07:10 and then not until 18:36 today when he began refuting the vandalism charge. I for one am skeptical and the story could easily be false, but we do need to AGF here and these edits do seem to be outside of the norm compared to Deskana's usually exemplary edits, so....I wouldn't block just yet, but would have no mercy if this were to happen again as it is not Rob's prblem that Deskana has friends who would do something like this (assuming that it's true). Just my two cents. Thanks to SOPHIA for catching this so that it can all come oput in the wash and we can, hopefully, move on.Gator (talk) 20:02, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Gator's analysis and thanks to Sophia. --CTSWyneken 20:14, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, SOPHIA is right in the fact that I was logged in shortly before (and possibly during) the edits were made.

"I wouldn't block just yet, but would have no mercy if this were to happen again as it is not Rob's prblem that Deskana has friends who would do something like this (assuming that it's true)."

I can accept that, but surely that means blocking User:212.219.123.32 not User:Deskana! It's unfair to block me because of an anon IP. Blocking 212.219.123.32 for vandalism is fine by me, since I use 81.97.123.201 at home anyway. I don't mind not being able to edit at college if it stops the masses of vandalism that come from that IP address. Deskana (talk) 20:17, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

A couple of points:

• If vandalism comes from a public IP (library, university, etc.), admins don't normally block unless the vandalism is very persistent. We don't want to affect innocent users.
• If a respectable editor with no history of bad behaviour is known to edit from a public IP, and vandalism comes from that IP on one particular day, and the editor in question denies having carried it out, the matter should be closed. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that Deskana is speaking the truth, and I see no reason to have a dozen more posts with "did he or didn't he?" speculation.
• I noticed this morning that vandalism to Robsteadman's page had been reverted, and I posted a level 4 warning to the vandal.[136] I used level four, because the vandal had already been warned by two other users shortly before. I kept an eye on the contributions, and there was nothing further, so there was no reason to block.
• Anyone who has been around on Wikipedia for a while is going to have his or her user page vandalized a few times. It has happened to me several times (although I deleted some versions from the history, so some of the records are gone). It's not a big deal. It's certainly not harassment if it happens only twice.
• Blocking on Wikipedia is not meant to be a punishment. It's meant to be used to put a stop to ongoing vandalism, when it's obvious that the vandal can't be persuaded to stop. That's why we have four different warnings. The idea of blocking a public IP address twelve hours later as a "punishment" for vandalism carried out by someone who probably isn't near the computer right now is against normal practice on Wikiepedia.
• I'm concerned at the wording used by some people in this section, as if there's no doubt that Deskana, despite his record for civility, vandalized Rob's user page. I would hope that if vandalism were carried out from my work IP address, and reported here, most Wikipedians would say that they didn't believe I was responsible.
• I don't know Deskana well enough to say whether or not I would support him in an RfA. I will say, however, that no memory of this speculation would cause me to hesitate for a second. He has a good record. He uses a public IP. He says he didn't do it. Let's move on.

AnnH ♫ 21:24, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

The page I saw seemed to be some sort of activity log of all the events associated with that IP address including login/out. I've not seen a page like that before and suspect it can be generated by admins for checks. It's certainly the sort of information I could have got from my security systems. It should show Deskana login to wikipedia then logout (as the posts were made anonymously) then a short time delay before the vandalism. If Deskana was away from the computer his wikipedia account should not show any activity (login or out) until after the two acts of vandalism occurred.

I am not pressing for any further action as I'm sure it won't happen again but it's worth looking at the IP log as it would confirm Deskana's account and settle the matter once and for all. The one thing I do know about is unfounded suspicion and in my case I wanted all the information to come out to corroborate my account of events. SOPHIA 22:20, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Admins do not have access to the logs. Even if we did it would prove nothing. Think about it. What would the log show if he is telling the truth? What would it show if he is lying? Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 14:20, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Deskana's verison ofn events does NOT hold up - it is a total fabrication. I am amazed that he has not been blocked or banned permanently. This is outrageous. His behaviour has gradually been egetting worse on the "jesus" qarticle ober recent weeks and this is the worst example of it. I do hope this incident is noted when he asks for his wish to be an admin. Totally unsuitable. I cannot assume good faith when it is not deserved. Deskana SHOULD be banned. Robsteadman 09:53, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Stop trolling and read your rules.Gator (talk) 13:36, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

How does it not hold up? The IP address is a public one that has been involved in several cases of anon vandalism in the past. Do you have more proof than everyone else does on this? You're eagerly pushing for permanent banning with what evidence? --Oscillate 15:20, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

If he's guilty, permanent banning seems terribly harsh to me; 24 hours should suffice for a first time offense. The vandalism was completely wrong and uncalled for, but if the identity of the vandal can't be proven, the administrators have little to go on. If the identity can be proven...then I'd hope for a temporary block of the vandal. KHM03 18:25, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Sock Puppets by Skull 'n' Femurs (talk · contribs)

It appears that user Skull 'n' Femurs (talk · contribs) is evading his block for sock herding.

• Imacomp (talk · contribs) has demonstrated behavious similar to that of SnF before his block, focussing on the same areas of interest and with similar concerns to the exclusion of all else. A Check user yesterday suggests that this is the case[[137]]. Imacomp was previously identifiead as a possible sock. [[138]]

• Book Mouse (talk · contribs) has since weighed in with exactly the same issues regarding content and is making numerous statements about me accusing him/ her of being SnF. Note that BM replied to my post at the previous reference, before then resigning as Imacomp. [[139]] Note that Book Mouse has also started posting a Sock tag on my talk page associating me with Lightbringer, without provocation.

• Useful if Imacomp and Book Mouse could be investigated as Socks and managed appropriately. Many thanks.ALR 15:09, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Abuse of Administrator tools by JzG

JzG is using sysop powers abusively in an ongoing dispute over at Arbustoo's RfC. JzG has been systematically removing evidence contrary to his position, and deleting the edit histories involved, in an attempt to protect Arbustoo's incivil and libellous behavior. I hope someone with appropriate authority can investigate this immediately. Thanks, Bannana Peel 15:32, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

What Jason Gastrich (for it is he) is referring to here is the blocking of another of his sockpuppets, King_Blinger (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), which removed unflattering comments from the above RfC using misleading edit summaries (e.g. 'rv willy on wheels') in an attempt to disguise it. --Malthusian (talk) 15:41, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

No sysop powers were used in the edits described. I removed discussion to the Talk page where it belonged, and struck two endorsements with reasons given (for example, users with no edit history who admit to using multiple accounts and who have taken no part in attempting to resolve a dispute (other than personal abuse against its subject) are not normally accepted as appropriate to endorse an RfC). These actions can be reviewed and revised by the community if they see fit, in the ususal way. The RfC is vexatious and quite likely a violation of WP:POINT but some of us at least are trying to ensure process is followed.

However, I congratulate Bannana_Peel (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) on finding AN/I with their very first edit - newbies are obviuously getting more clueful by the day, what with the one who raised Arbustoo's RFC managing it within their first ten edits and all. Just zis Guy you know? 19:02, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

You're out of your mind. In addition to numerous breaches of WP:AGF and WP:NPA, you constantly contradict yourself. The fact remains that administrator tools were used, and I cannot show diffs because I cannot see what you have deleted. Please think again if you think you can get away with this. I'm sick and tired of the constant harassment and incivility in you and the other cabalists' campaign of disinformation. Your presence is not needed here, only that of a steward, so shoo. This issue is not going to go away, and I'll take this rampant abuse on your part all the way to Jimbo if thats what it takes to ensure a fair and balanced encyclopedia.

Peace in Christ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bannana Peel (talk • contribs) 19:21, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Anyone can see what JzG has deleted in this log. He has not deleted any revisions of the page in question. Chick Bowen 19:26, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

If you're a new editor, how can you be "sick and tired" of JzG? <ponder> As for the rest, yes, please be sure to take it right to Jimbo, and ensure that your complaint is as long as possible while you're at it -- he likes to read, from what I hear. · Katefan0^(scribble)/poll 19:29, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

JamesMLane's futility principle comes to mind. . . Chick Bowen 19:37, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

The admin tools are: rollback, block user, delete article, view/restore deleted history, protect/unprotect article. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to identify which of these was used in the case in question (hint for newbies: "none of the above" is a good first guess). Just zis Guy you know? 22:09, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

As I said in the first instance, I think he's referring to your block of the sockpuppet that was continually removing unflattering comments. --Malthusian (talk) 23:02, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh, that. That, too, is visible to anyone who cares to look, open to scrutiny and reversal by other admins. But now you mention it, Gastrich does have a history of complaining about the identification of socks, even when the allegations are subsequently proven to be true. The best one was when he used one of his sock puppets to send me a Wikipedia email protesting innocence and asking for it to be unblocked, from an address on his own domain! It has been asserted that some new users go for weeks or even months without attempting to whitewash a single article on a Southern Baptist or unaccredited school, but they are not much in evidence hereabouts. Just zis Guy you know? 23:15, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I have never seen JzG abuse his adminstratorship once and the fact that Bannana Peel cannot form a coherent argument to demonstrate otherwise and only has two edits demonstrates this attack is rubbish. This is a fine example of why Jason Gastirch should be permanently banned. Instead of reverting vandalism or improving wikipedia, JzG is forced here to defend himself from a Gastrich sock puppet who only has a two edit history. Arbusto 09:01, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

It's happened, and I've learned from it. Nobody's perfect (especially me). Just zis Guy you know? 15:18, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but you're as close to Mary Poppins as they come, one puppy's opinion. KillerChihuahua^?!? 15:25, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Jack White1

I have just blocked Jack_White1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) since his entire edit history seems to be personal attacks. Feel free to review and unblock, at least one of these was against me, but if you look at his Talk page at the response to a previous block you'll probably conclude as I did that the chances of him ever being a useful member of the community are pretty slim - assuming he's not a sock, which on current evidence is not unlikely. Just zis Guy you know? 17:27, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Admitted sock account being used to breach WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA. Indef block is good. Jkelly 19:10, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Possible Gastrich sock

I am now involved with this one so will leave it to someone else. Jason_Gastrich (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (of Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jason Gastrich and now Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jason Gastrich) has repeatedly posted what he asserts is the real name of User:WarriorScribe. Juicy_Juicy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has already been cast as object of suspicion after starting out with tendentious edits to previously Gastroturfed articles, followed by an RFC against Arbustoo as their eighth edit, eleven minutes after the first supposed "attempt to resolve the problem". This user has now posted at WP:RFCU a sock check request for WarriorScribe (talk · contribs) and Arbustoo (talk · contribs), in which the same allegation regarding WarriorScribe's real name is repeated. [140]. I may be wrong in this, but I do not know of anyone but Gastrich and socks doing this. My inclination is to sock-block, given Gastrich's previous acknowledged and unacknowledged use of socks and given that this account has no obvious good-faith edit history. Sadly dealing with Gastrich has made me unusually cynical where he is concerned. Just zis Guy you know? 22:26, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Strikes me as a bad faith misuse of WP:RCU to silence those who rightly opposed Gastrich's gaming of the system. I support removing the request to the WP:RCU talk page for discussion of its basis in reality. FeloniousMonk 00:36, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, struck from CheckUser. Do you see a need to take action against Juicy_Juicy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)? Just zis Guy you know? 15:14, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Jason Gastrich at it Again

I just came across another bad faith AfD by Gastrich. Would it be a good idea to categorize all these bad faith AfD nominations for the sake of assisting arbcom in the pending case? Hexagonal 22:36, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, as the closing admin, I've added this one to the evidence page. David | Talk 00:24, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Arbitration enforcement requested

Could some admins take a look at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#RJII_.283.29? RJII's previous case just closed, and he's currently on NPA parole, probation (can be banned from any page), and general probation (can be fully banned by three admins). Looks to me like it just needs to be enforced (if all adds up of course, I haven't looked over the diffs). Thanks. Dmcdevit·t 00:07, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

RJII banned from Anarchism

I have banned RJII from Anarchism for two weeks. --Phroziac _. o º ^{O (♥♥♥♥ chocolate!)} 03:35, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

AfD for User:Arbustoo

Hi, User:Sam_Tindell has put up Arbustoo's page for deletion. Can this request for AfD be removed? Didn't want to revert an AfD page. Thanks. -- Samir ∙ ^T_C 01:03, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I delisted it and asked Sam_Tindell (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) for an explanation. FeloniousMonk 01:13, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

He also nommed Harlan Ellison (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). WTF did Ellison do to attract the ire of the Christian right? android79 01:27, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it was I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (computer game). Or since these Afds appear to be the work of Gastrich, perhaps it is his AOL lawsuit. Who knows? KillerChihuahua^?!? 02:54, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I am only sorry someone beat me to the early close of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Harlan Ellison. Probably the most absurd example of WP:POINT ever from this particular cabal, trumping even the nomination of the first President of Angola. I suspect that vastly more people have heard of Ellison than have heard of Agostinho Neto. No SF fan can possibly be ignorant of Ellison's name and reputation. Just zis Guy you know? 09:46, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

SPUI 2nd Parole violation

SPUI is on probation since the pedophilia wheel-war case, and may be blocked for 7 days at an admin's discression. He has now twice inserted this personal attack into a debate. (I reverted him the first time) [[141]. The last time he violated his probation ( a few days ago), I blocked him for 24 hours. I recommend he is blocked for a deal longer. However, as I am now on wikibreak, and as I blocked him last time, I leave it for someone else to implement this, or do otherwise as they see fit. --Doc ^ask? 01:39, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Looks to me like JesseW's and SPUI's remarks were both designed to provoke. I see this as a borderline violation if that. Chick Bowen 05:20, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Spui's remark appears to be a reminder not to breach WP:DICK rather than an actual insult. --Victim of signature fascism | Do people who don't think Jesus existed exist? 00:00, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I recommend not blocking him, I just don't think anything good will come of it. But I commend you for not blocking him yourself again and in the same spirit I won't unblock him if he does get blocked because I unblocked him last time. Haukur 00:11, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Editor harassing and attempting to game 3RR

At the article Operating Thetan JimmyT (talk · contribs) appears to be trying to game the system. In his first edit there today he used the edit summary "writing only of body thetans and NOTs is innacurate POV as there are many things addressed on the OT levels", and in this edit he removed all descriptions of all that happens after reaching the state of "Clear". He did not dispute that those were accurate descriptions; he simply stated that because "there are many things", that it was "innacurate [sic] POV" to describe the ones that were being described, even though these were described as being "amongst other things" -- not even implying that the description already there was complete. In his next edit he removed even more information with the cryptic summary "Description - Took out incorrect POV mention. OT5 is not the only OT level about OT3" which does not appear to match his actual change.

I attempted to revert this to a previous version, and immediately got an edit conflict with JimmyT's next edit, stamped in the very same minute as his last. Because of the unexpected edit conflict, I did not see that the effect of his edit, for which he used only "/* Description */" as his edit summary, was to insert his original research that certain documents were "fake (or forged)".

Jimmy's next two edits ([142], [143]) expanded on the same theme, prefacing the premise (generally accepted) that the documents over which the Church of Scientology claimed copyright are authentic (otherwise the Church would have been acting illegally to claim copyright over them) with "Critics argue that ..." My next edit was reverting this attempt to paint this generally-accepted argument as a critic-only argument, and his insertion of original research which I had discovered in the meantime, with the summary "Show us non-critics who believe that the Church successfully and illegally claimed copyright over non-authentic documents, we'll talk. In the meantime, do not insert your own OR that they are "fake"."

His next two edits ([144], [145]) were made with the edit summaries "Antaeus' plays games with his edit summary" and "Regarding you RV which does not match your edit summary", and started with "Antaeus, FLUNK!!" That "attempt to communicate" included the incivil "Care to explain your dishonest and sneaky revert or did you make a mistake? I'm not buying any more confusing dialogue from you, lets stick with the facts and get to the point without the extra blah blah." Less than three minutes later, he reverted Operating Thetan with the edit summary "RV #1 (Antaeus you already have 2 reverts on this page today)" and then proceeded to make seven edits in a row to my user talk page -- in the space of exactly as many minutes -- most of which were simply cutting portions out of my user talk page, and then repasting them in separate edits to different locations. ([146], [147], [148], [149], [150], [151], [152]). Are those the actions of an editor trying to communicate in good faith? I think they show very clearly, along with the 'scoreboard' edit summary counting reverts, someone who's trying to stay nominally within the letter of policy but abuse its spirit -- using talk pages for harassing other editors instead of communicating, and viewing the 3RR as a game at which to outmanuever other 'players'. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:50, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Concur with Antaeus. The editor in question has engaged in a pattern of removing cited material from articles without seeking consensus or even providing credible criticism of its accuracy. By itself, that's not a great thing to do here; in addition with the mistakes Antaeus describes, it speaks very badly of JimmyT's ability to work productively here.

FWIW, JimmyT has also claimed (on Talk:Body_thetan) to have been "hatted" (that is, trained for a post or job) "by Scientologists" to edit Wikipedia articles. --FOo 08:07, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I have looked at this, and I am inclined to agree that Jimmy has probably broken 3RR. Of more concern is the fact that the group he may represent is powerful, organised, fairly good at PR and has in the past been unscrupulous. I think maintaining the NPOV of these articles will be hard, not in the gross sense but in keeping finer detail in, and changes that can be wikilawyered, but are not apropriate out. At the same time, we don't want to keep those with a pro or anti-POV from editing. It's one of WP's dilemmas writ large. Rich Farmbrough 22:57 1 March 2006 (UTC).

It's true that the Church of Scientology has in the past perpetrated organized attacks on Internet sites. However, I don't see that happening here. Instead we seem to have a small group of individual Scientologists who push Scientology positions in articles. My speculation is that JimmyT's "hatting" was not from Church hierarchy but from another one of our Scientologist contributors, such as Terryeo or (less likely) AI. We are not dealing with the likes of Helena Kobrin here -- fortunately for our article quality! In order to cover Scientology better, we need Scientologist contributors who are willing to discuss and provide information rather than to whitewash and delete criticism. The current set are a hell of a lot better on that metric than (say) User:AI was ... although they've still got quite a bit to learn about civility and policy here. --FOo 02:14, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

This guy appears to be a Scientologist who is trying to whitewash the organization. Referring to people as "suppressive" [153] is a dead giveaway. In Scientology terminology, "suppressive" is a person who tries to destroy that which is "pro-survival", namely, Scientology tech. I am protecting the page until this is dealt with. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 23:12, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Harassment by 82.194.62.23

An anonymous editor operating through an open proxy made a number of edits in various articles relating to Shi'a Islam, replacing all instances of the word "Rafidi" or "Rafida" with "Shi'a". The editor seems to believe that the term Rafidi is a vile slur used only by contemporary Salafi and Wahhabi Muslims. I reverted or revised his edits, using the term "Shi'at Ali, party of Ali, and by their opponents, Rafida". We can't use the term Shi'a for Muslims before 750 or so, as they were only proto-Shi'a; sectarian lines hadn't hardened yet. Rafidi/Rafida is a well-attested description used in the 7th and 8th centuries; it means Refuser and has no inherent derogatory meaning. The anon will not accept this reasoning and continues a revert war, which he has broadened to include defacement of my user page and reversion of all my edits, in ANY article, even the ones with no relation to Islam, no reason given. Can someone PLEASE revert his edits and block the open proxy? Zora 02:29, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Harassment by pro-Salafi Zora

there is no relation between the term shia and rafida in islamic history please stop adding POV anti-shia Salafi only terms. the term nasibi is islamic term used by the prophet himself for the sects like salafi also u edits ALL salafi related articles that have nasibi term . the shia term has been used by the prophet himself in the history this was proofed for u and u reject the facts. Sunni have refused the shia imams so they are refusers (rafida) why u use arabic words and what is that if i did not accept sunni "caliphs" (who killed the shia ) i am refuser so if i do not accept president Bush i am refuser !!! and i must called refuser forever only loooool ( if u wish add the term rafide to all salafi sunni articles because they refuse shia imams and they killed the shia and there imams ). as wiki we can edit without login that is my right and this is not open proxy dear... please help us and stop her from ADDING blocking non salafi's edits --82.194.62.22 02:55, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Zora, the IP has been blocked for 3 hours for some clean up and pending some discussion on a better way to fix this problem. Some of the edits I'm not so sure what to do about them. Anonymous user, you lose a lot of credibility calling Zora a salafist because if you knew anything of her history here you would know she is not. If you disagree find a better way to do it and makes points not just call names. Thanks. gren グレン 06:59, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Copperchair

I take somewhat guilty pleasure in informing all and sundry that Copperchair has once again edited a Star Wars article in violation of his parole. I realize he is currently blocked, but for unrelated reasons. I believe this makes his magic five violations of that term of his parole, technically, though I would not actually encourage throwing the book at him as this latest edit was not an example of his usual disruptive nonsense. I guess it depends how strict one wants to be. PurplePlatypus 08:21, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

• According to the block log, multiple users have responded with a 24 hour block. Last user threatened with year long block as per Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Copperchair#Enforcement_by_block. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:58, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Gmaxwell vandalism

User:MSTCrow (edit | [[Talk:User:MSTCrow|talk]] | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - Gmaxwell has been continuously reverting this user's page to versions he prefers and considers "not harmful to the project." MSTCrow - 07:58, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I've moved this alert from Wikipedia:Vandalism in Progress for discussion, using the original edit summary as the heading. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 08:46, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Gmaxwell keeps vandalizing my userpage. I have tried to reason with him in User talk:Gmaxwell, but his response is that since I don't look kindly upon his vandalism, he's going to continue vandalizing my userpage. I have shown that there's no Wikipedia policy to justify his vandalism, but he won't listen. He has been harassing me constantly, and vandalizing my userpage minutes after I've fixed it. He then disregarded the final warning vandalism template, saying that basically he does't care, and believes that he can vandalize my page. It's my page and he cannot fiddle around with it as if it was a Wikipedia article. Thanks. MSTCrow 06:27, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Preceeding comment moved from WP:AIVpschemp | talk 08:50, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, actually MSTCrow it's the project's page and they are just letting you use it. That being said, I can't see any defence for Gmaxwell's three reverts here. - brenneman^{T}{L} 14:51, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Please see the discussion thread on this, [154]. I'd really like to discuss his userpage with him, and I've made a polite attempt. MSTCrow continues to respond with hostility. I honestly believe his userpage is harmful, and I'd really like him to explain why it isn't. It isn't a typical userpage, so please read the complete discussion between him and I before passing judgment. Because MSTCrow was refusing to even consider making some changes, it left me no choice but to make changes in the hope of either causing an improvement or starting a real discussion. I'm not trying to prevent him from having userboxes, although I think that whatever he does have should be presented in a way which makes them secondary to the purpose of his userpage. I'm willing, and even eager to discuss and compromise with him... but ultimately there is nothing special about the user namespace which excludes it from the normal editing process. No one gets the right to unilateral set the content of any page on Wikipedia. --Gmaxwell 15:56, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Please don't use the word vandalism here. GMaxwell has certainly edited the page, he hasn't vandalised it. I'll go and have a word with him about it. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 14:48, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you Theresa. I don't expect everyone to agree with my edits. But, right, it's not vandalism. I put a fair amount of time and effort into both attempting to reason with MSTCrow, and creating a proposed new version. --Gmaxwell 15:56, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

It's not vandalism, (athough be careful about the 3RR) but why do you care so much what one person does with their user page? I can see where you're coming from and understand your oppostion, but is this realy worth disrupting peace between users? It's not lke Deeceevoice's page or something. Just leave him alone and all will be well. Why fight this battle?Gator (talk) 19:54, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

It's not about any one particular user... I've cleaned up a great many 'user pages' which were created by people who have never edited the encyclopedia (i.e. they showed up, threw up some links to their website and never used their account again). I completed the backlog of those some time ago. After having discussions with a number of people, it became clear to me that highly unprofessional userpages by active users have a potential to be harmful to the project... so I plan on having a conversation with the user attached to each one I encounter. Because of the effort required to carefully discuss and consider each situation I intend to only talk to one person at a time. I believe User:MSTCrow is special to some extent (although it is not unique) because in addition to the high level of unprofessional looking and potentially offensive content it had no balancing content related to MSTCrow's work on the project. I hope that, in the future, my interactions on this subject will be completely friendly and non-disruptive... and I intend to work hard on ensuring that, but there will still be some users who respond to a polite, compassionate, and well considered request to consider altering or accepting alterations to their userpage with contempt and incivility. In such, hopefully rare, cases we may have to ask ourselves, ultimately, "Is this the sort of person we want contributing to our project?". ... but that is a question that goes far beyond me, all I can do is try to cooperate with people to improve things. --Gmaxwell 20:46, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I understnad all of that and think it's great that you're so active and have a cause and all, but when you meet resistance like this in the future, my advice is to just let that fish go. They're not violating policy and if they don't want to listen to reason, then it's just not worth it (unless there is a policy change). Like I said before, pick your battles. Just my thoughts.Gator (talk) 20:50, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth I support what Gmaxwell is trying to achieve here, I just don't know if I can endorse his methods. --Cyde Weys 22:55, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

User:69.70.145.236 & User:Gjm130

User:Gjm130 has uploaded three photos of the Montreal skyline Image:Montreal Twilight Panorama 2007.jpg (January 8th), Image:Montrealskyline4.jpg (October 7th) and Image:Montreal skyline 7.jpg (January 2nd). The first is a copy of Image:Montreal Twilight Panorama 2006.jpg that User:Diliff uploaded to the commons January 4th and it may have been doctored. The second one has no licensing info on it but does say Serge Lacasse who is a professional photgrapher and has pictures of Montreal available at Emporis . The third, again with no licensing, has also, according to User:207.198.239.111 been doctored and I think is this. User:69.70.145.236 has been inserting these into several articles (contributions. I think that the three Gjm130 uploaded should be deleted. Any suggestions? CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 10:00, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I have deleted the two faked images. All his other image uploads are either blatant copyvios or do not have source/license info. I've processed them accordingly and left the user a note/warning. Sheesh. That someone would upload a 3Mb faked image... Lupo 10:44, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Aucaman and User:Heja helweda and User:Diyako

Anti-Iranian attacks are taking place on Iranian articles. Articles include: Persian people, Iranian peoples, Ibn Sina, Al Biruni etc all mentioned in here: User_talk:ManiF#Iranian_watchdog

Mainly by User:Aucaman and User:Heja helweda and User:Diyako, please also read this comment User_talk:Heja_helweda#Semitic-Turkic_people which reads "The modern Farsis are a semitic-Turkic people. We should prove this to the world"..

I hope admins can take this matter on hand, because a lot of time is being wasted by Iranians providing sources on the talk pages, however disputes carry on and edit wars etc etc with no intention of wikipedia's interest, but all politically motivated individuals are doing their best to start a small war on here.

I leave it to you, --Kash 14:55, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I support this request. User:Aucaman, User:Heja helweda and User:Diyako are engaged in a systematic campaign of misinformation, maliciously editing/disputing/deleting the Iran-related articles, pushing their anti-Iranian POV, ignoring the majority consensus and authoritative sources, applying the straw-man falsification approach, trying to establish new 'facts" based on their own personal assumptions and political beliefs. Please take a closer look at this issue. --ManiF 18:41, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore; User:Aucaman has been warned about the mentioned actions by several users on several occasions. Yet, in clear defiance of the wikipedia rules, he keeps reverting the warnings on his talk page. [155] [156] --ManiF 18:59, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

The contingent of Persian/Iranian editors is strongly nationalist and extremely hostile to any editors who challenge Persian ethnic domination, speak for minority peoples, or challenge a corporatist, ultra-nationalist version of Iranian history that sees the "nation" and the "people" extending far back into prehistory. The current trend in history and archaeology is to challenge this sort of nationalism. See Historiography and nationalism. Challengers should insist that their version be allowed as an alternate view, rather than insisting that it is "the truth"; the nationalists should be willing to allow both versions in the article. Zora 19:27, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

1) You are generalizing a group of editors based upon your personal perceptions and biases.

2) This is not about nationalism, revisionist theories and assumptions that can't supported by any authoritative sources have no place on wikipedia.

3) Making outrageous and unsubstantiated claims that "the modern Farsis are a semitic-Turkic people. We should prove this to the world" and engaging in a campaign of misinformation and deception to push your POV and advance your political goals does not qualify as "speaking for minority peoples". --ManiF 20:20, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I have to say, I don`t like jumping on the band wagon, however, it does seem that user Aucaman think the article about [persian people] has anti-semetic words like Aryan, even after I gave him refrences that say it describes the ancestors of Iranians. And user User:Heja helweda does not simply write a section in the discussion page, he or she floods the discussion pages with multiple headings and copies and pastes his or her texts in many other discussion pages. It is very disruptive. I do kind of agree that these users are cause chronic disruptions without too much merit. ThanksZmmz 20:36, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I very much agree with the claims against these three wikipedians. I have seen many of the editing they have done and they are mostly baseless and outrageous claims trying to say many people and Iranians are not the same people as Persians of the past. They edit these articles with out any refrences and most people have repeatedly told them to stop, but they keep on doing it agian.

While I was trying to take part in certain discussions in a peaceful and respectful manner, I have been subject to numerous personal attacks. Please kindly check out the link. I have been accused to be Extremist, Nationalists, Pro-Seperatist Kurd, Iranian-hater, time waster. [157]Heja Helweda 00:45, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

First of all, these were not toward you, secondly It was because your fellow friend Aucman, has been calling all Iranian wikipedians nationalists! thirdly..

Talk:Persian_people#Article_on_ethnic_variety and Talk:Persian_people#Estimation of mixed populations shows how racist you guys really are, and you are infact carrying out research on to this idea posted here: User_talk:Heja_helweda#Semitic-Turkic_people which reads "The modern Farsis are a semitic-Turkic people. We should prove this to the world"..

Which again, looks like you are Anti-Iranian and carrying out original research which does NOT belong to wikipedia. Its a whole campaign which has to be stopped.--Kash 00:57, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, since I was invited to this discussion, I basically have to say the following. Our minds work in surprising ways at the subconscious level. We're not even aware of it. Even at the risk of seeming too philosophical, I would request all the editors involved to take some time off and introspect a bit deeper on why do you want those changes made. In what way will it comfort your mind/ego? What if the reality were otherwise? Once you meditate on this, perhaps the whole thing won't look as important to you as it is looking now. Come back to the discussion from that unattached position, and I'm sure the entire issue will be resolved in no time. My personal take: As a person who identifies himself as Aryan, and living in a social system which kept intermixing impossible for millenia, I'll still be surprised to learn that no intermixing ever occured. deeptrivia (talk) 02:51, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

There is no question that some 'mixings' have happened, however this has happened everywhere in the world. It has not been especially significant enough to mention it in Iranian articles. This is because the arabisation of for example Egypt, have been truely significant, and the original berbers are only a small percentage of population these days, and they have totally lost their culture. On the other hand, in Iran this is not the case, Iranians are so proud of their culture that even over a thousand years of being of mainly muslim population, they still celebrate the pre-historic Zoroastrian festival of Norouz. This is why there is no need to mention 'guess work', 'estimates', or some obsecure studies about possible mixings and inter-marriages, because they will not be useful to the article. These, as you must agree after reviewing the current attacks, are part of a campaign to change Iranian's identity which they have kept for thousands of years. --Kash 10:58, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Kash and others

Some of these editors are extremely racist and anti Iranian. And whenever we try to correct them we are all called extremist nationalist and they are quick to generalize like Zora.

Some of their comments are extremely disturbing like the one who was trying to delete the world Persian by saying that no such race exist and the one who is trying to say that we are a combination of Semitic and Turkic and he wants to prove it to the world!! Obviously they are on a mission to erase the word “Persian” in any way they can. One of them wrote a paragraph basically implying that Persians are Arab by blood because there has been some interracial marriages after Arab invasion of Iran!!!! Totally refusing to mention that many other races, Greek, Turkish, Russian, …etc has also invaded Iran throughout the history. They are politically motivated and they are very biased.

Gol 03:41, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Someone familiar with Hinduism

Could someone take a look at the recent contributions of Buddhaboy108 (talk · contribs)? If I've unfairly accused him of spamming, please let me know so I can apologize. Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:44, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't have to be familiar to hinduism to say that adding a link to Dharmacentral to many articles feels to be in violation of WP:EL. I haven't reverted them (aside from the one where he was testing the waters with http://www.externallink.com/), but I have your back if you wanted to revert them. --Syrthiss 18:53, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

That is linkspam, pure and simple -- for some New Age woo-woo entrepeneur. Please remove it all! Zora 18:58, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

That looks like spam to me. --Victim of signature fascism | Do people who don't think Jesus existed exist? 20:49, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Jack Hyles Controversy

No really sure where to take this. Just want to get it cleaned up rather then let it sit out there forever. Short hand version is:

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jack Hyles Controversy; outcome MERGE on 23 February 2006. Merge compleate 27 February 2006 on as per User:Arbustoo. Please delete this page. Thanks. San Saba 19:43, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I have deleted it. Mushroom (Talk) 19:48, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Zephram Stark sockpuppet

A bird in the hand (talk · contribs) is clearly yet another sockpuppet of Zephram Stark. Evidence: this edit at Terrorism (disambiguation), philosophical discussion at ElectricRay's talk page, edits to The Singularity Is Near, and of course, posts at Talk:Terrorism. Someone please ban this one, and we'll wait for the next one. --JW1805 (Talk) 21:35, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Please ask for a Checkuser test on the IP addresses.Gator (talk) 21:46, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

There's no question that it's him or someone pretending to be him. I've blocked the account. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 08:02, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I know that we've all been here before, but, just as an experiment, next time why don't you wait till Zephram actually does something trollish or objectionable before blocking him? ElectricRay 16:49, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I've blocked Lady in Red (talk · contribs). Tom Harrison ^Talk 17:18, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Come on guys ... other than some strange satisfaction deriving from the power trip, what is this really achieving? That's all I want to know ... ElectricRay 18:02, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Just about everything he does is trollish, ER, which is in part how his accounts are recognized. As User:A bird in the hand, he started trying to restore his old nonsense about terrorism. If he ever started to edit constructively, we wouldn't know it was him, and therefore he likely wouldn't be blocked. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:12, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

we'll have to agree to disagree, Slim, but I respect your point of view. I don't think his edits to Terrorism (this time) were trollish at all: Edit 1; Edit 2; Terrorism Talk ElectricRay 18:29, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

• The very presence of an Arbcom-banned editor here is sufficient; it doesn't matter what he does or does not do. He made his presence obvious enough for someone to notice; as you pointed out on your own talk page, "You just couldn't stop yourself going back to that terrorism page, could you... and you were doing so well." If he stops acting like the banned Zephram Stark, he won't be treated like the banned Zephram Stark. It's that simple. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 19:25, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

ER, this time he added the mad stuff to Terrorism (disambiguation), [158] first expanded by his sockpuppets Peter McConaughey and Legal Tender. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:34, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

ahh, ok, i hadn't noticed the stuff on disambig page. Fair play to you, Slim. ElectricRay 21:15, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I've blocked Uncle Skull (talk · contribs). Tom Harrison ^Talk 21:26, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

All three confirmed as sockpuppets of Zephram Stark. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:16, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

KDRGibby civility

User:KDRGibby is currently subject to personal attack parole, probation, and general probation as a result of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/KDRGibby. Could an uninvolved admin please review these edits [159] [160] [161] and remind Gibby of his personal attack parole? Accusing "lefties" of "censorship" is not conducive to improving encyclopedia articles. Thanks. Rhobite 22:02, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I've blocked him for twenty-four hours, and now I'm going out. Please review and unblock as appropriate. Tom Harrison ^Talk 22:26, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

The run to 1 000 000

GOLD

We are less than a couple of hours from reaching 1 000 000 article here on en. New page patrol will definitely need a few more eyes, in part to quickly excise the flood of non-articles that will likely occur within a couple minutes of the event. Also, is there a place where eyes will be gathering to try to reach a quick consensus for which article reached a million? --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 22:16, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I believe #wikipedia-countdown on IRC has a bot counting down, which will be able to pinpoint pretty well. Looks like it'll happen just before 00:00 UTC if the current rate holds up. (ESkog)^(Talk) 22:24, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

IRC is the tool of Satan and will be the cause of the destruction of all man-kind. Anything on the Wiki? --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 22:42, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I doubt there could be any meaningful way to say which article was officially number 1 million. A great deal of the new stuff coming in is complete junk, so the first one millionth article is as likely as not to be speedied right after it's made. :-) Friday (talk) 22:45, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Hmm the article creation rate at just after 11 UTC was suspiciously high.Geni 23:16, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

There's nothing suspicious about it. Everyone wanted to create the one-millionth article. --Cyde Weys 23:17, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

So along I went and guess what popped up? Brian Peppers (internet meme). Funny how things go, isn't it? Just zis Guy you know? 23:24, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Ugh. Well, according to my count, and a backward regression using Special:Statistics, Special:Log/delete and Special:Newpages, the millionth article was Aaron Ledesma (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) by BorgHunter at 23:09 UTC March 1 2006. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 23:28, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

So that's it, right? We're full now? We can start making the million articles all good ones before adding any more? :-) —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 23:35, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Nope. I need to article creation rate to stay up if I'm going to win the 2 million pool.Geni 23:36, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the millionth topic was Jordanhill railway station. Check the talk page. --Victim of signature fascism | Do people who don't think Jesus existed exist? 23:52, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Hey I just wanted to give a big booyah to all the admins here - it is a rather thankless job at times, and I think it is easy to become jaded at times when you are admining this site, which at times can seem like an addictive waste of time :). I did want to say that it IS getting better thanks to the contributions of people - it may seem hard at times because of the 1,000,000+ artices, but it is turning quite well!!! Keep up the good work guys!!! WhiteNight ^{T | @ | C} 06:46, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

And extra kudos to everyone in the kevlar suits - there were a ton of us on New page patrol as the pyroclatic flow of articles erupted out of nowhere. Good work indeed. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 07:02, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Slight oddity on hy.wikipedia

This page seems a trife out of place. Any ideas about what to do about it?.Geni 23:04, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

That is weird. The author of the page, a User:Lilith, was apparently a b'crat and admin who was desysopped after some controversy of some sort. If anything, the page should be blanked to allow for the real thing to be added by that wiki's admins. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 23:15, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't that be discussed at the hy wikipedia or at meta? --Victim of signature fascism | Do people who don't think Jesus existed exist? 23:44, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

It is our admin list. I can't speak hy and I have no idea which bit of meta to throw this at.Geni 01:33, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

And it's an old copy. android79 01:34, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Repeated editing of my talk page posts by SlimVirgin (vandalism)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:User_review?action=history I have asked twice for her to stop this (see the above link) and she carries on doing it: She knows full well that posting a link once is not by any definition "spam" (and definitely does not come under Wikipedia's spam policy) but still continues to edit my talk page message to remove my link just because she personally doesn't like the content. --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 02:21, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

This is lame. So what if she puts nowiki tags around it? People can just copy and paste the URL into their browsers, it's not like she's deleting it. Please go contribute to the encyclopedia and quit edit warring over trivial stuff like this. On the other hand, I believe that using rollback for content disputes is bad form, but as someone pointed out somewhere, it's one click versus three to get the same effect. Hermione1980 02:26, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

On the other hand she shouldn't be editing other peoples' talk page messages as a matter of principle and has no right to do so unless it breaks a policy: Which it does not, not breaking ANY.. I'm sure she would be up in arms if someone made a minor edit like removing the image from her user page (after all, it's "trivial and unnecessary"), or someone changed HER messages.. --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 02:37, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you could point me to the policy which says that any given user may or may not edit any given content on any type of page. I see no policy being violated from the above description. Just zis Guy you know? 15:24, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese)

I have banned Instantnod and SchmuckyTheCat from editing this page for edit warring in violation of their probation. --Wgfinley 02:52, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Hamid Yazdani

I don't understand why my first artice on "Hamid Yazdani" is being deleted? Isn't is a discriminatory action against a genuine poet from a third world country? Is it just because some of your so -called editors don't know him or what? I met Hamid for the first time in Germany where he was working as a produer/editor with the radio Deusche Welle: the Voice of Germany's Urdu Service.I was on working with the Bangla Service those days.During our stay in Cologne,Germany,he translated poetry from German and Bangla languages,too.His books have been published in Pakistan and he IS well-known in urdu literary circles of pakistan and Canada.I can supply you with the copies of his published works/books,if it's about the credibility of the information. Would you mind reviewing your decision? Although it does not make any difference to the literary stature of my poet friend,anyway. Thanks, Jahid

There was a request for deletion, which was granted after other Wikipedia contributors commented on the article and subject. Ral315 (talk) 06:43, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Alienus

I am losing my mind with the Alienus person. The constant revert war on page after page after must stop. I am no longer able to function with this person goading me into fights again and again. This person has to go and you can toss me with him if you will. I don't care at this point. He is now active engaged in baiting me on Ayn Rand Objectivism and homosexuality and he has come onto a page unrelated to Objectivism Borderline personality disorder and the only reason for this persons presents is that I care about this page. I am a good editor and the only problem I have ever had on Wiki is this one person. Could someone please do something. Block me as well if need be as I have deffinatly lost my cool with this issue. Someone with a cooler head needs to step in.Billyjoekoepsel 05:10, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I've erased my response because it's redundant. Instead, I'll just quote another part of this page:

Please be aware that these pages aren't the place to bring disputes over content, or reports of abusive behaviour — we aren't referees, and have limited authority to deal with abusive editors.

In short, not only are you doing the wrong thing, you're doing it in the wrong place. Alienus 05:37, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

All I ask is for ONE administrator to go over this persons Contributions. JUST ONE! That is it. That is all it will take. ONE. Go over this persons record and then you will see for your self. This is absolute repugnant that this is happening. It seems that every administrator is asleep.Billyjoekoepsel 05:41, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

As an administrator, I can say that we generally do not handle content disputes, and certainly not here. Ral315 (talk) 06:40, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Category:Wiki-cheese

This category is nonsense created by a vandal. I would put a speedy tag on it, but it has a lot of nonsense pages categorized under it. Could an admin see to cleaing out the category, then deleting it? CG janitor 05:45, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Already done. Ral315 (talk) 06:38, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

24.45.73.44

This user continues to vandalize after repeated warnings over several days. Thorell 07:00, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Some light entertainment

See Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Mrs Gastrich. I love the answers to the questions. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 07:42, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

"Block all the atheist devils who run wikipedia" Aw nuts, that means I wouldn't be able to edit anymore. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 07:47, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

A repeat IP school vandal who has been warned a lot by many people

User_talk:159.191.12.24 for details, thank you very much admins.

Abuse of policy to justify template deletion

MarkSweep (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) has now deleted Template:User_review - before deleting, he went on a mass spree subst'ing it using "What's linked here" (see his contributions - just two examples [162], [163]) and then using "orphaned" as an excuse for deleting the template.

The template was used on at least 25 pages before he sneakily removed it, then used "orphaned" as an excuse for deleting it. I put the template back and then he uses "CSD G4 recreation of deleted content" to try justify it.

As has been said http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=116 here by Blu Aardvark: "Orphaned templates are not a CSD criterion - because any admin can do what MarkSweep just did, and orphan the template to get away with deleting it. But hell, now it's gonna sit on DRV for a week, where most members of the elitist cabal will vote to keep it deleted. Not that that's what DRV is for, or anything. DRV is for determining whether the deletion was made in accordance with policy, or for determining whether events have changed significantly to warrant a review of the page's inclusion in the project. It is NOT for "Well, I don't like it, so keep deleted", as so many have used it for."

Please also read additional info at Template_talk:User_review --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 08:28, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

The actual CSD is T1, I presume. Ashibaka tock 08:35, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

As has been pointed out here: Template_talk:User_review, the template itself does not contain anything "divisive", it just links to a profile. For those reading this that have no access to deleted pages, here's what the template contained:

This user has a http://wikipediareview.com Wikipedia Review account, http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showuser={{{1}}} {{{2}}}]

... --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 08:40, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

If you want to view it as T1, you can, but you can also say it's common sense, IAR, NOT, etc. The point is, people were edit warring over the wording of the template. The template itself is not widely used, so substing and deleting was a rather elegant solution (if I do say so myself) to several problems. Whoever wanted it can still have the template text and edit it to suit their needs without getting drawn into the edit war that was going on prior to its deletion. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 08:41, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:User_review?action=history - That hardly classifies as an "edit war"

Oh yeah, the history is gone isn't it so no one else can see how invalid your claim is? Very convenient... --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 08:49, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Mark, looking at the amount of flamage this has produced, I hope you understand that I disagree with you calling this solution "elegant". I don't care about this little box. I care about having a bit of peace and quiet for a change. Even if I did agree that this little template had to go, consider that there's a policy in the works that could possibly back you up in the near future. Blasting away at them now amounts to trolling or feeding the trolls, depending on personal politics. And if you think that having them disappear in a bang and then the situation will settle down after a bit of complaining, well, if I could agree with that I'd kill the damn things myself. But it's been tried, and didn't work. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Yes, things like this don't help building an encyclopedia. But the mess we're in now is actively disrupting building an encyclopedia. -- grm_wnr Esc 11:08, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I guess I was wrong, then. It wasn't T1 at all, MarkSweep applied IAR in order to resolve the dispute over whether to have a link to Wikipedia Watch, I mean, Wikipedia Review, in template space. It's not a divisive template, just an outside-link template. Ashibaka tock 08:46, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

If the matter is about outside links, then why do templates for links to personal sites and blogs exist? NSLE _(T+C) at 09:51 UTC (2006-03-02)

Template:User PT

I restored this template after this DRV debate. MarkSweep has now speedied it justifying it with, among other things "common sense". I have already restored it twice, and don't want to wheel war over it. I think this is a speedy undeletion candidate as it has survived a TFD and been restored on a DRV just minutes ago. Both debates had an overwhelming majority for inclusion, and while I may not like the template, I think blatantly running against consensus like this is more damaging than the userbox ever was. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:55, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

For goodness' sake, it's an orphaned advocacy template. The text is still available, so if anyone really wants to use it (no takers yet), they can. In fact, if you want to use, just drop me a line on my talk page and I will personally put it on your user page (offer valid only to first 10 applicants). --MarkSweep (call me collect) 09:00, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

That is not the point. The point is that the DRV produced overwhelming consensus to undelete. It determined that the template should not have been speedied. We need to respect that. Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:01, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest simply undeleting these, as well as the associated categories. It isn't wheel warring as the reasoning given for deletion ("orphaned") is NOT acceptable grounds for speedy deletion. These deletions are in violation of policy and I see no reason not to immediately restore. Sarge Baldy 09:01, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

In addition, you'll have to forgive users for not using a template just minutes after it was undeleted via DRV discussion. --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 09:03, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Sigh. Now undeleted. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 09:05, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:06, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

This is getting bloody ridiculous. Either we should have a policy to delete these userboxes or we shouldn't delete them. If the application of IAR, mentioned in the thread above, is right then you should be able to formulate a good common sense policy. If it isn't..... Leithp 09:10, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

IAR is only "right" when nobody cares about it. If someone, anyone, objects, then it is just a totally random and unprecedented admin action that needs justification. Hence, this mess will continue until we have a policy for admins to follow. Ashibaka tock 09:17, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't know about that. IAR is fine when it results in an improvement in the encyclopedia, but it's not a solution. As you say there needs to be a guideline/policy/anything to stop this being repeated ad-nauseum. Leithp 09:23, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

You could have just linked to WP:SNOW, you know... Johnleemk | Talk 09:57, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Which hell? Niflheim is one hell where snowballs stand a chance? Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:59, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

If this is not being used, then I suggest it could be redirected to the userbox that states "This user is from Portugal" since PT is the TLD for Portugal. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire) Fair use policy} 16:49, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Removal of picture

Fashion1 has been consistantly removing a picture from Lindsey German since the beginning of january. They refuse to discuss why the picture should be removed on the article talk page and have deleted any attempts to comunicate with them on their User talk page [164] [165] [166].

I tryed leaving the article alone for a few weeks, but as soon as I replaced the picture it would be taken down again.

I I reported the user for violating the 3RR (See here) but they now seem to be editing from as an annon 80.168.14.138 and 86.134.206.142 The edit history of the two I.P's shows they have made very similar edits to Fashion1 --> Assumption that they are Sockpuppets seems fair enough.--JK the unwise 09:58, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Sprotected, as I agree that an user is probably evading the 3RR as an anon. -- Chris 73 | Talk 12:14, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

MSK blocked indefinitely, please review

I've blocked Mistress_Selina_Kyle (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) indefintely per WP:BP#Posting personal details. I hope it will be obvious which diff I'm referring to, but I don't want to repeat it here because, well, it involves personal details. Please review and adjust block duration accordingly. Thanks, --MarkSweep (call me collect) 10:19, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I would have thought a message on the user's talk page would have been appropriate. In any case I couldn't find the diff you were referring to, is it recent? Leithp 10:41, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

• Highly recent; check the edit summaries. However, I'm not convinced that this is an extreme violation, worth a block. Although she didn't need to state his name (or pseudonym, as the case may be), he (that is, the user whose personal details were posted) has identified that as his name/psuedonym at an off-site forum which Selina frequents. A warning probably would have sufficed, and perhaps a deletion of the offending diff from the page history. --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 10:49, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

• Aha, blindingly obvious now you've pointed it out. I don't know about the block either, it looks fairly harmless and could have been handled as you suggest above. But I don't know if MSK has prior form for this kind of thing. Leithp 11:00, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Mark, I think this was a relatively minor case, although she has used what she takes to be my "real name". I don't think Selina is a particularly constructive editor but I'd hate for her to be punished so severely on my account. Could I please appeal for her ban to be cut to a week or until she writes to you personally to state her intention not to break this particular policy again, whichever is shorter? Grace Note 11:25, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm with everyond else here. I think indefinite is far too harsh. —BorgHunter ^ubx (talk) 13:08, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Indefinite != infinite. I explicitly asked for the block duration to be determined right here, on this board. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 17:13, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

The information is actually almost common knowledge, so indefinite block was completely out of line. It is also not surprising who is abusing his administrative powers yet again. MarkSweep, please stop.  Grue  13:18, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

If Grace Note says it's okay, it's okay; however, MSK had zero business doing it, and should not again. There's no point to it. --Golbez 13:32, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

She obviously learned nothing from her month long block and took no time upon returning to continue to disrupt Wikipedia. And considering that she's sysop of a site whose avowed purpose is to destroy Wikipedia, is there any reason why the ban should be lifted? -- Malber (talk · contribs) 13:55, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

• Well, Grace Note has indicated he does not MSK blocked over this. If MSK keeps disrupting things, there will come an edit worth blocking for. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:00, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Does 33 blocks in three months, a consistent history of edit warring, personal attacks, vandalism of policy pages, and infrequent valuable contributions indicate a valued editor? Is there a final straw? Malber (talk · contribs) 14:02, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
    • MSK clearly has clearly made more than her fair share of disruption. Yes there is a final straw, and it probably passed some time ago, but if Grace Note doesn't want to be that final straw, there is no reason to force that upon him. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:06, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
    • I think this should not be a final straw because it's so minor and I don't think is significantly indicative of continued problematic behaviour. If MSK has not changed, something a bit more serious will show up and we can permablock, and if she has changed, we should give her one last chance. I do hope she's a bit more careful in the future though. I would've unblocked myself, but Grue already took the liberty (and, I think, went too far in called it an "abusive block" -- Grue, this is a matter of judgement and I don't think where reasonable people may disagree that it's kosher to call someone abusive). --Improv 14:14, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
      • This is not minor. Revealing a user's personal information without his or her consent is one of the worst things you could do. Posting personal details in an edit summary is not revertable except by deleting the related page. Grace Note may not want her to be banned because of this, indeed the information may even be bogus, but this shows what this editor is capable of. She's sysop of a site that is anti-Wikipedia. The site logs IP addresses. What's to stop her from doing this again to another editor using the information culled from that site against editors she has a personal grudge against? She has shown no contrition or repentance for her past actions, and shows no evidence of making an attempt to change her behavior. Bottom line is that she doesn't believe that she's done anything wrong and will continue to do so if she is allowed to continue to edit. And if you look at her block log, you'll see a lot of wheel warring and "last chances" have already been given. -- Malber (talk · contribs) 14:21, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
        • Eh, just to comment on this, Grace Note did create a thread on the old WR forum, specifically regarding his proposal for a new forum, identifying as Grace Note, and including in the text of the thread his gmail address, which includes his alleged name. (I think that this is one of the threads that was "censored" by Igor, however; it's not there anymore, in either case). She shouldn't have stated his name, but really, at this point, the damage it could cause is relatively minor. A warning would have sufficed, and maybe a brief block. --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 21:45, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
      • Actually, Grue did not. He unblocked User:User:Mistress Selina Kyle, and that's different. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:17, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
        • OK, with deep doubts about this, I have unblocked properly now. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:23, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Would someone do me the favor of filling me in on why Grace Note's opinion of whether MSK should be blocked is given extra weight? --Ryan Delaney ^talk 14:27, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

• The personal information release MSK was blocked for regarded Grace Note. Grace Note then noted on MSK's talkpage that he disd not want MSK blocked indefinitely over this. Kind of the same reason prosecutors listen to the victim of a crime when he advocates leniency. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:32, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

MSK returned yesterday after a month's ban, which started life as an indefinite ban, imposed because she seemed to be here only to cause trouble, and since then, she has edit warred over a user box, recreated it while it was going through deletion review, accused me of vandalism, accused another admin of admin abuse, and posted what she believes are the personal details of an editor, an offense for which people are usually blocked indefinitely. What does any of this have to do with writing an encyclopedia? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 14:29, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Nothing...end her suffering and ours.--MONGO 14:33, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunetely, the Mistress is not contributing to the encyclopedia in an constructive manner. She has been given an extreme amount of liniency regarding her atrocious behavior, and certainly more than should be expected. I believe Jimbo best sums it up in this comment in regards to an similar situation: Such edits deserve immediate indefinite blocking. If such a user apologizes then, optionally we might let them back. This isn't a playground, it is an encyclopedia project. -Zero^Talk 14:42, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

That means there is a conflict between Jimbo's opinion and the blocking policy which says indefinite blocks should not be used against isolated incidents of disruption from IP addresses nor against user accounts that make a mixture of disruptive and useful edits. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:48, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I was under the impression this was Jimbo's website. -Zero^Talk 14:51, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Yep, therefore Jimbo has full authority to change the blocking policy. It's just that it's easier for me to base and justify my blocks and unblocks with reference to one document, rather than statements from Jimbo which are all over the website. Sjakkalle (Check!) 15:03, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

These aren't isolated incidents. This is a pattern of behavior indicative of a user who has a problem with not being disruptive. -- Malber (talk · contribs) 15:05, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

MSK makes very few constructive edits, and anything constructive is minor. The account is mostly associated with problems; hence the 30 or so blocks in just over two months. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 15:16, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

The value of MSK's few valid edits is, I would suggest, lower than the cost to the community in policing (and arguing about policing) the balance. This is a user who has been given so many last chances already that even in full "Mary Poppins" mode I would not bother to argue against an indef-block. As to this discussion, if she's unblocked right now then let's forget it. There will, I am completely confident, be another breach along shortly. Just zis Guy you know? 15:21, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

MSK Edit warring and same old behavior

Unblocked for only a few hours and she goes right back to edit warring and personal attacks in edit summaries and talk pages: [167] [168] [169] --malber (talk · contribs) 21:04, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

That may be edit-warring, but it's quite a stretch to call those diffs personal attacks. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 21:17, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I believe they were personal attacks, so I sent the user to time out for 24 hours. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire) Fair use policy} 21:19, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

MSK update

I've looked into the Selina situation. Per my comment on her talk page a month ago (wherein I said she could expect a 30-day block for every instance of trolling), I have blocked her for 60 days for posting personal information, plus her comments on User talk:Netscott. Raul654 21:31, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

No objections. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire) Fair use policy} 21:36, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Um, the "personal information" is all but public knowledge, and Grace Note has, at one point, posted his email address to the off-site forum, which includes his alleged name. The harm done by posting what is nearly public knowledge is virtually nil, although I agree it wasn't appropriate for her to do so. Nonetheless, I don't think it was trolling, just that it was ignorant. She should have been warned for that. As for her comments on User talk:Netscott, you may wish to observe Netscotts comments on User talk:Mistress Selina Kyle, where the user in question thanks her for her comments. [170]. --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 22:25, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

She wasn't referring to Netscott, she was referring to the editor she was calling an "Islamic POV-pusher." -- Malber (talk · contribs) 22:30, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, if someone is pushing Islamic PoV, what does that make them? True, there are more civil ways to express it. Selina's blunt, but she means well. To classify that edit as "trolling" is, to be frank, is rather innappropriate. --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 22:35, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

The block won't stick because the previous 24 hour block was never removed -- Malber (talk · contribs) 22:23, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any personal attacks in the diffs Malber submitted. I'm inclined to half the block duration to 30 days, but I won't do it without Mark's expressed permission —why? because, in contrast to many here (who have, do, and will), I have never engaged in wheel warring, and am not about to start now. Yes, a lot of energy gets expended with little returns, but it isn't such a big deal to expend it again in 30 days (and there's always the chance, albeit it seems increasingly remote, that next time will be the one). El_C 23:17, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Analysis of MSK

I decided to go look at MSK's history to see just where things went wrong: About seven and a half hours after she joined.

Her first edit is at 14:19 eastern on December 17. By 15:05 - 46 minutes later - she had plunged head-first into the Londonderry/Derry fight, which is one of those things that is as close to settled law as you can get on Wikipedia, even removing the comment at the top of the page explaining this (first done at 15:08 - other edits were to pages which did not contain this notice). She did this without edit summaries, thus giving the notion of trolling or vandalism. She started dabbling in userboxes at 16:05, 57 minutes later.

In her first edit to her user page at 16:07, and in this first edit she added a box stating she was an administrator. (and a cute "merow" statement) At 21:36, after 5 hours 29 minutes, Sean Black removed it, with the summary "You are not an admin". Two minutes later - having begun editing or left the page before Sean did it - WAvegetarian informed her that it's not good for her to have that box. At 21:44, she responded to him saying "ok sorry :( removed" and "I doubt I could become an admin since it seems a bit biased towards those who spend nearly ALL THEIR LIFE on wikipedia but who knows, probably not even worth a try though, no?" Time elapsed: 7h25m.

She makes some legitimate edits (in fact, apart from the Derry stuff, all her mainspace edits that I've seen so far seem legitimate), then mentions her new World Citizen userbox on a hundred or so user talk pages. The few responses are all positive.

At 21:47, 3 minutes after her initial response on her talk page, she replies to Sean Black with "You could've at least had the common courtesy to let me do it myself, but the grumpy/oppositional tone "YOU ARE NOT AN ADMIN." suggests doesn't exactly give the impression that you have any, anyway."

7 minutes later, Sean responded apologizing for what could have been seen as a grumpy tone.

Now, before all of this, she had received several vandalism warnings, presumably (I could go through again and check) due to her Derry/Londonderry edits. While I think they should have explained to her the situation, it kind of already was in the comments on Derry. But still, they should have pointed her the way, they were biting a newbie.

MSK, the way I see it, got involved in a fight without reading up on it - forgiveable, as there can be lots and difficult to find documentation on such things. And they bit the newbie by not explaining this to her. However, when she deleted the comment explaining it, that was a bit far. Claiming she was an admin was a poor choice, and Sean did nothing wrong in removing it, and she decided - within 8 hours of joining - that apparently all admins are shutins who have a clique. Either she wasn't a newbie, or she easily resorts to insults. Based on her history since then it just seems like she hunts for fight, but I could be mistaken based on a small sample size.

If MSK truly wishes to contribute - and I do see many legitimate edits - perhaps she should come in with a new name. After all, even NoPuzzleStranger and Gzornenplatz were tolerated until they started exhibiting tell-tale signs of being Wik, which were not positive traits. If it's possible to spend a few months being a good quiet user, then pop up and say "Hi, I'm MSK, I decided to try a new beginning," I'm sure that they would welcome you with open arms. I certainly would. --Golbez 22:52, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

This is very well put. Thank you, Golbez. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 23:00, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

IP: 213.249.239.7

This IP has been vandalizing Bandwidth hogging. Alberrosidus 10:33, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Mark Sweep's continued disruption of Wikipedia

Mark Sweep has wheel warred with me over his deletion of [[Category:Pro-cannabis Wikipedians]] , a category that was one of the casualties in his latest deletion binge. I personally don't like this sort of category, but feel strongly that ad hoc deletion binges by admins are more damaging and disruptive to the community than the existence of the categories themselves. Until/unless the proposed policy is passed to delete this sort of user category, admins should not be implementing it. I have undeleted this user category only once, and have no interest in going past WP:1RR, but Mark doesn't share that compunction. Moreover, he violated 3RR at Template:User pro-cannabis, in the process repeatedly using his rollback function in a dispute over the content of the page. How much more of this sort of abysmal admin behavior from Mark Sweep must we tolerate? It is damaging the encyclopedia by pissing off hordes of users. Admins wield a mop, not a sceptre, and when we assume powers the community hasn't given us it disrupts project. Something must be done about Mark's behaviour. Babajobu 10:34, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

For goodness' sake, if you don't like a POV advocacy category, why do you restore it in the first place? That's borderline WP:POINT. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 10:36, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

• Eh, I agree that userbox categories should go, but we are working on a policy for that (and THIS close to gathering consensus on it), and the deletion as CSD C1 was not appropriate. C1 applies to empty categories that have not had any content in them. You can't empty a category and then deleted it as CSD C1. That's borderline WP:POINT as well. --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 10:44, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I didn't violate WP:Point at all, I was attempting to head off another angry uprising by users who resent seeing admins act as though the community has knighted them, rather than given them a mop. Regardless, someone should block Mark for 24 hours for violation of 3RR. Babajobu 10:49, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Reported at WP:AN/3RR. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:08, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Guys, it takes two to make a wheel war, no? Sort it out like grown-ups. Just zis Guy you know? 11:45, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I undeleted once, I try to adopt WP:1RR both in editing and in admin actions. Babajobu 12:03, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Categories of Wikipedians by POV are evil and must be deleted on sight. David | Talk 12:05, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

What's wrong with CFD? Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:07, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Wheel warring and violation of 3RR is also evil and must also be stopped on sight. Anyway, we are presently having a major communal poll on this very issue, is it really helpful to go on deletion binges implementing a policy that is still being voted upon? Babajobu 12:09, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I personally agree that these categories are worthless and harmful, but nonetheless, there is not yet any policy to justify deleting them on sight. We are *this* close to getting a policy implemented to deal with userboxes and these viral categories, but until this policy is implemented, such deletions are more disruptive to the project than the minor risk of vote stacking. --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 12:12, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Precisely. Not only is consensus as yet unclear in the global sense, the issue is simply not important or urgent enough to waste time and effort on - bite your tongue, walk away and wait it out is the best policy I would suggest. Just zis Guy you know? 15:14, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Physchim62 blocked Babajobu

• 11:01, 2 March 2006 Physchim62 blocked "Babajobu (contribs)" with an expiry time of 24 hours (disruption over userbox categories, as per WP:POINT, compounded by violation of WP:CIVIL on WP:AN/I). Can we talk about this, now? I've put a note on Physchim62's talk asking him (?) to discuss it, either on IRC or here.
  brenneman^{T}{L} 11:13, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm unblocked now, hearty thanks to User:Bogdangiusca! I think the block was...uh...inappropriate, but whatever. Babajobu 11:21, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Also, it would have been nice to get either (a) an initial remonstration explaining the alleged infraction and asking me not to repeat it, or at least (b) a note on my talkpage explaining why I'd been blocked. Just thought about it again, and the block seems cynical and irresponsible. Toodles. Babajobu 16:06, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

If ArbCom wishes to use WP:POINT as a principle in their rulings, that's their prerogative, but community has not given administrators the authority to block editors per WP:POINT, as has been painfully established more than once. This block is a very good illustration of why that is so. Zocky | picture popups 17:40, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Blocking policy says administrators can block for disruption; WP:POINT is, by definition, disruption; thus, it logically follows that administrators do have the authority to block for WP:POINT. --cesarb 19:36, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Dissruption to wikipedia. Wikipedia doesn't appear to be having many more problems than normal.Geni 20:24, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Mais oui! continual reverting

This user has finally given up on the revert war at Template:Scotland counties and has now turned attention to Template:Infobox Scotland place and Template:Infobox Scotland place with map. Despite attempts by myself and others the text 'Historic county' keeps being changed to 'Former county' in line with Mais oui!'s PoV. The original version used the phrase 'traditional county' in line with other Wikipedia articles but this was changed to 'historic' on December 20th which both parties seemed happy with. Owain (talk) 13:07, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I have had a quiet word with the user on their talk page. This is an industrious editor, I would hope they will see sense. Just zis Guy you know? 15:11, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Well who'd have thought it. Seems Owain is being a little disingenuous here. Just zis Guy you know? 15:35, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

KDRGibby breaking parole with impunity

I wish to bring to your attention the recent activities of KDRGibby, who I'm sure you'll remember from this ArbCom case. Since the closure of his case (which resulted in him being put on parole and probation for personal attacks), Gibby has made the following comments on the talk pages of articles on my watchlist. Keep in mind that I have not covered all his contributions; many more personal attacks could exist. What I find amazing is that no admin has yet taken it upon himself to enforce the ArbCom decision and block Gibby (I believe the maximum punishment is in order for such blatant disregard not only for the community, but also for the ArbCom itself):

• [171] "Bad bad bad electionwood!...you are making the socialist free market conflation mistake! free market limited government advocacy does not mean anarchy! Stop that fallacious assumption please."
• [172] "the complaint is actually...stupid"
• [173] "The neutrality complaint is stupid. [...] Nikodemos is simply on a communist hell bent anti libertarian tirade."
• [174] "Ironically you make the same sophomoric arguement that you complain about. Free markets are only an impossibility if you don't understand what the word means."
• [175] "I've got a word for you, its BULLSHIT. You are not allowed to do this. You guys make so much shit up all the time to get rid of stuff, its creative, but it really shows you guys are running out of intellectual steam, arguements, and freaking material."
• [176] "You lefties are so gd amazing! ITS NOT MY POV that is expressed... The section of the article is REPORTING the views of Brink Lindsey of the CATO INSTITUTE. He has a published book which you can read!!! THIS IS NPOV. STOP ABUSING WIKI RULES TO CENSOR MATERIAL YOU DON"T LIKE!"
• [177] "This is the problem with people like you. [...] Nothing is deleted because I reverted your vandalistic censorship like deletions."
• Disrupting wikipedia to make a point: [178] (added "only because citing free market economists is obviously pov" in a NPOV tag).
• [179] "There is no neutrality dispute you are simply ignorant of the meaning of NPOV and neutrality. Reporting what other people think does not violate this. Learn the rule!"
• [180] "ANd it is, your own ignorance is no excuse however. Citing and reporting an author is not POV. Stop it. Stop the total bullshit!"
• [181] "Nati, you are making up crap again. You are one of the worst editors here and you have a knack for deleting content you don't like for any reason you can think of."
• Refusing to keep a NPOV tag on a disputed article: [182] "the tag is evidence once again that only left leaning views are acceptable here. Leftists hate information that contradicts their own poorly held views. The tag does not belong because the criticism section is already NPOV."
• [183] "Niko just wants to delete Friedman because he conflates Friedman with libertarianism rather than understanding that Friedman is an economist who just so happens to scientifically prove that markets work better than any alternatives and that free markets are the best form of market economies. Thats it. He wants to delete this information because he disagrees with it. BUT REMEMBER NIKO...we are only reporting what Friedman says. But seriously, I think your scared people might start to see how rational his thoughts really are and just might start agreeing."
• [184] "Don't bitch about cited Friedman and Hayek material you disagree with. You are starting to irritate me with your lazy deletion censorship-like methods."
• [185] "Its the circus I refer to on my user page. Its also called BS." (referring to the actions of a number of users)
• [186] "If you are in fact a leftist of some sort, it is very likely you would not understand or want to understand if Friedman himself explained it to you."

Collected by Nikodemos 06:19, 1 March 2006 (UTC).

This is from my talk page. Parole is enforced by administrators. Fred Bauder 13:54, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

User:KDRGibby

KDRGibby was blocked for supposed violations of his personal attacks parole. See Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/KDRGibby#Log_of_blocks_and_bans. His comments may have been angry, but, if they're in response to someone removing sourced edits without explanation, to a certain extent justified. If he's blocked, at least the people deleting valid info should be too. Please review this block.- Mgm|^(talk) 17:49, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

• Personal attacks are personal attacks, and KDRGibby knows full well what making personal attacks will cost him. To quote WP:NPA, "There is no excuse for personal attacks on other contributors." Incitement to riot is not an excuse for rioting. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 17:59, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Then could you explain exactly what part of his edit was a personal attack. All I see is anger, but as far as I know that's not a blockable offense. - Mgm|^(talk) 18:57, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that when KDRGibby says, "You lefties are so gd amazing!" he's not referring to his fondness for southpaws. Lumping his opponents together using a term clearly meant to be pejorative, all wrapped up in a number of comments that certainly fall outside the bounds of civility, is a personal attack—and moreover is something that someone who knows he is on an attack parole should know not to do. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:43, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Also, we don't block for "removing sourced edits without explanation". If an editor has violated WP:3RR, please feel free to list that at WP:AN/3RR. Jkelly 18:09, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

We should. Why wait for an edit war if it can be nipped in the but my simply requiring an explanation? - Mgm|^(talk) 18:57, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

You might then propose a policy change. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 19:15, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Dolores Dicen

User keep making pages with his own poetry. Exformation.info 14:52, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Lightbringer (talk · contribs) evading Arbcom ruling by use of Anderson12 (talk · contribs)

Lightbringer is evading the ruling[[187]] against him by use of Anderson12 currently on Freemasonry by disruptive edits on the talk page, removal of legitimate responses by Bueboar. Anderson12s entries mirror those used by Basil Rathbone (talk · contribs) prior to the demonstration that was another Lighbringer sock and subsequent blocking. Can the Arbcom ruling be enforced please.ALR 15:04, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Personal attack by anon user

138.130.85.160 (talk · contribs) made a personal attack against me this date on the Emma Watson Talk page. The attack followed an admittedly snippy comment on my part (for which I have since apologized) but could not be considered warranted under any circumstances. This user had previously vandalized the main article and was given a {{test2-n}} warning as a result. My warning against any future attacks like the one prompting this report is genuine; I have every intention of following through with the ISP and/or law enforcement if (s)he pulls that stunt again. RadioKirk talk to me File:Libertarianpartylogo crop.png 15:24, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

First of all, if you decide to take legal action, that is your right, but please do not mention it here. At all. Ever. We do not like to have legal threats bandied about. Second of all, it should have simply been removed as a moronic personal attack rather than escalating it with legal threats. --Golbez 15:38, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I've responded to both talk pages. The anon user was given a test warning and Radio was reminded about the legal threat rules here. I will remove the personal attack. I think that should take care of it. No big deal.Gator (talk) 15:40, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Nevermind, Golbez removed it. Well done my friend. :) Gator (talk) 15:41, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for the input. RadioKirk talk to me File:Libertarianpartylogo crop.png 15:50, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Policy pages edited

WP:NOR and WP:V are again being edited dramatically. Please review changes made recently. Hipocrite - «Talk» 16:46, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

One of the editors making the changes is User:Étincelle, formerly known as User:Lumiere, who has been trolling on that page for a few weeks, and I use the word advisedly. I suggest we regard his edits as vandalism and revert without comment, because his aim is simply to trigger endless, pointless discussion on talk. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:10, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Arbcom Enforcement, please

Instantnood is under probation for aggressive revert warring, not using edit summaries, and renaming places. The result of the case is that any admin can page ban him for "inappropriate editing". For really aggressive edits, he's been banned entirely for a week, a week again, and two weeks. Each time he comes back and continues to play revert games. There is now a third case which will potentially ban him from the site entirely.

I'd like an admin to review these edits for "inappropriate editing" concering his renaming political entitites (countries, provinces etc) in line with his POV, his revert warring with multiple editors (even spread out over multiple days, he doesn't have the luxury of 3RR) and not using edit summaries.

Since I'm a party to both his cases, I'm listing my involvement in the interest of disclosure.

• [188] [189] revert warring on a page he's banned from (to his credit, he reverted himself when he noticed he was banned). I'm not involved in this dispute. I fixed something else broken when he asked for help since he's page banned.
• [190] Four reverts to his preferred style of putting China in parentheses, reverted by three other users. The "blind" reverting of find and replace fixes resulted in broken links and mis-named buildings (Bank of People's Republic of China of Tower).
• [191] same as above.

As part of the dispute, on one of these pages I fixed the broken titles/wikilinks and removed the silly parens. the rest of the revert warring is with other users.

• [192] re-ignite old revert war from December, no edit summary. (I haven't edited this article).
• [193] slow revert war going on since Feb 23, several edits with no edit summary (I haven't edited this article)
• [194] reverting to his preferred spelling, which he's been doing for months. (It appears he is reverting me, but my last edit was to unblank the page after an anon edit.) I make no claim to whether his edit is "right" as the spelling of Macau with an o or a u is mostly a style preference. I object to him revert warring over his preferred spelling.
• [195] ongoing revert war over a template. (I have no involvement here.)

SchmuckyTheCat 19:28, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to request administrators to look into every single of those presented above by user:SchmuckyTheCat, that he might have been deliberately presenting only the very tip of the iceberg, possibly because of being dishonest. For instance, for the list of skyscrapers and list of world's tallest structures, contrary to what user:SchmuckyTheCat has claimed, there was only one user, user talk:Alanmak, who had kept objecting using round brackets, with no edit summary. It was user talk:Alanmak's edit that contributed to the blind find and replace fixes [196] [197]. As for the rail transport in Hong Kong article, I made similar improvements to both versions (mine and user:Huaiwei's, and there's actually a RfC regarding the two versions). For the TVB News article, I've explained many times why part of user:Alanmak's changes were reverted, by both edit summary and the talk page, but user:Alanmak never replies. As for template:HONG KONG, the templates locate at template:HONG KONG until user:Alanmak created a fork by cut-and-paste move (cf. user talk:Curps [198] and my user talk page [199]). The official full name in English of Macau is spelt with -o, with little dispute. The link to the list of cities and parishes of Macao was what the article was like before the blanking by the anonymous editor [200]. I restored it with -u before the linked article was moved [201] [202] (see time stamps). — Instantnood 19:52, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Tip of the iceberg because you have hundreds of similar edits that simply go unreviewed. :)

As to "only one user, user talk:Alanmak, who had kept objecting using round brackets," that exact same edit keeps getting reverted on other articles by enochlau and others as well - it's simply wrong to put parentheses around China. As well, IT DOESN'T MATTER WHO OR WHY. It's your revert game that is the problem. An interesting point of that series of reverts is that you say AlanMak made the find and replace problems, but in the revert game, you're the one that restored them. That tells me you're not actually paying attention to what you're reverting. You're just doing it - a revert junkie.

If there is an RfC on an article, Rail transport in Hong Kong, then YOU, who are under probation, shouldn't be making controversial edits to it. Those who came to the article from the RfC also saw a blank talk page. Apparently playing revert was more important than trying to state your case here as well.

The templates as well, I don't know or care who is right or wrong between you and AlanMak or you and Curps. YOU, under probation, need to quit edit warring.

Macao: again, it doesn't matter why you did it or if you are right. You've shown repeatedly that you will edit war over your preferred spelling. It's not vandalism for another user to change the spelling, it's a matter of controversy - which means Instantnood should butt out and discuss, not revert.

SchmuckyTheCat 20:27, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

There are often mistakes. Changes won't be perfect in one go, and very often it takes several edits to keep everything alright. Please don't count on anybody as long as the find and replace problem has been fixed. I'm not making controversial edits to rail transport in Hong Kong, on the contrary I'm making the same improvements to both versions, with the version I don't preferred displayed. Please don't pretend you don't know what I've edited. As for the spelling of Macao, don't think I was doing anything wrong for linking to the real title, instead of a redirect, at the time of my edit. Being on probation doesn't mean every edit by you or I could be deemed controversial in such a casual manner, without looking into the details. — Instantnood 22:39, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Possible Wikilawyering by -Ril-

Shortly after his most recent arbitration caseopened, -Ril- (talk · contribs) filed a seemingly retaliatory "injunction" request against Johnleemk (talk · contribs), the arbitration clerk who opened the case, claiming that he had no right to open the case because he was not an arbitrator, and called for this case to be terminated. In fact, clerks have as much right to open/close cases as arbitrators, and this case already had 4 accept votes from arbitrators. IMO, this constitutes Wikilawyering, and I've witnessed this on at least two occasions before (Benjamin Gatti and Zephram Stark). --TML1988 19:31, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Ignore the trolls. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 19:37, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I've left a note for -Ril-. I explained to him why his request is unfounded, and encouraged him to withdraw it before someone gets around to blocking him for being a disruptive and vexatious litigant. If he doesn't choose to listen to reason, then at least the ArbCom and clerks will get a kick out of his request. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:46, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

You should know that Fred Bauder recently declared that accusations of me being a "vexatious litigant" are unfounded, and in fact commended me for bringing matters to the attention of ArbCom.

You should also know that 3 of the "accept" votes were actually "accept in the sense of remove the material from the other case" and "concur"s with that. --Victim of signature fascism | Do people who don't think Jesus existed exist? 19:53, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I'm going to block -Ril- now for being a vexatious litigant because it was conduct precisely like this that was part of the problem with -Ril-'s original incarnation, CheeseDreams. In the second case against CheeseDreams, the Arbitration Committee ruled that CheeseDreams was a "vexatious litigant" due to very similar frivolous and retaliatory requests for arbitration against her opponents. -Ril-/CheeseDreams is currently banned under that ruling. As additional support, I cite these similarities between the two as given by SimonP:

At this point I am quite certain the -Ril- is the hard banned user CheeseDreams.

1. Both have the same twin interests in Christianity and Egyptian mythology
2. Both have a deeply held, and similar, opinions on Christianity and a seeming inability to work constructively with others in these areas
3. -Ril- first began editing soon after CheeseDreams was temporarily blocked in January 2005. When CheeseDreams returned for a period -Ril- immediately stopped editing. Only once the CheeseDreams account was permanently hardbanned did -Ril- begin editing again.
4. Both have claimed to be British and to be university lecturers.
5. Both have very similar writing styles, and similar techniques such as mass messaging users and persistent edit wars.

When faced with this argument, it's worth noting that -Ril-'s response was the non-denial, "Who is CheeseDreams?" -Ril-'s habits in naming sockpuppet accounts also matched those of CheeseDreams, as I pointed out back in August. It is not feasible to address the question by technical means, because both use BT and due to the passage of time, but I believe the evidence should be clearly convincing at this point to anyone who is seriously familiar with the actions of both accounts. --Michael Snow 19:56, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

-Ril-'s original reaction was actually who or what is CheeseDreams, which was quite different from his vociferous denials of being Lir. An additional piece of evidence I noticed is that they share a number of stylistic quirks. For instance they both unusually put a period between the "r" and the "v" when using the abbreviation for revert. (CD: [203], [204], [205], [206], Ril: [207], [208], [209], [210]). They also both frequently write "P.s." with an odd combination of an upper case "P" and lower case "s". (CD: [211], [212], [213], [214], -Ril-: [215], [216]). - SimonP 20:33, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Acumen76

This user has been blocked indefinitely by Hall Monitor as a subtle vandal account. Now that the account is blocked, clean-up needs to occur. The account has been making subtle information changes for over a month. Mostly, but not limited to, the March 4 page. Any assistance in cleaning up the messes left behind is appreciated. - TexasAndroid 20:18, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

User:PSRuckman

I have blocked PSRuckman (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) for 3RR violation at Peter Ruckman (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). It's problematic that he should be editing it at all, and he seems unwilling to engage in Talk. He has reverted multiple times as anon, then logged in. I am trying to find out what his problem is. Just zis Guy you know? 20:42, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Nameme maybe avoiding arb com ruling with sockpuppetry

Apparently, Get-back-world-respect left Wikipdia as part of an arb com compromise. However there is reason to think that he is using a sockpuppet in the form of Nameme (appropriate name). I have no opinion or belief regarding the evidence, but this should be explored as a possible violation.Gator (talk) 20:46, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Apparently Nameme is the same person. Do with this as you will.Gator (talk) 23:10, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

What is there to do? He only came to the AC to try and force a deletion of his talk page.(Which failed) He's not banned or anything. He gives himself away by his behaviour. Like i said when rejecting his plea for arbitration - he is his own worst enemy. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 23:18, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

HeyNow10029

I've left several messages on the talk page of HeyNow10029 (talk) concerning images that he/she uploaded. Each one lacks a fair use rationale, and despite being informed of the policies at Wikipedia:Fair use and Wikipedia:Images, the user continuously reinserts the removed images. On one occasion in the edit history of the Kelly Clarkson article, the user wrote: "Image is fair use screenshot and should not be removed for copyright reasons, if you think there's a copyright problem get an admin to sort it out". This is rather peculiar — are they stating that removing the image from the article would qualify as copyright infringement? Unfortunately, I am not aware of all of the guidelines regarding images and screenshots, however, another user, WAS 4.250, explained to him/her that the images did not justify as fair use. HeyNow10029 has been repeatedly insisting that because numerous other articles include images lacking fair use rationale, the Kelly Clarkson article should as well. I cannot locate the logic in this mess that has been created, but could someone help me with the situation? The current discussion between myself and this user is taking place here. —Eternal Equinox | talk 21:18, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Sam's Dance Troupe

This article is up for deletion. The kids who made it have gone around making redirects and dab pages point to their article with half a dozen anon IP addresses. Can I ask for some assistance in watching SDT and STD? Just put those in your watchlist? SDT should redirect to Self-determination theory. SchmuckyTheCat 21:37, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Dr. Suess

I just looked up Dr. Suess and this was the first paragraph. Theodor Seuss Geisel (March 2, 1904 – September 24, 1991), better known by his pen name, Dr. Seuss, was a famous American writer and cartoonist best known for his children's books, namely The Cat in the Hat. He also wrote under the pen names Theo LeSieg and Rosetta Stone. He was a very talented man not like William Shakespeare. You want to know why because Shakespeare is GAY!!!!!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.129.60.151 (talk • contribs)

This is horribly offensive and someone should take that out of the page!

It's been fixed. I semi-protected the page so anonymous editors cannot add that offensive material. In the future, you can fix these situations yourself. See Wikipedia:Dealing with vandalism. —Guanaco 21:57, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Q: How do people who don't know how to revert vandalism manage to find and post on AN/I? —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 22:26, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

A: Quantum Mechanics. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 23:01, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

User:82.15.28.195

This anon user refuses to sign his discussion posts properly, and has made obscene personal attacks at those who disagree with his stance on this. *Dan T.* 21:53, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Jodie26 User:Jodie18

Review contribution histories - not sure what the deal is with this one. Hipocrite - «Talk» 22:04, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Clearly the same person, but she admits as such. Is there a question as to whether creating a sockpuppet like this is OK?Gator (talk) 22:08, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

It's not the sockpuppetry, it's the contributions, which are disruptive, at best. Hipocrite - «Talk» 22:15, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah I would agree that they (from Jodie26) are disruptive. Can an admin have a short talk with her please?Gator (talk) 22:23, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Danny L possibly defamation

Looks like this userpage is used just to insult somebody. Lapinmies 22:13, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I must be a bit slow, but what? El_C 23:22, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Anderson12 and User:WMMrgn

These two users have been embarking on the same types of edits that User:Lightbringer and later User:Basil Rathbone had. As such, they are likely socks, and therefore at the very least are banned from editing Freemasonry-related pages, if not being banned indefinitely for being socks of a banned user. My instinct tells me they are operating on open proxies, but I have no proof of this.

Anderson and WMMrgn have also each betrayed information that they should not have as new users, such as Anderson12 reporting a 3RR after 7 edits, and posting a sock notice on my page as me being a user he never dealt with and should therefore not know about). Anderson12 has also deleted sections of Talk:Freemasonry, and has c/ped another user's page verbatim (his edit history shows no interest in the Philosophy project materials he has on his userpage, which is the same MO Basil used).

WMMrgn has engaged in POV editing on List of Anti-Masons, and uses the same sites Lightbringer/Basil used for "support". The blatant factual errors and unsupported edits were detailed on the Talk page. There was no response from him, and the article has been protected.

A look at these users' edit histories (if not simply their antagonistic usernames) will quickly verify tactics. Could someone please intervene on this before it gets even more out of hand? MSJapan 22:16, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Karmafist petitioning new users again

It seems that Karmafist (talk · contribs) has resumed his old practice of including his combative views on WikiPolitics in his welcomes to new users [217] [218] [219], despite repeated requests to stop doing so by multiple users (see e.g. User_talk:Karmafist#Petitioning newbies).

While I understand that Karmafist believes that this is the only way to fix Wikipedia's ills, in my opinion this will serve to poison WikiPolitics further and give newbies the wrong idea of what we're about. It is a severe violation of WP:BITE and will undermine our core mission of building an encyclopedia. Action is necessary, regrettable though it may be, to encourage him to stop.

I propose to warn Karmafist to cease and desist, followed by a short block for disruption and newbie biting if he continues. This is the least drastic course of action I can think of. What do other people think? -- SCZenz 23:16, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Karmafist, as I already said (perhaps you missed my small text), I don't think it's appropriate to present the petition to newcomers because it's a bit overwhelming and they should probably be given time to orient themsleves around the wiki first. El_C 23:28, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, lots of people have told him not to do that. Now he's forging ahead anyway, and I'm asking what we should do if he won't stop. -- SCZenz 23:32, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps a good disruption block will do if this keeps going on, or maybe Arbcom could settle this and other issues.Voice-of-All^T|@|ESP 23:38, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll cross my fingers that he's stopped. I see this as a clear problem. I don't know what else can be done if he keeps it up. Aaaaarg. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 23:57, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

User:-Ril-

-Ril- (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been blocked again as a sock of CheeseDreams (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) by Michael_Snow (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA). This happened before and I believe ArbCom rejected the allegation: [220]. I am not going to get into a wheel war with another admin, especially since I think -Ril- has hardly made a great impression lately, but I have had an email from -Ril- protesting innocence and I am inclined to take it at face value. Just zis Guy you know? 23:31, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Just to say, I didn't reject it. I was merely bowing to the superior experience of my colleagues to CheeseDreams. I am still personally of the opinion that -Ril- may well be a sockpuppet of CD. All the evidence is circumstantial, but it all adds up to a fairly convincing picture. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 23:35, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I think there are several points to add here. One is that the Arbitration Committee rejected the case, not the allegation itself. Another is that there really wasn't any evidence to exonerate -Ril-, and the arguments that the two might be different people are extremely vague. If some people were unconvinced, I'd say they either haven't carefully studied the behavior of both accounts, or they are perhaps mistaking changes in tone for changes in character. There's also the additional evidence pointed out in the section above.

Finally, I've already discussed this issue with -Ril- personally. I think it's quite telling that through all this, and even in the face of direct questions, -Ril- still has not given anything more than a non-denial. --Michael Snow 23:54, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

CheeseDreams made a big impression on me. I doubt very much that -Ril- is connected with him. Fred Bauder 00:02, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

A number of us are quite convinced, based on the extent to which -Ril- and CheeseDreams share editing interests, opinions, tactics, and stylistic quirks. If there is reason for doubt, we'd like very much to know what those reasons are. --Michael Snow 00:16, 3 March 2006 (UTC)