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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Possible sockpuppet of Cute 1 4 u

Hello I believe that this user New York from Flavor of Love may be this indefinatly blocked user Cute 1 4 u. Check this dif [1] and talk page Leroyencyclopediabrown for the possible proof. If I'm wrong on this I appolize in advance but Cute 1 4 u does have a history of sock puppet and ban evasion. Æon ^{Insanity Now!}_EA! 02:14, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

In addition I once I commented on that user being suspicious the comments that were made by New York from Flavor of Love were removed. Æon ^{Insanity Now!}_EA! 02:20, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, but this looks somewhat similar (Cute 1 4 u did once create an account impersonating Raven Symone). I'd file a RFCU. --Coredesat talk. o_O 02:33, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I thought about it, thanks I will should I post the findings here or will not not be needed? Æon ^{Insanity Now!}_EA! 02:34, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Any findings in the RFCU should probably be posted here unless it comes back positive and she's indef-blocked right then and there. But it looks somewhat definitive, looking at the user's edit history. --Coredesat talk. o_O 02:39, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Coredesat. I caught one of hers last week and the writing style is VERY similar to here other socks. I will post the finding once they come in. Æon ^{Insanity Now!}_EA! 02:43, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

The account *could* be blocked per WP:USERNAME I think... "New York" was in fact the nickname given to a real contestant on the first season of Flavor of Love (generally only the nicknames were used on the show) and thus this name more-or-less falls afoul of the "Names of well-known living people" clause. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 04:57, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

After looking at the userpage and what BoG said, I decided to issue the username block. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 04:59, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it absurd how much people-power is being thrown at stopping an alleged 11 year old female sockpuppeteer from "abusing" Wikipedia as a social network? --  Netsnipe  ►  04:56, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I take it from your use of quotation marks that you disagree with the characterization of social networking as an abuse of Wikipedia? Choess 06:05, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, based on this diff and the message the most current IP placed on Leroy's talk page, it's definitely her. She thinks she can hide stuff by deleting it. Ryūlóng 06:07, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi, just call me Ed.=) I apologize to everyone who has been trying to contact me overnight. I (obviously) was sleeping. Anyway, I think that Cute 1 4 u should be given one more chance. Two reasons for this. First of all, she doesn't have to keep making new accounts just to prove her point. Second, it removes the hassle of blocking EVERY SINGLE account she makes. We all know she's going to make more and more accounts.--Ed^{talk c E} 12:58, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I disagree, she was blocked for Sockpuppet abuse, impersation, Vandalism and the 11 year old part was just added ammo to the case. And the Check user came up possitive. Æon ^{Insanity Now!}_EA! 18:35, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

New York from Flavor of Love and 75.34.176.105 have both been blocked indef as sockpuppets, although I thought that IPs shouldn't be blocked indefinitely. Was there an exception made? --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 18:38, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

You know that she's going to make a new account anyway! What's the point for all of this hassle? This is a complete waste of our time! If we just give her a second chance on Wikipedia, less time for us working on her case, and one more volunteer Wikipedian.--Ed^{talk c E} 02:41, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Cute 1 4 u welcomed Starcare, who is likely a puppet of Publicola, who is likely a puppet of Pepsidrinka. Hard punt. Lots of socks involved here.--Scribner 03:15, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

You see? The situation's getting worse. The only solution is to back off or get more admin power.--Ed^{talk c E} 03:27, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Scribner obviously has something against Pepsidrinka, so I'm taking his comments with more than a pinch of salt. – Chacor 03:30, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that's way too much of a stretch. Ed, sorry, but Cute 1 4 u has just done too much. Yeah, she'll keep coming back, and she'll continue to contact you, and we'll continue to deal with her. If she realizes that she's not helping, then we'll stop blocking, but as long as she continues to contact you and admit that she's who she is, then we have to block her. Ryūlóng 04:21, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Ryulong, I'm not the only one she might want to contact. Do you even realize that she could be lurking around Wikipedia right this moment? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ed (talk • contribs)

75.34.12.156 is another one. Posted on my talk page Æon ^{Insanity Now!}_EA! 07:11, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't know about this IP you found, but I think we should wait until she does something else before we take action against this IP.--Ed^{talk c E} 22:45, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

It was blocked it was her (The post admited it) Æon ^{Insanity Now!}_EA! 00:16, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

How long is the block? --Ed^{talk c E} 00:41, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Another Possible one Prple space mnky@hotmail.com edited with the summary Got to keep it real on edit summary (Dif [2]) a phrase that she used many many times as her qoute. Caught this one while monitoring recent changes Æon ^{Insanity Now!}_EA! 00:57, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

This is Cute 1 4 u. If I had any socks, I'd admit them. I already told you all of them. But Ed is right, I'm trying to prove my point. --75.33.230.133 02:11, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not Prple space mnky@hotmail.com , User:Starcare, or User:Publicola. I swear, I don't even know them. However, to prove my point, all i can say is that i have a new account and I am much nicer on that account. Ed is right. --75.33.230.133 02:17, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I may have found another sock and I requested a check user (Came up again on Recent changes, edits article that were created by other socks with teh same grammer an such) Æon ^{Insanity Now!}_EA! 02:38, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

More or less confrimed the sockpuppet. Autoblock got it (See TV Lover) Æon ^{Insanity Now!}_EA! 04:16, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Okay, Cute 1 4 u (or whatever) is going to get me a headache. I tried asking her why she's doing this on her talk page, but she said she's "going to commit 'suiside' ," or something. I don't know... I know this may sound stupid, but can't we block her IP address, so she stops creating these annoying sockpuppets? Cheers! The RSJ - ^SPEAK 03:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

She's on a dynamic IP, SBC, I believe (according to the WHOIS reports). There's not much we can do but keep blocking her new accounts. She's not committing suiside any time soon. Ryūlóng 05:32, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Can you please clarify your statement? "Committing suicide"? Is it literal or figurative? --physicq210 05:38, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Prob Figurative she is 11 years old and has a history of being overly dramatic. Æon ^{Insanity Now!}_EA! 05:41, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

She'll be back tomorrow, probably recreating that article of hers. Ryūlóng 05:47, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Do we have any way to protect the page from being created, say, creating a blank article then fully protecting it? Shadow1 17:35, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

What is the article she keeps creating? Æon ^{Insanity Now!}_EA! 20:09, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

This situation is getting nowhere. In fact, it's getting worse. She will keep making new accounts, and you know that. We must find a permanent solution to this.--Ed^{talk c E} 00:23, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

The soulition is simple keep blocking her. We can't block her IP with out cuasing other issues. Æon ^{Insanity Now!}_EA! 08:57, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Has anyone contacted SBC about this user? Letting them know that the misbehavior of one 11-year-old kid might lead to Wikipedia blocking their entire DHCP range could be an incentive for them to listen. -- llywrch 19:16, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I must tell you something. I live in the same area as Cute 1 4 u (not the same suburban area, we don't live close together or anything, we both in Metropolitan Chicago, which is in the United States). Anyway, SBC changed to AT&T in Chicago. AT&T bought SBC, so I have no idea what you guys are talking about.--Ed^{talk c E} 22:30, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Let me get my facts straight. Take a look at SBC Communications, which says that SBC was the one who bought AT&T. They then changed their name. --Ed^{talk c E} 22:32, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm am not misbehaving. I had stress but it has gone away. Not creating any more accounts. If I have to come back when I'm 13, I guess i'll create another account then. Say what you want. Don't contact me llywrch, I don't know you. --75.34.176.207 03:21, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

With that begin said I may have found yet one more sockpuppet of Her. I have requested another check user. Æon ^{Insanity Now!}_EA! 19:48, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Another day, another sockpuppet, eh? What's the newest sockpuppet called now? Cheers! The RSJ - ^SPEAK_{The RSJ at the RS Wiki} 20:12, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

But Crystal (that's her real name, so everyone would know) already said she's not creating any socks.--Ed^{talk c E} 23:36, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

And I don't beleive her. Check my talk page for the latest. Æon ^{Insanity Now!}_EA! 03:52, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Ed, I'm not. That other sock was before i made my earlier statement. --75.33.249.5 05:33, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

on Aeon's page I met to say I wouldn't make anoter sock p. --75.34.185.51 18:39, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I checked Cute 1 4 u's block log, and I am very surprised that we banned a user for being a certain age. Either I'm misreading the block reason, or we have just banned an account because she was 11 yrs. old. I don't think this is right. If Cute 1 4 u was blocked because of many other reasons such as vandalism, then that should appear on the block log.

In addition, I'm beginning to question her block reasons. The sockpuppettering is already proven. (with all of the accounts that came up here on ANI. But vandalism??? Where's the vandalism here??? I think we should recover the supposed vandalism in question.--Ed^{talk c E} 13:05, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone think this is enough to get her unblocked? If you think about it, the sockpuppeteering started just because she was blocked for being a certain age, the link to her block log is above. And there really wasn't any proof she was going to vandalise Wikipedia— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ed (talk • contribs)

Well, the admission to being part of S-man's "vandalism project" on top of all of the other things that she did (sockpuppetry, MySpace treatment, personal attacks, civility, etc.) all led to her block. If she just sits it out and/or stops making evident that she is who she is, then we won't have to bother her about it. But the fact that its now starting to bother you and other users is beyond anything. Ryūlóng 21:45, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Actally I just stopped that. And Ed's right. Why am I blocked for being 11? I can't change my age untill years past. He did the vandalism. I though about and said yeah but after that i was gonna sasy no but I was blocked. Now you think about it. Are you really being fair? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cute 1 4 u (talk • contribs)

Then why does the edit summary state her age as the main problem? I suggest that the blocking admin unblock her and provide a better block summary. And in addition, where's the proof that she was vandalising with S-man? I don't see any proof anywhere.--Ed^{talk c E} 23:02, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I meant block summary. =) --Ed^{talk c E} 23:31, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

She has made some descent edits. I think we should re-enable her account if nothing else after a short break period of maybe a month or so. Anyways, that is my 2 cents. --Mattwj2002 23:54, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I think so, too. What I'm thinking is that we get her account unblocked and put her on a monthlong probation. During the probation period, we will be watching all of her contribs and things like that. If she does something questionable, we block her with no questions asked.--Ed^{talk c E} 00:03, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I initially believed that this user deserved another chance. The behaviour since the block was placed between this user and the numerous sockpuppets, some of which were created after the block, has shown to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that this user has no intention of becoming a good editor and has no compunction against blatantly flaunting Wikipedia's rules and regulations. While this is clearly an opinion, I am firmly against unblocking this user's account. If the user cannot even be trusted to behave while a block is in effect, what possible reason do we have for believing the user will act properly if unblocked? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me fifty times and I'm a moron. --Yamla 00:55, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

(unindent)Please rephrase your last 3 sentences. They don't make sense. =) Anyway, why do you think that Cute 1 4 u has been sockpuppeteering? Maybe the block would have affected it. Even then, putting her on probation shoud do the trick.--Ed^{talk c E} 01:03, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

She was being a sockpuppeteer long before her indefinite block. User:Raven Symone, User:Skittles Lover, and others that have been proven at Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Cute 1 4 u, one of which was long before the block was imposed. I would not feel it wrong if Yamla decided to change the block summary to something else; something that just doesn't show that she was blocked on the reason of her age, but that along with the many other reasons I have mentioned above. Ryūlóng 06:19, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I think this situation is becoming corrupt:

• Cute 1 4 u was blocked for being a certain age, as stated in her block summary. As far as I'm concerned, whatever is in the block summary is the basis of her block.
• She wasn't going to vandalise Wikipedia. She planned to vandalise the sister projects, but not Wikipedia. There's a difference. The admins at the appropriate sister projects should have been notified.
• We're making wild assumtions that Cute 1 4 u keeps making sockpuppets. I know that she admitted to some of the socks, but what if the accounts were controlled by her siblings or relatives or something? At her original userpage, Cute 1 4 u established that she had siblings (I think).--Ed^{talk c E} 23:13, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
  • She said she wasn't going to vandalise wikipedia. She's already shown a willingness to ignore our rules by creating socks. There are no wild assumptions when she's admitted to some of the sockpuppets. If one of those accounts really was a family member, that is unfortunate, but really too bad. Sometimes someone does something that ruins it for everyone. If the family is really that bent out of shape over it, they'll have to take it up with her. Maybe she'll learn something.--Crossmr 13:14, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
    • All I'm just saying is that we're just coming to conclusions about these sockpuppets. We're blocking accounts for sharing the same IP with a banned user. For instance, what if she's using a school IP? There are multiple users that might be coming from the same school. And what about the wifi connections that people use now? Wouldn't multiple users be using the same wifi connection?--Ed^{talk c E} 02:12, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
      • Family members getting blocked because of one bad apple? What a ridiculous notion! --Ryūlóng 06:40, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
      • Also, we're not blocking new accounts for sharing the same IP. We're blocking new accounts because Cute 1 4 u comes out and says she's evaded her block, again, on some ridiculously named new account or one of us finds out through seeing suspicious edits and she hasn't admitted to it yet, and that pushes us to add an nth RFCU request on her. Ryūlóng 07:41, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

i'm back. User:Shakim67 is not my family member and my family is not out of shape or whatever you wanna say. My point of createing sockpuppets is to show you my good edits. And i admit, I can be one evil bitch [3] (if that's what ya wanna say), but I can also be a best friends and very nice.i don;t care what you need to say to me. Any way, i was planning to vandalize other wiki products, but decided not. I was gonna tell S-man i changed my mind but I was then already blocked. so thats my side of the story. --75.34.188.39 01:44, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, maybe we should try and view your side of the story and review this situation in an unbiased manner!!!--Ed^{talk c E} 02:18, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Creating sockpuppets to show your good edits is calling disrupting Wikipedia to make a point, which is bad, mkay? Ryūlóng 02:36, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

SORRY, MY KEYBOARD'S GETTING STUCK ON THE CAPS LOCK KEY. I CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT.--Ed^{talk c E} 02:46, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm rescinding that last comment, as you appear to be lying a bit. Ryūlóng 03:24, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

vandalism of Utonagan page

There have been repeated occurences of vandalism on the Utonagan page within Wikipedia. These have implied that Utonagan have wolf content or are related to other wolf-look-a-likes who have wolf content. They have also mentioned behavioral problems which do not exist in the breed, and have even gone to the extent as to imply that they originated from alaskan dogs with wolf content.

As the foremost breeder of Utonagan in the country, these have become more than irritating.

The TCP/IP address of the user known to make these changes is: 212.36.181.65

With thanks

Nadia Carlyle

www.twatha-utonagan.com

Creek people

Creek people has a repeat repeat vandalism offender. I hope posting here is the solution. The offender is an unregistered IP vandal 164.58.208.245 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) who has changed the pages 16 times in the past 30 minutes.

Phil Sandifer

I've made a couple of attempts to remove this long, boring and off-topic discussion to User talk:Phil Sandifer, but somebody keeps putting it back. This doesn't pertain to adminship and it doesn't require admin intervention. And it's HUGE and it clutters this page. Help would be welcome in ways to get this useless crap off this page and onto one more suitable. --Tony Sidaway 05:35, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

This was refered here by the editors of Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard after Phil Sandifer refused to accept the judgment of the BLP policy authors (see WP:BLPN#Dave Carter). The bulk of the discussion appears to continue at Talk:Dave Carter. Is there somewhere that we can archive the discussions from both notice boards since it still appears not to be resolved--Maybe a subpage of Talk:Dave Carter -MrFizyx 16:43, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Admin Phil Sandifer claims a Foundation member said it was ok to claim a dead singer was in "pursuit of a gender change in the last months of life" and add him to the Transgender and transsexual musicians category based on "A comment on a (wikipedia) talk page". Phil says "I've confirmed via e-mail that User:Grammer is Tracy, and have added the information provided to both this article and Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer after consulting with User:Amgine" at Talk:Dave Carter. Comments? WAS 4.250 08:47, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

The comment on the talk page is purportedly from Tracy Grammar her/himself, and the margins are wide —I mean I really had to scroll for a long time!— not sure if Grammar counts as a reliable source though, possibly diction does. boo! El_C 09:13, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I guess we have no reason to question why Phil and Amgine would want to cook up sich a story. It's an odd one, though. Guy 10:07, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

a::Grammer, in this case, seems the very definition of a reliable source. Phil Sandifer 16:40, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, not good. This is a textbook violation of our verifiability policy:

Suppose you are writing a Wikipedia entry on a famous physicist's Theory X, which has been published in peer-reviewed journals and is therefore an appropriate subject for a Wikipedia article. However, in the course of writing the article, you contact the physicist and he tells you: "Actually, I now believe Theory X to be completely false." Even though you have this from the author himself, you cannot include the fact that he said it in your Wikipedia entry.
Why not? Because it is not verifiable in a way that would satisfy the Wikipedia readership or other editors. The readers don't know who you are. You can't include your telephone number so that every reader in the world can call you for confirmation. And even if they could, why should they believe you?

(emphasis mine). I find it rather baffling that such a fundamental principle of the encyclopedia—and, in particular, its most obvious and most clearly expressed point—is suddenly waived because some low-profile celebrity posted something to a talk page. Kirill Lokshin 11:32, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I think I tend to agree with you Kirill. It's not that I don't believe/trust Phil and Amgine, as JzG said there's no good reason why they'd make it up. But it sets a bad example, methinks, in that the standard of verifiability is if J. Random User can go confirm the facts for themselves, and this is straying a little close to the line. In this case, to be verifiable, anyone would need to be able to verify that Grammer is who they say they are. That's if we even accept edits to WP as a reliable source.

I think there are too many question marks here, as it stands, for this material to be acceptable. Is there a public way to confirm the comments? --bainer (talk) 15:37, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Not the case that applies - the issue in the author example is the fact that the making of the statement cannot be checked - that is, that the author said it to the editor. That is not the issue here - it is easy to verify. You check the talk page - in fact, the articles cite the exact diff. Phil Sandifer 16:40, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, not quite. Anyone can verify that someone left some comments on the talk page; but how is the fact that the editor in question is who they claim to be verifiable by the general reader? It's not like Wikipedia is known for reliably confirming people's identities. Kirill Lokshin 16:52, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

And yet we're willing to maintain Category:Notable Wikipedians. So clearly we are willing to confirm identities of our contributors in some cases. Again, as is almost always the case with issues of reliability and verifiability, a sledgehammer is not an adequate method of working this out. It requires actual thought about it. Phil Sandifer 17:54, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

That's a fair point, but the usual way to confirm that an account belongs to someone is for them to confirm externally that the account is theirs. A note on their webpage, or an email from an address known to be theirs, for example. Private email is not really good enough to do that. Tracy has a website, a comment posted there confirming the account is hers would be good enough for me. --bainer (talk) 03:47, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Kirill is entirely correct, and this is especially the case when we are not hearing of something from someone themselves, but an acquaintance. If there are no independant sources for this, it can't be included. There is a general agreement that WP:BLP should extend to the reciently dead, also, for similar reasons as BLP but relating to the estate rather than the person. LinaMishima 15:45, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I've been the main proponent of not including this until another source can be found (which won't be easy). I do not, however, question the reliability of Tracy Grammer as a source on Dave Carter. It is well known that she was indeed his "partner in all things," professional and personal. The issue should be verifiability. The information on Carter's planned gender change is unheard of elsewhere, and we can't expect every reader to verify User:Grammer's idenity. Items for articles must be selected based on verifiability not truth. -MrFizyx 16:19, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly that BLP applies - which is why I checked with the guidelines on BLP for adding material from the source themself (Which this basically is), and followed it to the letter. Note that they explicitly say that the material can come from the talk page. Phil Sandifer 16:40, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that "basically" is sufficient in cases like this. The statement in question was certainly not self-published in the conventional sense (meaning that the subject of the article did not actually release the information personally); and there have been any number of cases where information provided by close friends or family members has turned out to be incomplete or unreliable. At the very least, the information needs to be given as "According to Grammer, blah blah blah" in order to make clear that this is, indeed, a third party's perspective. Kirill Lokshin 16:52, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Tracy Grammer was providing information on her relationship with Dave Carter - that is "the source itself" for all useful purposes. Again, you're trying to apply a horrendously general case, developed largely to deal with some of our most pathologically troublesome articles, to a specific case that instead requires actually thinking about the situation. Phil Sandifer 17:54, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

"Nobody's edit-warred/threatened to sue/gone to the press yet, so it must be okay" seems a pretty strange approach to be taking here. Perhaps it might be better to follow the ArbCom's lead on this:

Contentious facts which cannot be verified as having been published in a reputable source cannot be included in a Wikipedia article Wikipedia:Verifiability, see especially Wikipedia:Verifiability#Dubious_sources. Information should have been published in a reliable source Wikipedia:Reliable sources. In the case of unusual or scandalous assertions this becomes even more important, see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Exceptional_claims_require_exceptional_evidence.

The point being added here is hardly run-of-the-mill; we should be extra careful in ensuring that the information is coming from a reputable source. Kirill Lokshin 18:13, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

First of all, the arbcom has also looked dimly on challenging things for the sake of challenging them. Second of all, we have been extra careful. We verified User:Grammer's identity, and drew from the single most reliable source in the world on Dave Carter's life and musical career. There are two possible concerns here. The first is whether Tracy Grammer is a reliable source. She is very clearly the best possible source we could have on this, however. The second is whether User:Grammer is Tracy Grammer. Verification of this is well within the purview of what administrators do, and it is highly problematic to say that this cannot be done by administrators. Phil Sandifer 18:31, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

You know, I'd take this whole complaint more seriously if it had even tried to assume good faith. "Claims a Foundation member" all but assumes I'm lying. I'm absolutely floored that anyone would think that it's appropriate to run this to AN/I and say I "claim" to have talked to Amgine, and yet nobody has done something responsible like, oh, leave a note on Amgine's talk page asking her to explain why she gave the all-clear on this. Phil Sandifer 17:58, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think calling it a "claim" assumed it to be false. In any case I left a note for User:Amgine. I really thought you would have done that by now. One really shoud assume good faith, blind faith is another matter... -MrFizyx 18:46, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I thought Foundation members had better things to do than verify that admins weren't lying when they said they talked to them. Your mileage may vary. Personally, I tend not to imply that I don't believe that someone checked with someone else. Phil Sandifer 18:49, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think WP:V is negotiable. This essentially sounds like hearsay to me, and wouldn't stand up in any court of law (or an encyclopedia entry, for that matter). Please, please, find a verifiable, published source ... if not, I don't think it can go in. --Cyde Weys 17:42, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

"I was his romantic partner until he moved out and pursued a gender change" is not hearsay. Please try to actually be helpful here. Phil Sandifer 17:54, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Do you know what hearsay is? Of course this is hearsay, because nobody has provided a credible source other than, "Well, I heard someone say ..." --Cyde Weys 19:48, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

It's not published in a reliable source. So it cannot be used in Wikipedia. --Pjacobi 18:06, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

If WP:RS were actually applied rigidly, we would have to destroy half of our featured articles. Please actually think about the situation instead of just citing rules. Phil Sandifer 18:10, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Cyde and others, Wikipedia should not be the venue of first publication for any fact. We are an encyclopedia, not a news source. Even if we accept the source as 100% reliable, I still don't believe that we should include such information because it undermines the principle that readers should be able to verify everything we say with external sources. Dragons flight 18:06, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Talk pages should not be considered part of the encyclopedia for this purpose - and in fact WP:BLP explicitly provides for that. (Look at the section on subjects contributing to their own biographies, which says explicitly that subjects can contribute information to the talk page.) Phil Sandifer 18:10, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Their own biographies, yes; but Tracy =/= Dave, I would think! Kirill Lokshin 18:15, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

This is a rule that cannot possibly be used as a universal case. Phil Sandifer 18:36, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

With respect, I feel you are misreading BLP. My reading is that subjects may contribute to the article discussion, but any information added to the article still needs to be externally verifiable. Dragons flight 18:17, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Cyde, DF and others. Let someone else care about this enough to write a story on it. Wikipedia is not a news site. If no one else cares, I don't see why WP should be first. This sets a bad precedent. --W.marsh 18:21, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

It's not that no one cares... tons of places would print this. The problem is that, well, it's more than a little disrespectful to suggest that Carter needs to be outed publicly, in a news story. That seems to me a thornier issue, if the policies that exist to protect someone's dignity are being used to force him to either remain permanantly in the closet or to come out in the form of a press release. Phil Sandifer 18:36, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

So let other places print it, it seems to be "out" now - let's see what happens. Wikipedia simply does not exist to provide help to people with their public relations problems. Like I said, it would be a bad precedent to let people come to Wikipedia and tell us what they want to be in the article (if that information isn't published elsewhere). --W.marsh 18:43, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Phil, WP:V is policy, and if you disagree with the policy, go there to get it changed. In the meantime, you, as an admin, need to promote policy, not try to tear it down. This information violates WP:V, and therefore cannot be kept. If Grammer gives an interview to a reliable news source, then we can quote the news source, but until then, it's not a reliable source. User:Zoe|(talk) 18:33, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Zoe, WP:IAR is also policy, and if you disagree with using common sense instead of blindly using it as a sledgehammer, go there to get it changed. In the meantime, you, as an admin, need to promote policy, not try to tear it down. The information is clearly accurate and in the spirit of all of our policies, most particularly WP:BLP, and therefore should remain. If Grammer gives an interview to a reliable news source, then we can quote the news source, but until then, it's good enough. Phil Sandifer 18:40, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reliable sources states "Posts to bulletin boards, Usenet, and wikis, or messages left on blogs, should not be used as primary or secondary sources." This is a post on a wiki. Ergo, it is not acceptable. The fact that we can check the poster's identity is irrelevant - we rely on reliable sources to do fact-checking, not us. Remember that Wikipedia policy is "Verifiability, not truth". I have removed this claim and until Ms Grammer's assertion is published in a reliable source with a reputation for fact-checking (we don't even have a reputation for including facts in the first place, let alone checking them), this is not acceptable to include on Wikipedia. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 18:39, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

WP:RS is a guideline. WP:BLP is policy, and clearly allows information to be added to the talk page, as supported by one of the Foundation workers, Amgine. Policy trumps guideline, and actually thinking about the situation instead of using them as sledgehammers trumps all. Phil Sandifer 18:44, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

WP:V states "Articles should rely on credible, third-party sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". We are not a third-party source, and we do not have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. WP:RS makes the prohibition on wiki posts explicit, but any reading of WP:V makes it perfectly obvious that bulletin board, blog and wiki posts are not credible third-party sources anyway. We do not have a credible third-party source, therefore policy states we cannot include this information. What part of this do you not understand? To others: Phil has continued to revert, and as I apply a loose form of WP:1RR (I don't revert unless someone else has) I encourage someone else to remove this unsourced information. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 18:53, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

WP:BLP (Which is policy) clearly provides for information to be added via talk pages. And RS clearly allows for self-published sources, which this fits the bill of. There's no useful difference between the talk page and a blog - both are equally fact-checked, and yet we'd take it from a blog and not a talk page? That's absurd - we ought apply sense instead of policy in that case, which is exactly what IAR (Also policy) provides for. Phil Sandifer 18:57, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

This is silly. The statement is not from a "self-published" source. The information you're including is coming from a third party—the actual subject of the article being dead—and therefore (a) doesn't fall under the "self-published" provision and (b) needs to be from a reliable source. More to the point, the assertion being made qualifies as "unusual or scandalous", and thus requires very careful sourcing if it is to be included. Kirill Lokshin 19:05, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Er, we don't take information from blogs, ever, unless it's to say "X wrote Y in his blog", which this isn't. And where exactly does WP:BLP give Wikipedia an exemption from the line I quoted from WP:V above? The closest I get is "Information supplied by the subject may be added to the article if..." which goes onto say "...it meets verifiability, NPOV, and no original research policies", which this doesn't. And WP:IAR cannot possibly be invoked to overturn verfiability in this case, which is a cornerstone of writing an encyclopaedia. This is not WikiMe.org. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 19:10, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

We regularly use blogs as sources, Sam. Please don't try to apply these policies so rigidly as to make them useless. If we rigidly applied WP:RS and WP:V to every article, we'd have to start by gutting the featured articles. Spoo would be a good place to start. Phil Sandifer 19:36, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, using common sense is appropriate. For example, when someone makes points about an obscure fictional food on a TV show, we decide to be lenient and not insist on scholarly citations. On the other hand, when someone adds potentially scandalous assertions—about an individual's previously unknown "pursuit of a gender change", for example—we should be extra careful that this information can be traced to reputable sources before including it. Kirill Lokshin 19:45, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to remove all unsourced or inadequately sourced content from all articles, and nominate inadequately sourced featured articles for featured article status removal if necessary. We have a lot of pages, and the fact that some of them are not sourced to the necessary standard does not mean I have to turn a blind eye to this one. Your argument is equivalent to the "if this article is deleted lots of others should be to" line beloved of self-promoters at AfD. ---Sam Blanning^(talk) 19:48, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

You're rather gravely misunderstanding my point. The standards you're citing, if rigidly applied, render the encyclopedia unwritable. It's not a matter of one or two stray articles that nobody has gotten around to - it's a matter of entire categories of articles that need to be eliminated. The community would not support that, for obvious reasons. Which means that RS and V are not policies that should be applied like sledgehammers. Phil Sandifer 19:56, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

It would not render the encyclopaedia unwritable in the least. We have hundreds of articles which are verified by reliable sources. All the articles that I have written are among them, and if some aren't, feel free to challenge them. If I can write a few measly articles that are verified by reliable sources, then certainly dedicated writers can do the same. If adhering to reliable sources would result in some FAs being delisted, frankly my dear I don't give a damn. We can write enough articles while still relying on verifiability that we don't need any articles that are based on what some guy said on some wiki.

When we have written every single article that can be written based on reliable sources and gotten it to featured status, perhaps then we can start to consider whether we should start relaxing our standards. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 01:34, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I have acted to revert Dave Carter as Sam Blanning has suggested. I have also removed disputed content from Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer. It seems there is a supermajority supporting the removal of the content. I feel that this really should be respected--at the very least until the supporting foundation member can speak to his/her position on this. -MrFizyx 19:14, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. I can't imagine that a foundation member is going to say "On the authority of the Foundation, this information must be included". All Foundation Members are entitled to their opinion, and until such time as they make it anything more binding, we are under no obligation to follow it. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 19:48, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Supporting Foundation Member... that sounds like an accusation. I'm a wikimedian, a volunteer like everyone else here, and have rather less authority on Wikipedia than most of the people involved in this thread.

While I feel this particular fact is relevant and important to the article (and the public statement on the talk page is verified as from Ms Grammer), at best it should be stated as "Ms Grammer reports..." or some such equally awkward construction. I wonder that no one has asked Ms Grammer to mention this in her blog? (As to the dismissal of the use of blogs as a publication, they are used extensively for just such within Wikipedia and are proven no more unreliable than newspapers or PAC publications which are likewise cited throughout Wikipedia.) However, the Wikipedia community determines the content of Wikipedia, and if the policy monitors consider this statement to be an egregious violation I applaud their decision, and strongly encourge them to examine the articles in Category:Living people, as well as the many articles which have not yet been included in this category but should be. - Amgine 19:49, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Why is this an issue for AN/I? I think the RS issue is fascinating, but shouldn't this be subject to normal dispute resolution? The only admin action seems to be Phil verifying that the talk page commentator really was Tracy Grammer, and I don't think anyone objects to that. TheronJ 20:18, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Be that as it may, we have an admin making or supporting an edit that is clearly outside of policy. If someone makes a comment on the talk page of his or her biographical article it still needs verification somewhere more public than said talk page. If it is someone's partner, even more so. Metamagician3000 05:53, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Phil's argument is completely ridiculous. If one wants to self-publish original research and/or reporting, one should go find an online encyclopedia that doesn't require that its material be verifiable and from a reliable source. To put this in context, if an anon was adding this sort of material to a page that User:Phil Sandifer patrolled with the same sort of ludicrous explanation, Phil would have blocked him 8 times by now. Nandesuka 11:52, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Of course Phil's argument is ridiculous, and it relies once more on treating electronic communication as if it were documentary. As an editor (I mean a print one), I could not accept any alledged representation of an author that didn't have autograph. Further, any statement from a lover/friend would be a footnote in an introduction to a volume and never, ever, ever a substantial part of any presentation. So, if there were an autograph letter from the lover, it would be a footnote. If there were an e-mail, it would never get that far. If there were e-mail from the subject of discussion, it would be a footnote. Again, those of us who have had to deal with actual figures with actually documented lives know damned well that friends tell lies. Stephen Spender went about for decades making his dinner on the lecture circuit swearing that Virginia and Leonard Woolf were as heterosexual as a Playboy orgy, that TS Eliot and Vivian were deliriously happy in marriage, and that all those people who said otherwise didn't know the Bloomsbury circle, weren't there, the way he was. Spender was, of course, fooling himself and no one else. One does not take a friend's word, and one never accepts any vapor communication. It's not verifiable, and verification isn't even the issue as much as corroboration is. Geogre 12:30, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I read through some of this and I think Category:Notable Wikipedians should go, too, because it is original research. Not only that, having the categories on the talk pages looks messy. 12:14, 16 September 2006 (UTC) Oops I failed to sign correctly. I searched and searched for my name to find my post but could not find it, I almost thought it was removed but no I just did not sign right. Very sorry. Anomo 07:14, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, anonymous coward, it should, but that's not germane. Geogre 12:30, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Good idea, though. Whee! --Sam Blanning^(talk) 01:31, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

User:Phil Sandifer certainly likes to drop names. First it's a "foundation member" who approved his edits, now its "Jimbo". Heh.

So now we have Phil writing unsourced articles on Wikipedia, then using those as evidence to support his edits on Wikipedia. And claiming that Jimbo told him it was okay. User:Zoe|(talk) 03:11, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

This is absurd. The information is not verifiable, plain and simple. It doesn't belong here. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:35, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

If it is not verifiable, it should not be in wikipedia. Blogs and wikiuser posts should not be used like that. --Blue Tie 02:36, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Agreed with Jayjg and Blue Tie. This goes against a central pillar. JoshuaZ 02:48, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Contradiction in existing practice

I mentioned this on the article talk page, but obviously it should be considered here as well given the above commentary. Much of the Jimmy Wales article is referenced to wiki edits made by User:Jimbo Wales. Seriously... go check. Above, this exact situation (referencing with wiki edits) is described as "absurd", "completely ridiculous", "unsourced", "ludicrous", et cetera. Should we not then revise the Jimmy Wales article and various others on 'Wikipedia related' topics where this has been standard practice for years? Remove as 'unverifiable' information which anyone can verify the accuracy of by clicking on the diff link in the references section and only include that which has appeared in third party news media. Oh, and BTW... just a wee bit of incivility flying around people. Maybe tone it down a notch? Or twenty? --CBD 11:47, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I think this speaks for itself. Nandesuka 11:53, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

It does seem rather self-evident doesn't it. :] If material from a wiki (or blog) can never be considered a reliable source, as stated repeatedly above, then we need to make changes to remove such from Jimmy Wales... and Wikipedia... and Daniel Brandt... and Larry Sanger... and well, you get the idea. If citations from wikis can be used under certain circumstances, as they routinely have been for years now, then we should stop saying they invariably can't and work out the circumstances under which it is allowed. Apparently we all accept that User:Jimbo Wales is Jimmy Wales and treat things written by the former as 'self-published' and citable statements of the latter. Should we not be doing that? Is it really horribly against 'verifiability' and 'reliable sources'? And if it isn't, then what would be required for User:Grammer to be acknowledged and referencable as Tracy Grammer? There is a clear contradiction between many of the above stated beliefs and observable past practice. Resolving that contradiction can only help to avoid such disagreements in the future. --CBD 16:54, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

We don't know that User:Grammer is Tracy Grammer. Phil says she is but he also said that BLP says that the Verifiability policy doesn't apply when in fact it says the opposite - that it is to be rigorously applied - so his word doesn't mean much here when he is getting stuff written in black and white exactly opposite. If it is Tracy, we don't know if she is lying or mistaken so we need corroberation for claims of her dead partner being involved to some degree (she doesn't give any details) in changing from a man to a woman. this is an extraordinary claim. Phil's word that he has her word for a vague extraordinary claim is ridiculous and in no way comparable to using a site (Wikipedia) to verify that a very public man many of us have met and who controls the site to verify that he said some very ordinary thing. And more rules can not help people who get exactly backwords the rules we already have. WAS 4.250 17:30, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I suppose it is rather obvious to point out that the bios that you've demonstrated are exceptions are for people for whom wikipedia is a primary component of their notability. Isn't the involvement of Jimmy Wales in this project well known through a multitude of sources? The involvement of Tracy Grammer with wikipedia is truly unkown to anyone who hasn't e-mailed her to ask. Phil was right to verify her idenity to protect her against defamation, but we need more to say that User:Grammer is verified in a way that should be acceptable to general readers. Let us render unto Wikipedia that which is Wikipedia. However, to make claims about a deceased small-time celebrity's sexuality when nobody involved has had anything to do with the project... just maybe we need another source. Why are we talking about this on an admin board? -MrFizyx 22:41, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Daniel Brandt is another example, and our usual claim is that he was notable prior to his attack on Wikipedia. Phil Sandifer 22:50, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree that there is a verifiability issue with Grammer. I believe Phil when he says that her identity has been proven, but I can't actually click a link or look up a book to verify it myself. I can verify that Jimmy Wales has acknowledged various things said by User:Jimbo Wales as being his own and thus accept that they are the same. Some of the other cases may be less clear cut (e.g. Daniel Brandt as Phil points out), but in general people seem to be saying that we have to be able to really verify that user and person are the same. That is different then saying we can never reference a wiki source and makes more sense to me (not to mention matching past practice). I would say it is completely verifiable that 'User:Grammer' said certain things... that doesn't mean those things themselves can be verified, but that the user said them certainly can be. If it were verifiable that >Tracy Grammer< said those things then I think that is notable and ought to be included as a claim which has been made. Where she said them (wiki, blog, dinner party, whatever) strikes me as completely irrelevant provided 'Joe Citizen' really can verify for himself that she actually DID say them. Obviously it is an unusual situation, but I think it will become more common as time goes on and more 'notable' people are also Wikipedians. In this case the claims are unique / potentially incendiary enough that I understand strict adherence to verifiability requirements, but if Tracy Grammer were to publically say 'I edit Wikipedia as User:Grammer' then I really wouldn't see any reason to block that material from inclusion. If it were more mundane info I'd say we shouldn't barr it now. We should nail down 'user = person verification' standards though. If verifiable public acknowledgement by the person is required then we've probably got a few references that fail of that requirement scattered about. --CBD 01:11, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I think I pretty much agree with you (I can't speak for others). If there was a post at tracygrammer.com saying, "come visit my user page on Wikipedia at 'User:Grammer.'" I would probably need to seriously reconsider my opposition. I also "believe" Phil, but "trust me I'm an admin," is not a high enough standard of fact checking as a general case, especially when there is nothing to corroborate a claim. -MrFizyx 18:00, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Proposing community impatience ban for Freestylefrappe

... Because the community has been plenty patient up until now.

An additional [4] remedy was recently passed and appended to his arbitration case, limiting him to one account. He chose User:Ya ya ya ya ya ya, or so it seemed. Instead, silently, he began editing from User:EFG -- now blocked by Fred Bauder.

Please read these messages, from after the block: [5] [6] . ("By the way, I'm switching accounts again. Do your best to stop me. It sure has worked in the past. Ya ya ya ya ya ya 03:05, 17 September 2006 (UTC) (Freestylefrappe)")

Enough. If he doesn't want to be responsible for his own contributions, and forever flit from account to account when his anger issues get the better of him, let's be done. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 03:27, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I would concur - he is intentionally trying to make a mockery of the Arbcom, admins and Wikipedia policy with these actions. Daniel.Bryant 03:33, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd suggest banning but it'll hurt my chances at RfA in the future. Mackensen (talk) 03:38, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, if I were an RfA voter, I'd vote against you for putting popularity before principle. Follow your principles and trust that your fellow editors will recognize their worth. Cheers, Kasreyn 05:25, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I think you missed the sarcasm. Having been made a sysop two years back, I'm not concerned about my own RfA. Having done the checkuser that verified the sockpuppetry, I'm definitely in favor of the ban. Mackensen (talk) 05:52, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I enjoyed your sarcasm in an uncomfortable manner, if it's any consolation, Mackensen :-) —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 05:59, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, some of us got it, and thoroughly appreciated the sarcasm. It is a shame that an excellent, insightful, tactful, diplomatic, productive, and hard-working editor, in harm's way by working in difficult areas, gets hammered at RfA over one comment. The same thing has happened to editors who work at FAC and FAR. (I'm not an admin, never want to be an admin, try to avoid RfA at all costs as I don't like to witness crucifixions, and can't opine on Republitarian and all his socks, but I should say I'm chagrined that I defended his edits to some articles, as I failed to recognize the socks; which only makes me further appreciate editors who have to do the hard chores, and still do them with diplomacy and tact.) Sandy 17:30, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Mackensen is I believe referring to a recent RfA in which a candidate got hammered for having mentioned banning as an enforcement mechanism. I also endorse. JoshuaZ 06:02, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

This sounds entirely fair. — Dan | talk 03:39, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Ban. --Tony Sidaway 03:41, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Ban. No need for this.Voice-of-All 03:50, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

(ec) I agree; Freestylefrappe has been given several chances to rectify. Until he promises to do so (and actually does it), we've had enough. Thanks. Flcelloguy (A note?) 03:42, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Yyyyy is now indef. blocked. User:Zoe|(talk) 03:42, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I heartily endorse this product or service. Ever since he was desysopped, he has shown little desire to redeem himself. --Deathphoenix ʕ 03:54, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I endorse it too. I tried to help him avoid it, as many others did, and he has only repaid it with, as Daniel said, mockery. It saddens me greatly as I feel I failed utterly in the efforts I made to prevent this. But I'm afraid it's time. He isn't going to change now. --Guinnog 04:25, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Although I am not an admin, I endorse the block/ban/[insert appropriate terminology] on this user. While constructive criticism of Wikipedia is good (and, of course, constructive), mocking Wikipedia for personal ends is unfathomable. And gaming the community's patience is intolerable. --physicq210 05:28, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Endorse a ban altogether of his accounts and IP addresses if they are static. His disruptive behavior with the sockpuppets has to stop. I wouldn't have endorsed a ban of a former administrator before, and probably won't again, but he crossed my line when he used sockpuppets at my RFA while he was still an admin. Besides, he's recently proven that he can't be trusted to stay at one account, mind WP:CIVIL or WP:NPA, and all his edits since his desysopping have been troubling. I wouldn't shed a tear at this loss.. — Moe Epsilon 05:40 September 17 '06

Ban, and block any IP he brags from. --Golbez 05:43, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

This user has thousands of good edits under his belt. I know he can be aggravating, and the socks certainly do violate policy, but I'm not sure a ban on Freestylefrappe is really in Wikipedia's best interest. User:Ya ya ya ya ya ya's got close to 1,000 good edits in less than a month. I don't think I'm a soft touch; I blocked user:"new user" when it was clear it was FSF's latest sock account. At the same time, I don't feel a community ban is in the best interest of Wikipedia, at least in terms of article space. I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority here, so I'll step off my soap-box... Firsfron of Ronchester 05:51, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

We have blocked good users before because their bad eventually outweighed their good. The case in point will always be Wik. And even worse than Wik, FSF was someone that was given the community's trust and abused it. --Golbez 06:12, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't refute anything you've said, Golbez. Firsfron of Ronchester 06:19, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

While I agree that a ban is in perfect order, I would like to add a small comment, if it's ok. This is a sad day for wikipedia. We should always feel bad when a former administrator is indef-banned. It truly is a sad day Oskar 05:56, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it is a sad day that the deficient voting process we have to give people sysop status let such a bad apple through. --Golbez 06:12, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Want some vinegar on that chip? As above, FSF has a mass of good edits under his belt. Adminship is supposed to be no big deal, right? If the process never made any mistakes whatsoever I reckon it would be an indication that it was too restrictive. As it stands we have what has been characterised as "arbitrary demands for shrubberies" in RFA, as a result of which many excellent editors are not given the tools; this is to my mind a worse problem than the very occasional mistake. This being a wiki, all mistakes can be remedied. My greatest regret here is not that FSF was an admin and was desysopped, it's that we can't think of a process which will allow him to continue contributing, and allow us to limit the problems his editing sometimes causes. William Pietri has some thoguhts about this which he's raised on my Talk page, but we don't have a proposal yet. Even clue-based adminship is not going to work with FSF because it essentially means that every edit has to be watched, and that is simply too much work. Ultimately, FSF has to respect consensus - and given that he apparently doesn't, the consequences are probably inevitable. Guy 08:32, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

• Deckiller's law strikes again. — Deckiller 06:50, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

So... he stopped using the Ya ya ya ya ya ya account and started using the EFG account exclusively... and therefor he was in violation of the ArbCom ruling that he only use one account? How exactly? He even said that he was switching accounts. Does the ArbCom ruling require that he identify the new account? It doesn't say so, but I suppose it could be taken as implied. Even then... he sent me an e-mail about switching to EFG. Unfortunately, I've been away / had very limited wiki-time since Tuesday and missed the latest brouhaha. Was he required to post public notification? For some reason he's gotten the idea that there are people here who don't like him and would bother or block him if they knew what account he was using. --CBD 08:34, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes and edits like this of course show his absoulte sincerity in just wanting to be left alone to get on editing. --pgk 11:54, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

And yet, I who do not like or dislike him, strongly dislike the fact that he has edited under all these accounts, without being open about what he is doing until challenged, and using edit summaries like "Guess who's switching accounts? Guess. Guess. Guess. Guess. Guess. Guess. Guess. Guess." I think it might be good for him to have a long rest from editing. It would certainly be good for Wikipedia. He claims to think that "most if not all administrators on Wikipedia are worthless, destructive elements" ([7]). I think he has never recovered from the desysop, which I agree is terribly sad, but I also think we have better things to do than hand-hold someone who shows so little commitment to, or respect for, the goals of the project, or to consensus. He has been treated very fairly by the community, and has repaid it with contempt. --Guinnog 11:58, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

What we asked him to do was pick one account and use it. He picked yyyyyy but then switched to a new account. He then used his anonymity to mess with someone's RfA. That is what brought him to our attention. I propose he start over and pick one account to use now that he knows we are serious. He is welcome to email me regarding this. Fred Bauder 12:21, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

That sounds good to me. I'm not going to play the guess-the-new-account game, but if we find problems with the new account and it turns out to be FSF up to the tricks he's engaged in in the past, then I will be unlikely to be very forgiving. FSF seems to want drama. If so, he can go away. If what he wants is a quiet life, then he should just register a new account, let Fred know what it is, and go about his business. And for the record WP:TE was actually largely inspired by the actions of another editor entirely. Guy 13:33, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

What's the point of the guess-the-new-account game, anyway? From the comments cited by Guinnog above the intention seems to be little more than to troll people. I'd definitely go along with Fred's suggestion. -- ChrisO 14:03, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Several people have said how 'sad' this all is, but what gets to me is how little effort people put into understanding why it happened. Oh well, he's just a 'bad disruptive user'... block and move on... nothing to see here. That's the sad part. Because, absent understanding of how and why... I can guarantee you that it will happen again. Consider that FSF's 'anti-Wikipedia' activity which kicked off this two week meltdown was an attempt to uphold WP:BLP on Vicente Fox (small problem of a paragraph about how lots of people think he is a racist - with zero references)... and then ponder how we got from there to here. --CBD 15:10, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

The fact is though, you and I and many people have tried to enforce BLP and other policies but haven't done so by describing ourselves as "admin-hating" and so on, using 5 sockpuppets, and ending it all with ourselves community banned for (among other things) taunting everyone on AN/I. Sure, a lot of people oppose FSF out of spite... but he did do something to generate all that ill-will, it just didn't appear out of thin air. It's time for him to accept some responsibility for the fact that so many people are upset with him, rather than just continue to escalate the situation as if he's perfectly innocent. If he just said "Okay, I've screwed up, but no one disputes I do make a ton of good edits... can we just start from square one and I won't go around provoking people?" I know I'd forgive him if he followed through on his end. --W.marsh 15:18, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

The 'sockpuppet' issue is a bit of a red-herring. People associate all kinds of negative behaviours with the term 'sock puppet' which do not apply here. There was no 'multiple voting', 'joint editing', et cetera. He changed accounts because he believed he would receive unfair treatment if people knew who he was. Untrusting, but not particularly nefarious. As to the other, he did apologize for his actions on Talk:Vicente Fox... but it was reverted. Presumably because of the rant at the end against admins (specifically including me) who had not removed the comments about him being a 'fascist dictator'. Personally, I'd rather if people had not reverted virtually every edit he made after getting unblocked. So he called me impotent and/or ignorant... that's ok. I'm a big boy. I can take it. When all your edits are reverted it isn't "paranoid" to think that you'd be better off switching to another account. --CBD 20:27, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

CBD, this started back in December, at the very least, when he suddenly started accusing other admins of sockpuppetry and vandalism. There was no substance to these allegations, nor did he even attempt to provide any. When questioned, he responds in a rage and with a new flurry of accusations. His behavior borders on paranoid and it's impossible to reason with him. Go back and read the original arbitration case which led to his desysopping. His behavior has not changed since then. Mackensen (talk) 15:30, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Mackensen, I'm very familiar with his behaviour and the case. I was asked to participate in it - by both sides. Yes, he has a big problem with civility. But no... I don't think that calling him "paranoid" is justified - or helpful. --CBD 20:27, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry but at least part of his disruption on Vicente Fox was his bizarre insistance that WP:RS means that only English language sources can be considered reliable for well known people. He edit warred on statements which had reliable sources and indeed still exist in that article today. Just saying you are upholding WP:BLP (when in this case it was at best a wild misinterpretation of policy) is not an excuse for edit warring, attacks on other users etc. etc. Reading the general tone of his comments, they come across as little more than trolling, if as a result of that people get fed up and treat him as nothing more than a troll, then sorry I have little sympathy for him. --pgk 15:39, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

[8] I'd be interested for you to point out the claims of racism in that. --pgk 15:51, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Obviously I was referring to other sections -> [9]. The argument that this text did not violate WP:BLP perhaps led to his being less trusting of the good intentions of other editors on the BLP issue than he should have been. Though the fact that it was restored, sans references, after he was blocked might also indicate that he wasn't so wrong about that. For the link you provided I'd imagine the objection was probably over using a spanish language reference for the claim that Fox's second marriage was religiously controversial. Is 'La Crisis' a reliable source? I dunno. In any case, while WP:RS allows foreign language sources in limited circumstances I'm thinking that was probably not intended for extensive use in a major article / to address possible BLP issues. --CBD 20:27, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

So his experience with other text and other editors (I had no other involvment with that article and none I remember with him), makes it reasonable for him to edit war, put people on his "black list" (for want of a better word), jump up and down about arbcom action etc. That's a great way for him to drive off good faith editors and did he deserve to be picked up on it and blocked, absolutley. As to the interpretation of WP:RS allowing foreign language sources in limited circumstances, I suggest you reread it, it allows foreign langauge sources as being every bit as reliable as English language sources in every circumstance "However, foreign-language sources are acceptable in terms of verifiability, subject to the same criteria as English-language sources.". It expresses a preference for the readers convenience and indeed if he had sources in English I doubt anyone would have complained if the links were changed. As someone else pointed out the idea that sources in Spanish for the leader of a Spanish speaking country should universally (as was his contention) be considered unreliable is ludicrous. --pgk 20:51, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Pgk, you did not (as I understand it) add those references. Rather it was the same users he was in dispute with. No? As to the rest, I did not say it was "reasonable" for him to edit war/keep a black list/whatever. Indeed, I said that he should have been more trusting of the accuracy of their sources. However, that doesn't change the fact that there was an actual WP:BLP violation on the page... with the same users fighting to keep it in. As to foreign language sources... 'do not use them if there is an English language source' and 'subject to the same reliability requirements' strikes me as 'limited circumstances' by definition. Again, is "La Crisis" a reliable source? I have no idea. Do you? Being in a foreign language / less known to speakers of English makes establishing the reliability of the source that much more difficult. --CBD 22:20, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

What has muy adding of them or not got to do with anything. His argument as spelled out in his edit summaries and on the talk page is that non-English language sources are always unreliable for well known people. We aren't talking about a mad 5 minutes where there is misunderstanding we are talking about his conduct there over a period of hours and overall a "vendetta" kept over a period of days. As I have said reactions like that are totally unacceptable, how many good faith editors have been driven away from the project by such activity? You seem to want to paint him as an innocent party or at least one we should be understanding of, sorry his action here and in the past warrants no such understanding. He is either willing to be part of a collabrative project (which involves stepping back, biting ones lip etc. once in a while), or he is not. It seems quite clear that he is not. Perhaps if you see someone who is constantly in car crashes you should consider perhaps it is their bad driving which is the problem, not everyone elses. As to WP:RS again. You reading of limited is obviously very different to mine, the sources are by the plain language measured for verifiability by the same standard as English language sources i.e. the same limit. The other "limit" is when English language equivelants are available and are prefered, this has absolutely nothing to do with the reliability of the source and certaintly is again by the plain language not a reason to remove those sources and anything based on them, it is an argument to replace them with the English language sources, something which of course was not being done here. --pgk 06:41, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

The relevance is that you said it was "other editors" who were arguing with him over whether accusations of racism require references... it was not. The tired accusation that I 'want to paint him as an innocent party' is plainly false (I said he was wrong about foreign language sources not being allowed and had violated civility standards right from the start) and completely misses the point. That being, this attitude of 'that user bad - punish him' only serves to make things worse. When he was blocked, for doing exactly the same thing Chacor (who was not blocked) did, the article went back to blatant violations of WP:BLP. The only thing preventing that was the 'bad' user. None of the people who villified him bothered to follow up to see that he had a point and that not taking him seriously caused a bigger problem (IMO) even than his civility issues. Very few users set out to be disruptive... and none of those rack up thousands of positive contributions. Dismissing someone as a "troll" when they plainly want to help the encyclopedia is IMO very short-sighted, clearly against what our policies actually say, and itself damaging to Wikipedia. Freestylfrappe's incivility absolutely IS a big problem... but it is not the only problem. --CBD 11:01, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I think you'll find it was you who suggested that his removal of the material here was due to the earlier dispute, not me. I certainly haven't discussed that particular matter with him. Since you are tired of that suggestion that you are trying to paint him as the innocent party, perhaps you should look at what you are saying and how it is likely to be interpreted. He was blocked as he was very aggressively edit warring, immediately before the block he had edit warred on this particular item, nothing to do with accusations of racism. Look at his final edit summary before blocking, it is directly referring to this accusing individuals of deliberate violation of WP:BLP in this matter, something which clearly it is not. The fact that it was reverted afterwards given the reason that those involved felt so uncomfortable with his overly aggressive approach to it should tell you something about the damage actually being done outweighing any good. As to your stuff about punishment not working, what do you suggest then? Let him run rampant attacking good editors on false premises because of previous problems with an article? How many good editors does he have to drive off before you suggest we take some action? How many good editors have already been driven away by him? A user wanting to help Wikipedia and actually helping are different thing?s, again how many good editors who want to help wikipedia do we let him drive off with his overly aggressive attitude before we say enough is enough You know I agree with you the bad-behaviour punishment cycle in this case is ineffective, he quite clearly is unable to work with the acceptable norms of wikipedia, you've convinved me that permenant removal is the only option. --pgk 14:51, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

CBD: My problem is that the EFG account and the promises to continue with that sort of thing are about 5000 miles outside of being within the rather obvious (I think) spirit of the Arbcom addendum. I don't even care about the specifics of his latest conflicts: it's the pattern that matters. I am curious, if he emailed you and disclosed his new name, why did you (and he) let the misinformation stand in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Freestylefrappe about User:Ya ya ya ya ya ya having been chosen as the single account? —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 16:47, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

As I said, I haven't been around much for the past several days - as you know since you said the same in your e-mail to me. Why he didn't say anything seems obvious... he believes that he was being mistreated / would not be allowed to edit in peace. You can disagree that was a reasonable inference to draw from the mass reversion of his edits, but it's clearly what he thought. --CBD 20:27, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Support ban ... and for the love of God CBD, please stop being contrary just for the sake of being contrary. It's really irritating reading WP:ANI when, every week, you're the only one attempting to defend various and sundry banned trolls. --Cyde Weys 17:10, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

No. I don't do anything "for the sake of being contrary" and I won't stop trying to get people to look at the ways in which admin behaviour influences user behaviour just because you find it "really irritating". Back when the ArbCom case was filed against Freestylefrappe I was asked to get involved. I didn't want to, because in truth I'm not a big fan myself. But I did, and now you're stuck with me because it doesn't do anyone any good when we goad users into complete meltdowns with false statements, uneven blocks, snarky comments, et cetera. We're supposed to be the calm / level-headed / 'tough' ones... so why is it always like sharks with blood in the water? Maybe there's nothing which can be done... he'd be angry and disruptive even if he received perfectly fair and polite treatment. But he hasn't... so we really don't know that. And can't place the blame entirely on him. --CBD 20:27, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

CBD didn't explicitly refute the ban proposal, he just disagreed with the way that it is being handled. The ikiroid (talk•desk•Advise me) 17:17, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

And he wasn't the only one in support of allowing FSF to continue editing if he picks a new account and lets someone (e.g. Fred) know what it is, and then just goes quietly about his business. Mind, had he doen this with the several other blocked accounts we'd not have noticed that they were FSF, but it is true enough that he has made very many good edits in the past. Guy 17:48, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. He always manages to find something to complain about. And in the end, he always ends up causing more strife than it's worth. --Cyde Weys 17:50, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Sadly (sorry CBD!), you are right. I totally sympathise with CBD and JzG trying to let FSF edit in peace under a new account. I don't think either of them is being "contrary just for the sake of being contrary". I would be as happy as anyone if he was able to just get on with things, I just think he has shown himself incapable of that, or of showing any real appreciation of the amount of trouble he has (seemingly gratuitously) caused. By consistently getting involved in controversy under each of his new accounts, he has certainly exhausted my patience, if not the community's. I agree he has made good edits, which is why I tried to support him in the past. I just think the ratio has been in the wrong direction for a while now, and shows no good prognosis of improving. I'm not saying I'm sad about that in any rhetorical sense, I am genuinely sad that we cannot support this talented editor better than we have. However, I think we have done what we can at this point and the onus is on FSF to demonstrate reformed behaviour, and I just don't see evidence of that. --Guinnog 18:10, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Just for the record, I didn't block Yayayayaya for being a sock puppet, but for the trolling, disruption and general all-around assholiness. User:Zoe|(talk) 19:21, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

And people wonder why I say admins provoke this kind of behaviour. --CBD 20:27, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I do wonder. I wonder at whether you think before you post. I wonder if you've ever been trolled in your life. I wonder if you have a gram of sense. You've been ignoring everything that's said to you, because if read the arbitration case you'd see that I, for one example, was made a target of his vitriol out of nowhere. I did nothing to him, and he made it his mission to make my life hell. From this day forward I won't respond to you CBD. If you leave notes on my talk page I'll revert them. You clearly have no respect for anyone here unless they've managed to anger another admin, in which case they're obviously on the side of truth and have been wronged. Mackensen (talk) 20:33, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I've reached the point with CBD where I can no longer see any validity in his opinions, and though I won't ignore him by reverting him, I'm not going to be putting any stock into anything he says, either. --Cyde Weys 20:58, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

You guys need to chill out. —Nate Scheffey 21:08, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Here, here. "I will never speak to you again"-type posts aren't going to help matters. Firsfron of Ronchester 21:16, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

You mean "hear, hear." Newyorkbrad 22:25, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Fuck you. I'm tired of CBD showing up in these forums and acting like it's all the evil sysops fault. FSF brought this on himself and hurt a good many people in the process. I'm angry, and I'm not the only one. CBD can troll here all he wants, ignoring facts and taking quotes out of context, but no one can force me to listen the same tired bullshit over and over. I have been polite. I have pointed him in the direction of pertinent information. I have been patient. All to no avail. I tried reasoning with FSF many times–this only aggravated matters. I hope that if you gentlemen ever find yourselves in a similar situation you'll find someone willing to take your part. Mackensen (talk) 21:20, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Wow. Seriously chill the fuck out. —Nate Scheffey 21:49, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

We can do without your profanity. We are here to discuss whether FSF should be banned by the community, not to voice your grievances about CBD. And we are definitely not here to see you spurn other's efforts to cool down the situation. --physicq210 21:28, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I can do without CBD's trolling. If we're going to cool down the situation, we could start with the two gentlemen above allowing saying something substantive. When someone's obviously angry and has a real grievance, a pithy one-liner is not calculated to "cool down" the situation. Quite the opposite in fact. Mackensen (talk) 21:34, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I know that you have problems with CBD. But starting your response with "fuck you" won't help you either. --physicq210 21:39, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

And can we get back to the topic here, which is deciding whether FSF should be banned? The discussion is starting to drift off... --physicq210 21:41, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Woah. I've dealt with trolls, angry users, and the like. No one's ever dropped the F-bomb on me for a 2-sentence comment. Especially not someone I respected and liked. Thanks. Firsfron of Ronchester 21:45, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

It brought me no pleasure, but I'd been pushed to the breaking point by CBD's last remark there. I regret having said it in that it detracts from my position and makes me look foolish, to say nothing of the disrespect it suggests. At the time, it's an artifact of how angry I was thirty minutes ago. Mackensen (talk) 21:52, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Never post when you're that angry. It avoids all sorts of foolishness. Georgewilliamherbert 02:48, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

It's not "I'll never speak to you again," it's, "I have no faith in your judgement." There's a huge difference between the two. Once someone realizes that a significant number of people no longer have faith in their judgement, maybe they will start reconsidering their actions. --Cyde Weys 21:30, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

"Fuck you". "troll". "assholiness". Do you really think this sort of thing is going to change my 'judgement' that some admins act on anger and behave in incivil ways that damage and disrupt the encyclopedia? I'm sorry that you 'do not have faith in my judgement', but the fact that a "significant number" of admins blow up and violate Wikipedia's standards of behaviour in ways that would get regular users blocked is the cause of my concern - not something to get me to reconsider it. We, meaning Wikipedians as a whole, aren't supposed to act this way. Admins doing so because they can get away with it / not even being able to discuss it civilly is, in my opinion, a very serious problem. --CBD 22:20, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure you understand what I said. --Cyde Weys 22:22, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

CBD, you're first in line to defend troublemakers when they're accused of the very things you attack admins over. When a "regular user" is rude, you absolve them so you can blame admins... when an admin is doing the same thing, suddenly they're damaging the project. You make it sound like admins are what's wrong with Wikipedia, and troublemakers are all just innocent victims of us evil admins. That's simply not good... I really am starting to think you don't understand the problem people have with your actions. --W.marsh 22:31, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, what you say is completely untrue. I "absolve" no one. Regular users who swear and attack and harass are bad too. Obviously. But that gets dealt with... swiftly and sometimes harshly. Admins doing the same generally does not. If a user objects to being told they were incivil or to a block for the same they are labelled 'disruptive' and get another block... an admin responds by telling people "Fuck you" and you think there is a problem with the behaviour of the person pointing out that this is bad? Several people have said that they object to 'my giving bad users a free pass'... but as I don't actually DO that, and they aren't actually 'getting away' with anything you're right - I don't put a lot of stock in that claim. Any stock really. To me it seems more like some admins just don't like being challenged or told that they should be nicer. --CBD 23:33, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

And anyway, I think the main reason you see so much more administrator behavior than the rest of us is because you consistently incite it yourself. It's like poking a beehive and then being shocked that bees are coming out and stinging you. What you seem to want to attempt is to somehow "fix" the bees ... rather than just stop poking the beehive. In short, you seem to be on some sort of crusade against all of this perceived administrator malfeasance, but rather than getting any closer to fixing it, you're just causing more of it. --Cyde Weys 22:26, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

This metaphor seems to imply that admins act incivily because it is their nature, and since there is no hope of changing that, the solution is to stop discussing it. Frightening. —Nate Scheffey 22:36, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think you understand the metaphor then. The bees aren't normally aggressive ("uncivil"), it's only when you go poking their beehive. --Cyde Weys 23:00, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Aren't they? Did I tell them "fuck you"? Was it me who said "assholiness"? Do they never act this way in interaction with users? I think the answer to all those questions is clearly 'no'. I agree with the logic of your 'poking the hive' analogy though... I've been going with 'baiting the bear', but same concept. The problem is that if admins can act like this in response to the 'poke' of mere polite discussion... how exactly do they justify crucifying regular users for doing the same in response to put downs and blocks? We should have thicker skins than we expect of users... not go flying off the handle at the mere mild suggestion that we might be less than perfect. --CBD 23:33, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

So you're admitting that you're trolling for negative responses, so that you can then jump on their backs for behaving incivilly? --Cyde Weys 23:35, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Um... no. Please. I say "assholiness" is incivil and you people start shouting 'trolling'. It's more than a bit bizarre. People ask me if >I< know what trolling is? Because I assure you, that's not it. I'm not the one swearing and calling people names. I'm not trying to make anyone mad and disruptive. I'm saying that they have already been mad and disruptive and should stop that. --CBD 23:51, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

But you are trying to make people mad and disruptive. You've admitted as much when you said you were "baiting the bear". You are purposefully ticking off admins by constantly taking the side of problem users in some misguided effort to "expose admin incivility", nevermind that you are ultimately doing a lot more harm than good (and hurting your image in the community to boot). --Cyde Weys 16:26, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

No Cyde, you are apparently misunderstanding me somewhere in the analogies... "when you said you were 'baiting the bear'"... I didn't say that. I said that there is validity to the logic that criticizing a user/users (aka 'poking the hive' / 'baiting the bear') can sometimes cause the behaviour we are trying to prevent. It's a point I've raised myself several times in relation to harsh admin criticism of users. I did not say that increasing bad behaviour was my goal and don't agree with your characterization. I am not "purposefully ticking off admins". That some respond to attempts to explore the causes of 'problem behaviour' or any criticism of their own actions with explosive rage is an observed reality, but neither my goal nor fault. I don't exercise mind control over other admins... we require users to not respond to criticism (often much more harshly delivered than mine has been) with angry rants (or they get blocked) and I don't expect any less from my fellow admins. I assume they will be able to respond to criticism of their actions politely and reasonably... as I have stiven to do in response to the criticisms of myself for daring to do so. :] Please stop assuming bad faith - your claim that I am "trying to make people mad and disruptive" in response to my direct statement to the contrary suggests both that I am lying and that this is a 'nefarious plot to trick admins into behaving badly'. I would hope that you know that is not the case, but if not then you really should try harder to 'assume good faith'. --CBD 17:28, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I understand that FSF has wounded the feeligs and exhausted the patience of many editors, and has often behaved unbecomingly; but as an editor who has worked a lot with him in developing WikiProject Chad, I feel I should speak of all the good work he has done as an editor, countering systemic bias that, as well known, is rampant in Africa, and countries like Chad more than other African countries. I feel that if we consider the good and the bad, the good, in the sense of useful and valuable contributions to the encyclopedia, is far bigger. For this I advocate leniency, and doubt a ban would be in the best interest of the project.--Aldux 20:58, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, Aldux. Firsfron of Ronchester 21:16, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Deep breath

• Mackensen, you're only damaging yourself when in one comment you "wonder at whether [CBD] thinks before [he] post[s]" and at the very next one you say "fuck you" to him. There's simply no way you can advance your arguments if you aren't able to exercize basic restraint. El_C 03:05, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
• El C is right. I invited CBD to this discussion as soon as I proposed it, and I'm dismayed at the treatment he has received here. These ad hominem attacks on somebody trying to stick up for a clearly troubled individual (who has, in fact, made lots of good edits) are not a good thing. If you have an issue with CBD's larger behavior, take it to his talk page, but allow him to discuss FSF without personal harassment. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 15:23, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

  No worries Bunchofgrapes. Obviously, trying to get people to see the positive aspects of a 'troublemaker', the reasons that he reacted the way he has, and how we as admins contribute to the problem is going to be less than popular. I knew that going in, but I think it is worth doing... so I can take a little heat. Compared to various things I've seen in over twenty years in online forums (going back to Compuserve and local BBSs with my high tech 300 baud modem) the incivility here was nothing and I don't hold any anger towards those who disagree with me. Mostly I'm just confused by the continued insistence that I "refused to see anything wrong with FSF's behaviour". I can't fathom that at all in the face of my numerous direct statements to the contrary. On the original issue, I think all the known accounts should remain indefinitely blocked - there's no benefit to anyone in unblocking them. I think he should be allowed to edit under some other account - in part because... he will anyway, and knowing who it is would at least allow an eye to be kept out for civility problems. Also, I'm not fully convinced that he couldn't have been gotten to remain within acceptable bounds of civility and collaborative effort if he'd received more of each himself... though I begin to fear that may be impossible and we are evolving towards a system where we cut users loose not only if they are incapable of reforming, but also if we are incapable of allowing them to do so. At this point there seems little hope that everyone will 'forgive and forget' and thus a 'community ban' might be a way of 'cutting our losses', but to me it feels like giving up and admitting that we failed. --CBD 18:16, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

• I think its important that this users positive contributions be weighed against any negative actions of recent. If even admins have shown and argued taht a few uncivil remarks do not out weigh the contributions they make here everyday, then one would think it applies to all parties. I have been looking over their edit history and think the idea of letting them resume from a new account that only one or maybe two admins, who they feel have not been bias against them, will know is a worthwhile proposal. As for the F-Bomb I just hope everyone can remain civil and take this as an example of what at least "perceived goading" can cause. This almost seems like an extension of the past arguement when the focus should be on FSF --User:Zer0faults 15:37, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I've withdrawn from this discussion; I've apologized to the person to whom my gravely uncivil remark was directed. I've interacted with CBD on his talk page before and always been frustrated with his responses. I don't take back I word I said regarding CBD's behavior; over the past week he has refused to see anything wrong with FSF's behavior, and I find that perverse. I hope it's obvious from above that separate parties were being engaged. I regret that I distracted from the primary focus of the discussion; I hope that in the future CBD will try to understand why his actions and words can so obviously enrage other people. If he can't see why FSF is deserving of a ban at this point then no power on heaven and earth can ever make him see, and I for one will stop trying. Given FSF's stated support for de-sysoping the first thousand admins on Wikipedia I'm not sure if there is such a thing as an uninvolved admin, but I suppose you can try. Mackensen (talk) 15:46, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
    • My apologies, my comments were not meant to be directed jsut at you. As for his support of desysopping anyone, that really should have no affect on an admins decision when looking at his situation here. Its odd because to insinuate it would is almost stating he is not paranoid after all, and in fact admins dont like him for mroe then whats being discussed openly here. As for CBD I am happy to hear you and him have resolved that. CBD has repeatedly said in this thread that FSF was wrong in things he did "I did not say it was "reasonable" for him to edit war/keep a black list/whatever. Indeed, I said that he should have been more trusting of the accuracy of their sources" & " I did not say it was "reasonable" for him to edit war/keep a black list/whatever. Indeed, I said that he should have been more trusting of the accuracy of their sources" & "Freestylfrappe's incivility absolutely IS a big problem... but it is not the only problem" --User:Zer0faults 15:56, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
      • One correction. As the "F-bomb" was not directed at CBD I have not apologized to him for it, but rather to Firsfon. I've directed no apology towards CBD because as I've noted above I stand by my remarks. Mackensen (talk) 15:59, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I only have one last comment on this subject. WP:AGF doesn't require us to fall on our swords. User:Zoe|(talk) 02:15, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Incivility and its causes

It seems to me that it's hardly a sociological mystery that admins should often be uncivil to problem users. All other things being equal, an admin who's invested considerable time and effort in the process of dealing with a disruptive user (and likely received in return a torrent of abuse, protestations of good faith, accusations of bad faith, conspiracy, cabalism, Freemasonry, and so forth), is considerably more likely to lose their temper or be uncivil in describing behavior than an uninvolved party. This is simply human nature. Furthermore, judging from my perusal of this noticeboard over the past several months, there seems to be a relatively small cadre of admins willing to tackle particularly disruptive users. When the Civility Police swoop down crying "You said troll!" without acknowledging that there is, generally, a long history of provocation from the insulted side, it should hardly come as a surprise that they get blown off by the targets of their criticism. There's a certain Dilbertesque air to the proceedings, which seem to be based on the same principle as the idea that, since you can do one minute's work without mistakes, you can do it *every* minute, and that perfection is, therefore, expected of you. I think a more realistic solution to the problem of incivility is to lead by example. The greater the number of persons willing to navigate the processes necessary to curb a contumacious user, the wider the pool over which their obloquy will be spread, and the less isolated individual admins will feel in dealing with such a user. By contrast, it's unlikely that the current approach will achieve anything more than aggravation. Choess 15:51, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I wonder how many admins there are, considering you do see many of the same names over and over. --User:Zer0faults 15:58, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

When you scan the noticeboard you see the usual cries: "Waa, Clyde spoke harshly to me;" "Kimmy said I should be desysopped;" "Tommy deleted my page." It is easy to spot an uncivil remark by an active administrator. It is hard to come into an on-going dispute, wade through the diffs, wait for the pages to load, and then find out after two hours of tedious research that the admin was right all along. After a while you want to just ignore the whole business, write articles, and revert vandalism when you see it. Tom Harrison ^Talk 16:24, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

The uncivil remarks are never right however, or so the arguement has been. The idea is that uncivil admins create an atmosphere where users feel they can be uncivil and people who are being accused of being uncivil feel justified. How can you ban person X for being uncivil when your ban message is that they partake in "assholiness", quite an uncivil remark in itself. However I think we should get back to the issue of FSF and his contributions and recent acts. --User:Zer0faults 16:35, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, I suppose the model of ideal conduct in Wikipedia follows the dictum "be conservative in what you transmit, and liberal in what you accept". That is, we should endeavour to be civil in our dealings with other people, and, conversely, we should not allow the incivility of others to divert us from civil and productive behavior. Obviously, this is an ideal that we don't always live up to. The protests here against admin incivility implicitly admit that users will not react with perfect sangfroid when rudely addressed. But if we extend this doctrine to administrators, then we must acknowledge that their behavior, under provocation, may also fall short of the ideal. As for the question of how they can ban someone for "incivility" while acting incivil themselves, the answer is obviously that it's a question of degree. Banning every editor who has ever been uncivil would, obviously, be seriously counterproductive. However, banning someone discontented by WP:OWN who abuses and stalks other people who edit their pet article is clearly beneficial to the encyclopedia. Minor incivility is, if not admirable, an ineradicable feature of Wikipedia, indeed of any collaborative project. Gross incivility may merit blocking or banning — instances where the "friction" of interpersonal contact has caused the local system of collaboration to seize up. The precise dividing line between the two is, necessarily, subjective. Anyway, my point in writing this was to point out that the recent practice of hunting for minor incivilities in handling long, messy cases of user conduct and using them here as a club to discredit the admin and/or process is pernicious, to some degree self-contradictory, and more likely to provoke and disrupt than to encourage increased moderation and tact among admins. Choess 19:34, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Choess, you say that it is not surprising that an admin might eventually lose their patience and slip into incivil conduct after long tiresome efforts to help a user behave better. Certainly reasonable. But tell me... how long had Zoe been trying to 'help' Freestylefrappe before blocking him for "assholiness"? Long time? Tiresome efforts? Or was she the relatively "uninvolved party" and just being nasty because she can get away with it? >I< have been trying to get him to improve his civility (off and on) for a long time. He recently accused me of being incompetent and irresponsible. Why am I not flying off the handle and violating civility? Why am I not cursing out Mackensen and Cyde for saying mean things about me? Because that wouldn't do anything to improve the situation. It should never be 'ok'. Not when a user feels persecuted, not when an admin is exasperated, not when you are in a position to get away with it, NEVER. Yes, we can forgive the lapses which we all make in varying degrees (and should extend that forgiveness in equal, if not greater, measure to the USERS)... but we do need to say something about it. You suggest that is 'nit picking' which only serves to inflame the situation, but extending the same logic would indicate that we should not ask users to be more civil either... let alone go around strongly warning them to do so, blocking them, et cetera. Surely these things also are likely to aggravate people, 'destructive', and thus to be avoided? :] Or perhaps we should politely tell people when they are contributing to a problem? Nor, when a user is being criticized and faced with an indefinite block for switching accounts, does the reason they did so seem to me unworthy of mention... that reason being the reversion of more than a dozen of their edits. Apologies, an ArbCom request, talk page notices, article improvements... all reverted. Then the user is called "paranoid" for saying that they had to change accounts to be allowed to contribute. That is not "minor incivility". That's a problem of the admin community collectively pushing users into behaviour which they then ban and/or ridicule them for. You can say, 'oh but there were reasons for all of those reverts' (though I'd call several of them questionable)... but even the slightest effort to 'put yourself in the other guy's shoes' would reveal that it certainly wasn't going to look that way from their perspective. It seems to me completely wrong that we should go so far out of our way to ignore our own mistakes and avoid any suggestion for improvement which might cause annoyance... while expecting the users to calmly deal with harsh criticism, ridicule, and humiliation... or face further blocks for responding poorly. You cite the 'ideal' of Wikipedian conduct, remaining civil even when faced with incivility, almost as if it were some lofty near impossible challenge for admins to live up to (though, in truth, most do just fine)... but it is simultaneously not a 'remote ideal' but the 'general standard' against which user behaviour is measured. Too often we mete out blocks when users fail of this standard and congratulatory support when admins do. --CBD 11:03, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Essentially, one can view Wikipedia as a form of international diplomacy. Since we cannot actually see each other face-to-face, and therefore must express our emotions and thoughts in written (or typed) words, others may mistake a seemingly benign comment for a hostile threat or equivalent action. Admins, as editors whom the Wikipedian public has entrusted with additional tools, and hence are to be held at a higher standard than other editors, are to be much more careful with their words, as a slip of the tongue or a different choice of words can indicate and/or differentiate between a genuine interest in helping a besieged editor or an intent to further trample upon the oppressed (or any other interpretation).

While minor incivility can never be eliminated from Wikipedia, I believe that gross and/or blatant violations of policy and/or a declared or implicit intent on conducting disruption and incivility cannot be tolerated in Wikipedia. Just like diplomats, a sensible editor of any rank should be able to express one's viewpoint with a clear declaration without offending the listener(s). Wikipedia is a collaborative project; minor incivility is to be expected (but not condoned), but blatant violators or policy and basic human ethics should not be defended. --physicq210 01:16, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me that it's hardly a sociological mystery that admins should often be uncivil to problem users. All other things being equal, an admin who's invested considerable time and effort in the process of dealing with a disruptive user (and likely received in return a torrent of abuse, protestations of good faith, accusations of bad faith, conspiracy, cabalism, Freemasonry, and so forth), is considerably more likely to lose their temper or be uncivil in describing behavior than an uninvolved party. This is simply human nature. Furthermore, judging from my perusal of this noticeboard over the past several months, there seems to be a relatively small cadre of admins willing to tackle particularly disruptive users. When the Civility Police swoop down crying "You said troll!" without acknowledging that there is, generally, a long history of provocation from the insulted side, it should hardly come as a surprise that they get blown off by the targets of their criticism. There's a certain Dilbertesque air to the proceedings, which seem to be based on the same principle as the idea that, since you can do one minute's work without mistakes, you can do it *every* minute, and that perfection is, therefore, expected of you. I think a more realistic solution to the problem of incivility is to lead by example. The greater the number of persons willing to navigate the processes necessary to curb a contumacious user, the wider the pool over which their obloquy will be spread, and the less isolated individual admins will feel in dealing with such a user. By contrast, it's unlikely that the current approach will achieve anything more than aggravation. I just had to put that in bold, and in blue, because it's so bang-on accurate that I would hope everyone reads it. --Cyde Weys 02:29, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

tb;dr. El_C 02:48, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

It's quite a colour, and it's very like what Choess said above! I liked it too; worth highlighting and repeating as an insightful summary of where we are. How can you not like somebody who uses words like contumacious and obloquy? In all seriousness though, I think it's easier always to agree we should lead by example, than it is always to do it. I do think we can all aspire to improve how we get on with each other as a community; using positive language to describe even problem editors seems important to me in that regard. --Guinnog 02:56, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

So in short, you mean use constructive criticism? --physicq210 03:06, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, though it is hard sometimes, as we are human. Labelling problem editors as trolls, for example, even when that is clearly what they are doing, doesn't seem to me to help the situation, as then we just have an insulted problem editor, with less likelihood of improved behaviour. --Guinnog 03:12, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Often it is not hard for someone to give constructive criticism (that is, if it is worded correctly and carefully). In many instances that I've seen through my 11 months of Wikipedian experience and as a (sort-of inactive) member at the Mediation Cabal, it is hard for the person given constructive criticism to accept it for what it is: advice designed to better them. It is hard for many to swallow the bitter medicine of learning from positive admonishment from their peers and fellow editors, and many stubborn editors refuse it and end up destroying their Wikipedian careers. --physicq210 03:20, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

El C does have a good point. However, I also see a double standard here, in that it seems as though Wikipedia is all too willing to give one side a "free pass" while being quick to pass judgement on the other. Things work inversely as well; there are so-called "problem users" who respond with incivility due to harrasment and abusive behaviour by admins. Uncivil behaviour, by it's nature, is disruptive. It is reasonable to say that there are situations were it is understandable that one may stoop to incivility, given the weaknesses of human nature, the nature of Wikipedia, and the determination of trolls, but the community should be cautious about being overly tolerant of uncivil behaviour. It should also be realized that attacking so-called "trolls" may goad these users into more abusive actions; it is far better to respond with reason and tact. A situation is seldom defused by incivility, but rather by calm, rational discussion - and a ban hammer, if needed. Speak softly, and carry a big stick. --72.160.108.167 10:22, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Just to mention an obvious point that supports what Choess has written above: the only other person contributing to this forum who has had an account on Wikipedia at least as long as me is Zoe -- & neither of us have participated without a break here since its creatoin. Dealing with problem editors on a regular basis is a taxing experience, & it leads to a heavy turnover in volunteers willing to try to work with these people -- rather than label 'em an (insert favorite invective), ban them for ever & return to contirbuting content. -- llywrch 19:29, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Unacceptable behavior by anyone is unacceptable, but a consistent pattern of unacceptable behavior by an administrator is particularly problematic, in that the behavior of those individuals is implicitly endorsed by the community which "promoted" them, and that they set an example for how other users should behave. Yes, it's a hard job, and yes, provocations are bad, but if you're blowing up in response to trolling, then maybe you should devote your efforts to other tasks on the encyclopedia where you're less likely to be trolled, and leave contentious admin tasks for other users with thicker skin. The watchmen for any society (real or virtual) need to be pure beyond reproach like Caesar's wife if things are to function the way we'd like them to function. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 21:22, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Endorse community ban. Mackensen, for goodness sake, be careful! Think - what if this makes it to your RfA! - CrazyRussian talk/email 01:09, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Hogeye

His ban has ended, and I'm not sure where he stands in terms of probation, but activity like this, cleary needs to stop. --AaronS 01:37, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Not to mention he's trying to start an edit war. [10]. Why wasn't he indef blocked long ago anyways? He's incredibly disruptive, has made numerous personal attacks and has been caught using socks against policy more times than I can count. He give thewolfstar a run for their money when it comes to sock puppets. Ungovernable Force^{Got something to say?} 06:31, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

The gaming of the system that is going on, combined with his viewing Wikipedia as a battleground, are indeed a bit disturbing. --AaronS 20:21, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

More edit warring is happening here, at Template:Anarchism. --AaronS 22:07, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

He's also counting his reverts, as if 3RR is a license. *sigh* I'm e-acquainted with him, so I'd rather not be the one to ban him, but I support a ban. The diff you linked was simply stupid. "Let's make a copy of Anarchism that gives Anarcho-capitalism undue weight, and doesn't even mention socialism!" Makes no sense. There are serious, serious POV issues, not to mention a simple and complete disrespect for wikipedia. --Golbez 00:22, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

The Anarchism talk page is full of his POV nonsense. We were getting somewhere with the compromises until he and the range of Wolf-socks arrived and disrupted the whole thing again. Enough is enough. Donnacha 22:54, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

He also seems to have removed his sock puppeteer tag with a misleading edit summary.[11] --AaronS 01:52, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

And now he's doing it with more direct edit summaries: "stay off my page, asshole".[12] --AaronS 02:30, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

He is also removing Aaron's attempt to discuss the situation from his talk page. [13] This user is incredibly bad faith, makes serious personal attacks, and is incredibly disruptive. I strongly, strongly, strongly urge an indefinite block, which is long overdue. Ungovernable Force^{Got something to say?} 02:47, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Hogeye warns of future "tit-for-tat edit warring" that he will provoke and engage in here. --AaronS 21:26, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Is something going to happen? His constant POV-pushing is making any attempts to reach agreement impossible. Donnacha 16:53, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Here Hogeye blanks his discussion page immediately after another editor asks him to stop removing warnings and attempts at discussion from it. He has also removed his sock puppeteer template, again. --AaronS 21:08, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Davkal again

I blocked Davkal (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) for a week on September 9 for outrageous personal attacks. Please see this brief ANI discussion, which fully endorsed my action. Now the block has expired, and Davkal, though he has not posted any more personal attacks, is making disruptive POV edits on the CSICOP page, which enjoyed a rare week of harmony and consensus while he was gone. Please see Talk:CSICOP for the patient mediator User:Mike Christie giving up on the job, as all the other editors declare that discussing with Davkal is just too frustrating. I have been asked by other editors to intervene again, but I don't feel I ought to become Davkal's personal nemesis, especially as the acute problem is of a different character this time (edit warring as against personal attacks). See User talk:Davkal for our interchanges, and please glance at the recent history for the warnings posted by other CSICOP editors. (I've told him myself that he's allowed to remove them; of course it remains rude to consistently do so without replying.) If somebody would like to review the complaints against Davkal and take some action (like warning him?) if you feel it appropriate, it would be appreciated. Bishonen | talk 16:29, 18 September 2006 (UTC).

What am I supposed to have done now. Despite being warned to stay off my talk page, Askolnick has immediately posted a bogus warning threatening me with a block for edit-warring when all I did was perform a serious piece of editing on an article I have worked on far longer, and harder, than he has. The previous block was for abuse that was the result of the constant abuse I have had to suffer at askolnick's hands (i.e., having my sobriety questioned and being called a liar on numerous occassions, attacks which you, Bishonen, refused to acknowledge existed even though I provided links). I have served my ban and I take it I am now allowed to continue editing Wiki. If you look at my edits since the ban you will see that I have made several excellent contributions to a number of featured articles - if askolnick has not engaged in any more wikistalking they might even still be there now. I regard the constant posting of warnings on my talk page by askolnick, and the constant claims that I am merely being disruptive rather than (for the majority of time before snapping under the harrassment, stalking and abuse) genuinely trying to improve the articles on Wiki.

The fact is that Askolnick is abusing almost everyone who disgrees with him on almost every page he is editing, and you seem to be doing little more than simply backing him up.Davkal 20:19, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

So, would somebody like to click on the links and evaluate my claims and those of Davkal? The claim that Askolnick is "abusing almost everyone who disagrees with him on almost every page he is editing" ought to be easy, for instance--here are Askolnick's contributions. Bishonen | talk 20:51, 18 September 2006 (UTC).

Davkal says, "Askolnick has immediately posted a bogus warning threatening me with a block for edit-warring when all I did was perform a serious piece of editing on CSICOP..." All Davkal did was to resume the edit war he was conducting before his week-long block. After he reverted the same material he disagrees with two or three times in the same day, I posted a warning on his talk page. That so-called "bogus" warning apparently worked: He stopped before making a fourth reversion and getting himself blocked again. Askolnick 14:24, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

You should probably also note that the outcome of one of my outrageous, edit-warring, disruptive edits on the CSICOP page (I only made two changes) has been retained by Askolnick virtually intact. Perhaps Bishonen could also explain why she felt it was OK for Askolnick to say:

"Lincoln implied that the whisky Gen. Grant drank gave him a winning general. Perhaps it will also improve Davkal's arguments. I doubt it could make them much worse. How could any sober person read what I've written above and claim that…", and

“In this statement, Davkal crosses the bondary [sic] between mistatement and outright lie.”

The NPA rules stating clearly that comments should be on content rather than the editor. Perhaps if askolnick had been told to desist or tone down, or at least not encouraged to continue, making such comments then the whole business could have been averted.Davkal 21:24, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Davkal, please show where Bishonen said she "felt it was OK for Askolnick to say" that. I never saw such a statement from her. Are you making this up, or did I miss it? BTW, you keep quoting this out of context. That was my reply to your announcement that you were "off to the pub" for the evening. You brought your going drinking into the discussion. Even if my attempt at humor was over the line, you can hardly use it to justify your own frequent and egregious misconduct - such as calling editors and administrators "Fuckos, "pricks and prickesses," calling an administrator someone's "meatpuppet" and suggesting that she get herself sexually serviced for her meatpuppeting. Nor can you use it to justify your repeated edit wars. You have been blocked three times for violating 3RR. And if you hadn't heeded my "bogus warning" on your talk page, it would likely be four blocks now.Askolnick 14:24, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

She made it clear she thought it was OK by first claiming the warnings were bogus and unsubstantiated. When I provided the direct quotes (above) and others, she asked for context, and when context was provided she said "feel free to remove" the warnings. The simple fact is that you implied I was a drunk and stated clearly that no sober person could think what I thought (this is abuse) and you called me a liar on several occassions (that is also abuse). The fact that despite knowing all this, Bishonen simply said you could remove the warnings, in that respect she is clearly supporting what you said. That is what led me to claim that in some respects she is your administrative meatpuppet.Davkal 17:16, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Davkal. I knew you couldn't show where Bishonen said she "felt it was OK for Askolnick to say" personal attacks. I knew you made up that accusation. Thanks for the confirmation. Askolnick 03:43, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I just have shown it clearly. The fact that you are inserting quotation marks and asking me to find just those words (the quotation marks are yours and yours alone!) is neither here nor there. It is a perfectly straightforward point that in saying "feel free to remove the warnings" Bishonen is saying that you are entitled to call me a drunk and a liar - she is wrong, you are not! Davkal 11:45, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Davkal; new stuff

If anyone cares, I'd like to point out this vis a vis this warning. KarlBunker 19:49, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

And this. KarlBunker 22:16, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

And this KarlBunker 22:19, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

New stuff to bottom doesnt mean continuations of current issues here, just entire new issues. If you want to continue the previous posting with new information you can tack this onto there. If the previous message isnt there anymore then this is the correct place. --NuclearUmpf 10:06, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I've put it back here. I was wondering, since no one's commented on the entry. KarlBunker 14:17, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Proposal: AN/desysoppings

Given that the "let's desysop X admin" usually become huge threads, clogging this page and by using this as a discussion forum making difficult for everybody to use this page as a noticeboard, AND given the fact that noone seems to remember that community discussion should go to Village Pump while Admin's noticeboard is for dropping reports asking for adminsitrative stuff, I hereby propose the creation of Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Desysoppings so people can bait, flame, discuss, or whatever it takes and keep this page (and WP:AN) neater. -- Drini 16:25, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Besides the fact that such discussions wil llead to nowhere and no action being taken, since RFC + RFAr would be the way, several megabytes of heated discussion won't do much than cause an OUT OF PROCESSS!!11!! desysopping that should have to be undone afterwards -- Drini 16:25, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I am confused, are you proposing a useless black hole venue for upset editors or are you opposing your own idea? --User:Zer0faults 16:31, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I?m proposing a balack hole to keep the useless huge threads out of this page and making people who use this as a noticeboard have an easier time not needing to be flooded with such threads. But I also point that such discussions will lead to nowhere, but since they will happen anyway, better to have them contained at a separated place. -- Drini 16:41, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Instead of /Desysoppings, could we at least call it Room 101? -GTBacchus^(talk) 16:31, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

*wink* -- Drini 16:41, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I thought Wikipedia Review was the venue of choice for pointless whining about Admins. Can't we just direct them there, and save our severs the strain? KillerChihuahua^?!? 16:33, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

• Frivolity aside, it's an absurd suggestion. AN and AN/I deal wtih things exactly as their participants wish, and their participants are a great many administrators. If you feel that you cannot use the pages for the presence of such discussions, then I am sorry for it, but people respond where it is logical. If Tony Sidaway comes back to a dead issue to get in one last dig, don't be surprised that people respond there, instead of copying out most of the discussion to some other place.
• Finally, nothing is "desysop X." Until there is a proper demotion process, we will come up against the problem of highly abusive and selectively abusive administrators from time to time, and from time to time the lack of an adequate process to follow will cause an acute problem. Geogre 16:44, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

This thread is so ironic because its complaining about wasting space by wasting space, further tis complaining about items being where they dont belong and this thread if serious wouldnt be proposed here! Kudos. Your a) Sarcasm or b) Wit, is quite superb. --User:Zer0faults 16:48, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Instead of this silliness, we should simply ignore who propose desysopping here, and deal with whatever actual problem there is. If a thread is only about desysopping, we should ignore or even remove it. How does that sound? -- SCZenz 17:11, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Sure, that'd be the best. Except when removing one gets called vandal, bad admin, censorship, and generates a 2nd call for desysopping ;) -- Drini 17:23, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

That's why ignoring silly threads is much better than removing them, I suppose. --Conti|✉ 17:31, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

It's not an absurd suggestion. It a sugegstion to make this place a better one. I fully support the creation of Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Desysoppings. If you won't need it today, make sure you'll need it tomorrow. Besides that, what's the problem w/ better organizing stuff over here? -- Szvest 17:32, 18 September 2006 (UTC) User:FayssalF/Sign

This discussion is not about any specific incident. Create the page and see what happens. I suggest we need some clear(er) policy. Admins should be setting the example for other editors and instead I often see confusion and dispute here. Sometimes to the extent that I think that harm is being done to the project. --Jumbo 17:40, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I surely agree w/ most of the arguments against but it is better to leave this place for other disputes. -- Szvest 17:45, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Drini, what you did was perform a move without discussing it first, without announcing it. You just moved it. That looked a lot like deletion to most folks. This is in addition to making errors in the move. The topic was very, very hot, and therefore being edited like crazy. That should have been a warning by itself that folks were not interested in scattering their comments. Further, moving some things to a user page was way out. Pump is not where anyone thinks of going for the discussion of how administrative tools were used or misused by a particular set of administrators. They thought, instead, of AN. Getting some consent before the move would have been key, and then there would have been the subject of where to do the move. A new page transcluded at AN might have worked, but not the pump. Geogre 18:49, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Be bold in updating pages -- Drini 21:12, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I may regret getting involved in this later, but that is a gross misquote. Reading the first line of that link (emphasis mine), "The Wikipedia community encourages users to be bold in updating articles." Oddly, it said nothing about encouragement for admins to be bold in moving any discussion. I'm not saying you were right or wrong in moving the discussion (in fact I know nothing about that), but I think you're misusing WP:BOLD. BigNate37_(T) 00:49, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps we can move this discussion to the discussion page, as it doesn't actually refer to any specific incident? --Jumbo 00:53, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it does, which is why I have resisted having it deleted. This whole thing is rather thick in subtext and bizarre in liminal text. On WP:AN, there was a discussion of user:Tony Sidaway's behavior with regard to user:Giano. For some reason unclear to most, if not all, Drini moved the discussion to Tony Sidaway's user page and to Village Pump, and, during the moves, several posts disappeared. No one actually accused Drini of intentionally deleting posts critical of Tony but amazingly preserving all in favor of Tony, but it sure was annoying. If one or more persons thought that Drini needed to be arbitrated for his insistence, it's not shocking, although it's probably without merit. Now, Drini here proposes that "let's desysop X" is a common absurdity and that it needs to be moved. Therefore, people who didn't know the AN incident will miss the context, and those who did will be a little miffed to see the very serious issues around Tony Sidaway treated as if they were IP anon's ranting for the heads of people enforcing policy. Geogre 10:55, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

You're so getting desysop'd for that "thick in subtext, bizarre in liminal text" intransigence! And being critical - insolence! El_C 11:16, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

It was just a matter of time, anyway. It's the fate of anyone who writes articles for Wikipedia. -Bot makers and -box wranglers don't like the competition. Geogre 12:21, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

The main namespace? I've heard of it... El_C 12:28, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Remember, Fearless leader says that we must never confuse edits to Wikipedia with contributions! No.... Contributions come from being on IRC and imperious grunts at the groundlings. Geogre 01:06, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

User:Greg Bear

I noticed we have a user named User:Greg Bear who has edited the Greg Bear article. How does Wiki confirm or deny that this is the real Greg Bear? And if it is the real Bear, should he be editing his own bio?

Reported by: Atlant 19:06, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I asked. We'll see where it goes from there. KillerChihuahua^?!? 20:20, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks!

Atlant 00:32, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I've sent a message to Greg Bear through private channels. He should know the difficulties that people can get into when editing their own articles, and if it isn't Greg, then I figure he should be aware that some third party is using his name in vain, as it were.

Not that we need to compromise any of our principles, but I think it is worth a reminder, as Jimbo noted, that these things often turn into a bad experience for the subject. Instead, we should see it as an opportunity to gain the confidence, trust, and friendship of an respected and influential writer. Of course, that applies to all such contributors, whether they be famous or not; it's just that if we get someone with an audience fired up, it just creates a lot of work for us all. Look at Stephen Colbert and his elephants! --Jumbo 00:50, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Word back is that it was indeed Greg Bear, and my email sparked some interesting conversations in the Bear household, the younger Bears appalled that Dad would consider editing his own Wikipedia article! --Jumbo 00:14, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for checking!

Atlant 13:06, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what might have been happening on the greag bear page, but getting the actual subject of an article involved in editing is potentially extremely useful. Who knows the subject better? Sandpiper 10:16, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Weeeeell, yes, but it's hard to have WP:NOR and WP:NPOV in hand if you are editing your own article. If I had a WP article on myself, I might be tempted to downplay my youthful but drunken escapades, and focus instead on my more laudatory achievements. We've seen a bit of this sort of thing going on with articles on politicians here and there, with campaign pledges conveniently "whited-out". I'd also be able to add in information that is true, but either difficult or impossible for anyone else to check. In both cases, these are things we tend to frown on. I'm not for a moment suggesting that Greg Bear is doing this, but as the old Chinese proverb goes, the wise man does not bend down to tie his shoelaces in his neighbour's watermelon patch. --Jumbo 11:12, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Football vandal?

Could someone with some knowledge of football (or soccer for us Americans) please have a look at the edit histories of User:82.168.59.236 and User:82.92.94.108? They have been alleged to be the same person, have been blocked multiple times before, etc. I don't know anything about the topic so I don't know if all the changes (without edit summaries) are in fact vandalism as has been claimed, but someone who knows about this subject should evaluate whether some long term intervention or blocking is needed. Thanks. Gamaliel 22:06, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

These are Tiscali IPs, so be careful if blocking, since Tiscali uses dynamic IP addresses rather than static. --LiverpoolCommander 09:17, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

These ips are related with a user too, i requested checkuser request but answer is "Obvious 3RR evasion should be treated as such". So 3 of them are long term vandals. Their edit patters show everything, even if they are not sockpuppets they are meatballs. There is a minor thing to show the harm of them, Galatasaray article has edited more than twice before they start editing, but improvement is near zero:) --Ugur Basak 12:52, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

So the edits are in fact vandalism? If so I have no problem blocking these address as they've been subject to multiple blocks before. Gamaliel 21:29, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Their edit patterns are similar, they edit same article in different times. Revert to same versions. For example, see history of Ertuğrul a Turkish football manager. He continuously adding The TFF has made a agreedment with Ertuğrul Sağlam to take over the national team from Fatih Terim after Euro 2008, besides his contract with Kayserispor is till 2008, i add fact tag but he removed it, even after warnings he did the same. Before that he is adding Suat Kaya, ex-Galatasaray player, will be new Gala coach etc. Once Galatasaray article was vandalising by one of that ips, he was reverting an outdated version that include rumoured transfers and other predictions. I request for protection of article or an admin semi-protected it (now i don't remember). Just after article semi-protected, Burak18 started to edit same artice and reverting it to same version. He has blocked for breaking 3RR several times. Also Suat Kaya's history can be checked. I tried talkin to him (them), using edit summaries, talk page and user talk pages. But he didn't respond. Also there is an interestin edit summary of him, "im sorry that i am misusing burak18 his profile but he never shows up on the site" after warnings. User:heah asked what did it mean while posting block message, but again no respond. User:Samir (The Scope) adviced me to try WP:RfC, but i guess i'm a bit lazy and busy to start a case. If it'll be necessary to start a case in RfC, i'll try it. --Ugur Basak 19:44, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

While i was writing above text, other ip has removed fact tag again:) int Ertuğrul Sağlam article. --Ugur Basak 19:49, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Help requested

User:Nfitz keeps putting bogus warning templates on my talk page, and this has gone into a edit war on MY OWN TALK PAGE. I am NOT a vandal; I am former administrator here with a lot (Something like 8000) of edits. Nfitz has done this elsewhere as well; User_talk:Kprobst, User talk:Warrens (there is discussion here as well about the warnings on my talk page; for those who are curious this centers around a "personal attack" which was "Please take your crusade elsewhere"). There has been long, drawn-out painful discussions about the validity of those warnings (my talk page, the other two as well); I would really just like to blank it at this point and take a wikibreak without looking like I'm some kind of vandal. So, could somebody please revert any nonsense that is on there and protect the thing? MY DEITY you know its gotten bad when you ask your own talk page to be protected... RN 22:08, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I'll go protect it. If you want the revision with the wikibreak notice restored I can do that too, and I'll make the protection log note this was at your request so it can be unprotected when you return. Syrthiss 22:18, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

• I had been debating on whether I should follow this up or not, and I had decided that it is wasn't worth it ... as I just can't understand RN's motives. However now that RN has made this accusation, I feel I have no choice but to raise this issue here. User RN has been blanking his talk page; which in addition to my warnings about his personal attack on me, also contained links to his archives, where previous warnings have been posted in the past, including details of his previous block. My understanding, is this stuff shouldn't be deleted from Talk pages, without providing Links to an archive. RN has continued to do this, despite being warned. Now he is accusing me of placing bogus warning templates; the warning templates were not bogus. Nfitz 22:24, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

None of that material has been deleted, it is still accessible from the history for anyone who is concerned...and any blocks are easily accessible from his block log. As much as I personally dislike people blanking valid warnings, I also don't have a tremendous amount of sympathy for people who persist in hounding other editors. He clearly saw your warnings as he had to revert them, and it is in my opinion reasonably poor wikiquette to use standard templates on established editors and threaten them with vandalism blocks. You can of course contact me to unprotect his talk page if RN returns to editing, since people would not be able to communicate as easily with the user concerning their edits. Cheers. Syrthiss 22:44, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

But why is he above the rules, and allowed to wipe warnings? I haven't been hounding him, BTW. I've popped in occasionally, to see if he's followed up the discussion ... but when I see that he has simply wiped the warning, and removed the links to his archive which have always been there, then I don't see any alternative than restoring the warning, and raising the warning level. Is this not the procedure in such cases? Nfitz 22:56, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

My advice is to let this one go. You're both productive editors when you're not clashing with eachother. Whether or not his comment can be considered a serious personal attack is questionable in my eyes despite its hostility. You saw it as an attack, he didn't, and you both were already frustrated with eachother. Because you were the one to warn him rather than someone impartial in the matter, I think it fanned the flames so to speak. A short break, a calm demeanor, and a liesurely skimming of WP:WQT might help. As a side note not related to talk page warnings per se, I've noticed that we're generally pretty lax about talk page archiving for established users, I know some who simply "purge to page history" as their method of choice. BigNate37_(T) 22:54, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I had decided to let it go, as I noted above. But now he has gone and made this accusation, and I've got Admin's using the word harrasment, then I don't think it can be let go. The guidelines are quite clear that warnings should not be removed; or links should be provided to the archiving. Why should established users be above this. And if this were true, then that should be noted in the guidelines. Perhaps more serious, than my warning; is that there are other warnings in his archives, that are not linked. Nfitz 22:59, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

The only guideline I could find regarding this is

“ Actively erasing non-harassing personal messages without replying (if a reply would be appropriate or polite) will probably be interpreted as hostile. In the past, this kind of behavior has been viewed as uncivil, and this can become an issue in arbitration or other formal proceedings. Redirecting your user talk page to another page (whether meant as a joke or intended to be offensive or to send a "go away" message), except in the case of redirecting from one account to another when both are yours, can also be considered a hostile act. However, reverting such removals or redirects is not proper and may result in a block for edit warring. If someone removes your comments without answering, consider moving on or dispute resolution. This is especially true for vandalism warnings. ”

(from Help:Talk page). We had quite a large discussion on whether to make a proper guideline covering this, and it really didn't lead anywhere. The only example I can give is this: while RN did remove your notices from his talk page, in reality this is more of a content dispute than vandalism... You felt he was incivil, he disagreed, you started placing vandalism notices which he probably viewed as incivil, and the situation devolved from there. Previous warnings are previous warnings, and if there is anything true about Wikipedia its that people have long memories. If there is a reason to dig up old warnings, someone will. Does that help? Syrthiss 23:44, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

What about

“ ... to the user's own Talk page, where users generally are permitted to remove and archive comments at their discretion, except in cases of legitimate warnings, which they are generally prohibited from removing, especially where the intention of the removal is to mislead other editors. ”

(from Wikipedia:Vandalism) Again, I note, if it was only my informal warning about civility, I wouldn't have been concerned; but there are warnings from earlier this year, and also be blatantly removed my recent warnings about removing warnings, without trying to discuss the issue. Nfitz 23:54, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

• I'm still waiting for this to be dealt with properly. Allowing someone to clearly break the rules, and then instead of penalizing or at least chastising them, to reward them instead, is not on. If the Talk Page is to be protected, shouldn't it be protected in it's state when he went on his 'wikivacation' with the archives linked? Nfitz 13:16, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Nfitz, it is disputed whether your warnings in this case were valid. RN considered them invalid, and so removed them. It is not clear that he was incorrect, so he is not at fault. Simply let the matter die. Xoloz 15:44, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure how else I can explain it to you, and suspect that we may just have to disagree. There are at least two users who have asked you to drop the matter, and I've been holding off making further comment here to see if someone else would have some insight. As for reverting the page to show the archive notices, protection isn't a pick and choose which version. The version that exists when the admin applies protection is what gets protected, with no endorsement by the protecting admin of the page content. Syrthiss 14:44, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I am unsure why the matter should be dropped. The only explanation I can fathom, is that former administrators are not subject to the same rules as others. If that is the rule, that is fine, and I will go adjust the guidance documents to reflect this. Sure, I can understand the protection is frozen issue, and all that. And as I have noted myself, my own warnings are not the issue here (not sure where Xoloz's comments are coming from - he seems to be ignoring the prime issue) ... the issue are there are other warnings that are now not there, nor are they on linked archive pages. Wikipedia:Vandalism seems quite clear on this; or should I be editing that as well. One way or another, further action needs to be taken, either in cleaning up guidance, or dealing with RN. I'd have thought a simple revert to his earlier Talk Page, which is pretty much blank except his Wikivacation, and the archive links would have been a decent solution - but I guess (and I'm not quite sure why) this isn't an option - so further action seems to be the only available course. Now do we do that here, and if not, where do I start this? Nfitz 17:36, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I've blanked and protected pages for other users before per m:Right to vanish (which in my opinion is what RN requested). I've said before that if RN returns from their break and starts to edit again, then the page will be unprotected. I've said before that previous warnings exist in the history, and that even were they deleted...which they are not...adminstrators can view deleted edits. I've said before that any previous blocks exist in the block log for anyone to see. This excessive zeal to push the WP:VANDALISM policy over Assume good faith is puzzling to me. Syrthiss 18:00, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

If he is exercising his m:Right to vanish then I would agree with you. Though, if that's the case, he could have avoided all this, by simply answering my question. Okay, I see your point. Let's just wait this out ... Nfitz 19:47, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree with the others who've commented that this seems a non-existent problem, and the vehemence with which it's being pursued is unbecoming. If the user resumes editing constructively, the warnings are irrelevant. If the user resumes editing and there are difficulties, the warnings (meritorious or not) are in the history to be called up if needed. If the user does not resume editing, the matter is moot. In no case is it a difficulty that the page does not bear the warnings. Newyorkbrad 23:15, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I think it was unbecoming that it was brought here as well. RN as a former admin, should have known to try and deal with it directly, and also to have let what was then a dead issue go, when he brought it here; it was clearly a calculated move, to stir the pot - which does seem to be his trademark - that is, to go one move too far, to provoke reaction. If one follows through your logic, in its entirely, then, the direction inWikipedia:Vandalism needs to be changed. Also, I'm not sure why we are still discussing this; I thought we'd just all agreed to let it go? What is the reason to discuss it further? Nfitz 00:43, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree that this seems to be at a stable point so far as this page is concerned. Thanks. Newyorkbrad 01:03, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I'll just note for the bazillionth time that the line from Wikipedia:Vandalism cited above actively encourages edit warring on other users' talk pages and inevitably leads to situations like the above where a user trying to 'enforce policy' winds up doing things that look very much like (and in some cases are) harassment to the person on the receiving end. It is a horiffically bad idea that never should have been inserted into the policy (without consensus) and ought not to have been restored after any of the dozens of times it has been removed as inappropriate. --CBD 16:14, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Help Request from Lesser Evil

[14]

Hold up,

Anybody wanna explain to me how DieYuppieScum (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) isn't an inapropriate username? I'm missing the logic here. If I made my username Die-You-Iraqi-Bastards, and made good contributions, there'd be no problem? I'm sure if he was insulting an admin in his username and made good contribs, he would still be blocked.--KojiDude ^{(viva la BAM!)} 03:11, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Are you claiming that the cultural reference "yuppie" is equivalent to a race, religion, nationality, gender, or other group that should be protected from discrimination? I think your comparison is an unfair distortion. Also, I find it hard to believe that there's a plot cooking here to do something nasty to yuppies - like rip off all the alligators from their sport shirts - let alone murder them. BTW, the verb "die" does not mean "kill." People who tell others to die may not be nice people, but they aren't making death threats. While I wouldn't care to defend this username against charges of bad taste, I don't think it is overly offensive or a threat. I know it may kill some people here to know that not every reference to killing or dying is meant to be taking literally. I'm deadly serious about this. I'm dying to know what other editors think. Askolnick 16:52, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it's German for The Yuppie Scum. Seriously, it's not really that offensive, and he's been here for over a year. Ral315 (talk) 06:12, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree, it's a death threat. And death threats are generally seen as inappropriate. Guettarda 12:42, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

A death threat against whom?

--Charlesknight 12:47, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I think it is a pop-culture referrence but I don't remember to what. I left a short note on his page asking him to consider changing it. JoshuaZ 15:30, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

It's a pop-culture reference from the mid-1980s, referring to Young Urban Professionals (who were childless but had a lot of disposable income). "Die Yuppie Scum" was a backlash to the phenomenon. Eventually, the stock market went downhill and all the disposable income didn't matter all that much any more. See this link at nostalgiacentral.com for some more background. --Elkman - (Elkspeak) 16:53, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Am I missing something? He's been blocked for over a year. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 18:53, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I was missing the fact that he's been editing for days. The block log doesn't show any unblocks - the two indefinite blocks must have conflicted. Yes, it's an obviously inappropriate username, and he should be blocked if he doesn't request a username change within 48 hours. "Yuppie" is a pejorative term for a significant section of the middle class. Would we allow "DieProleScum"? No. Pop-culture reference my foot. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 18:55, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

On further examination I was missing the fact that I misread the block log. Would use the 'need more caffeine' excuse but it's 8pm and I had a cup of tea only 2 hours ago :-D. My opinion on the username stands. This equivocation is even worse then when people tried to claim User:UpTheRa wasn't inappropriate ('Ra' stands for 'IRA' and the name is equivalent to 'HoorayForAlQaeda'). --Sam Blanning^(talk) 18:58, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

It's not inappropriate; it's just silly. That was a classic punk slogan in the 1980s. You can still order the T-shirt from Amazon. (I feel so dated now.) --John Nagle 21:21, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Punk slogan or not, it directly violates "Names that promote or imply hatred or violence", "Names that are recognised as slurs or insults" and "Names that promote a controversial or potentially inflammatory point of view" (Wikipedia:Username). That's an impressive hat-trick. Maybe it would be merely "silly" on a Counter-Strike forum, but this is an encyclopaedia, and we have - rightly - a more stringent username policy than most of the Induhnet. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 22:22, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

It might be different in that no one who used the phrase "Die Yuppy Scum" ever meant it in an at all literal fashion. This is in contrast to a username which promotes a terrosist group. However, it would probably be best if the user changed their username. JoshuaZ 16:36, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

This sort of discussion should be held at WP:RFC/NAME, not here. JYolkowski // talk 22:14, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Main Page

Why can't I edit the main page anymore?Pewlosels 03:35, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Uh, non-admins cannot edit the main page. – Chacor 03:38, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

• Since when?Pewlosels 03:42, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
  • It's been like that for a while now.--KojiDude ^{(viva la BAM!)} 03:43, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

• Really? I must have been gone for a while! Did something bad happen? --Pewlosels 03:45, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

• • Well, any website doesn't want to have their front page vandalized, right? ;-) --physicq210 03:47, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
    • You say "I must have been gone for a while!" but yet your account User:Pewlosels was created recently.[15] Are you someone who has used Wikipedia before? Do you remember your old account? Zzyzx11 (Talk) 05:32, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
      • AN/I troll? Anyone? --InShaneee 16:49, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
        • I think you got it in one, InShanee. -- llywrch 20:06, 19 September 2006 (UTC) Just looked: except for creating a userpage, all edits have been to WP:AN/I -- even though said person claims she wants "to start and work on the Mynwyw article". -- llywrch 20:11, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
• February 2006 appears to be when it was first fully protected, from looking at the protection log; I thought it happened a lot earlier than that. Grandmasterka 03:51, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

• • The protection log clearly does not extend back far enough. The Main Page has been protected as long as I've been here; the last anon-IP edit to the main page, barring temporary unprotections, was on February 25, 2002. In the News became permanently protected sometime in 2004; the final straw was indeed a submoron putting up a penis on ITN. --Golbez 03:58, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
    • iirc, it became the defacto policy in 2004, but I cannot remember the page where I saw it stated. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 05:27, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
      • According to this signpost story, the main page (and its associated templates) weren't completely protected until February 2005. Graham87 09:11, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
        • Now I remember: as mentioned on WP:PP#Images protected while on the Main Page, it was images on the main page that became defacto policy. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 21:57, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Note: As noted above, I blocked Pewlosels, & despite acting very quicklystill believe she should be indef blocked for trolling. She has asked for an unblocking. I have supplied my explanation on her talk page, which all Admins are welcome to review, & if they disagree with my reasoning, unblock her. -- llywrch 18:20, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Talk page abuse

Serial sockpuppeteer Mallimak (talk · contribs) is using sockpuppet account User:Orkadian to spam multiple Talk pages. The {{talkheader}} template has been removed and the spam repeatedly re-added. I request admin intervention:

• Orkadian (talk · contribs)

--Mais oui! 12:11, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Example diff: [16]. --Mais oui! 12:15, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Provide evidence that Orkadian is a sockpuppet of Mallimak, please. It seems to me that Orkadian has become rather upset by your persistent accusations that he/she is a sockpuppet, and I can't see any evidence for that. --ajn (talk) 12:19, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Mallimak. --Mais oui! 12:32, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

That's hardly the most convincing checkuser result I have ever seen. It's equally likely that they happen to be editing from the same geographical area, and object to your stance on Orkney (oddly, quite different from your usual stance on regional and nationalist issues). --ajn (talk) 14:43, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Please also see: [17]. There is a multitude of evidence. But that is not the point: what are you going to do about the Talk page abuse? --Mais oui! 12:39, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

A suggestion, why not protect the talk page to [edit=sysop move=sysop] to prevent him from adding spam?? --LiverpoolCommander 12:41, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

This is part of a long standing conflict between the users and a more in depth look at the conduct of Mallimak, Orkadian and Mais oui! is in order.Inge 12:41, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Is a Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Mallimak a suitable thing to proceed with?? --LiverpoolCommander 12:43, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, to be fair I would suggest a simultaneous Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Mais oui! or a combined one. The bits and pieces of the conflict I have seen lead me to believe that both these users could do with some helpfull hints. It seems IMHO that this is part of a complexe content dispute where one user is good at utilising wiki rules and the other is not. Inge 12:49, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

• A combined RFC seems like a good idea. Can anyone give me a brief overview of what the cause of the dispute is, what lead to it, and what the ongoing situation is - so that I have a clearer idea of it?? --LiverpoolCommander 12:50, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

User:Wangi is very well-informed on this topic, although he has just had a Wikibreak, and so missed the last episode about a week ago. --Mais oui! 12:53, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

One user is trying to insert the notion that Orkney has a special identity separate from the Scottish one and has been adding information regarding that to relevant articles. The user has also created stubs, categories and a portal to deal with Orkney subjects. The other user is asserting that Orkney is not any more different from the rest of Scotland than any other part of Scotland and has been removing such information from relevant articles and requesting the stub-templates and so on to be deleted. I think that is the core of this problem. In the process both users may have stepped over the line. The hows, ifs and whens need to be determined, proper guidance need to be given to the users and a permanent solution to the core dispute needs to be found. The articles involved are so low profile that it seems to be very difficult for the few users involved to get there on their own. Inge 13:07, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for that overview, Inge. I think that Orkney should be counted as Scotland, as it is technically Scottish and not a sovereign state. This content dispute should be taken to a WikiProject who could assist with this incident. --LiverpoolCommander|Commander' 13:15, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the Orcadian users are claiming that Orkney is not a part of Scotland, but that the people who live there share an identity as Orcadians and that that identity is more or less considered separate from being Scottish. I don't think I am quite able to convey that situation acurately, but I would like to inform that I have the personal opinion that Orkney (and Shetland) claims of being different does have some creedence. They are not just another area of Scotland (allthough they are very much politically and legally part of that country) and history, geneaology and (former) linguistics back that up. But that really isn't the issue right now :) Inge 22:48, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Comming back to the immediate issue, rather than the underlying problem...

One thing that needs to stop is the constant reverting an readding of Orkadian's comment on various talk pages. While the comment is not about the articles themself it's not worth getting into an edit war about. However the comment needs to be kept out of the article and category namespace and Orkadian has not readded them since I pointed this out. I'll pass on commenting on the comment itself...

I'm disappointed that Orkadian/Maillimak are not making any constructive edits. After this is an encyclopedia - and writting it is our goal, if you're just here to dick around with turf wars then...

I'm not convinced Orkadian and Maillimak are a single person, but if it is two people they're acting in close cooperation. I'll keep an eye on things, but i'm as busy as ever and back travelling tomorrow... Thanks/wangi 13:31, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I think the user(s) were initially trying to make constructive edits, but were over-enthusiastic and were then frustrated by Mais Oui!'s uncharacteristic objection to petty regionalism. I spotted this dispute a while ago, when MO listed the Orkney portal for deletion. Orkney does have a quite different history to the rest of Scotland, and Mais Oui!'s "just a council area" stance really doesn't do that justice. --ajn (talk) 14:49, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I support that view. I believe if a couple of outside editors would like to involve themselves more in depth the articles affected could be very much improved and the users in conflict could be guided back on track to the future benefit of Wikipedia. If we let this issue go now we will just find it again on a later date and/or loose valuable contributions. I see these request for help pages as somewhat of a jungle so if someone knows a more appropriate place to take this issue, please do so and give a link here. Inge 12:34, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Mallimak is not blocked, I am at a looss to understand why he would use sockpuppets, but there is not much doubt in my mind that Orkadian and Gruelliebelkie are either sockpuppets or meatpuppets. That said, Mais Oui! is unquestionably prone to strong opinions and there is not a great deal of evidence of these disputants making any real attempt to find common ground. Any RfC should be a joint one, and should be called something like "Orkneys islands" rather than singling out one side or the other, there being evident fault on both. On the practical level I don't see that there are so many articles on the Orkneys as to make a separate portal necessary or desirable, but if people want to have one and link it from the Scotland portal then I don't really see how that would violate policy, since Orkadians unquestionably do have a separate identity at some level. Not that we are here to Right Great Wrongs, but I don't see any neutrality issue in dealing with the Orkneys as thematic set of articles. This is, of course, a superficial view. Guy 12:11, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Inappropriate edit summary/Personal attack on Jimbo Wales

On the Telescope article, in the edit summary, is this message:

(Personal attack removed)

I'm pretty sure this is sexual harassment against Jimbo Wales; as well as an inappropriate message to be displaying out there. (Sorry if this is the wrong place to report it) Nwwaew 17:34, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

It's pretty inappropriate to be displaying here as well. It's in the history here and there, so it can be checked if needed: [18]. has apparently been oversighted. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:42, 20 September 2006 (UTC) Maybe it could be oversighted or deleted/undeleted without that revision, although it's probably not quite bad enough for oversight. --ais523 17:39, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

More Thewolfstar socks

Larry Craven - see: [19] and [20]. A related edit by a no-name here: [21]. Donnacha 20:15, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Larry Craven blocked indef, the IP for 24 hours. Grandmasterka 21:46, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Cheers. Donnacha 23:21, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

And, once again, this time without a name [22]. This is getting very tiresome, every day (if not twice a day), we get a new identity from the same person. Donnacha 10:36, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

It's like whack-a-mole! Blocked 24h. Grandmasterka 20:13, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Yup, here's another one! [23]. I don't know why she keeps adding what I've admited was early morning narkiness (with a typo!) Donnacha 21:39, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Sam Allardyce

After tonight's programme on the BBC a lot of anonymous users are already putting defamatory comments on this page. Would there be any chance of protecting it? Maybe the same for Bolton Wanderers F.C.? (Pally01 21:30, 19 September 2006 (UTC))

I've semi-protected both. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 22:08, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Probably time for the slashdotted template. Geogre 01:04, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Indef block and user page erasure of User:Tao Ching

Unblock-en-l received a complaint from the owner of Tao Ching (talk · contribs) regarding User:Kelly Martin having indef blocked his account and deleted his homepage with the reasoning that Wikipedia is not a Blog. The owner is complaining that they received no warning and intended no violation of Wikipedia rules, and that they lost a large quantity of notes for article work they intend to do in the future.

See: User:Tao Ching, User talk:Tao Ching, Tao Ching's block log See also Kelly's comment: Kelly Martin's talk page

As I am not an administrator, I have no ability to review the contents of the now-former user page to see if they were inappropriate. I would like to request independent administrator review of the former contents of the userpage, which I cannot see, and comments on whether an indef block without warning was appropriate response for this user.

Thanks. Georgewilliamherbert 23:31, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I replied on the mailing list. As Kelly Martin indicated on Tao Ching's talk page, the user has been here for two years but his only edits are to his User page. In fact, he has made one edit to a User's Talk page, two vandalistic edits, and one addition of an external link to articles in those two years. But in the meantime, he's made over 500 edits to his User page. I think the block and blanking are appropriate. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:43, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

The blanking may be appropriate, although the ban could be lifted if the user expresses an interest in contributing, and a warning certainly wouldn't have done any harm (I can't see the deleted material either so I have no idea whether one was given or not). However, as I understand it the deleted material is available to administrators, so perhaps it should be restored for a couple of days or otherwise made available to the user so that he has an opportunity to print it out or copy it before he loses a large quantity of work, whether for articles here or anything else. Newyorkbrad 23:48, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I would be willing to email the contents of the latest revision of the page to the individual in question. Kelly Martin (talk) 23:50, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I think an offer to do that posted on the user's talk page (or e-mailed to him if e-mail is enabled) would be appropriate. If the deleted material is at all reasonable (of course I haven't seen it), that might be coupled with an offer to lift the ban if the user committed to doing some work on the encyclopedia, which I agree 100% is what the project is about. I also suggest that if this situation arises in the future, a warning be given -- if only to give the user an opportunity to download or print out the material himself or herself, thus saving an admin the trouble of doing so. Newyorkbrad 00:00, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Kelly, if you don't have their email / aren't on unblock-en-l (I can't recall who's there and not), I can forward you the address. Georgewilliamherbert 00:08, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I am not on unblock-en-l. The content is not really problematic, but it is chock loaded with external links and content which borders on copyvio; in any case totally inappropriate for a user page. I am email-enabled within the wiki, and being blocked doesn't preclude using Special:Emailuser. Kelly Martin (talk) 00:17, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I reviewed this content and concur it has no encyclopedic value and was worthy of deletion. I might not necessarily have indef blocked myself but barring some assurance from the user they are going to actually contribute instead of use this as hosting space, I see no reason to lift, and thus support the block as well. ++Lar: t/c 01:01, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

• Having looked at the deleted material, it didn't strike me as remotely bloglike. Most of it seemed to be the common sort of stuff one finds on most user pages: quotes, opinions, links, a self-description, a list of articles to edit and/or read. The only possibly objectionable aspect is simply that there's so much of it, far more than would be found on most user pages. It's a bit of a toss-up whether this violates user page policy or not (as I said, it's essentially typical user page stuff, just in greater quantity), but in any case I don't think it warrants a block. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 01:39, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

It's a freaking link farm. Link farms are unacceptable anyone on Wikipedia. Kelly Martin (talk) 04:14, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

It's not the content of the user page in and of itself that's problematic, but the attention paid to it over two years (500 edits) compared to attention paid to the encyclopedia (five edits, one of them useful). That ratio needs to be reversed and the likelihood of that happening is low. The block was therefore appropriate. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:21, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Concur with both Kelly and Slim - the page was a link farm, a soapbox, a personal webpage; the user was not contributing to the encyclopedia. Wikipedia is not a linkfarm nor a blog host; strongly support this action. KillerChihuahua^?!? 10:32, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

• I agree with the block, although in my opinion the user page should have been blanked and protected rather than deleted. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 17:09, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

World Innovation Foundation

It appears to me that there is something appears a bit odd about this article. According to the WIF website, it claims to have dozens of Nobel laureates as members, and is planning to build the "ORE Complex", a multi-billion dollar global centre for scientific research: "the World's Largest Open Research Establishment. Equipped and Operational for 20,000 leading-edge scientists, engineers, technologists and innovators", as well as 1000 local research centres around the world. [24]

It also claims to have been founded by Glenn Seaborg, with its current president being Jerome Karle: pretty impressive people. Indeed, many Nobel laureates are listed as "honorary consulting members" of the WIF on Wikipedia. [25]

By all accounts, the WIF appears to be an organization of global importance.

And yet:

• I cannot find any mention of the WIF, or its claimed predecessor the Institute of National Economic Enrichment and Development, in any mainstream news sources
• I cannot find any mention of the WIF or its predecessor "I.N.E.E.D." on Glenn Seaborg's biographical memorial site, or in his entry on the Nobel site [26]
• the WIF appears to be run from a P.O. box in Huddersfield [27]
• I cannot find any reports of it in mainstream media
• and the "letters" section of its website appears mostly to be people writing back politely to letters inviting them to become honorary members
• most of the mentions of these notable people being members of the WIF appear to have been entered into Wikipedia on the 16th and 17th of this month by User:Drdavidhill, who is listed as the WIF's contact on its own website -- this user has been blocked for adding their website to many articles all at once, and appears to have repeatedly E-mailed Zoe to be unblocked, and has now escalated to petitioning Jimbo [28]
• and the remainder seem to be press releases by academics gladly accepting invitations to become honorary fellows of the WIF

And yet:

• "INEED" appears to have used an Easynet E-mail account [29]
• the WIF also appears to run a website at http://www.ineed.easynet.co.uk/, and http://www.ineed.easynet.co.uk/wif/joinb.html asks for cheques to be made payable to "The Institute of Sub-contractors", which is described as "the corporate trading company of the W.I.F." at "The W.I.F., P.O. Box A60, Huddersfield, HD1 1XJ, ENGLAND." -- which is the same address as given at http://www.thewif.org.uk/contact.php?xy=1920&pl=linux%20i686
• which is odd, because you might expect them to at least have a bank account in their own name, particularly since the article claims that their main organization is a Swiss charity.
• and I can't find any mention of "The Institute of Sub-contractors" on Google, or on several sites containng lists of limited companies (Companies House search goes down overnight, so I can't yet give an authoritative answer to this), or on the Charity Commission's website

And yet:

• the phone number (01484) 300 606 and fax number (01484) 300 606 given for the WIF are also the same as that displayed for "Geo-Design Associates" of Huddersfield [30]

Now, of course, I sure that there are perfectly good reasons for a global think-tank planning billion-dollar projects to share phone numbers and to have a mailing address in the same town as a business run from a shop. But it would be interesting to have a little bit more in the way of verifiable confirmation from mainstream sources about the WIF before we go any further. -- The Anome 01:45, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

-- The Anome 01:52, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

• Mmmm.... hoax. Danny Lilithborne 01:47, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

If this is a hoax its probably the most wide spread one ever created and someone should write a news story. Hvae you tried a google search, its outrageous how many people state they are fellows and their positions. Tons of edu sites have listings of their professors as WIF fellows. [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] --NuclearUmpf 02:46, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I just wonder, if you sent a letter out to a hundred academics asking them to become honorary fellows of an organization set up by Glenn Seaborg and featuring a host of Nobel laureates, what fraction of them might (a) write a nice letter back, accepting your kind offer and offering to help in any way they can, and (b) put out a release announcing their membership of this august group? -- The Anome 12:24, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I've done a LexisNexis seach on this and what I've found is even more mysterious. While the article and the site claim Glenn Seaborg as the founder, an article I found in The Yorkshire Post from 2003 tells the story of Dr. David Hill, who after "his construction company went bust" created the Foundation, whose "boldest idea is the creation of Open Research Establishments, so-called People's Creative Thought Incubators, where individuals would have their ideas and inventions analysed and developed." When one of these incubators, described as a "£50-billion scientific super city" was proposed to be built in North Lincolnshire in 2005, the local media at first reacted with breathless excitement, but in a later story said "... since speaking to one of the organisation's founder members, Dr David Hill, the Telegraph has contacted a number of organisations which claim they know nothing about the project." After that date I can find no more articles about the Foundation. There is definitely something amiss here, and the fact that so many scholars have accepted membership, yet no major news source has explained what this group actually does, is bizarre. I really am at a loss as to how to proceed. —Nate Scheffey 08:15, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

OK, I've now done a company search, and found a company, WORLD INNOVATION FOUNDATION (FOR ECONOMIC ENRICHMENT & DEVELOPMENT), company number 03539608. It's listed as a "non-trading company", and its most recent set of accounts are marked "dormant". There is no "World Innovation Foundation", or anything with a similar name, listed in the Charity Commissions register of charities.

I cannot find a Companies House listing for any company called "The Institute of Sub-Contractors", nor does there appear to be any charity of that, or a similar name.

Does anyone have access to the Swiss equivalent of the UK register of charities? -- The Anome 12:18, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Does a .org.uk need to be registered in the UK as a charity? This can become quite a search if this "group" can be technically registered anywhere as a charity. Another problem is, it doesn't have to be a charity, meaning no-profit, it seems to be more of a think tank then anything else. Kind of like if Einstein and his buddies got together and made a group, are they required to make it a formal company/charity? I do not know enough about domain registration requirements, but I am almost sure a .org doesnt mean the group has to be registered as a charity. --NuclearUmpf 12:45, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if it has to be, but a whois has the company listed as "UK Entity", based in Sheffield (instead of Huddersfield. Aecis ^{Appleknocker Flophouse} 12:55, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

There are no restrictions on registering .org or .org.uk (I have domains in both groups). I suspect The Anome's explanation above is the correct one, I've known academics who will join almost any organisation with a couple of big names on board which offers to make them a Distinguished Research Fellow or something equally grand-sounding. The Moonies used to run similar organisations, if I remember correctly. --ajn (talk) 12:53, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I understand, I just wish there was a way to verify this, outside our own research which may be possibly flawed. As I said, if its a think tank I do not believe they are required to register anything at all. Is it possible to contact some of these professors and ask them if they have indeed even heard of anything from WIF since their joining? Or is this outside our scope? --NuclearUmpf 12:56, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Indeed: anyone can get together, and call themselves anything. There's no requirement for a .org.uk to be a charity, either: anyone can apply for a .org.uk domain. However, so many of the details about this organization feel peculiar to me -- most notably the gap between their presentation of themselves as a huge organization of thousands of distinguished scientists, run by Swiss charitable foundation, and planning to build a science city for 20,000 researchers, and their being run out of a P.O. box in Huddersfield, apparently sharing their phone lines with a small business being run from a shop. It seems to me that extraordiary claims require extraordiary proof, and there's very little of that, other than that a number of scientists, when offered honorary fellowships, appear to have accepted.

Perhaps the WIF could help us validate its claims -- for example by providing details of:

• The name, address, registration date and registration number of the Swiss charity that is claimed to be the umbrella organization for the WIF
• A (verifiable) list of the members of its Board of Directors
• Where and when its Nobel-prizewinning members, and its other 3000 members, have met to transact WIF business

-- The Anome

I think it was the WIF's top banana who was sending stuff to the unblocking list this morning, threatening to sue everyone in sight if "their" information wasn't removed from Wikipedia (one of the many who doesn't read or understand "You agree to license your contributions under the GFDL." before hitting the save page button). Looking at the WIF website, I recall the picture of the "Open Research Establishment" from a few years ago, and I thought it smelled funny then. The portrait of its recently-deceased deputy director seems to be taken in the beer garden of a pub. I'd suggest we speedy-delete everything related to the WIF until its notability can be properly established. --ajn (talk) 13:28, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I've now put it up for AfD: see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/World Innovation Foundation. If the WIF's claims are real, and it is an organization of the size and importance it claims, it should easily be able to furnish proof of its assertions. -- The Anome 13:42, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

On second thoughts, given the E-mails above, I think we would probably be justified in speedy deleting it as "deletion requested by article author", and marking it as ineligible for recreation. -- The Anome 13:52, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

You're suggesting salting a G7? I thought salting was only done in cases of repeated recreations, and G7 is about the most inappropriate type of speedy I can think of for salting. --ais523 13:52, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

It is probably best to let the AfD run its course. If the organization is everything it presents itself to be, then appropriate references are bound to turn up. If things are not as they appear then the existence of a proper AfD will provide a paper trail to help prevent the organization from coming back and recreating the article after people's attention has turned to other efforts. --Allen3 ^talk 14:11, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

While we're at it, shouldn't the Xanthos Menelaou article go to the same bag (AfD)? He is arguably famous because he's former WIF chief executive, and WIF is arguably famous because (among other things) Menelaou was its chief executive. Duja 14:16, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I've stuck a speedy template on it. Deletions are really not something I'm familiar with (either requesting or performing), so if I've added an inappropriate tag please change it. --ajn (talk) 14:55, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I'll admit I'm the newbie here..but geez, there seems to be a huge rush to get rid of an article when there really is no evidence that it ISN'T true. Seems to me that if the World Federation of Engineering Organizations has the president of the WIF speaking at their 2003 symposium (it's ref #60 above), there is evidence that this organization really does exist. There are ways to do research that don't directly involve the internet...like a telephone call to ask anyone of these august individuals if they could provide some documentary evidence of the organization and its accomplishments. And no, that is NOT original research, it is seeking supportive documentation. Risker 15:38, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm quite willing to believe that some or all of the WIF's claims might actually be true, if verifiable evidence can be presented from multiple reputable sources to back up these claims. However, in the absence of this, the circumstantial evidence does not look encouraging, and the burden of proof still lies with the WIF to prove their claims to the Wikipedia community, rather than vice versa.

Some examples of this might be: independent reports of WIF conferences, personal testimony from some of the listed Nobelists that they have attended WIF meetings, full details of the alleged Swiss charity... However, the Lexis-Nexis search reported by one of the commenters above does not encouraging.-- The Anome 15:58, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I've now unblocked User:Drdavidhill, and I've put a note on his userpage inviting him to comment on this AfD. I look forward to him providing independent evidence to support his claims. -- The Anome 16:32, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

There is a link providing just one of those grounds you are asking for "independent reports of WIF conferences" unless we are now stating "World Federation of Engineering Organizations" is also part of the hoax. --NuclearUmpf 16:36, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

No, the WFEO's activities appear to be completely real and verifiable. However, attending a WFEO conference is not the same thing as holding a WIF conference. -- The Anome 16:46, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

The actual quote from the webpage states that Dr Karle was speaking on behalf of WIF and was guest of honour and keynote speaker. That is a bit more than just attending the conference. Risker 16:50, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Indeed it is; I am perfectly willing to believe that Dr Karle might have accepted an invitation to talk on that basis. Perhaps someone should check with him for some more details of the WIF; as President, he must surely have attended many of their board meetings, and know the main players in the WIF, unless, of course, the position is purely honorary. -- The Anome 16:56, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Delete - it seems to be a mix between a hoax and a scam. --Charlesknight 16:56, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I got mixed up in all this mess when I responded to the good Doctor on the unblock-l mailing list, explaining to him that several users had protested his spamming on Wikipedia, and that he had been blocked for repeatedly having continued to spam. He immediately went on attack mode (in private emails, no longer on the mailing list), saying that I was blocking his legitimate right to discuss his charity with over 3000 members. When I finally got tired of repeating that he had not addressed the spamming, I stopped responding. At that point, he said that he was going to petition Jimbo. I at that point explained that he might want to address the users who had actually contacted and blocked him, not me, since I hadn't been involved until he posted to the mailing list. At that point, he accused me of "dishonesty" for not having told him from the very beginning that *I* hadn't been the one to block him. I didn't know that he didn't know who had blocked him, since it's pretty obvious in the block message who had done the blocking. He is now claiming that he is going to sue Wikipedia and post on his website how evil Wikipedia is, and will contact all of the other people we have wronged to get them to add such information. Since he's threatening lawsuits, he should not be unblocked. User:Zoe|(talk) 01:51, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, was he actually blocked at the time of this exchange? Anome has stated above that he was unblocked specifically so he could participate in the discussion, and his block log shows that he was not, indeed blocked at 01:51 on 21 September; Anome reblocked him six hours later. Please note that I absolutely agree with blocking anyone making legal threats. Risker 12:58, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I did rather enjoy pruning the article down to its verifiable core, perhaps some others would like to have at it as well.... Guy 12:33, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Request for a second opinion

I'm loath to bring the matter up, but I would like to know if I making too big a deal over nothing. As some may know, I lashed out in a rather unprofessional manner on this noticeboard several days ago. Since then, I've made what apologies I thought appropriate and actually interacted with CBDunkerson again, so I'd call that progress. My generally good feeling about the progress made came to halt this afternoon when it was drawn to my attention that Zer0faults (talk), with whom I've had little interaction (save commenting in the same thread), had created a page whose sole purpose appears to be to document the stronger two of the outbursts: [37]. I queried him about the overall purpose and intent of this page, but received no response: [38]. Taking matters into my own hands, I edited the page to add context: [39]. This change was reverted by Zer0faults later this evening: [40]. Noticing that he was active again, I immediately made a follow-up query on his talk page: [41]. I have yet to receive an answer to either question.

What I'd like to know is whether I'm taking this all too seriously. I'm not used to being on lists, or having a deliberate record of this kind made of my mistakes. Perhaps I'm just supposed to expect this as par for the course. I'm somewhat disturbed at what has to be a deliberate lack of communication on Zer0fault's page: he must have seen my first query on his talk page; he saw and reverted my edit to his sub-page. Am I wrong in asking for and expecting an explanation? Mackensen (talk) 03:30, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

The fact that his revert, with a curt edit summary, removed simply a reference to your apology suggests that he's determined, for whatever reason, to cast you in a bad light. He renders this goal somewhat absurd by his refusal to reply to your reasonable requests for elucidation, and by his removal of a clearly significant piece of information. The page has the look of the start of an arbcom evidence page, though I doubt he'll find much more material in your edit history, as I have always found you eminently reasonable. As he's ignored your comments, I'd suggest just deleting it. — Dan | talk 03:50, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Beat ya to it. Grandmasterka 03:54, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

It was the start of a RfC I will also note the deltion there I guess. Please do not delete subpages simply because your friends are on them. Thank you. --User:Zer0faults 10:13, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

The page was deleted not because someone's "friends were on them" but because it was an attack page, and when an explanation was asked for, you did not reply. Your accusatory comment here, impugning the motives of those who removed an attack page, is inappropriate. KillerChihuahua^?!? 10:28, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Where was the attack? Its his own difs. However I simply posted the dates on my talk page, better now its not an attack page, just a log of the incivility they displayed. If I ever find anyone preparing an RfC I will post on your talk page about so you can remove it. Also did you realize that some people work and there was 8 minute difference between when he asked and when he posted here ... This is why patience is a virtue. The deletion date will be recorded as well however. Thank you for your quick reply. --User:Zer0faults 10:31, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Also my apology Mackensen for offending you with your own comments. I am sure its quite embarrasing to have flown off the handle in such a manner, but the collection of evidence toward an RfC is not against any rules. --User:Zer0faults 10:33, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I had not seen the timestamp difference. You're right; however why the snotty tone with me? "If I ever find anyone preparing an RfC I will post on your talk page about so you can remove it. Also did you realize that some people work..." Why so hostile and argumentative? Try to be a little more civil, thanks. KillerChihuahua^?!? 10:36, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

And if you'd just told me that's what you were up to I'd left it alone and not bothered with any of this. Communication is a wonderful thing. Mackensen (talk) 10:39, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Sure, somewhere out there I'm sure most of us have half-completed RfCs against us, it's no big deal. I hope Pat won't mind me bringing up this relic of past disputes. But WP:OWN does also apply, and if one is not allowed to apologise and have one's apology recorded than it's not a terribly good reflection on the person compiling the case, I feel. Are we supposed to be plaster saints? Guy 11:00, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

If it's an RFC, then please label it as such. We all need to summarize in private before going through the rigors of an RFC or RFAR. If the page is properly labelled, it probably won't get deleted. I suggest (and it is with a heavy sigh) that Mackensen mirror the page and add context and follow-through in his own space. However, if there is no RFC in a month or so, Zer0faults should be aware that anything he's assembling will be stale and probably no use in an RFC. The longer it goes without an RFC, the more it becomes just an "enemies list." Geogre 10:42, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

If it's just an RfC on my own actions I'm not terribly worried; beyond these diffs I can't imagine there's much in my recent history (unless I'm really forgetting something horrible). If this is a broad RfC regarding various administrators over the last week my own sins are somewhat minor indeed. Mackensen (talk) 10:44, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Getting involved in edit disputes over someone assembling evidence against you strikes me as a poor strategy. Keep an eye on it, assemble your own devastating arguments, and if and when they use their material, you can be prepared to tell your side of the story in a calm and well-researched manner, rather than having to respond in haste. --Jumbo 22:42, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd hardly call it an edit dispute. Please read the full discussion. He never called it an evidence page and never responded to queries. I made one edit and got reverted; that brought me here. Mackensen (talk) 22:47, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Natalia Tena

Natalia Tena has several IPs repeatedly adding fan sites, in violation of Wikipedia:External links rule allowing one fansite per bio article. I guess I'm requesting a temporary block on the article. Desertsky85451 03:34, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Sprotected. Please use WP:RFPP or WP:AIV in the future. Naconkantari 03:40, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Will do. Desertsky85451 03:43, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

User:69.130.82.106 continues to vandalize Dog The Bounty Hunter adding links to websites selling t-shirts. He has been warned by 2 users on his talk page.

user posts racist comments

i have noticed the following anonymous user User:58.107.175.127 has made several racist contributions, such as comments on the Gilbert Gottfried talk page or the White Supremacy talk page. in fact, several of these comments are still there (nobody has reverted them). i find them incredibly inflammatory, but i leave action to someone who knows how to deal with the situation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=58.107.175.127

thank you.

Looks like the IP has a history of nonproductive edits to Wikipedia. I blocked it for a week. --HappyCamper 04:20, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, MONGO blocked it for a week already. Thanks for bringing it to our attention here. --HappyCamper 04:22, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Jomonkl (talk · contribs)

I'm finding that User talk:Jomonkl pops up a lot on recent changes patrol, and it looks like that Jomonkl and an anon (probably a significant other) are using it as if it were an IM window or e-mail. The page has been reverted several times by others, and I left a warning, telling them that this violates WP:USER, and they acknowledged it...before blanking my warning and continuing on. The user has made no contributions outside of his talk page, and there really isn't anything else I can do, so here I am. --Coredesat talk! 06:29, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Pinged them with an "absolute final warning" considering they'd already been warned. I encourage any admin to enforce a brief block if that user, or the IP (I left them a message too) breaches WP:NOT and WP:USER again after these final warnings. Cheers, Daniel.Bryant 07:22, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Removal of "outings" from the database history

The real Barbara Schwarz (talk · contribs) and AI (talk · contribs) are both banned users of Wikipedia. Both of them have attempted to reveal what they believe to be the private real life identities of pseudo-anonymous editors on Wikipedia. Now, during an ArbCom proceeding at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Vivaldi/Evidence, an editor, Arbustoo (talk · contribs), that has been in a disagreement with me for a while over other issues, is now putting out diffs to history where Schwarz and/or AI guessed at my real name and posted links to a defamation website, supposedly about me.

I would ask that the admins remove the history where people have guessed at my real name. I find it highly objectionable that an editor would bring out the specific accusations of my real name during a process in which he is trying to stifle my editing on Wikipedia. I believe his only motivation for doing so was to intimidate and harass me even further. I tried asking one admin, but was advised that his privileges did not extend far enough to handle this request.

In any case, the specific histories that should be removed are available here

As you can see the user was banned for creating an account that was meant to do nothing more than to harass me and to attempt to guess at my real name yet again as they have done in other forums. Can you please just remove all of [User:KJKruse|that users] contributions, talk page, user page, and protect them? It's pretty clear that the only reason they exist in the first place is to harass. Thanks for your time. Vivaldi (talk) 09:44, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Individual contributions are a lot of work, please cite individual diffs outside of their user and talk pages that you feel should be deleted (email me if you would rather keep them off this page). I have deleted the user and talk pages. Guy 11:54, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Alternatively (and possibly more appropriately), individual revisions which reveal personal information may be eligable for the oversight treatment. Please see that page and, when ready, visit WP:RFO to request it. Please do not post on WP:RFO. ~Kylu (u|t) 04:33, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Robbie Williams sprotect request

It's getting a real working over this morning from some anons. Might want to consider some level of protection. Cheers, Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 15:50, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Decided not to protect as the flood of vandalism has ceased. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:12, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

For future reference, please take such requests to WP:RfPP. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 20:43, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Voting is evil

There is presently a dispute over this page (and a few related ones) between a group of people who think voting is inappropriate on Wikipedia and, well, evil, and a group who believe voting is an essential part of our community and a prime way of gauging consensus.

Being part of the former group, I believe we should make very clear that voting is not a good way to resolve (most) things (e.g. AFD/RFA is not vote). A good way to do that seems to be to mark WP:VIE as {{guideline}} or even {{policy}} and possibly making it less tongue-in-cheek; in my experience novice editors are not generally swayed by pages not perceived as "official" (which is another can of worms, but anyway).

The "other" party appears to be pushing for votes on a variety of proposed guidelines, and seems to be under the impression that AFD is in fact a vote - but I may be misunderstanding them, of course. I'm mentioning this here because this seems the best way of reaching a group of experienced users familiar with "the wiki way". I would appreciate reactions on Wikipedia talk:Voting is evil. >Radiant< 16:29, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

At least rename it... calling concepts you don't like (and by extension, the people who support them) evil as a policy is horrible. Though personally I think voting scales a lot better than the vague concept of whoever wins the discussion is right, since that often just comes down to who has more political leverage and friends in high places. --W.marsh 17:46, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

The problem with converting Wikipedia:Voting is evil into a guideline is that this essay doesn't actually reflect consensus -- it promotes the fairly uncommon view that votes are almost always a bad idea in nearly every situation, and that the number of editors endorsing various views should almost never be a consideration in determining the existence of consensus. Actually, we have enacted policies as a result of votes -- see Wikipedia:Arbitration policy ratification vote and Wikipedia:Three revert rule enforcement. Requests for adminship may not be votes in a formal sense; however, the RFA page does state that

The numbers of people supporting, opposing, or expressing another opinion on a candidacy are a significant factor in determining consensus (few RFAs succeed with less than 75% support)...

XFD discussions are almost always votes in practice -- very rarely are pages deleted against the wishes of a majority of established editors who recommend keeping them. Instead of adopting blanket pronouncements like "voting is evil" as guidelines or policy, we should rely on the more nuanced, more balanced description of consensus in Wikipedia:Consensus to define consensus. One important consideration that is missing from Wikipedia:Consensus, however, is that to the extent that supermajority opinion is used as a measure of consensus, we are only concerned with the opinions of established editors -- considering comments by new and unregistered users in determining a supermajority would create an unacceptable risk of sockpuppetry. John254 18:19, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Discussion on this is kind of hopeless though... one camp has decided that the other's position is "evil"! Compromise seems unlikely when you have convinced yourself the other option is pure evil. Which is the whole problem. --W.marsh 18:32, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

• I agree that the name would be too tongue-in-cheek. Renaming the page to something like "No voting" would be a good idea. By the way it should be noted that John254's opposition to this page stems from the erroneous belief that it was used to delete the counter-vandalism unit, of which he is a member link. >Radiant< 18:57, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

The Counter-Vandalism Unit was deleted on the basis of a WP:VIE argument -- the closing administrator in Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit (second nomination) stated "This is not a vote. Arguments do count." and proceeded to speedily delete the page on the basis of arguments offered by an indefinitely banned vandal -- see Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Dr_Chatterjee. The fact that the speedy closure of the discussion was based on a misapplication of WP:IAR does not negate the importance of WP:VIE in the closing administrator's reasoning. If the outcome of the MFD discussion had been determined by quantifying the votes of established users, there wouldn't have been a snowball's chance in heck of having the Counter-Vandalism Unit deleted. The fact that we allowed an indefinitely banned vandal to nominate the Counter-Vandalism Unit for deletion in a deliberate attempt to disrupt Wikipedia by weakening its defenses against vandalism [42], and actually deleted the Counter-Vandalism Unit briefly as a result of an indefinitely banned vandal's trolling, seems to illustrate a major failure of WP:VIE. John254 19:26, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

• • I think you heavily overestimate the impact that that individual had. Read over the discussion ... there were lots of other, non-vandal, people who were for deletion, so it doesn't particularly matter that one of them was. And besides, giving that one person so much credit on 'almost destroying our ability to defend ourselves against vandalism by removing the CVU' is more glorification than anything else. --Cyde Weys 23:33, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
  • And if it had been a vote in favor of deleting the CVU page rather than evaluating the arguments for keeping it, you would undoubtedly now be clamoring against the use of straight votes. —Centrx→talk • 23:42, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I do not know if we'll be able to come to an agreement on whether decisions should be made, by voting, consensus, determining the best argument or any other method. The main problem with voting is that a position that is clearly wrong by those who are informed about the issue and/or wrong according to policy/guidelines can come out on top. Other problems are the use of sockpuppets, meatpuppets and vote stacking.

Consensus is no better, as we often do not come to consensus, so either nothing gets done or someone (or a couple of people) forces the issue without a consensus. Sometimes it does not matter much if anything gets decided, but sometimes it is an important issue that needs to be settled. I think the things that are the greatest causes of the failure to gain consensus are editors' perfectionism (they will not agree to a plan that is not perfect) and inability to compromise. Finally, there is the problem with determining a consensus, which in practice is usually voting with reasoning given, like AfD, RM, RfA and arbitrator elections. This gives consensus the same problems as voting. On talk pages, it is even worse. A few people have an argument, often not coming to a consensus despite claims to the contrary, and the policy, article or whatever gets changed on the basis of a few people who did not even agree on a course of action.

Determining the best argument is also problematic, as it is not always clear which one is the best and their are other factors that are important. A bigger problem is that the closer often has a bias, sometimes an extreme one. This is a big problem for all forms of decision making, but it is devastating when using the best argument method. Some admins have such strong feelings on how things should be, and inabilities to put them aside, that they should not be closing any discussions. Good admins go against consensus or act when there is no consensus when necessary, but these admins do it frequently. Also, they get into frequent, heated arguments on their talk page, the talk pages of other users, the Administrators Noticeboard and this page. Finally, you'll find uncivil remarks and sometimes even swearing in their comments and especially in their edit summaries. Unfortunately, some of the worst admins have been around for a long time, making the amount of damage they've done and the high-placed supporters they have greater. Perhaps RfA was less rigorous than in the last 18 months or so or they have gotten frustrated and/or crazy over the years, although some bad ones still slip through these days (many long-time admins are exemplary, too). Some new and old ones may have just behaved themselves until they became admins, as well.

My suggestion is to consider everything that you can. Use a poll with reasoning given for votes, check out the relevant policies and guidelines, read any discussions that have taken place, weigh the arguments on each side and do additional research if necessary. Then, put your own feelings aside and make the best decision that you can. -- Kjkolb 10:59, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Voting is evil is evil

• Support

1. 'Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 04:19, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose

1. Gives us more things to argue about and create monotonous multi-page threads all over the place rather than waste our precious flame-warring time on improving this thing by clearing backlogs and writing articles.--Konstable 13:59, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

• Voting is evil

1. Yes. Ral315 (talk) 23:28, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

• Sockpuppetry

1. Rawr u r sux kekeke Luigi30 (Taλk) 14:45, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Voting is evil is evil is evil

• Comments:
• What he said. Ral315 (talk) 23:28, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
• Don't vote on everything. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:27, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

• Undoubtedly. -- nae'blis 19:16, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism, page needs editing

Last paragraph of Lee Harrison needs removing, its abusive —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cleaningthispage (talk • contribs) .

Already taken care of. Syrthiss 17:15, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Persistent personal attacks and spamming - and now violating 3RR

Despite being asked to stop on both the telepathy talk page and his own talk page, editor THB continues to spam personal attacks against two editors he is edit warring with. This is the message he has already posted five or times within the past hour:

"I do not believe that the tone of the above comments is appropriate and, in my opinion,this demonstrates Askolnik's unfitness to take part in this discussion.-THB 15:42, 20 September 2006 (UTC)"

I've posted warnings asking him to stop both on the telepathy talk page[43] and THB's talk page[44]. Here are the diffs for the spam:

[45] [46] [47] [48] [49]

The last was posted after I had posted warnings on both the article talk page and his personal talk page. Askolnick 17:22, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Askolnik is harrassing not only me, but also Davkal, and admin assistance would be appreciated. -THB 18:02, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

THB, if you would like administrator assistance, you need to provide them with evidence of this alleged "harrassment." No administrator is either going to just take your word for it or read though hundreds of edits to see if there is any substance to your complaint. Askolnick 18:17, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

To whoever decided to look into this: please note that it appears that both of these users will need a talking to (again). --InShaneee 18:32, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

To whoever decided to look into this: please note that InShaneee is not a neutral party, and has had several conflicts with Askolnick. KarlBunker 18:52, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

O.K. InShaneee, I got it. You don't like me. You say I'm sarcastic and that I'm not polite. However, if you have a legitimate complaint, why not make it public rather than posting swipes and innuendos? Askolnick 16:27, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

In addition to the above disruptive conduct, THB has not violated WP:3RR, with five revisions to Natasha Demkina article in the past few hours. Askolnick 16:27, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Askolnik has violated the 3RR rule on that article, not me, and joins with KarlBunker in reverting that page to technically avoid the 3RR rule. This behavior should be adressed. Askolnik seems to think that every edit is a reversion. Please check the facts--Askolnik is going out of his way to push POV and to be disruptive of Wikipedia. Thanks. -THB 16:32, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Askolnik also removed a copy vio tag from Skeptic's Dictionary which clearly uses wording from the site itself without quotes or attribution. This is a clear violation of Wikipedia policy and should be addressed. -THB 16:38, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

The dif in question to the above is [50] I have to say though the link the copyright tag uses is not specific and I didnt notice a direct copyright violation in the article description to the websites "FAQ", "Introduction" or "What is" section. I believe the issue is specifically the stories being used, however we have to assertain who does own those stories. If they are ghost stories and wise tales from a time past then I do not believe they need to be attributed. If they are taken word for word but Sceptic Dictionary doesnt own it either, then the real owner needs to be found, or its copy right status obtained. --NuclearUmpf 17:07, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

User:THB has recently engaged in Wikistalking against Askolnick, as evidenced by his suddenly involving himself in a variety of articles that Askolnick has contributed to. See here, here, here, here, here, and just for good measure, he did it once with me: here. KarlBunker 19:17, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, KarlBunker and Askolnick have taken it upon themselves to revert any changes I have made in articles in trying to remove POV. They have worked in tandem to avoid the 3RR rule, which KarlBunker has violated multiple times. See Natasha Demkina for an example, which KarlBunker deliberately fails to mention. I have tried not to complain about it because the behaviour they exhibit speaks for itself, especially on the talk page for Telepathy which has been blocked for several days because of their disruptive behaviour. -THB 19:36, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks THB, I did forget to mention Natasha Demkina; that's another article where Askolnick has been a long-time contributor, and you, as of today, decided to start making edits too. That makes a total of 7 incidents of Wikistalking. KarlBunker 19:46, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Please review my block in this matter

I'm not the ideal admin to look into this, as I'm on friendly terms with Askolnick, but I took a look anyway, as it's been sitting here without admin attention for pretty long. I ask other admins to please review my actions. I agree with Askolnick and Karl Bunker that User:THB has been unwarrantably stalking and goading a fellow editor. (But he hasn't violated 3RR, not even close.) I consider this a fairly heinous offence, and have blocked for 48 hours. Please see my block message here for rationale. Bishonen | talk 22:07, 21 September 2006 (UTC).

I had been looking at this trying to sort it out. I think Bishonen's block is appropriate. Tom Harrison ^Talk 22:13, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Need Help

There are a few editors that are removing seepy tags on this article IFSZ. Can I get a SYSOP to inverine please. This article as been recreated twice and deleted twice. Æon ^{Insanity Now!}_EA! 17:25, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Article has been deleted never mind thanks! Æon ^{Insanity Now!}_EA! 17:44, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

That should sort it. -- Steel 17:44, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Steel Advertisments are annoying. Æon ^{Insanity Now!}_EA! 17:48, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

User:AlexWilkes

Hi, just wondering if anything could be done about User:AlexWilkes. He's continually ignored comments of other users, and refuses to engage in dialogue over his disruptive edits to Wikipedia, primarily adding excessive and non-encyclopedic headings to sections, and using emotive language in articles instead of writing from NPOV. He has been blocked before, and it doesn't seem to have done much to disuade him. Thanks. QmunkE 18:15, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Representatives of Thomas Kean Jr. pushing POV?

I spotted a series of blog posts about astroturfing on an unrelated site (here and here), which claim that the IP address 70.90.20.85 belonges to the Thomas Kean Jr. campaign. This IP has made anonymous edits to several pages connected to the Kean campaign, particularly Robert Menendez and New Jersey United States Senate election, 2006, and as such, probably bears monitoring. Just wanted people to be aware, in case it becomes an issue again in the future. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 18:25, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

• Bloomberg literally paid his "volunteers" to watch over his article during the mayorial election, though I doubt he was personally aware of it. Either way, there doesn't seem to be a policy against paying people to edit your article--152.163.100.65 18:42, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

But there is one against a single purpose POV pushing account...hence the request for it to be watched. --InShaneee 18:46, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

The Bloomberg Incident suggests that there isn't--152.163.100.65 18:51, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

And I'm 'suggesting' that any account that can't follow guidelines and policies will find themselves blocked, and that goes double for an account that's here to push an agenda. --InShaneee 19:17, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Paid editing is possibly a blockable offense per Jimbo precedent. See Wikipedia talk:Conflicts of interest and User talk:MyWikiBiz. WAS 4.250 20:53, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Block for review

I've just blocked Mykungfu (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) for 24 hours for continuing to place suspected sockpuppet notices on other users pages after I asked and then warned him to wait for RFCU to look into it at Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Ccson. I've informed the user on their talk page that I will release the block pending a promise to not replace those templates pending RFCU confirmation of sockpuppetry. For transparency, I have listed this block here and if another admin wishes to overturn it they are welcome to without checking with me first. FWIW, Mykungfu has an RFC currently pending against them at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/NinjaNubian. Syrthiss 20:16, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

User is an AOL user and is evading my block on their account to restore the notices here. I've protected the two userpages who have requested it. Syrthiss 20:19, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Another User:Pnatt sock

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

User is community-banned and creating socks to avoid the ban. The edit style, name choice, and so on are distinctual. Please indef this sock as well. Thanks. ju66l3r 20:47, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Hockeystick is taken care of. New sock, same story:

• Wpaddict (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) ju66l3r 22:04, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

blocked. Naconkantari 22:31, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

• Randomtoys (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - not as obvious at first, except for his desire to edit a protected article on Victoria in Australia (a Pnatt favorite) and then the reference in this edit summary saying "the wild card freak" (in reference to my catching him vandalizing Wild card (sports)). Please add to the growing pile of indef blocks for Pnatt socks. ju66l3r 02:43, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

• It's probably a good idea to go to WP:RFCU to get the underlying IP blocked. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:18, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

User:Lord Chess and personal attacks

User:Lord Chess, who was banned for harrasing me (see block log), and recently warned for personal attacks on me and User:Golbez, is now "warning" random users about me. Warnings of what, I do not know. However, I've had nothing other than continual harrasment by this user, on effectively no basis other than his own perception of me, and I'd like something to be done about it, if possible. There is also substanial evidence that he has a sock puppet army, which I can provide if required, although having done this at the complex abuse page seemingly acheived nothing. --Kiand 20:49, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Bizarre. Blocked. Guy 22:30, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. --Kiand 22:32, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Really strange contrib lists

Through my RC patrolling, I found these two user's contribs:

• Clinevol98 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
• BigT27 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

It appears that the primacy of their edits are to each other's user talk page. I can say that there are some problems in this. Clinevol98's last article edit was in August and BigT27 has only made one article space edit in September; and before that it was only in July. Ryūlóng 21:30, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

So what? 152.3.245.178 23:06, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I find it odd that one can have only 1000 edits, nearly 600 of which are solely user talk space edits (Clinevol98), while the other has nearly 900 user talk edits out of 2500, all of which are to each other. Ryūlóng 23:11, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I also find it odd that the above IP claims to be Cute 1 4 u, as stated on what will once be the user talk page. Ryūlóng 23:13, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Seriously creepy stuff. Makes me think of Markovian Parallax Denigrate and Numbers station. I can't believe the contents have anything to do with either wikipedia or their surface meaning. WAS 4.250 23:18, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Looks like they found each other after an editor noticed a good article on a subject he's interested in and contacted the other editor to congratulate. Is there anything weird about that? Of course, the ultimate goal of talk pages is to facilitate the building of the encyclopedia, but social interaction is part of that. --GunnarRene 23:32, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

But when the majority of each of their edits are merely social interractions? 571 user talk edits out of barely 1000 total edits is a bit out there. Ryūlóng 23:43, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Let's ban them. 152.3.65.172 01:14, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

In the past I have temp blocked and deleted the talk pages of a group of users who were doing a similar thing, however they had zero good edits. What should be done here is that the talk pages shoukd be nuked, and stern warnings left. If activities recommence, block accordingly. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 01:25, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

In fact, I'm doing that right now. If there are serious objections, drop me a note. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 01:27, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Done. Talk pages and the archives have been deleted for both users; warnings left, along with a policy explination. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 01:44, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

LactoseTI

Just looking for additional eyes here before I make a decision.

Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/LactoseTI

The result of the RFCU was "Likely", but I want to get a few more eyes looking over the vidence before I decide one way or the other on blocking both accounts. Please reply here with your comments. Thanks! •••日本穣^{? • Talk to Nihonjoe} 23:09, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but I note that there is only one time one of them has edited the other's talk page [51]. This might make it seem like sockpuppeting is going on and they neglected to realize that two independent editors who had this much similarity would talk to each other more often. On the other hand, that one dif shows that if they are socks they realized that at minimum in which case that would mean the user realized they would need to talk to each other but only did it with precisely one dif? This seems unlikely to me. Sorry I couldn't give anything more definite. JoshuaZ 03:37, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

You may also want to inquire with the checkuser person how likely he means by likely. They will sometimes give some rough estimate. JoshuaZ 03:38, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

World Champion(ship) (North American sports term)

• This article is continually recreated by a user who claims on his talk page that he'll keep recreating it because it deserves an article. My memory is fuzzy, but I seem to remember an article with this title being brought up on WP:AN/I before; something about this guy being a sockpuppet of a banned user. IMO, this should probably be dealt with swiftly. Danny Lilithborne 00:50, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Deleted and salted. User is a sockpuppet of banned user Pnatt. Naconkantari 00:55, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Prohibiting all references to hate-sites

Stormfront is an article about a neo-nazi hate iste. We have an admin who is enforcing a absolute ban on referencing the site in question. It's not a question of reliability, the text and the reference aren't themselves being disputed by anyone. Instead, the references are being commented out, so that Wikipedia doesn't inadvertantly promote the hate-site or increase its Google pagerank.

This troubles me for a couple of reasons. For one, it seems like we're only doing this because we on Wikipedia don't like the content of the speech that is contained on the hate cite. For two, it seems like this is a tad beyond the powers of an admin-- even if commenting out controversial references SHOULD be policy, as of now, it ISN'T policy. The admin doesn't cite any precedent for this sort of "accept the validity of the reference, but insisting on commenting it out" policy. In contrast, it seems to contradict the section of Reliable Sources which explicitly allows citing hate groups in some cases, and Wikipedia is not censored also seems to imply we shouldn't comment out citations, so long as we don't have any reliability or other concerns about the citation.

The discussions on-going about this [52] [53] tend to be generally disapproving of this policy, but since most of the commentors aren't admins, perhaps our opinions carry less weight. What do people think? Is it currently / should it be Wikipedia policy to accept hate site citations but comment them out? --Alecmconroy 04:09, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm confused. If the problem is pagerank inflation, why not just leave the URLs in the references as plain text? Opabinia regalis 04:33, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

An excellent question. But more than that-- since when do we care what effect our articles have on pageranks? Obviously, we should guard against the intentional manipulation of articles explicitly for the purpose of pagerank inflation, but we shouldn't prohibit references when they are valid. --Alecmconroy 05:23, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

• Let's keep this discussion in one place; [54] seems to be working fine. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 05:33, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Using my ISP address to do Vandalism

Hi, someone used my ISP address to do some vandalism to the "Forever 21" page -- which I had never visited until now to see why I was listed on there! What do I do???! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.175.80.54 (talk • contribs) 04:12, 20 September 2006.

Sign up for an account. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 04:20, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I just did! But how do I get those false comments off the "Forever 21" page?? (LD)

They're warnings for whoever uses your IP address. They're not on the page "Forever 21", they're on "User talk:216.175.80.54" which is a talk page - for communicating with users. Now that you've registered an account, you can safely ignore those comments - they're not associated with you anymore. james^(talk) 09:55, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi James (UTC), many thanks! (LD)

Two admins + two other editors vs.....me

Hi, I believe that I've been the victim of a Wikibullying (for lack of a better word). To make a long story short: Somehow, within the span of 10 minutes after I had posted a comment on user:Konstable's talk page and deleted his comments from my talk page, three separate users singled out my talk page (out of a few hundred thousand talk pages and 1.3 million articles on WP, somehow all three users just happened to hone in on mine), reverted my edits, and aggresively threatened to assess various penalties against me, barely explaining themselves, if at all.

For the long story (necessary to understand what I'm talking about), featuring the names of those involved, relevant links -- my AMA request for assistance talks about it in detail.

I wanted to bring the case to the attention of other Wiki admins, get their feedback on the matter, their opinions, etc. Tell me if I'm wrong, if the other people are wrong, if both of us are wrong, etc. J.R. Hercules 08:19, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Side note - previously brought up here. – Chacor 08:25, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I do not understand why people come here complaining about talk page removal. The person obviously got your message if they deleted it, especially since they replied, so what is their to complain about? The issue was the Lenin article, which they acknowledged that post, deleted it, and responded on the Lenin article over. To keep adding tags when the person has already removed one seems like unnecessary escalation of the issue. Adding tags so they get removed so more tags can be added really serves no point. --NuclearUmpf 08:42, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

People come here to complain about it because it is routinely used to harass them. There is a line in Wikipedia:Vandalism which says that users are not allowed to remove "valid warnings" from their talk pages. It was added without consensus about nine months ago, has been removed repeatedly ever since, but just as frequently restored. It's a wonderful practice ostensibly intended to make it easier to see past warnings (because page histories are just too darned tricky) whose sole actual purpose seems to be to facilitate harassment of users. In the above case, Konstable placed a message (regular discussion) on Hercules's talk page and Hercules removed it. Konstable then restored the message with a new one warning him that people aren't supposed to remove things from their talk page - which was of course not true, it is sometimes seen as incivil but not prohibitted. Hercules removed it again, Chacor restored and added a warning against removing warnings (which was also invalid since Hercules had done nothing against policy in the first place), Hercules removed again, Glen S restored again with another stern warning, Hercules complained, Konstable added a new warning against being incivil in complaining about their actions, et cetera. Blatant harassment and I'm gonna block the lot of them if they don't cut it out. That 'no removing warnings' concept is bad enough when it is applied 'correctly', but when it is used as a pretext to enforce false warnings it is atrocious and nothing short of deliberate harassment. --CBD 12:18, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Correction - The first reversion was Hello32020 restoring comments made by Konstable - rather than Konstable doing so himself as I originally thought. Apologies for the mixup, but... same problem. --CBD 12:56, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

This does not have to be deliberate harassment, could just be an overinterpretation of policy and a failure to assume good faith on all sides, including, suprisingly, you, CBD. The "don't remove warnings" makes perfect sense used against standard IP vandalism, but is stupid when used against good faith users where it only helps to inflame the situation. Kusma (討論) 12:30, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it is possible that this is just 'overinterpretation of policy'... but in application that is still harassment. And it gets used this way far more often than 'against standard IP vandalism' in my experience. IP vandals rarely bother to remove warnings... and when they do it is easily visible in the page history. This is a practice which routinely serves to aggravate contributors and provides no benefit except saving the need to click on 'page history' to see if an IP vandal has been warned before. --CBD 12:56, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Umm hello. I have never removed any content from Herucle's talk page. I have put a note asking him to respond to them rather than just remove them, but that was not even a "warning", they were my own words asking him for collaboration. Neither have I ever collaborated with the other people who are also "harrassing" him. Enough accusations? Let's look at the page history before throwing words? I think I assumed enough good faith when I tried to talk to him after he called a bunch of editors "idiots" and tagged their article {{NPOV}} without much decent explanation other than asking them to "ban Lenin fan editors". Eventually he participated in discussion on the page in question, to some extent, which is what I was asking for all along! I am not "out to get him". I don't know why the other editors/admins were reverting him, ask them, don't accuse me.--Konstable 12:59, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

See correction/apology from earlier above. I attributed the action to the wrong person. --CBD 13:09, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Just a note on what the last warning on his page was referring to - things like accusations of "us" targetting him, asking Chacor to "stop pretending to be an admin", accusing Hello32020 of VP abuse, more accusations of sock/meat puppetry and asking me not to edit "other peoples'" pages.--Konstable 13:14, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

The first and third are completely civil and accurate complaints about mis-treatment he had received, the second and fifth contain minor incivility in asking people to leave him alone, and the fourth is politely worded but assumes bad faith in suggesting that the reason for the sudden innundation of users to his page were some kind of puppetry. You'd have a better case for an incivility warning with some of his earlier statements and actions, but the multiple false warnings/threats he received were every bit as bad. --CBD 13:30, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I support blocking the harassing parties for 24 hours, doubling each time they repeat their actions. There is a centralized discussion on this matter. People should use common sense when multiple guidelines overlap. I haven't looked at the actions of J.R.Hercules yet, those are separate and may still need reviewing. Kim Bruning 15:27, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't consider warning someone over WP:OWN (in relation to WP:USER, and not in the article sense) harassment; has that changed? – Chacor 15:30, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Several people were engaged in an edit war with J.R. Hercules on his own talk page. In edit wars in user space, the user does own his page, and always gets the benefit of the doubt. Other parties get blocked for 24 hours. Kim Bruning 15:36, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

At best the issue here is overenforcement of policy. I see no reason to presume that anyone was intending to harasse anyone else and in any event blocks should be preventative not punitive. And no there is in no way shape or form any policy that edit warring on someone's own talk page somehow gives them a benefit of the doubt and somehow requires us to block the involved users. This has neither a policy nor a common sense basis. Everyone should just go back to editing. JoshuaZ 15:39, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Policy is no excuse. No one has successfully used the "befehl ist befehl" defence in the last 60 years or so.

If the rules contradict proper human decency, then human decency wins.

Of course, in this case the editors in question also simply violated our no edit warring policy. This was never repealed, though an additional electric fence has been added at WP:3RR. I don't know if 3 reverts have been reached yet, but it should still be quite alright to block people earlier, especially now they're aware of the fact.

So there you go, block them for either or both, I don't mind. Perhaps 48 hours is more appropriate, because they used "policy" as an excuse? Kim Bruning 15:53, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Kim a) as to your referrence to befehl ist befehl are you trying to be uncivil or are deliberately invoking Godwin's law and/or the Reductio ad Hitlerum fallacy? To be blunt, if I weren't an involved user I'd be considering blocking you for that completely inappropriate comment. We don't block people for trying to enforce policy- it doesn't accomplish anything. If soemeone committs genocide and claims they are following Wiki policy maybe then you might have a point. b) A handful of edits don't constitute an edit war and again it has stopped and blocks are better preventative than punitive. c) So now you are advocating increasing block time for people since they thought they can plausibly say they were following policy? This is the most inverted application of WP:AGF I have ever seen. JoshuaZ 16:05, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Errr, the gentleman with the funny moustache never actually tried that defence. He committed suicide, remember? (leaving you holding the godwin reference.)

The nuremburg defence is a particular defence that was at first attempted by both sides in the trials following the 2nd world war, and is still important today. Judges have consistently ruled that it's not a valid defence.

People in countries like Germany and Holland still occaisionally quote those decisions to people who have become blinded by bureaucracy.

What I'm trying to say is "I was just following policy" is never a valid defence for any action. This is one of my core beliefs, and I base it on the history of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Even so, that may well be moot. These users were not following guidelines at all. They were edit warring, after all. I'm pretty sure there are no current guidelines that permit edit warring. If the edit war had been continuing at this time, I believe the users should have been blocked. Kim Bruning 16:23, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Godwin's law refers to references to Nazis in general and argumentum ad hitlerum is often used to have that more general meaning as well (Godwin's law is explicit in that regard, read the page). You are also confusing "I was just following orders" when that result has an immoral or radically harmful aftereffect with good faith editors causing a minor inconvenience. To even see them in the same category as all is simply ridiculous and offensive. JoshuaZ 20:48, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Please stop fanning the flames here. Blcoking is preventative, not punitive. Kusma (討論) 15:58, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Sure, but we can block next time, right? Kim Bruning 16:09, 21 September 2006 (UTC) that, and shhh, you're ruining the whole good_cop/bad_cop thing here. ;-)

User talk ≠ user page. No one owns one's own user talk, and saying "please don't edit other peoples talk pages" and "do not edit my page again" should not be accepted. JoshuaZ hit the nail on the head. – Chacor 15:40, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Agreeing also with Chacor here and Kim if you think people do own their talk pages I strongly suggest you review the associated policy pages. JoshuaZ 16:05, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

You own your user talk, it is a page in your own user space. You may even choose not to use it or to redirect it, though people might find you somewhat uncommunicative if you do.Kim Bruning 15:53, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

You do not own your user or user talk page, it is still freely editable (this is a wiki) and policy can be enforced there if people abuse the page (for example by using copyrighted images there in violation of WP:FU). Kusma (討論) 15:58, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Sure, if you look at it that way. But in general the pages are for use by the user. Kim Bruning 16:05, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

"look at it that way" in this context seems to mean "if you care about commonsense and/or policy" Kim, making comments on ANI where you don't know or don't care about the accepted practice and/or the relevant policies really isn't helpful. The signal to noise ratio here is already poor. JoshuaZ 16:09, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, this is a wiki... but if I tried to redesign your user page or even your user talk page the way >I< wanted it and kept reverting your attempts to restore it I would get blocked for harassment. That is 'common sense' and/or policy. It has always been that way. --CBD 16:19, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Do you dsee a distinction at all between redesigning someone's user page and leaving a message on the talk page just maybe? And note that in fact we willfully redesign problematic user pages all the time that are attack pages or have fair use images on them or a few different things. JoshuaZ 20:48, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I'll call. :-) Could you reference the pages in question? I do know I was recently looking in on the centralized discussion where this is being discussed, and I don't think final conclusions have been drawn on this issue. You now know my own position, in any case. If you like, I invite you to participate in that discussion and convince people of your own position. Kim Bruning 16:36, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

The relevant section on not owning user pages is Wikipedia:Talk#User_talk_pages (although now that I look at it again, it doesn't look as unambiguous as I remembered it). JoshuaZ 20:48, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Comment: J. R. Hercules expresses astonishment (and possibly suspicion and/or sarcasm) about three users who "singled out my talk page (out of a few hundred thousand talk pages and 1.3 million articles on WP, somehow all three users just happened to hone in on mine)" - This is actually quite usual and ordinary on Wikipedia. It is very likely the users in question had Konstable's talk page watchlisted. I have a couple hundred user talk pages watchlisted myself.

Puppy also concurs with JoshuaZ. This is a tempest in a teapot. KillerChihuahua^?!? 15:44, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

(multiple edit conflicts) So long as it stops I don't think anyone needs to get blocked. But we have to do something to prevent this from happening over and over again. There is a different case of the same thing further up the page here. Any practice which encourages users to engage in harassment and edit-warring just can't be a good thing. Even when used 'right'. In this case... Chacor, look at what you restored [55]. A week old request that the user respond, which they had actually done by then, and an incorrect warning that they aren't allowed to remove discussion from their page. What need was there for that? How does forcing the user to keep that stuff on his talk page do anything except annoy him? --CBD 15:48, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Comment. Then clarify the policy that it only applies to vandalism warnigns maybe? JoshuaZ 16:05, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Limiting it to vandalism warnings, if you could get the people who keep inserting it into WP:VAND to agree, would vastly reduce the frequency that this gets used to antagonize people, but there are still going to be tons of cases where people mis-label NPOV issues and other content disputes as 'vandalism' and then enforce display of those false warnings. Better to just remove the practice of encouraging edit-warring entirely. It's just a really bad idea. --CBD 16:19, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Awww, we get to block them next time though, right? Kim Bruning 16:00, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Heh. :] --CBD 16:19, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Comment: Thanks to all who've provided feedback here. I appreciate the time you've taken to review and discuss my request.

A couple things I'd like to clarify here. One, though I probably should have made my sarcasm more clear, I did not mean to imply that sockpuppets were actually being used. I did, however, intend to convey my impression that some "ganging-up" and singling-out against me was taking place. If I am wrong on that, I apologize. But it struck me as an odd coincidence that the reversions on my talk page happened one right-after-the other within the span of ten or so minutes...

Second, from my end, I've always thought that Wikipedia "warnings" were warning banners, and I'm confused (as I was during the time of the edit war) by Chacor's characterization of his and the other non-banner edits as "warnings". Konstable did eventually put an actual warning banner on my page (which I'd like to archive or delete, if permitted), but that was after the initial edit sparring.

Last, though I know that users don't really "own" their talk pages, I was under the impression there's an understanding among Wikipedians that editing user talk pages (excluding adding comments; I mean specifically moving things around, deleting things, etc.) was the province of the user in question, and not other editors (except in extreme cases). I had once edited an admin's talk page to separate from my comments those of an anon user who added comments right after mine; he added his comments in a way that made it appear that I had made those extra comments. The admin messaged me to say he didn't appreciate me editing his talk page, and that it was his place to edit his own talk page. Hence, the comments I placed on Chacor and Konstable's pages. (Incidentally, Chacor just happens to have a disclaimer on his own talk page stating his prerogative to delete unfriendly comments...)

Again, though, thanks for the feedback. Points taken and lesson learned from my end. J.R. Hercules 18:03, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Stop this discussion now

I will not participate in this discussion where two users have harrassed and threatened me over things I have never done! Forgive me if this font looks a bit over the top, but I have had enough of people not reading my comments and harrassing me with fabricated accusations of incivil behaviour, threats and edit wars on Hercules' page, and this is the only way I can think of to get everyone to actually look at what happened rather than read CPD's false accusations: I have NEVER reverted Hercules' page, not once, 0 revert rule; I have NEVER made any incivil comments against Hercules; I have NEVER told him he is not allowed to edit his talk page and remove content from it - I have informed him that it is "not courteous" (my exact words) to clear his talk page without responding, and asked him to participate in discussion rather than clear his talk page ("Please" is not the same as "you must or you will be blocked" nor is it the same as "this is against policy") and I never reverted him or even asked him to revert it. If someone disagrees with ANY of these, wants to throw accusations or threaten blocks: provide diffs, read and comment on them. Otherwise I consider these unfounded accusations to be harrassment. WP:AGF.--Konstable 20:32, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Um... you might consider the possibility that when people don't use your name... they maybe aren't talking about you. :] --CBD 20:49, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Asdf, yes, CBD is right. Sorry for that above post which is spurred by a 90% misunderstanding, I withdraw any comments regarding CBD harrassing me. With a huge load of work in real life which is only piling up and just 4 hours of sleep I am a bit stressed off-wiki (hence my supposed wiki-break). I had only skipped through the discussion this (GMT+12 for me) morning and saw a couple more accusations of me putting bad warnings on keeping content on his talk page, plus Kim there saying: "I support blocking the harassing parties for 24 hours" and some other uninformed and provocative comments such as: "Awww, we get to block them next time though, right?"--130.216.191.184 22:55, 21 September 2006 (UTC) (Konstable not signed in)

Is this vandalism or just bad judgement?

An anonIP, 59.95.105.68 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), has spent the last couple of hours writing plot summaries for various Bollywood films. This editor seems to speak English as a second language, and is oblivious of niceties such as punctuation and capitalization. He (or she) is replacing coherent grammatical synopses with misspelled garble. I've been trying to clean up after this editor, and leaving a series of increasingly desperate notes on his user page, which he doesn't seem to be reading. This is not obvious vandalism; it's clearly well-intentioned. What is to be done? Just keep following after him/her/it with a broom? Zora 09:34, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

• Unless they're copyright violations or bad machine translations, which are forbidden, I would say bad judgement. Keep cleaning and keep trying to talk to him. Make sure you are especially encouraging about their enthusiasm to contribute. They may be more open to criticism if you find more positive points about their contributions. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:07, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Let me add that you don't need to feel like you MUST clean up after them. Articles don't have to be perfect, and the onus certainly doesn't fall on you just because you know about it. Mangojuice^talk 13:55, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Criticism of the Bible

This is not obvious vandalism (by Kdbuffalo (talk · contribs)), so it may be 3RR-violation (by me, Pjacobi (talk · contribs)). Can just please someone have some looks on the situation? I've put up content RfCs for the content issues. --Pjacobi 10:56, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Kdbuffalo has been removing content from the article. The content that is contested could use a little work in a few areas, but it is not too biased or obviously nonsensical. The only significant problem I see is a lack of sources other than Bible verses. However, some things are just common sense or clear from the Bible passage and citing them would clog the article. For example, we do not need a source to tell us that California is part of the United States. However, only things that are universally believed, with the exception of crackpots, should be uncited. I think that people should stop reverting and take it to the talk page. Also, reliable sources should be found for the controversial stuff. -- Kjkolb 13:38, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

If the editors will not stop the revert war, you might ask for protection to freeze the page until the editors can resolve their differences on the Talk Page. --Richard 16:09, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Is User:Sound and Fury a sock of recently banned user User:Triumph's Hour?

I placed this on the 'Requests for Investigation' page, but it might be more appropriate here. Based on a common 'anon' account (67.42.218.153 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) and a review of this user's editing style and range of articles (and the use of classic literary references for both names (Shakespeare's 'Macbeth' and 'Agamemnon'), I believe Sound and Fury (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is a likely sock of the indef-banned user Triumph's Hour (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), who was indef banned for violations of WP:NPA in the midst of recent conflicts related to Encyclopedia Dramatica.

He/she has not responded to my direct question to that effect on his talk page since I notifiied him/her, and so I bring the issue here. Please see the contribs and the RfI entry for more info and feel free to move that information here if it is more appropriate. Thank you. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 12:25, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

My hunch-o-meter also strongly suggests that this this the same editor. Regardless, the IP edited Sound and Fury's userpage without being reverted[56] and gave Willy on Wheels a barnstar[57]. I strongly suspect that these editors are all one and the same. Checkuser?--MONGO 21:11, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd be glad to submit it for a CU, if it's not too peremptory of a step. I'm trying to err on the side of calm dispassion and avoid CLS (Chicken Little Syndrome) :) -- User:RyanFreisling @ 21:18, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I took care it it. Both Sound and Fury and Triumph's Hour both seem to like the edit summary "talkin'" as well.--MONGO 21:26, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

[58]--MONGO 21:27, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

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

Having just spent the better part of an hour cleaning up the mess made by this vandal claiming to be the original WOW, may I take this moment to renew the call that page moves become an admin-only action? This type of vandalism is incredibly time-consuming to revert, and page moves should rarely be done without a consensus anyway. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 14:15, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

No need to make page moves an admin only thing. Whoa, what an over-reaction! --Balmayres 15:33, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I do not find this an overreaction in any way; nor would you if you've ever been through the process of cleaning up the mess... RadioKirk (u|t|c) 16:56, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Balmayres identified himself as a sock of User:MilkMan -- a user banned indef for WOW like editing. I think the vandal was just taunting us. Geedubber 18:20, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, should've seen that one... ;) RadioKirk (u|t|c) 19:18, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I have to question why the vandal wasn't banned from the outset with edit summaries like "pagemove...". No need to over-react although putting article moves on permanent semiprotection might be an idea. – Chacor 15:42, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I think a software limitation on the number of pagemoves allowed per minute by non-admins and non-bots would be useful. --Cyde Weys 18:16, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd be a little worried about the effect on longstanding non-admins reverting page move vandalism. Semi-protection, however, IMHO, would be a great idea. Most new users have no idea that the move button even exists, let alone use for it. alphaChimp^(talk) 18:21, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

page moves are already covered by semi protection. Requests for the softwear to have a page move rate throtel were made a long time ago. nothing came of them.Geni 18:25, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

If so, it's ineffective. Does that protection work on sleepers? If not, a minimum-edit restriction needs to be established. :) RadioKirk (u|t|c) 19:16, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

List of tallest buildings and structures in Paris and other pages

There is an ongoing dispute about the definition of "Paris". One side says that "Paris" can only means the relatively small administratively-defined City of Paris embedded in the larger conurbation (so, for example, excluding the suburbs of Paris, including the central business district of La Défense); another says that the larger entity is called "Paris" in general English usage. This started as an edit/move war at the list, both before and after multiple votes on the talk page demonstrated that there was little consensus either way. There is now an ongoing Mediation case, but edit warring has broken out again on the list and related pages.

Yes, it is a content dispute, but a cursory look at the mediation page, or the talk page of the article, or the talk pages of any involved participants, will show that this is just not getting solved any time soon, and vitriolic accusations and counter-accusations are flying left and right.

Please would an uninvolved admin take a look. I am entirely fed up with this whole issue (and also too involved to take any administrative action). -- ALoan (Talk) 16:23, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

It's a Parisian issue. France has revolved around Paris for centuries, and there's a big social distinction between living inside the city limits and outside them. The city of Paris discourages building large skyscrapers, which would overwhelm the traditional architecture of the city. So they're being built outside the city limits, mostly at La Defense, which was established as a sort of "skyscraper zone". The resulting tall building boom at La Defense is gradually moving the center of business activity outside Paris proper. This has some Parisians very upset. Don't worry about it. --John Nagle 16:55, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

La Défense is the business district of Paris. I don't see how Parisians could be upset by having a world-class business district being built up in their very own urban area. It's like saying that Londoners are upset because businesses are moving to Canary Wharf. In case you don't know, residents of the City of Paris do not need a work visa to go work in La Défense or other suburban areas. In any case, the point raised by ALoan is that some editors (User:Grcampbell and User:ThePromenader) are bypassing the mediation going on at Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-09-10 List of Tallest buildings and structures in Paris and are editing the La Défense article as well as about 20 La Défense skyscrapers articles (such as Tour AXA, Tour EDF, Tour Total, and so on) despite lack of consensus on the mediation page. That's what should be stopped. The mediator (User:GofG) seems to be gone on vacation, so some other admins should step in. Hardouin 17:14, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

This is one of those disputes with the Fealress Crusader on one side and the rest of the world on the other. Promenader is asking for trouble, I'm afraid. The fact is that, pedantry aside, there is nothing wrong with the current title; the fact that one user obdurately refuses to accept this will never be solved by any process other than giving up or slapping him with a wet trout, I fear. Guy 17:39, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi. Guy, I left a message on your talk page about this.

There's actually four of us trying to make two Wikipedians see reason/publish fact, and few of us are Parisian.

Hardouin's accusations are completely baseless - the pages he is complaining are not at all in any mediation. The situation is quite the opposite as painted by him, as his constant reverts are opposed by three editors.

The "in Paris" situation is actually very black and white and widely referenced, which of course makes the warring seem all the more ridiculous. Only one side of the argument has every been able to provide any reference in this, and overwhelmingly so. Isn't this supposed to be an encyclopaedia? Just because a very few publishing theory put up a huge fuss to protect it doesn't mean those interested in fact should just give up and leave. What would be wiki then?

If anyone wants to look further into this, please do, as our mediator seems to have gone AWOL. THEPROMENADER 19:17, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

When deciding on this issue, please be aware of WP:NOR, in particular this phrase: An edit counts as original research if it proposes ideas or arguments. That is, if it....(It) provides or presumes new definitions of pre-existing terms. Quite simply the boundaries of Paris are well known and published (no less than by the French government who you'd think know what they are talking about (at least I hope)) and User:Hardouin wants to invent new definitions. Also, there was some consensus about correctly referencing the towers correctly on individual pages, with people from both sides agreeing, the only one in disagreement out of >6 participating is again this user. He insists on listing the towers locations at the French equivalent of a PO Box number! For some reason, it seems to irk him that Paris has boundaries. What he fails to understand is that in France, when you exit a commune, you are no longer in that commune. --Bob 20:09, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Blanking talk pages

hi - is it ok for users to blank their talk pages? Illwauk did: [59]. Not a dog 16:36, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes it is, its preffered they archive it for ease of reading, but its not required. You can always find where they blanked it and just look at the dif to see how it was just before the blanking. A link is an example [60] though I believe you already know your way through difs by your own edit. --NuclearUmpf 16:58, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Single-Purpose User Malmedy Massacre/Bill O'Reilly

Contributions all in August 2006, all on either Bill O'Reilly or Malmedy massacre. See 74.106.228.253 (talk · contribs) Joe 16:38, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I dont really see anything wrong with some of the edits, though the insult in one edit was a BLP violation. Since the account was used in August and never again, I dont really see what the issue is. --NuclearUmpf 16:56, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

82.134.90.244 (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log) sneaking spam into articles

82.134.90.244 (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log) is inserting spam into all sort of articles, mostly media-related. [61] I'm in the middle of reverting, but the IP needs to be blocked. --Aaron 16:58, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Note: Also using 149.9.0.56 (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log). --Aaron 17:01, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

User:Leading Authorities

Leading Authorities (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) places links to a leadingauthorities website on a number of peoples bios. It seems that it is a "adding of links to own website". I reverted one, but don't have the time to untue the whole contribution. In fact consensus here might be to leave it as it is. Or not ... up to you. Agathoclea 17:24, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Administrative abuse by User:David.Monniaux

David sez: This user has been blocked from editing Wikipedia for violating Wikipedia's policies, most notably WP:NOT: Wikipedia user pages, signatures, etc. should not be used for advocacy. He then blocked User:Rookiee indefinitely and deleted, and then protected Rookiee's user- and talkpage. The "other policies" alluded to here were not mentioned anywhere, and the indefinite block apparently followed Rookiee readding of a link once. He was not warned following this.

David's allegation of "signature advocacy" apparently stems from the devious subliminal message Rookiee uses in his signature, and, ironically, David also had a links his homepage on his userpage. JayW 18:40, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Rookiee was warned in the strongest possible terms that an indefinite block was coming unless he ceased using his user page to promote pedophilia. Fred Bauder 18:47, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

You alone do not have the authority to make such a warning. JayW 19:42, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

?!? Not only does he have "the authority", it's part of every admin's job description to protect the project, which this clearly falls under. This is a particularly weird comment, given that Fred Bauder is a member of ArbCom. Jkelly 19:44, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

..here's a scenerio. I'm an admin. I go TheLand's userpage and discover s/he enjoys the violin. And as it happens, a violin raped my father last week. So I burst in hir talk page and declare - without any community discussion - that, should "TheLand" not censor her page immediantly to suit my delicate sensibilities, I'll single-handedly block her - without even asking others or a "warning" block - forever. Per WP:NOT of course, nothing to do with my personal prejudices... (I might even throw in a vague death threat, just for good measure.)

..and all this is despite the fact that hundreds of other people are also violating "NOT," yet they're still free to edit.

Within my rights? Y/N?

Of course, in the real world, violins are not blamed for everything imaginable, so this analogy might be just a little off.

"given that Fred Bauder is a member of ArbCom."

uh. It's unfortunate you don't know what the ArbCom is? JayW 20:25, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

My suspicion is that the above is an attempt to entertain yourself. If you're genuinely confused, you can find more information at Wikipedia:Administrators and Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee. Jkelly 21:23, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

"If you're genuinely confused, you can find more information at Wikipedia:Administrators and Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee." The point was that the ArbCom doesn't have shit to do with anything here and if you believe it does, you clearly don't know what it is. JayW 23:04, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

They would be the place for an indefinitely blocked user to appeal the block. Again, you can find out more information about how dispute resolution works at the above link. Jkelly 23:09, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Exactly: ergo, your point is ridiculous and Fred still doesn't have the right to bypass the wiki community. And you're yet to explained why a ban is more appropriate than a simple page protection. JayW 23:28, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Your attempt at an "analogy" goes far beyond reductio ad absurdum and simply into the realm of the bizarre. A violin does not advocate for, bluntly, the legalization of child molestation. FCYTravis 21:32, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I thought Rookiee was blocked on the basis of WP:NOT? JayW 23:04, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Yep. Good call. We are not a platform for the promotion of 'boylove'. The Land 19:49, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't give a fuck what you do to his userpage, but the indefinite block is disproportionate, unfair, and against our own blocking policy. There was basically zip for dispute resolution, here. JayW 20:25, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be under the misapprehension that lengthy dispute resolution is required when a user is blatantly violating Wikipedia policy, in a manner that endangers the project, and refuses to stop after repeated warnings. -- SCZenz 20:39, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

There was an extensive discussion between a number of people, including senior administrators, on his Talk page. That's all the dispute resolution needed. From the content of that conversation, the content of the deleted edits to his user page, and the nature of his blog I am clear that Fred and others acted correctly. Wikipedia is not a soapbox, and particularly not one for pedophiles. The Land 20:43, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

The action was necessary and proper to defend the integrity of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia. I wholeheartedly support it. FCYTravis 20:54, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

If you don't like Rookiee's userpage, blank and protect it. A block is not appropriate and not excusable. We have already concluded, after losing multiple editors, that paedophiles shouldn't be blocked for their orientation; wanna discuss it again? JayW 23:04, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

The real shocking thing here is not the block, but that he has been allowed to last this long as it is. He was indef blocked with his userpage deleted in March, and it was reversed. Whenever a disruptive user is saved by other admins, they almost always end up getting blocked again. We need to stop this. Disruptive users or those who pose a threat have no place here - to hell with "rehabilitation" and to hell with AGF. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 21:09, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Too many people fail to understand that WP:AGF does not require that we continue to assume good faith in the face of extensive evidence to the contrary. FCYTravis 21:16, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Not sure I 100% agree with you, good editors should be encouraged to work through problems and continue to be good editors (though often by the time it gets to a block, it's well beyond that). But yes WP:AGF is not "look the other way", and maybe we do need a WP:NOT a psychiatrist's couch, daycare centre, rehabilitation clinic etc. --pgk 21:40, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I find it... amusing that people who claim to support free speech quote the Gayssot Law, which basically bans speech that some people consider "hateful". Apart from that, feel free to send this to ArbCom, and please do not edit my user page. David.Monniaux 22:34, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

"I find it... amusing that people who claim to support free speech quote the Gayssot Law, which basically bans speech that some people consider "hateful". Ever bring a plastic knife to a gunfight before, David? JayW 23:04, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

You should consider attending to your own behaviour at this point. If your interest in Wikipedia is amusing yourself by making quips or scoring points on an internet forum, please find another venue. Jkelly 23:09, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

"making quips or scoring points on an internet forum" Your attack is irrelevant, seeing as the above post was simply a reply to David's implication. How the hell is that a "quip?" JayW 23:28, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

"Quip" would be overstating; "confused non sequitor" is more descriptive. --150.61.31.119 23:38, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I've blocked JayW for incivility and trolling. 24 hours. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 23:51, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Another Tonetare identity

Is it possible to shift up the temporary block on this IP to indefinite? It's just another IP associated with the banned User Tonetare/Taretone - a good list of his activities can be found [62] here when he was using a sock to carry off abuse. It's a static IP so the innocent should be unharmed. Otherwise as soon as the temporary ban is lifted he's be straight back to his ranting abusive ways. --Charlesknight 18:54, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

205.244.101.194

User:205.244.101.194 appears to be inserting random profanities into lots of different articles. arj 19:11, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Reverted; also, please use WP:AIV for reports like this one, thanks. :) RadioKirk (u|t|c) 19:22, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

212.199.22.131 and 212.199.22.208

This Goldenlines anon (apparently geolocated somewhere in Israel) dropped by my user talk page apparently to repeat his claim at Wikipedia:Help desk that he has inserted the word "p***s" in (apparently ) Hebrew into a "technical term" in an (un-named) article on philosophy which he boasts has gone unreverted for months. At least that is how I interpret this, since he has pointedly refused to name the article in question and now he explicitly refuses to revert this silly vandalism, saying that he wants to see how long it takes the WP community to find it! Sorry I can't tell you more, just thought you all should know. I've asked this anon (vandal?) not to return to my user talk pages and would appreciate some help if he should ignore this request.---CH 19:34, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

User:MaCaCa

MaCaCa (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is a sockpuppet of perma banned user Macaca (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Still doing the same junk trying to put "Macaca" in to George Allen's name. --StuffOfInterest 20:12, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Kt66 repeated copyright violation on Talk:Michael Roach

Kt66 (talk · contribs) insists on repeatedly posting copyrighted material from the subject's website on the talk page of Michael Roach (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). He seems to think that lack of a copyright notice permits him to do this. I have attempted to explain that this is not the case, but he will not listen. Ekajati 20:34, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I've provided Kt66 with links to the specific policy on copyrights, as well as a short summary. The user has answered back on my talk page that he/she will abide by policy. Please report again if this continues to be a problem. — ERcheck (talk) 21:35, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! He also seems to have a problem with understanding WP:LIVING and WP:3RR. I've been trying to remove poorly sourced negative info about living persons, but he keeps putting it back and has broken 3RR on three different articles. I have reported on WP:AN/3RR but am nervous about removing the negative information again. Could you take a look? He (or the other editors) have been sourcing personal Geocities sites, Google groups, and a partisan attack site as sources! Not good. Ekajati 21:51, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I've reiterated WP:Living, 3RR, and WP:Verify. It appears that the editor is will try to make a good faith effort to understand — though has mentioned taking a wikibreak. — ERcheck (talk) 22:48, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Please block user 209.158.111.131

User 209.158.111.131 has repeatedly posted non-sensical items to both Lou Costell and Bud Abbott over the past 2 days. Items posted include things like "I was here", "Jess Loves Dylan", "Rebecca was here", etc. There have been over 25+ accounts of vandalism by them in the past 48 hours. Please either block them or protect those 2 pages. Thanks! Donaldd23 22:04, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

The user was already blocked, but for future cases of clear vandalism, please use WP:AIV. Cowman109^Talk 22:06, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Privacy protection

Once more there is a dispute over proposed policy that I think would benefit from the vision of admins, especially as they're the ones who would be enforcing it. The issue is protecting children's privacy, and there are two drafts on the table.

The original draft is based on the U.S. COPPA law and makes it illegal for editors to state they're <13 years old under 13 to list personal details, and any information indicating such should be summarily removed, and editors who repeatedly state their young age should be blocked. Opponents claim that this does not actually protect children due to the arbitrary limit, is easily gamable by lying about your age, and has the side effect of blocking potentially good editors, and that legal issues should be deferred to the Board.

The newer draft is based on common sense and advises people not to post personal information because it may be abused, and recommends people to contact Oversight if they want information on themselves removed. Opponents claim that this wrongly puts the responsibility with young editors who should be held incapable of judging for themselves, it lacks "teeth" since it doesn't call for blocks, and has the side effect of subjecting Wikipedia to expensive lawsuits like the Xanga case.

Comments on Wikipedia talk:Protecting children's privacy please. Of course everyone agrees that people who post personal information on others should be banned, that's not the issue. Other than that, there appears to be some sort of vote going on between the two versions. So far, no attempt has been made to reconcile the two, but that may be an option. >Radiant< 22:34, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Radiant, you have been persistently misstating the proposal. The draft you point to does not prohibit users from stating they are under 13. It merely says that any user who chooses to do so, is prohibited from also posting personal information such as real name, phone number, home address. It is not about preventing children from being children, but merely about preventing them from being victimized in real life by people who might use personally identifying information from Wikipedia against them. An alternate version that would have prevented people from declaring they are under 13 has been discarded. Dragons flight 22:43, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

• Sorry, DF, I must have had the older version in mind, and I have amended my words above. >Radiant< 23:03, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Just to point out, the new draft was put in place in the middle of an attempt to clarify positions on the old draft. I will keep my opinions as to the ethics of that to myself. Captainktainer * Talk 22:39, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

• It's not really an attempt to clarify - the main proponent of the proposal made misleading and obfuscatory summaries of everybody else's opinion, then asked everyone to comment again, in effect leading to the same debate once more. >Radiant< 23:03, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

User:Rule by Secrecy = User:Thewolfstar

Look at the recent user contributions. I'd post a link, but I'm on the run. --AaronS 23:50, 21 September 2006 (UTC)