Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
This page is for urgent incidents or chronic, intractable behavioral problems. Before posting: Take a look at 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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Cleaning card

Someone want to take a look at this? Article started in 2009 and seems to have been a constant battleground between COI editors ever since. Currently fully protected in an effort to dissuade the latest incarnation of an editor who is on account #4 now (not to mention all the IPs) from warring with another SPA whose deleted contribs suggest he's involved with a competing technology. Given the complete lack of references at any point in the article's history, and its obvious use as a promotional tool by multiple parties, is it worth simply nuking it? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:45, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

This belongs at WP:AFD, not ANI. Nobody Ent 11:28, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

No, it doesn't (which is why your summary dismissal of it after eight minutes was grossly inappropriate). There is every chance that there is a notable subject in there, and deletion should be a last resort take only if we agree that the warring is completely intractable. It would be far better for a solution to be discussed which allows for the article to be developed without being constantly tugged around by SPIs. Input from the admin corps (and "experienced editors", if they're not too busy shutting threads) is welcome as to how to proceed. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:50, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Severe problems with how an article is written or it's editors is not a reason for deletion. The subject looks wp:notable and enclyclopedic to me. That article has such blatant simple (= easily remedied) problems (e.g. far reaching unsourced claims of primacy, superiority, noteworthiness, prominence for particular companies, individuals, approaches and methods) that I think that a few extra experienced sets of neutral eyes could get the article in a lot better shape. Also has declared (via user name) COI editors (which is better than stealth ones which are probably also present) which could use a little help/guidance on wp:coi. I'd be happy to help a bit. (am not an admin) North8000 (talk) 12:10, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

AFD isn't just for deletions, and there has been discussion about changing the name from "Deletions" to "Discussions" for year. Often, it is the most effective way to fix an article, as the bickering parties become inspired to cooperate once it's head is on the block. Not sure if this is at that point yet, but it isn't obvious that it meets criteria either. To me, AFD is at least a viable option here, since it has exactly zero sources and only spammy looking external links and a boatload of original research. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 14:27, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree that all of those things happen there; I've been involved in many of those decisions and subsequent reworks/rescues myself. And it would force it to pretty quickly get a few references. Then it could be nuked to the stub of what is covered by the references. But any wiki-experienced person would know that this article should not be actually deleted. North8000 (talk) 15:12, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Sometimes the easiest way to build something is to destroy the thing that is in its way. Takes all the arguing out of it. Forcing it to become a sourced stub and grow from there, regardless of how it is achieved, is likely the best solution. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 17:56, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

WP:TNT says it well. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:53, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I must say I agree with Dennis, although I've been occasionally abused at AfD for not fixing it myself. Sometimes, I come away a bit battered but the batterers do improve the article.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:23, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Either way I'd be happy to help. North8000 (talk) 09:40, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I would send it to AfD. While there are plenty of companies selling cleaning cards, neither Google Books nor Scholar turn up anything obviously usable as a reference. An AfD would help verify whether enough sources exist to start the article again from scratch. Feezo (send a signal | watch the sky) 18:36, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

About 3/4 of it is well written unsourced material. Maybe too well written. The other 1/4 is problematic in addition to being unsourced. It's a widely used product name and so would probably pass notability. No strong opinion on AFD. I nuked out the worst stuff. I'll watch the article but probably not this thread any longer. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:03, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

User:FerrerFour

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

---

I would like to make a formal complain against the user FerrerFour (talk · contribs) the user has been making continued personalised attacks on users whom they disagree with on the discussion page of the Controversies at the 2012 Summer Olympics. They have referred to myself as a liar in this comment [1] in this comment they specifically state I am the problem and that I am incompetent [2]. In this edit they are stating I have no understanding of things [3] In this edit they state "anyone with half a brain could see that" [4]. In this comment they state "I see no reason for anyone to be forced to listen to your continued insistence that black is white," [5]. Here they state "I do know what I'm talking about, whereas you pretty obviously don't." [6]. In this edit they attempt to defend their personalised comments [7]. In this edit they refer to other editors contributions as "More rubbish", "clearly nonsense" " there's people talking about policies that they know about, and then there's you" [8]. In this edit they state "I shouldn't trust your reading skills if I were you" [9]. in this edit they make numerous personalised uncivil comments [10]. In this comment they use phrases such as "Just get this through your thick head will you" and " I just think it's garbage, born out of your weird hatred of the press" [11].

Can some action please be taken against this user who is clearly making uncivil and personalised comments on other users which is getting disruptive and is getting highly offensive. Sport and politics (talk) 17:06, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

• This might have gone beyond WP:WQA based on the sheer quantity of uncivil commentary. They're simply wiping out formal warnings from their talkpage. I have given them a "welcomecivil"" template, as I note they had not been advised of Wikipedia's rules formally, although that excuses nothing. dangerouspanda 17:25, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Sounds like they need someone patient and understanding to bounce talk with back and forth for a day or two, to understand that this isn't a forum, and we discuss instead of debate. Sounds like a job for a Panda. (wink wink, nod nod, hint hint) I would rather see that attempted before we take any other action since this guy is really new. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 17:54, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
    • I stumbled across this yesterday after receiving a less than courteous reply from Sport and politics to a legitimate question, in which I was basically accused of soapboxing, and I'm afraid I was a little vexed at the time. It seems to me both FerrerFour and Sport and Politics appear to be embroiled in an argument that spreads across several threads on the page, and is gradually escalating, with FerrerFour clearly out of line with some of his comments. But I'm also concerned about Sport and politics, who appears to be throwing a lot of guidelines about, but not really understanding their true nature. I think they both need a bit of coaching. Paul MacDermott (talk) 18:12, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
• This does need nipping in the bud, but the controversies page is not exactly the most friendly page. Moreover it's not so much the personal attacks, but the oppositional attitude of which that is the symptom that creates the problem. Rich Farmbrough, 18:20, 9 August 2012 (UTC).
  

I stand by my comments. If Wikipedia cares more about the likes of Sports and Politics being offended by being told he is incompetent, rather than actually investigating whether he is indeed incompetent, then there's no hope for it as a serious project. As Paul points out, this guy is just throwing links out there all over the place on the talk page, as if he understands them, when he clearly doesn't. That's bad enough, but when you also consider he is also slashing and burning sections of the article based on this incompetence, someone has to put him through a rapid Wikipedia education programme. I'm doing my bit by giving him a bit of plain speaking wherever I see him talking nonsense, which is of course quite different from being out and out insulting or vulgar for no reason. FerrerFour (talk) 18:30, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

You could just use the word "incompetent" and stay away from some of the other stuff. "Incompetent" is not an insult, it's even a guideline around here (WP:COMPETENCE). The other stuff is not. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 18:35, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I should add here I did actually revert something he claimed to have archived because I couldn't find it there. That he didn't add it could have been a genuine error though. Paul MacDermott (talk) 18:36, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

That error has now been rectified I missed it off as it was the top discussion being archived when I transferred across. Sport and politics (talk) 20:32, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough, though to be honest there's no need to manually archive anything as MiszaBot is doing the job. Paul MacDermott (talk) 21:05, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Ah. I didn't realise that was occurring. Sport and politics (talk) 22:44, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

No, WP:COMPETENCE isn't a guideline and it is an insult. It even said so in the essay: "This essay is often criticized for being uncivil." FerrerFour: Someone may be incompetent, but telling them so isn't going to solve any problems. If it were acceptable to just write someone else off an incompetent, then every time any of us had a disagreement we'd just say the other is incompetent. Nothing would get solved. You need to back off the insults and focus on the content and use reliable sources to back up your position.--v/r - TP 20:20, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I've used reliable sources and I've discussed the content. Sports and politice rejects all of this, precisely because of his incompetence. If you don't believe me, how about you try having a logical discussion with him instead, see how far you get when it becomes clear that he has no clue about the links he keeps throwing out there. I hope you like banging your head against a desk. FerrerFour (talk) 21:16, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

User:FerrerFour appears to be new. (Although his claimed detailed knowledge of Wikipedia policies is somewhat of a surprise given that situation.) Almost all his edits have been on topics related to the London Olympic Games. He has very strong views on some of these matters. In addition, the article where the problems being discussed have occurred, Controversies at the 2012 Summer Olympics, is a very controversial article itself. In my humble opinion, it is currently an incredibly bloated platform for anyone with any complaint on the Games to broadcast their whining. User:FerrerFour disagrees, very rudely at times, with me and others. Where I'm going with this post is that, while User:FerrerFour's behaviour has been less than perfect, the nature of the article he is arguing over is part of the problem. If someone with appropriate authority could lay down some firmer rules for what that article should contain, and police it appropriately, a lot of this whole problem would disappear. HiLo48 (talk) 20:50, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I have strong views about people who say things like "it's an incredibly bloated platform for anyone with any complaint on the Games to broadcast their whining", when quite clearly, this is a total lie. This is the guy who called me a "games hater" and made all sorts of other bullshit accusations about my motives, for doing nothing more heinous than pointing out what is a bloody obvious fact - being sent home from an Olympic games is nearly always considered a controversy, as can be verified in the reliable sources. This is the guy who claims incidents like this get forgotten about in a few days, then goes silent when I show him a reliable source that proves the exact opposite. I think I've been quite restrained in the face of such deceitful and disgraceful behaviour quite frankly. FerrerFour (talk) 21:16, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I prefaced the words you quoted with "In my humble opinion..." That you chose to leave that out does your image no good at all. HiLo48 (talk) 23:25, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

His edits elsewhere (e.g., Talk:Great Britain at the 2012 Summer Olympics) haven't exactly been the most polite either. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 21:10, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Another excellent example of what people have to face in Wikipedia when others are minded to dispute things while not really knowing anything about policy - 12 days it took me, 12 whole days, for the user I was arguing with at that page, to come up with a source to back up his claims. And even then it didn't come from the place he'd been insisting it would be found. FerrerFour (talk) 21:16, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Wow, it took twelve whole days...there is no deadline, remember. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:52, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

And what exactly does WP:NODEADLINE have to do with the time it takes for one user to respond to a direct question from another? FerrerFour (talk) 23:18, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Seems like a case of the pot calling the kettle black. See Talk:Controversies_at_the_2012_Summer_Olympics#Percieved_elitism_section for Sports and politics

As for Ferrer, he does seem to know about guidelines et al pretty well for someone who is hardly a fortnight into the WP.

I would say Ferrer's responses here are not exactly helping him (reminds me of YRC's RfC ironically). Also see Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates#David_Rudisha, though not eactly wrong per se, its another sign of such incivility that needs to change. He starts off accusing instead of posting and then continues.

Also the content is not under discussion over here, its the WAY the discussion has been done.Lihaas (talk) 22:59, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I would like to point out that through the entire discussion linked above I have only commented on the content of the discussion and to claim otherwise is a misrepresentation of the comments I have made. In one place I refer to another editor making more implications of edit warring and explain the whole cycle of being bold then reverting and then discussing. If there is any comments of a person nature in the section on elitism please point them out to me and I shall explain them. Though my current reading of that section can find no comments of a personal nature by myself. Sport and politics (talk) 23:26, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

• FerrerFour, at Wikipedia, it takes more than "being right", you also have to get along. No one is asking to love everyone, but if you continue to be rude, you will it difficult to get others to be persuaded to your point of view, and you aren't going to have a very good time being here. As remarkable as your knowledge of Wikipedia is for such a new editor, you should also be familiar with the WP:Five pillars, the very foundation of Wikipedia, which uses a large chunk of this precious space to talk solely about civility. Wikipedia is a collaborative project, after all. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 23:07, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I stand by my comments. Here's another classic example of Sport and politic's total and utter incompetence. Earlier today, he removed this from the controversies article. He did this because it defames private schools, and is a BLP violation against the British competitors from private schools. [12] You simply cannot deal with this by simply talking about content or sources, it's a basic issue of competence. If nobody here is willing to speak out against this sort of outrageously incompetent act, and is more interested in bitching at me for telling him he has no idea what he's doing, then shame on all of you. FerrerFour (talk) 23:14, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

• You're right that his reasons were completely wrong (BLP violation? I think not) but ironically he was right to remove it; it's not a controversy about the games, just Moynihan making a political point knowing it'll be covered due to its association with them. Black Kite (talk) 23:27, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
  • That's irony? I don't think so. I think it's a case of looking the other way if the outcome of bad behaviour is something agreeable to you. Sort of like Russia ignoring the bloodbath in Syria if it means they can sell more helicopters. FerrerFour (talk) 23:51, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Please see the latest personal comments from FerrerFour [13]. It is clear the user is not understanding that it is not how to go about contributing on Wikipedia in a civil manner. Sport and politics (talk) 23:26, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

• Let me rephrase it then FerrerFour: It doesn't matter if you think you are right, being rude is unacceptable anyway. His conduct is a different issue. Right now, I'm talking about your conduct, the reason for this report, which has been rude. "You two are really full of it. " "You really are a very silly man. " "You can talk as much rubbish as you like..." "More rubbish." "it's actually a lie" and other rudeness. Your demeanor on that talk page shows you digging in there like you are here, and it is a WP:BATTLEfield mentality, which is incompatible with what we are here with. Stop it. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 23:28, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

• • What you're basically saying is you're more bothered about him being upset at being called incompetent, rather than his actual incompetence. Good to know. Brilliant to see just where your priorities lie. All I see here is a system designed to encourage incompetence. And as they say, stupid in, stupid out. FerrerFour (talk) 23:51, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
    • No, I'm concerned that you are rapidly working your way towards a block. Claiming incompetence without demonstrating clear and obvious proof in the form of diffs is insulting, and at this point, is bordering on a personal attack. You are trying to use your opinion as a justification for continued incivility and quazi-personal attacks, and you are about to run out of rope. If you can't admit your own methods are inappropriate and clearly against WP:CIVIL, then you have only proven Sport and politics right. I'm not inclined to be much more patient here. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 00:39, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
      • I have posted at least one bang to rights example in here, at 23:14. You made this accusation a full 85 minutes later. I stand by my comments, and I will not be lectured at by the likes of you about not backing up my claims, when it appears you are so lazy you cannot even see that post, even though it's barely a few centimetres above this one. Further evidence is on display at the controversy article talk page, the only skill required to assess whether I'm insane or not is a pair of eyes and an abiilty to read English. But I get the sense that it's a little bit of a stretch for you to go look, which rather ties into my theory that you're not interested in the least in assessing whether Sports and politics in incompetent, you're only interest is in nailing me for highlighting it. Rather than being concerned about me working my way to a block, your apparent aim seems to be to accelerate it, much like a corrupt cop accelerates a case by accidentally losing some of the evidence that doesn't quite fit with his theories about the suspect. You can call my claims opinion all you like, Sports and politics is busy ripping articles apart based on nothing but his opinions. I'm not getting any sense that one is considered more of an issue than the other by you, which is quite surprising given the primary purpose of this project. FerrerFour (talk) 00:57, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
        • You posted where he deleted a section, that is a content dispute, not CIR evidence. Looking at the talk page doesn't support your claims either. Claiming I haven't looked at the diffs or claiming my motives are impure isn't helping your case, nor is the examples you have given. They don't support WP:CIR claims of competency, so either find better diffs, or drop the claims. In other words, I've seen your evidence and disagree with your conclusions, so you need to stop with the rudeness and personal comments. It isn't an escalation, I'm simply trying to tell you that you are wrong here, and you can't seem to get that. I'm trying to do you a favor by telling you that you need to back off the aggression or else you will end up getting blocked. It is just factual, not personal. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 01:20, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
          • That's not quite right now is it? Let's tell the whole story shall we? I posted where he deleted a section because it, according to him, constituted defamation and a BLP violation. Now, let's examine that whole sequence, with respect to WP:CIR. From WP:CIR - "Factual incompetence The best good will is unavailing if basic understanding of the facts, their mainstream interpretation and the cultural context is lacking". Please explain to everyone here, under what cultural context or mainstream interpretation, was that section's content defamatory? You can look up defamation if it helps, or you could just consider the fact it was printed in about a million papers. How often do you dismiss that sort of basic factual error, as a mere element of a content dispute? How many times pray tell, are editors who do know what defamation is, are supposed to put up with the likes of Sport and politics ignoring them? To quote WP:CIR again - "Bias-based incompetence Some people's personal opinions are so strongly held that they get in the way of editing neutrally or collaboratively From his explanation for the removal, picking a random statement, "To single out individual competitors background which is something they have no control over is the same as singling out competitors race, gender, age...a non-story made up to sell newspapers" That statement is referencing the large number of news stories generated by a fact based comment from a high profile public servant which singled out nobody. How often do you overlook such obvious bias in the naive hope that the person has the ability to engage with people who don't share the same views? How often do you dismiss that sort of rhetoric as a healthy component of a run of the mill content dispute? Again, how many times are editors like myself supposed to put up with the pretence that people who hold such views, and still hold them even when they've been shown to be at the very least based on factual errors, is just a normal part of the to and fro of healthy Wikipedia discussion. I could go on, but I think I might be wasting my time if you missed even obvious examples like that. The guy is incompetent. You can either accept it, or deal with the conqeuences as the number of editors who encounter him reaches critical mass. Me, I don't much care. I don't think I'll be too motivated to contribute in future if this is the sort of environment that's considered normal. FerrerFour (talk) 01:44, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
            • Then you take it to WP:DRN, but you don't make personal comments. That is the point I'm trying to make. You seem to think it is ok to be rude since you think he is grossly wrong. You are mistaken. It is never ok to be rude like that. If you disagree with the content and can't hammer it out on the talk page, go to WP:DRN. Again, it isn't enough to be right, you also have to get along with others. You've been told this plenty of times. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 01:57, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
              • Why would I take an issue of competence to the DRN? How can an issue of competence not be an issue of behaviour? To illustrate how absurd this suggestion is, given the fact he claimed he removed that section as it was a BLP violation, then if I accepted your premise, I would actually have to take that 'content dispute' to the BLP noticeboard, not the DRN. Can you imagine the reaction if I sent that there? They would likely question my own competence, because there's no competent editor out there who would ever agree that that post violated BLP. Not even if applying the biggest dose of reasonable doubt you could imagine. I can accept misunderstandings and good faith errors, but it should be obvious to you by now, as it was to me long ago, that S&P still believes that was a BLP violation, inspite of being given multiple pointers to the contrary, because the underlying issue is his basic inability to understand Wikipedia. FerrerFour (talk) 02:47, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Here's a list so far of the policies Sports and politics has shown he has no grasp of, by either completely misusing them, or invoking them in circumnstances where no reasonable person would ever agree they applied:

• BLP
• NOTNEWS
• NOTE
• 30
• NOTFORUM
• RECENTISM
• NPOV
• NOR

Here's a sample of some the various actual arguments he's been making on the talk page that show that he has no grasp of the various wider issues that you need in order to have a sensible and productive discussion about current event type content and its eligibility under policies like NOT#NEWS or NPOV:

• Wikipedia using the same terminology as a newspaper is original research
• Newspaper articles are just one persons opinion
• This sort of coverage is "one newspaper"
• Not adding commentary in an article about how many newspapers didn't cover an issue, is "cherry picking" sources
• Something is not a controversy if only newspapers in one country call it one
• If newspapers have different accounts of an incident, then it's not a notable incident

I could go on and on, he is propogating this sort of nonsense in every section of that talk page for crying out loud. How much more evidence is needed that this guy is total and utter incompetent? He needs to be stopped, before he does some real damage to the reputation of Wikipedia. What is the point in creating all those policies and guidelines, if nobody is prepared to condemn the people who willfully ignore them, or stop the people who can't understand them? FerrerFour (talk) 23:40, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

All of the above is highly misrepresentative and is not what is at issue here, if at all. What is at issue here is the uncivil comments and general rude and abusive nature on Wikipeida that FerrerFour is exhibiting . An exampl eof the above being misrepresntative: the Kim Collins issue is about weather it a "controversy" and not about one newspaper. An editor said it was called a controversy in a newspaper and I responded by saying that was just one newspaper calling it a controversy, where as other sources were not calling it a controversy. It is not just this article or me this user is uncivil towards. The comments being made by FerrerFour are now starting to be highly disruptive as they are preventing genuine constructive discussion from occuring. Sport and politics (talk) 23:48, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Every single item on that list comes from things you said. I dare you to deny it. And here we have another example - you claiming that because some sources don't call that event a controversy, then it's not a controversy. What you somehow forgot to explain, is the nature of the coverage in all those sources, which is 100% a description of a controversial incident. Not one of them was denying it was a controversial issue, not one, yet you chose to interpret the absence of a single word in a rather more broad fashion, to make the outlandish claim that there is somehow dispute in reliable sources about whether this is or isn't a controversy. Somewhere in your mind, once you mix in links to OR and POV and NOT#NEWS, this comes out as justification to remove the material from the article. Now, having had time to observe your mind at work, I know that explaining this to you is a waste of time, you'll only repeat the claims again and again, as if that progresses anything. But what I'm hoping to do is illustrate just how pointless it is talking to you without addressing the core issue - your total incompetence. FerrerFour (talk) 00:02, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Lets just close this abject dramafest asap and get back what we can do best, editing. I dint want to suggest a block all around, but it seems the same thing recurs and the counterparties don get the issue. Perhaps a short block of 12-24 hrs should give thought enough to get away from the article AND realise what it takes to avoid another block. I know it seems punitive, but its also to avoid the disruption here and on the talk page. Sports and politics seems to be partaking in discussion, but he too sometimes indicates a modicum of OWNership. A trout perhaps?

Also Blackkite, the content is under discussion on the talk page, you are encoruaged and invited to contribute to that there.Lihaas (talk) 00:15, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

The above comments are further demonstrations of the highly personal nature and unwarranted comments being made by FerrerFour. There is no point engaging with FerrerFour by me due to the torrent of abuse that is hurled at me. Can some action please be taken against this user to prevent this user from further disrupting Wikipeida and to prevent them form continuing their unwarranted personal tirades. Sport and politics (talk) 00:10, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

The personal nature of the comments reflects the fact that the cause is a person. You are the cause of your own incompetence, not the article, not policies, not the weather, it's you. In that post I described in precise detail an example of your incompetence, and it is because you are incompetent that you have no answer to it except this whining about me. If you truly weren't incompetent, if you truly understood policies and how to make an argument with them, then you'd have been able to give a decent explanation for that sort of behaviour by now. You'd be able to outline the path of reasoning that leads us from the abscence of the word controversy from some sources, to you wanting to take the section out of the article. But you don't have this, do you? Just like you had no answer to why you threatened a user over making a FORUM post, when it wasn't one. Just like you seem to have not explained why you thought that the link I posted above was a BLP violation. Just like when you asked for a third opinion for a discussion that had already had five. Etc Etc Etc. FerrerFour (talk) 00:45, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

The above is just another example from FerrerFour as to the fact they are continuing with wholly inappropriate commenting. Sport and politics (talk) 00:51, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

^^^^Like I said, this guy is not able to defend his positions, which is something any competent editor would easily be able to do. It is not inappropriate to call an incompetent editor incompetent, in the same way that it's not inappropriate to call someone who is vandalising articles, a vandal. Although at least the damage caused by vandals is easy to fix. FerrerFour (talk) 01:02, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

FerrerFour Is no longer worth engaging with when all they do is make unwarranted uncivilised comments towards myself. Sport and politics (talk) 01:12, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

What a surprise, in your opinion, accusations of incompetence levelled against you are unwarranted. Well I never. Who would have thought it? Case closed everybody! Now, let's get down to the seirous issues - who do you suggest we contact about the very serious defamation that the BOA chief has committed on British athletes by highlighting the public school issue. Wait, no, first let's remove that talk page post about Murdoch, as it was a blatant violation of FORUM. No, I have a better idea, let's remove all the sections in the article where we cannot prove that every source uses the word "controversy". Hang on a minute, our first priority must be to scan the article for sections only sourced from papers from one country, as they will not be notable. Etc etc etc. 01:21, 10 August 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by FerrerFour (talk • contribs)

FerrerFour is still failing to see they are editing in a manner which is uncivil. Sport and politics (talk) 01:26, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Remind me again, S&P, am I allowed to remove your comment if I believe it defames me? Or does it fall under WP:FORUM? I am a living person, perhaps BLP applies? I don't know, we appear to be deadlocked. I know, let's seek a third opinion shall we? ........I am well aware that you find it uncomfortable to be labled incompetent, but when you keep dodging your opportunities to explain these multiple incidents that, to any ordinary reasonable person look pretty incompetentish, then I'm not the one whose failing at anything. FerrerFour (talk) 01:51, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Be careful with "defames me"; "defame" and its variants are potentially loaded words. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 05:25, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

It was a sarcastic reference to the fact that Sports and politics had already accused another editor (or the living person quoted in the section they added) of defamation. I had already linked to that in here, so I'm surprised you never saw it. Perhaps that might be a better place to direct your NLT concerns? FerrerFour (talk) 16:03, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

As an aside, the initator of the thread dosnt reccomend punishment because one issue is that clearly he was involved. Thats why theres the centralised noticeboard to elicit other opinion. It could turn into a BOOMERANG issueLihaas (talk) 00:20, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I am not recommending any action I am simply asking for some to be taken which is different. I asked for action to be taken when I opened the thread. I never suggested or recommended what action should be taken. It is for others to decide if they agree with my request for action to be taken and for others to decide on the action to be taken if they agree with my request for action to be taken. This talk is getting out of hand in my opinion. Sport and politics (talk) 00:34, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

It just doesn't stop the latest comments are nothing but a tirade of a personal nature. There is little (if any) content discussion which is not layered in being highly disruptive [14] Sport and politics (talk) 00:20, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• Is there a good reason why FerrerFour has been permitted to call another editor directly as "incompetent" and "an incompetent" at least a half-dozen times right here on ANI, and yet still no block? They clearly have no concern for the WP:5P, or others. dangerouspanda 08:34, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• My understanding is that blocks are there to prevent disruption and damage to the encyclopaedia, but I can't honestly say we're at that stage yet. The discussion on here has died down since last night (presumably everyone's got tired and gone to bed), so I don't see a need for immediate action. In any case, I'd expect a {{Uw-npa3}} to be issued first. Although his comments to the Controversies at the 2012 Summer Olympics AfD have been robust, by not !voting in the AfD they can be more or less ignored. If a topic ban passes, as suggested below, and FerrerFour decides to sound off again, he can't say he wasn't warned. --Ritchie333 (talk) 08:57, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

"I am a living person, perhaps BLP applies?" from FerrerFour above. What sort of argument is this? Either an incompetent one, or a trolling one. IMHO. Doc talk 09:06, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

It was a sarcastic reference to the fact that Sports and politics had already invoked BLP in a completely innappropriate manner as a justification for taking a section out of article. I had already linked to that in here, so I'm surprised you never saw it. Perhaps that might be a better place to direct your concerns about bad arguments? FerrerFour (talk) 16:03, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Topic ban/Mentorship proposal

After reading this discussion, it seems to me that the whole thing is being tossed around and around, with Sports & politics and FerretFour arguing with everyone without trying to reserve the issue. In trying to take a bold, decisive stab at resolving the issue, I propose a topic ban for both users: from the Olympic discussions and from each other in general. Mentorship would also be very helpful. I agree that both S&P and FF have taken some very nasty swipes at each other and other users. Personally, though I feel both users at fault, FerretFour has definitely been the more aggressive in his accusations of incompetence. Both of these editors need to cool down or this could escalate into blocks. Robby The Penguin (talk) (contribs) 02:01, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• Support As proposer. Robby The Penguin (talk) (contribs) 02:01, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I would like to point out that Ferrer four has not just been uncivil towards myself but has been toward other users and on other talk pages. Here are some more examples of FerrerFour being uncivil towards other editors on other talk pages. In this edit they state "As I suspected, the issue must be your comprehension of English" [15]. In this edit they assume bad faith and call a user a vandal by saying "we can only speculate on your motives for this vandalism" [16]. This edit sums up the attitude being exhibited by FerrerFour stating "I couldn't give a monkeys who would disagree with me" [17] On a user talk page ther directly call a user a "Liar" and state "The only way you could argue that's not the case, is if you didn't understand English, which may be the case"[18], This shows a pattern of uncivil editing by FerrerFour of multiple articles directed at different editors. Sport and politics (talk) 02:11, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Reading this contribution to a deletion discussion underlines that FerrerFour cannot resist another unwarranted snipe at myself and to ridicule the proposer. They state when referring to the proposer of the deletion " I think it needs to be a rule that anyone who comments on this article's merits, should at least know the subject matter it refers to. I only got as far as the first line, "This article is full of trivia, such as the security company not getting enough security guards", before I nearly fell off my seat laughing" those comments do nothing but attempt to ridicule the proposer. . Sport and politics (talk) 02:18, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

support for at least a while (olympics is over this weekend so topic ban is really futile) for mentorship. Perhaps limited to talk page not article space? See how that goes.Lihaas (talk) 03:40, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• Support for a short term period. I think all that's really happened here is that a few people have just got carried away and shot their mouths off a bit too much. I don't think blocks are a good idea as the problem seems to be limited to discussions, rather than clobbering content, though I noticed the key article in question, Controversies at the 2012 Summer Olympics has now been AfDed, so the whole discussion might be moot. I think the best way forward is for everyone involved to take a deep breath, go and look at something else for a week or two, and come back to this when the Olympics is over and the news reporting has died down a bit. One more thing I just want to mention to Sport and politics, since I don't think anyone else has done, is that you really don't do yourself any favours by continually saying "this is yet another example of why FerrerFour has been nasty to me". I think we all get the fact that the two of you don't get along, and he's been a bit uncivil, as has been well covered by Dennis earlier, but it's really not the end of the world, and all that repeating your grievances in this discussion again and again does is make him respond angrily. With a bit of foresight, you should have been able to see that coming. --Ritchie333 (talk) 08:15, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Please note the latest diffs are referring to other editors on other pages. Its not just me he acts like this to it appears it is multiple pages edited on and any user who says something they dislike. Sport and politics (talk) 09:50, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• Support Nobody Ent 09:29, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support While I've had to focus on the one FF because of the digging in, it is clear that both editors have issues. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 11:45, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Some of us don't have the time to post here as often as some. My earlier point re the nature of the article where this all started seems to have been ignored. It's an article based on a very crappy principle, with no meaningful definitions to work from. And, FerrerFour has abused the crap out of me on that Talk page. I gave up discussing because he was displaying no rational behaviour at all. It's not just a fight between two editors. And I still wonder who FerrerFour was in an earlier life. Far too much knowledge for a two week old editor. Are there experts here who can check for past identities? HiLo48 (talk) 11:40, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

The experts are at WP:SPI. But I disagree with the assessment -- Wikipedia's policies are written down (sort of) and FF's focus on the tree (essay) of competence while totally missing the forest of civility (pillar!) seems like a new editor error. Nobody Ent 11:56, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

This is not a new editor. At least not a two-week-old one. If it is, they learn policy "pointers" at an advanced and accelerated rate. Doc talk 12:03, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. Look at his first edit. Perfectly formatted references kind of make it obvious, not to mention the wikilinking. Hot Stop 13:02, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. In reviewing just this topic and some of FF's contributions elsewhere, FF's conduct is beyond the pale. Their comments are belittling, sarcastic, condescending, and arrogant. I, too, do not believe they are new to Wikipedia. Their conduct is classic willful "I know best" and deflection of the discussion from their inappropriate conduct to issues of everyone else's alleged incompetence. I would block FF for persistent non-collaboration and attacks unless they promise to (1) discuss article content appropriately and (2) accept mentoring. (As an aside, I note that FF has made 59 article edits and 100 other edits since arriving here.) I have no comment on Sport and Politics.--Bbb23 (talk) 12:27, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• Support, both mentoring and topic ban, the latter for perhaps a week or two until the Olympic coverage tails off. Then we could review the situation. Paul MacDermott (talk) 12:48, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. I'll follow suit with Bbb23. In addition, topic banning User:Sport and Politics seems grossly inappropriate. (Think about it. Facing a stream of insults at the article Talk, she comes to ANI to get support to bring a stop to it. And as a result of her coming here, you wanna ban her. Even though her behavior here at the ANI was faultless, and the behavior of User:FerrerFour was atrocious. And further ... had she *not* opened the ANI, she would not find herself the subject of a topic ban [unless due to a different, separate event]. Had she had a crystal ball, and known that by opening an ANI for support to stop the abuse, even though her behavior at the ANI was exemplary, that she'd be subject to a topic ban as a result, ... then perhaps she wouldn't have chosen to come here at all. [So, wouldn't it be more chivalrous to offer her now: "Look, go back to the article and suffer without support re whatever was going on there before, or, elect being topic-banned. Your choice."] The whole deal here is surreal and derailed of any rationality or fairness.) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 14:56, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I have to disagree with you there. Although FF has clearly been more blatantly uncivil, I can see evidence of ownership issues from S&P, for example here : "It does not belong on this discussion the above comments are the kinds of comments which are liable to be redacted and removed for being off topic." Also, you make a topic ban sound worse than it actually is - as stated above, I think it would be better for everyone to look at something else (why not review a good article?) for a few weeks, then come back to talking about controversies at the Olympics when it's all over, the tabloid reporting on it has died down, and everyone can look at it with a fresh pair of eyes. --Ritchie333 (talk) 15:19, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't see your example as an indication of ownership issues. Why do you think so?--Bbb23 (talk) 15:29, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

My interpretation of that is that S&P was telling someone else that discussion comments on a talk page were likely to be removed, which I can't see a justification for. --Ritchie333 (talk) 15:32, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

But that would be a misinterpretation of policy, not an ownership issue, no?--Bbb23 (talk) 16:08, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I can see that I have probably been a little wrong with my interpretations on the issue of it being a soapbox, but I am still learning what is what. Can I please ask how I am meant to stop a user hurling abuse at me if I am to be sanctioned by being banned as well. Can I please have some evidence displaying that I have acted in such a way which merits being sanctioned in the same way as FerreFour. I will happily look at the evidence if it is presented to me. I cannot see how I have been making continual personal attacks and disrupting Wikipedia in the same way FerreFour has. Bbb23 is right how can I reasonably stop abuse. I am not behaving out of line on this ANI and I have not focused on editors and only on content. I was commenting that the issue itself was not appropriate for the topic with regards to my misinterpretation of soapboxing. I was not stating the user was anything of anything. Can it please be explained what I am meant to do to stop abuse being hurled at me if I am to be blocked as well? Sport and politics (talk) 15:56, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

You weren't a "little wrong", you got it totally wrong. Three times you accused that user of having violated WP:FORUM, even though each time inbetween he told you that you were wrong, giving you every chance to realise why. Still you persisted. Even after I also told you it didn't violate WP:FORUM, you responded "Please make sure you know what your talking about" to me, and AGAIN repeated the claim that it was a violation. Only now, after a THIRD person has told you it wasn't a violation, does it seem to be permeating into your skull that maybe the issue is you after all, while making the absurd comment that you only got it a "little wrong". And I'm the one that people are trying to punish in here for highlighting this lack of competence? FerrerFour (talk) 16:14, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

The nature of the personal comments by FerrerFour are highly uncivil and need dealing with. I have not made any uncivil comments here, FerrerFour just rolls them out. This is highly disruptive and FerrerFour seems unable to see they are doing anything which is inappropriate. phrasing like " permeating into your skull" are highly confrontational and uncivil. How can I reasonably stop this level of abuse? Sport and politics (talk) 16:26, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't think anyone was seriously considering blocking you. A temporary topic ban is simply a formal request that you refrain from editing or discussing a specific area of Wikipedia for a short while. You'd still be free to edit other areas of the encyclopaedia. Click here to see more about what bans are. Having said all of that, admitting you might have gone a bit over the top as you've done is a good step towards avoiding a topic ban altogether. --Ritchie333 (talk) 16:39, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

User:Sports and politics & WP:CIR

Before the kangaroo court concludes, in the interests of history at the very least, I feel the need to illustrate in a separate section the precise type of editor you are trying to punish me for exposing.

• Would a competent editor call this content a BLP violation? [19]
• Would a competent editor, in a single post, make the following errors:
  • Claiming WP:NOTE applied to article paragraphs
  • Claiming that directly quoting a source is Original Research
  • Claim a 3 day old incident had no evidence of lasting notability (?) (as of today, 6 days later, the coverage continues)
• Would a competent editor have thought this talk page post was a violation of WP:NOTFORUM? [20]
• Would a competent editor be summarily redacting other users comments like this?
• Would a competent editor continue to comment in an archived section? [21][22]
• Would a competent editor have thought WP:3O was appropriate after 5 people have commented? [23]

I have restricted these examples to only those cases where the error can be seen in seconds by an actual competent editor. In most cases, even though he was made aware of his error, he has stood by these judgements, repeating the claims. Would a competent editor do that? If there is any will in here for people to investigate further beyond these simple examples, then if you read his various statements as a thread, while also looking at the content, then it becomes obvious he has similar issues with understanding policies like NPOV. And as can be seen, the incompetence ranges across all fields - content policy as well as talk page & discussion norms. This editor is a textbook case of an incompetent editor. It's appalling that nobody seems in the least bit concerned about that, and seems to only want to reward his incompetence by punishing the person who highlights it, i.e. me. FerrerFour (talk) 16:03, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Here's an analogy for you. An editor violates 3RR. He does 6 reverts, none of which is exempted, in the space of 4 hours. He's blocked for 24 hours. In appealing his block, he says, "But my edits were correct" (and they were, actually). The admin declines to unblock him.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:12, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

FF has persisted in their disruptive behavior despite a clear warning from TP. Would a member of the kangaroo court please show them to the door of Wikipedia? Nobody Ent 16:24, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• Yes. For 24 hours: thinking time. Drmies (talk) 16:29, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Extended and talk page access revoked for the continuing hearing problems. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 18:18, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
    • Well done, kangaroo. Drmies (talk) 19:07, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

An NPA? dear dear..Lihaas (talk) 00:23, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

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

User:Felipito1.966

Felipito1.966 (talk · contribs)

This user has been performing largely unconstructive edits throughout his edit history, mainly changing US spellings to British in defiance of WP:ENGVAR and adding Spanish diacritics to non-Spanish names (such as geographical and biological names in the Philippines). He would stop at nothing, even turning a working link into a red link (see this and this). His blatant defiance WP:MOS has been pointed out numerous times (see his talk page's history, especially his removal of comments) and he replies extremely rudely (including a very uncivil e-mail to me). With this long history I concluded that he was beyond final warning and nevertheless posted a Level 4 warning. Then today he did a similar edit again. He had been warned by so many editors, yet he called every recent poster of his talk page "dictators". His British English supremacism needs to be stopped. HkCaGu (talk) 01:14, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I checked his responses to Alphathon just now and they smack of arrogance. So what if you're an English teacher?--Eaglestorm (talk) 01:31, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Comment There's also a report been filed at WP:AIV. -- Dianna (talk) 02:28, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

1. One of the discussions should be closed (and a trout for that), 2. can you provide he diffs of all thats alleged? The one diff doesnt indicate wrongdoing.Lihaas (talk) 03:42, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

The AIV report has now been closed by another admin. -- Dianna (talk) 03:53, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

The vast majority of his edits are about changing ENGVAR spellings. Just look at his talk page's long history and compare indicated articles. He even changed others' spellings in talk pages! HkCaGu (talk) 04:35, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• Whilst I agree that the user was unnecessarily incivil in his conversation with Alphathon, this isn't as simple as that. Just looking down his contributions, a lot of his changing spelling from US to GB spelling is on UK or English related articles (i.e. Beeching cuts, English language in Europe, Robert Grabarz, G4S) which of course is correct per ENGVAR. There are a few that are debatable (Ruby Wax), a few that are clearly wrong (but mainly because they broke links rather than being wrong per MOS or ENGVAR) and a few that were just incorrect and should've been simply reverted. In this particular case, considering that HkCaGu issued a vandalism warning for this edit a WEEK after it was made - which is frankly ridiculous - I'm not entirely surprised he reacted poorly. You should've just reverted it and explained the problem that it broke a link. And I'm certainly very unimpressed with your bolded "If you do any further unnecessary WP:ENGVAR edits again, I will get you blocked" on his talkpage. Don't do that again. Black Kite (talk) 09:40, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
• I don't see any issue here beyond a bit of mild POV pushing. It's quite common for British people, particularly those who work in academia or schools, as this guy seems to be, to feel quite strongly about use of US versus British English, particularly if they're on a US hosted site. Frankly, it's exactly what I'd expect a new user with his background to do, but as long as he follows the manual of style, there's no issue. And I agree that threatening to block a user when you've got no real rationale to do so isn't particularly civil - watch out for the WP:BOOMERANG. --Ritchie333 (talk) 14:04, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
  • His attitude may have been ENGVAR, but the edits are more disruptive than POV pushing. The -ize/-ise issue is an internal UK issue which means it isn't that wrong even in UK English. I don't think he can be called a "new" user. He's been around for three years, and had accumulated numerous warnings, many of which he had removed. Me slapping a Level 4 isn't very rude. I have been much less active on Wikipedia in the past two months, and he doesn't edit a lot, and we don't cross paths too often, so I don't see why issuing warning after a week is anything wrong. The e-mail he wrote me was even more rude and racially charged, but I won't post it here. HkCaGu (talk) 20:22, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
• I think that the boomerang is a fish, this time. And I think that someone needs to bring this up in a much more polite way with the Felipito1.966. - Jorgath (talk) ^(contribs) 20:08, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Actually, no, what needs to happen is that Felipito1.966 needs to respond in a more polite and open way to the numerous warnings he's been given. WP:AGF doesn't mean that we assume that the editors who bring up problems are jerks for doing so. Beyond My Ken (talk) 11:46, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
    • Being a pedant is fine, but one needs to be correct often when pedanting around the project. One can't be a grammar nazi (note: hyperbole, figurative speech, etc!) and then make statements like "The (old French) gallon introduced into Britain, no longer has legal status and it is no longer possible to buy liquid quantities in that unit. Some people may use them in conversation but may no longer be used in commercial transactions." Then again, it's not vandalism to be wrong or irritating or I would have been indeffed ages ago. I propose that we move on, that we correct their corrections where necessary, that we take their pedantic grandstanding with a grain of salt--and that we not seek admin action against everything and everyone: one gets the feeling, doesn't one, that this appeared out of nowhere as if an editor had been waiting for the right moment to slap that template on that talk page. Let's celebrate our differences, y'all. What's the proper British equivalent of Kumbaya? Drmies (talk) 14:10, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Esoglou

Esoglou seems to be suffering from WP:IDHT, growing more divisive as the conversation progesses. Originally, his argument was that the Holy See did not have a coat of arms, even giving quite the lengthy discussion about it [24]. This was easily contradicted by the Vatican's own official website [25], which is titled "Coat of Arms of the Holy See and the State of Vatican City" (emphasis added) and goes on to show only one coat of arms. An editor, Enric Naval, provided a source in Italian which he could not read [26]. That source went on to describe the arms of the Holy See and even provided an image; Esoglou rejected this source completely, text and image, because the image was a line drawing. Embattled Grady appeared with several more sources and stated he agreed with me, saying "Therefore, I tend to agree with Bellae artes" [27]. But Esoglou ignored these further sources as if they didn't exist, or, worse yet, thought they aided his argument and even began stating that both editors were in agreement with him, saying "I wonder what Embattled Grady thinks of your way of getting out of the conclusion that Embattled Grady and I drew" (even though Embattled Grady already stated he was in agreement with me as earlier shown) and "the view also of Enric Naval" (when Enric Naval merely proposed someone read his Italian source he could not) [28]. Eventually, Esoglou admitted to the fact the Holy See has a coat of arms, [29], but now contends the Holy See's arms are the same as the papal keys and is bringing in sources describing the keys in the pope's coat of arms to extend this argument long past its closure. He went so far as to quote a partial sentence from abook describing the keys used to adorn papal coats of arms, then he went on to explain how this was actually meant to be described as the coat of arms of the Holy See and nowhow the Holy See's arms are technically not drawn with keys and tiara but the emblem of the Camerlingo [30].

All in all, he he is ignoring proper sources provided to him, even the Church's own website describing its on coat of arms, and then misrepresenting the other editor's view points, ignoring consensus and putting misconceptions, myths and what-I-would-dos into the article rather than facts. I would ask an admin step in review the sources (and feel free to ask any questions needed, since I know heraldry is not a common knowledge topic), and put an end to this argument so we can get back to correcting this article and expanding it. Bellae artes (talk) 12:27, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

What a series of misrepresentations! "Originally, his argument was that the Holy See did not have a coat of arms": it was the explicit statement of two independent secondary sources that led me to that opinion, which I later changed when editors (not Bellae artes) presented other sources that I consider more reliable. "This was easily contradicted by the Vatican's own official website": a reference to a press release in English (one that was inaccurate even in its description of the illustrated coat of arms as having the tiara placed above the shield, while the Italian text of the same release correctly says the tiara is above the keys within the shield), a subheading of which, "Coat of Arms of the Holy See and of the State of Vatican City", appears to say (but presenting this interpretation, as Bellae artes does, is a case of original synthesis) that the two entities have the same coat of arms, while on the contrary the Italian text on the same "Vatican's own official website" speaks only of a coat of arms of Vatican City State and only of an "emblem" of the Holy See, the clearly distinct emblem and the coat of arms being illustrated on both the Italian and the English pages; this Italian page of "the Vatican's own official website", quite as authoritative, to say the very least, as the English page, seemed to confirm the statement of the two independent secondary sources. When Enric Naval presented an Italian source "Esoglou rejected this source completely, text and image, because the image was a line drawing": I certainly did not; as soon as an image of a 15th-century "escutcheon of the Holy See" was identified in it, I accepted that, at least in that century, the Holy See did have a coat of arms and commented only that we lacked a statement about the present situation and an indication of the colour of the field in the 15th century. Embattled Grady then produced sources that indicated both that the Holy See has (now) a coat of arms and also information about the colour of the field in the past. According to Bellae artes, "Esoglou ignored these further sources as if they didn't exist". On the contrary, I immediately declared that contribution "quite convincing" and remarked that the information it provided indicated that the keys of the coat of arms of the Holy See are arranged not as in the coat of arms of Vatican City State but as Enric Naval had argued both on the Talk page and in the article itself (where Bellae artes promptly reverted his contribution); in that sense I remarked that, while Embattled Grady had rightly said he agreed with Bellae artes (on the present existence of a coat of arms of the Holy See and on the colour of the field even in the past), "it can be said that" Embattled Grade agreed rather with Enric Naval on the principal point of discussion: Is the coat of arms of the Holy See identical with that of Vatican City State? It is Bellae artes who is ignoring the contribution by Embattled Grady, by objecting that the "papal arms" mentioned in the book on heraldry from which Embattled Grady quoted are something different from the coat of arms of the Holy See. Esoglou, Bellae artes says, "is ignoring proper sources provided to him, even the Church's own website describing its on coat of arms". Bellae artes is presenting only one source and using synthesis to create from it support for his claim that the coat of arms of the Holy See and that of Vatican City State are identical, and it is Bellae artes who is refusing to change his conviction, as I have done, on the basis of the evidence presented by other editors. Esoglou (talk) 14:57, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Holy Wall of Text Batman. *snerk* How about both of you be brief in your points? Hasteur (talk) 15:56, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

The editor is ignoring sources that expressly state the Holy See has a coat of arms and what that coat of arms is, you can see the arms on the Holy See's own website here. Other sources have been provided, which can be found in the text above, the Wikipedia article Coat of arms of the Holy See and it's talk page. He has reluctantly given in to the notion of the See having arms, but now has continued to argue with a different baseless claim--that the colours in all of the sources are wrong--despite the official site of the Vatican, a Catholic encyclopedia, a book he himself used to verify the Holy See has a coat of arms, a book listed archived by the Italian government and other quotes from other editors, his argument that the colours are wrong is based upon half a sentence he quoted about papal emblems, unaware he is confusing two distinct (though in appearance very similiar) devices. Bellae artes (talk) 16:27, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

As requested by Hasteur, I'll be as brief as I can when responding to multiple false statements.

1. The only source (not "sources") that Bellae adduces in support of his claim that the Holy See and Vatican City State have the same coat of arms is an English version of a press release that Bellae interprets as supporting his claim, although the Italian version of the same release indicates the opposite.
2. I do not claim "that the colours in all the sources are wrong". On the contrary.
3. Several sources indicate that the two coats of arms are different: those mentioned in this edit and this.

Enough? Esoglou (talk) 20:25, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Comment - Based solely on reading what has been posted here, my impression is that perhaps the discussion could have been more civil but this appears to be a content dispute with no allegations of Wikipedia policy violation other than don't be a dick. There don't haven't seem to be any allegations of incivility, just Esoglou's typical picky attention to detail which is often annoying but also often correct. Esoglou can be a pain in the ass; focus on content not personalities. I would urge admins to refer the parties to the dispute resolution mechanisms and close this thread. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 19:43, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Verbally abusive, rule-violating new user

New user Lecale42 (talk · contribs) has used this edit summary: "why in flaming fuck do you need a citation for Dan Ackroyd's appearance. It is verifiable by watching the film cunt slobs)" here. He then estored a reverted edit without discussion by using an uncited OR here

He responded to those requesting citations by writing, "those who can be arsed doing more than just adding pointless citation requests to the article here, and he reverted an editor who signed that unsigned response by claiming he doesn't have to sign his talk-page comments, here (though WP:CITE says, in boldface, "Sign your posts."). All this is as recent as 22:50, 9 August 2012. He's belligerent, foul-mouthed, verbally abusing, refuses to follow Wikipedia policies and guidelines, and clearly doesn't belong here.--Tenebrae (talk) 13:34, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• Already being dicussed here. He's new, he doesn't seem to understand policies too much yet, hopefully a friendly talking to at WP:EA will get the message through. --Ritchie333 (talk) 13:46, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• The substance of Lecale's edits is being discussed at EA, not the incivility. I might add that despite several very experienced editors trying to help Lecale, xe doesn't seem to get it, at least not yet.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:08, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• Although his language isn't exactly polite, he does seem to be arguing (albeit badly) against policies rather than actually attacking anybody per se. --Ritchie333 (talk) 14:20, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• The "flaming fuck" is okay. Calling other editors "cunt slobs" is not.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:26, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• See, I think that should be "why the flaming fuck". I'd never heard "cunt slob" before--it's an odd compound noun and I wonder if this was thought through properly. Since I'm grammatically involved I'll leave further commentary to others. Drmies (talk) 20:26, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• Are you suggesting a grammar block? I are in trouble then. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 21:23, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
• Best I can tell from that edit-summary, "Cunt Slobs" is a documentary movie that has information about the works of Dan Ackroyd. DMacks (talk) 21:25, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Even if he were as polite as my grandmother, bringing up the Aykroyd appearance is undue weight. As IMDB shows, there were lots of cameo appearanes by various actors in that film. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:24, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like he's drunk as a skunk. "Cunt slob" is the kind of thing you hear out of the mouth of someone who has had a few too many. Viriditas (talk) 08:09, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Agreed with Viriditas. Arkon (talk) 08:14, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Canadian Bacon also seems to have an issue with signing their posts. Although signatures are not strictly required, I remember an editor was blocked for this. Blackmane (talk) 12:11, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

The precedent there was that you can be blocked for saying "I won't sign my posts and you can't make me, nyah nyah!" If Canadian Bacon is just serially forgetting to sign their posts, then we can just point them towards turning on autosign. - Jorgath (talk) ^(contribs) 13:52, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Personal info

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

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There may have been an attempt to add personal info to Wikipedia that may have been harmful to living persons.[redacted] It was deleted[redacted] but could an admin remove it completely from the history? --Bob K31416 (talk) 13:48, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Putting in the request for oversight (suppression). Matters like this should usually be escalated straight to WP:Requests for oversight, doubly as it can't be done by administrators. —C.Fred (talk) 13:52, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I have used revision deletion to hide the edit, but I agree that oversight is appropriate. -- Ed (Edgar181) 13:55, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Ed, thank you for warning the at-fault user. I was looking for a template but not finding one. —C.Fred (talk) 13:59, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

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

Shonda Rhimes

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

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Can I have a few other admins put this article on their watchlists? A cursory look at the page history should explain everything. Jauerback^dude?/_dude. 15:49, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Oh, crap. I agree. Way too much vandalism. TBrandley 15:51, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Just blocked the IP again over their personal attacks/declaration to continue edit warring. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:38, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, even though I've never edited the article outside of reverts (I don't even know who she is), I was beginning to feel involved. Jauerback^dude?/_dude. 17:52, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

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

Son of BOSS

Son of BOSS is in the news and needs help. Maybe protecting, maybe warning/blocking users. Jesanj (talk) 16:07, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

A block has been made on the most disruptive IP so problem solved for now. Jesanj (talk) 16:16, 10 August 2012 (UTC) That was an old block, not a current one on the IP. Jesanj (talk) 16:25, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

User:Pigsonthewing/Andy Mabbett and featured article of the day

User Pigsonthewing (Andy Mabbett) is a user who has made some valuable contributions. He is an expert on Pink Floyd and has established a local Wikipedia group. However he also been at the centre of a number of conflicts and has an extensive block history including an Arbcom ban of one year.

Recently he has been displaying some very pointy behaviour regarding featured articles of the day. On 19 July he inserted a table into the then FA of the day, reinserted accusing one of the main article creators of giving bogus reasons despite the source beign substandard for an FA and claimed that there were problems with WP:OWNership.

On 25 July, he inserted an infobox into the FA of the day. By the following week he was again making accusations of WP:OWN. There has been a long-running and boring dispute regarding the use of infoboxes in classical music articles. Andy's contribution to this dispute has led to some of his blocks. It was obvious that there could be no consensus reached to make such a change during the day that the article was FA of the day.

I think the attempt to start edit wars on FAs of the day can only have a negative impact. The author of the first featured article mentioned is no stranger to robust argumentation, but that is not the case for all content creators. Spoiling an editor's pleasure of being on the front page can easilly affect their willingness to work on another FA.

I think a topic ban from the FA of the day and any articles nominated or scheduled as FA of the day is appropriate. Perhaps also a topic ban from all classical-music related article would be useful. I shall post a notice of this thread on AM's talk page imminently.--Peter cohen (talk) 16:35, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Let me make sure I'm clear on this. Andy inserted an infobox that was clearly within policy so you brought him to ANI? If having someone's article improved "spoils their pleasure" that's their problem, not the problem of the person who inserted the content. Ryan Vesey 16:41, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

No I am sayign that an editor with an extensive history of disruptive editing and a block history to match is making WP:POINTy edits to the FAs of the day thus stirring things up when things should be kept as quiet as possible when somethign is FA of the day. There has been a long-standing agreement on infoboxes and classical music articles of which Andy is fully aware and he removed an instruction that explicitly said that no infobox should be inserted into the article.--Peter cohen (talk) 16:51, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)::Ryan, I see you are a member of WP:ER... I'm not sure if you fully understand the significance of your last post. Or, for that matter, of the "sniping" – to use Tim riley's exact word – that was going on in that discussion: including repeated idiolect digs from another editor at teh brilliant prose (Tim riley is surely among the best stylists and most capable copyeditors that Wikipedia has had). —MistyMORN 16:54, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Had. He retired today. Citing sniping. Very bad news for the project.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:11, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

That's a quote by me of myself from a post re Ian Fleming and it's referring to the whole focus of FA being intent on the original term for FAs and failing to deal appropriately with structural issues. I too am sad to see Tim withdraw his skills from the project and have said so. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 17:56, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

That's a quote by me of myself from a post ... Did I really read that right? —MistyMORN 18:06, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• I take this accuation of trolling by User:Br'er Rabbit to be a completely unprovoked personal attack. —MistyMORN 18:18, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

And this edit summary alluding to wankery the delights of self citation? isn't trolling? Or the badgering on my talk, yesterday? Br'er Rabbit (talk) 18:27, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

No, it was a serious comment. And yesterday I politely let you know that I'd started a serious thread on Jimbo's page about the principle, not the participants. Since then, you have regaled me with multiple edit summaries of goaway and Bzzzt (whatever that's supposed to mean). —MistyMORN 18:33, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Wrong answer, please try again. No good comes from starting threads on "principles" on teh Jimbo's talk. That's about inflaming disputes, as is this fucking page. This is all toxic snipping and drama-mongering. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 18:44, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I leave it to others to pursue this thread. I feel physically sick. —MistyMORN 18:51, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Tim's one of the few people who doesn't gush about my articles but gets into the bones of it and tells me what's wrong. This is very demotivating.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:59, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm on good terms with Tim; believe I'm one of those he was referring to with and have had stimulating email exchanges with two other contributors to the above. It's quite unseemly for others to seek to use this as a weapon, as is on display just above. That is the sort of snipping that Tim's distressed over. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 18:15, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Oh really? [31]. I don't think you have any right to put words or interpretations into Tim's mouth. —MistyMORN 18:44, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I will admit that I wasn't clear on this and have stricken my comment. Ryan Vesey 18:21, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I believe that WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT and a total disregard for WP:CONSENSUS is the problem here, and when it comes to coordinates, Andy has a bully approach - anyone who disagrees with his view that they should be displayed as full DMS coords and linked within prose or added into tables is accused of ownership issues. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Highways/Archive 4#RFC on coordinates in highway articles, Talk:Manchester Ship Canal, Talk:Ontario Highway 401#Coordinates and many more that I haven't witnessed or been involved in first-hand. It appears the insertion of infobox into TFAs is just another arm on the octopus. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 16:57, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Would a topic ban or weekly 1rr be appropriate from this in line with what I suggested re classical music articles?--Peter cohen (talk) 18:54, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Astute readers will note that one of the above refers to a case where Floydian added coordinates to an article to overcome an issue raised at its FAR, only to remove them as soon as it passed FA. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:44, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

As far as I can tell from Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pigsonthewing#Pigsonthewing placed on probation, Andy is still on indefinite probation even though no actions have been taken under it for some time.--Peter cohen (talk) 17:51, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Actually I have now found Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Pigsonthewing#Request for clarification: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pigsonthewing where this was confirmed earlier this year.--Peter cohen (talk) 18:48, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Furthermore, he was given a year ban in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pigsonthewing 2. --Rschen7754 18:10, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• As a general comment, I think a lot of Wikipedians don't realize how stressful "TFA day" can be for the people who have put a ton of work into the TFA article. It's not a bad idea to wait until the article's off the main page to propose potentially controversial changes. Mark Arsten (talk) 18:15, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

  This editor doesn't propose though. They just implement their controversial change (often having made a similarly controversial change recently), then argue vehemently against numerous editors that they were in the right to make the change, and accuse those numerous editors of OWNership issues or trying to enforce a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. Andy just determines what consensus is, and implements it matter-of-factly. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 18:24, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

  • That is exactly what I was thinking, Mark. The debate over info boxes is a valid debate, but it is a matter of timing. I have no idea why it couldn't wait, and allow the article, as it was approved, to be left more or less free of major changes while it is on the front page. That just seems a bit of courtesy and a way of gaining good faith from fellow editors. And I tend to be in favor of infoboxes in general, but not in favor of choosing the worst possible time to make a stand on them. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 18:27, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• Infoboxes are not mandatory, not required and generally all of this page-by-page debate is doing nothing more than stirring up a lot of trouble and pushing people away. To see this brought up at the Village Pump is absurd. Really. Truthkeeper (talk) 18:40, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• A simple topic ban from TFA for Pigsonthewing would appear to be the simple and easy solution here. It still leaves him 4,000,000+ articles to edit. Black Kite (talk) 19:14, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Or we could look at the ownership issues, or the inappropriate local consensus issues. TFAs get a lot of edits from a lot of regulars. There's talk of an RfC re infoboxes on my talk. That's a better option. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 19:19, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Fair point, but for the one day that the article is on the Main Page, we don't need those issues. Black Kite (talk) 19:26, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I still think that the ban should be from the moment an article is proposed for a particular day or scheduled for that day until it has either completed its time as TFA or been replaced in the schedule for the proposed day. Otherwise we'll have the disruption merely pushed forward.--Peter cohen (talk) 19:30, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

That's it's "disruptive" is not established. I have good faith that Andy believes what he is seeking is for the best of the project. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 19:37, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Editors are supposed to be bold and there is considerable support for the infoboxes (millions of them). Dunno about that table, though. This issue need a wider discussion (and a calm, reasoned one), not reflexive feeding of those churning up drama. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 19:35, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't buy it. Regardless of what the consensus is on infoboxes (or the other issues for that matter), making a WP:POINT on the article's one day on the front page is simply obvious attention-seeking. The wider discussion can take place when the article isn't the first thing that millions of people see when they log in. Especially when you're sourcing your POINTY edit to someone's TescoNet homepage. Black Kite (talk) 19:42, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Skipping right past that dead TescoNet hompage link, the infoboxes are quite arguably widely accepted improvements. I agree that these various infobox discussion are not productive. Part of the problem is that they're held on the home turf of the opponents of infoboxes. Everyone should mellow out and agree to a wide participation RfC. I will escort Andy there myself. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 19:59, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Except editors are not supposed to be bold when they know they don't have consensus to be so. He is clearly making a WP:POINT edit. Whether he thinks he is benefiting the project or not, when you don't have consensus or when something is controversial you stop and discuss first. -DJSasso (talk) 19:44, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

The infoboxes question is a red herring; he does this with coordinates too. --Rschen7754 19:49, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Of course, the issue regarding infoboxes and coordinates is one of ownership too, except its associated with a set of templates and not with articles.--Peter cohen (talk) 20:02, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I second Peter's comments. Eisfbnore ^{(下さいて話し)} 20:05, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

see: {{TFA-editnotice}}. "Constructive changes are welcome". {{ArticleHistory}} on talk for FAs says "if you can update or improve it, please do so". Br'er Rabbit (talk) 20:10, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• zOMG censorship. Although the whole thread is still probably going to be a train wreck, I think it took a *severe* turn for the worse starting here. I've simply removed comments from several editors, putting me in direct violation of numerous guidelines and policies I'm sure. If this pisses you off and you simply must restore them, please at least think of one single benefit to the encyclopedia for doing so. In the process I also removed a couple of harmless comments that no longer make sense once the silly ones are removed; no offense intended. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:11, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• There's no benefit to any of this, it was train wreck much before it got here, but suppressing comments without linking to them simply allows more comments like the one below to pile up. The best thing to do would be to archive the "discussion". Truthkeeper (talk) 21:19, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• But there's nothing wrong with the comment below; you may agree with it or disagree with it, but Disagreement is OK. I was just trying to nip in the bud the devolution into 100% snark, not stifle a discussion. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:25, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• The snark has been going since last November with no end in sight. Would you mind at least linking to bit you snipped? Thanks. Truthkeeper (talk) 21:33, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• But that would defeat the purpose of snipping it. I might as well hat it, then. The whole point is, I think those comments should just go down the memory hole. If snark has been going on since November, what possible benefit is there to restoring more here? However, I am not going to try to prevent anyone from linking, or restoring, or anything. Just be convinced you're improving the encyclopedia by doing so. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:38, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• Okay. This has value. The rest has none, but it is important to remember that editors write these pages and only so much snark can go so far. Unwatching here now. Truthkeeper (talk) 21:45, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• Andy's contribution to classical music discussion pages is to be welcomed, not supressed. The classical music wikiprojects are very insular, with their own special rules about infoboxes, and they need to encourage outside criticism. If we ban Andy from classical music discussions it would at least have the appearance of stifling good-faith criticism of the projects. On the broader issue of making stylistically-controversial changes to featured articles while they are on the main page, I have no opinion. ThemFromSpace 21:16, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• Pigsonthewing is a great editor, with good intentions, but he's terrible at explaining things once confusion or disagreement has arisen (eg, and more, unrelated to infoboxes).

However, This really isn't (or shouldn't be, despite the page it's in) about the particular tempest.

It's about writer's voice. It's about knowing-your-audience, and grokking the context and background and nuances of a dispute. It's about personality archetypes smashing into each other, and not seeing the fallout. It's about retirees arguing with youngsters arguing with 'foreigners' (humans with entirely different mental intonations and landscapes). It's about empathy and insight. The only thing we have to encourage/enforce empathy is wp:Civility (and an entire navbox full of bitter&hilarious essays). And nothing can 'enforce' insight. But we do, desperately, need better ways to communicate with editors who are completely missing a point in a dispute. Like some of the consistently sarcastic afd nominators. It's acidic, and exhausting to others, in a subtle but influential way. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:29, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• I support Peter cohen's original proposal, "topic ban from the FA of the day and any articles nominated or scheduled as FA of the day". The infobox question (despite the insistence of some here) IMO is still open, and so too is the issue of coordinates. I don't find the argument that uniformity and metadata should override the preferences and consensus of those actually building the articles particularly persuasive. Especially in the situations presented here, Andy seems to be deliberately sowing dissension in pursuit of his aims. I can imagine how demoralizing it must be for an editor who has sweated and slaved to get every detail right for FAC, it goes to the main page, then someone shows up simply because they feel the need to make a point. Yes, we are encouraged to be bold and try to improve articles. No, that is not the right place to do it. As a fallback to get consensus for a restriction, I'll also go for Black Kite's option, topic ban from TFA. Franamax (talk) 22:02, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• I oppose the original proposal because it's based on little substance and insufficient attempts to find common ground. If you want to ban folks who disagree with you, you need to be a lot more convincing. The core of the disagreement is Andy's belief that particular articles benefit from infoboxes versus Peter's assertion that Andy's view may be dismissed without consideration because a WikiProject has predetermined the rules for infoboxes for all of its articles. That brings us to the secondary complaint: that Andy has accused others of WP:OWN. The assumption there is that he is mistaken, but Peter's own second statement gives the game away. This statement, "he removed an instruction that explicitly said that no infobox should be inserted into the article", is the clearest exposition of OWN that could be made. Nobody has the authority to give instructions of that kind - just look at what OWN says on the issue: Some contributors feel possessive about material they have contributed to Wikipedia. A few editors will even defend such material against others. It is quite reasonable to take an interest in an article that you maintain—perhaps you are an expert or perhaps you just care about the topic. But if this watchfulness starts to become possessiveness, then you are overdoing it. - and that is policy. I recommend Peter takes the time to read through Wikipedia:Ownership of articles and and try to judge dispassionately if Andy actually has substance to his view. I'd particularly draw his attention to the section On revert, as it does have many echoes of the arguments I've observed here.

I'll make a counter-proposal: If anyone believes Andy is deliberately focussing on TFA to make a point, try going to his talk page and politely explaining your concern to him. Peter certainly doesn't seem to have engaged with Andy in that way within the last 1,000 edits to that talk page. If Andy doesn't discuss the concerns, then you'll have convinced me to change my position. --RexxS (talk) 23:42, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Look at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pigsonthewing 2/Evidence and you will see that people have been discussing Andy's WP:POINTy behaviour, his abuse of accusations of WP:OWNership and his edit warring over infoboxes for years. That Arbcom case resulted in the second of Andy's one year bans. It's not something that someone needs to go to raise on his page afresh. That's why Arbcom have left him on indefinite probation.--Peter cohen (talk) 01:12, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

I've looked at that five year old case, and I see no sign of you discussing anything there. If you find a problem with another editor's behaviour, yes, you had better go to their talk page and discuss it with them rationally. I find it repugnant that you seem to think that you can instigate an ANI case questioning an editor's behaviour without having made any effort whatsoever to discuss that behaviour in the proper place. --RexxS (talk) 13:10, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

• I support Peter's proposal that Andy stay away from FAs once its announced they will be on the main page, until they're no longer linked from the main page. That can be a stressful time for FA writers, and no one else should be choosing that time to make major changes. It's a question of respect, not OWN. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:02, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
• I oppose all of this. The proper outcome here is an RfC, as is being discussed on my talk. Frankly, the meta issue in play here isn't infoboxes or metadata (or coords), it's about the project having a coherency across topics. There are endless local prefs that groups assert over subsets of articles and little of it is helpful. Another desirable outcome would be to persuade Tim to return. Please. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 00:05, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
• This discussion is expanding very fast. It is impossible to read the whole discussion and understand where the problem is. Why the discussion whether to use a table or not was not discussed in the talk page of the article and the subject came to ANI? I am sure that the talk of TFA gets a lot of attention anyway. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:23, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

It is Andy's repeatedly showing up at TFAs to make a style change, then insisting he has a right to because of [BOLD] and [OWN] and sophistry in quoting from P'sNG's. The issue is not the underlying merits of each discussion on which exact way of (prettying up / meta-fying) articles. I can see both sides of tables and boxes, but that doesn't matter. This is about gate-crashing done systematically, why in particular is WP:TFA being targeted? Hence the very simple suggestion of a topic ban, which does not prevent any of the underlying content discussions from proceeding. Franamax (talk) 00:45, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

gate-crashing: "the act of attending an invite-only event without invitation". That sounds a whole lot like an endorsement of WP:OWN. The whole world is invited to edit the TFAs. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 00:53, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

That is utter nonsense Br'er. It is obviously not constructive to show up and demand style changes after and article has been through a review process with involvement by multiple editors. You can assume that there is a solid consensus for any style issues in an FA and the only way that should be change is by trying amicably to form a new consensus on the talkpage - not by trying to strongarm your ideas into something that others have spent hundreds of hours working on. If Andy cannot understand such a basic example of collaboration he has no business editing here at all. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:05, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Adding and infobox is not a "style" change, it is a structural change and an addition of content. Style is italics; ephemeral stuff. The FA review process is *flawed*, it misses all kinds of stuff. I find problems in most articles appearing on the main page (most common is duplicate named refs). The whole process is focused on too narrow a criteria of our best. Andy is participating in a fair number of talk discussions about these issues; certainly far more than he is editing TFAs. ↓↓ FA "stewardship" can be a good thing (I've invoked it, at Brian's suggestion). I've not looked at just when that got added to OWN; it's a wiki, so someone drove a truck sized hole through OWN. Anyway, it's often abused. ↓↓↓ The FA regulars may have had a prior shot at most TFA, but most of the ones that go by are articles I've never heard of. I expect it's the same for Andy and most other regulars. TFA is often no party for the primary author. See the whole mess discussed on Wehwalt's talk re the immediately prior TFA Gregorian mission. No party for Ealdgyth: "My preference would be no more of the articles I've done the major share of the work on on the main page ... but I know that's just the TFA talking. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:48, 10 August 2012 (UTC)" Br'er Rabbit (talk) 03:23, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

I'd agree the review process is flawed, perhaps for different reasons. I would think that a great many of the huge blunders in FA-rated articles are picked up on their TFA day.

Take for example this correction on TFA day of a wildly erroneous statement in an FA promoted only just last year. The date that's more than a decade wrong was cited to a single foreign-language source when the article was promoted to FA, accepted without question by nominator, reviewers and promoter alike. It's also a key fact (perhaps the key fact) in the "Reaction and aftermath" section, establishing the significance of the entire case itself. One of the most important facts in the article.

Some might think the 1990s are a long time ago. Ten to fifteen years doesn't make much difference? To compare great things with small, what if an article about segregated education said that it was still legal in the USA in 1981? Would it matter?

Now why do I think that so many errors are picked up on TFA day? Well because the genuine errors that are picked up, like the one I just mentioned, stand a very good chance of getting reverted right back like this, and then again without even looking at the edit summary for the first change, by the owner of the article.

Most of those making the correction, be they registered, unregistered, administrators or something else, wouldn't be back to check after the first "cleanup" restore of the error. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 04:10, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

(ec) Br'er, that's the attitude that's causing writers to leave the project. OWN makes the point here that FA stewardship isn't considered OWNership in the negative sense, and that applies even more when it's on the main page. It's one thing for a new editor to turn up to fix punctuation, but an experienced editor making substantive changes to a TFA knows that it's likely to upset someone. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:06, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

What it actually says is "Featured articles ... are open for editing like any other... explaining civilly why sources and policies support a particular version of a featured article does not constitute ownership". It certainly does not say what others have claimed is the case, for the two articles in question, that (I paraphrase) "the editor who puts an article through FA review gets a veto over others' edits". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:26, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

I figured someone might question that aspect of my link, but it was the best I could come up with for my intended concept. Congrats Jack on ferreting out the worst possible interpretation. Yes of course the entire world is invited, early and always - but here you show the sophistry I mentioned above. For Wikipedians who are already here, you, me, Andy, Slim, Maunus, whoever - we ALREADY HAD our kick at the can. Every single one of us knows the score and we all know damn well that if there are issues, then we need to discuss them well in advance. It's quite disingenuous for you to resort to wide-eyed innocence, that edits can be made to TFA context-free as though we are all newborn. So formally: NO, not at all and no-one OWNs anything. But FFS, on the day the TFA appears, yeah this should be a party for the people who made it happen, and this should be an occasion for all the rest of us to celebrate the editors who go that far. Even if you think it's a flawed process, take that up elsewhere, TFA is special. And deity knows that I've taken mucho satisfaction in correcting featured content typogrammos myself. ;) But to start up a war over a style issue like an infobox or microformat? I'm not saying your ideas aren't important, but why are they so important within that context? Franamax (talk) 02:42, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

• I support peter's proposal of a TFA topic ban. --Guerillero | My Talk 01:22, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
• I'm inclined to support the topic ban, though I won't formally cast a vote that way simply because I've gone around with him more than once with the same problems. I can certainly relate to the frustrations, and if he is driving good editors away from the project, then I am finding it difficult to see why we should accept his continued presence here. Resolute 01:39, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support TFA topic ban. We are here for the encyclopedia, and that requires a collaborative community helping the content builders. Even if SOMEONE IS RIGHT, they need to avoid actions that drive away good content builders, and harassing good editors over technicalities like coordinates and infoboxes is the worst kind of disruption (obscenities, vandalism and POV warring are relatively easy to handle—it is the drip drip drip of relentless sniping that damages good editors). Johnuniq (talk) 03:33, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
• Johnuniq is right on one point: "harassing good editors over technicalities like coordinates and infoboxes is the worst kind of disruption". If those who have only a narrow view of the full range of skills needed to build this project can't (or won't) understand the importance of technical aspects, like accessibility, functionality and re-usability, they need to step out of the way of those good editors that do. --RexxS (talk) 12:56, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support Peter Cohen's proposal of a TFA topic ban. --JN466 13:54, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
• I also support a topic ban. There is a competence issue here: if Andy cannot edit without driving top editors off the project, he is per se incompetent to edit, and must be restricted from an area in which he is likely to offend such editors.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:03, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

"if Andy cannot edit without driving top editors off the project" Since I have driven no top editors off the project, your point is moot. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:21, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Ahem. --Eisfbnore ^{(下さいて話し)} 14:26, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

I stand by my statement. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:29, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

• Support topic ban The guy has already received two year-long blocks from ArbCom for this kind of behaviour. He's also apparently on indefinite probation. Maybe take this to Arbitration enforcement if necessary? --Folantin (talk) 15:21, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support topic ban as per the comments above. -- Cassianto^Talk 15:46, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support topic ban per Wehwalt. Eisfbnore ^{(下さいて話し)} 15:52, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Response

Sadly, several editors commenting above have chosen to take Peter Cohen's asertions at face value; so it's useful to analyse them:

On 19 July he inserted a table into the then FA of the day,

I replaced a table which had previously been in the article for many months four years, but which was removed for no apparent reason prior to the FA review, and misleadingly, as "ridiculously sourced".

reinserted accusing one of the main article creators of giving bogus reasons despite the source being substandard for an FA

the reason given for the subsequent removal of the table was "anyone who wants this table included needs to find a better source than Tesco". The source given was not Tesco (it was a dead link, which now redirects to Tesco, and an archive version of the original has since been found). Further that source is used (as attribution, not citation) for only one column of the table. If it was a bad source then that column could have been removed, or a better source requested; it did not require removal of the whole table, most of which comprises features cited elsewhere in the article and coordinates which do not require individual sourcing per a prior RfC. Finally, after discussion in the article's talk page, consensus appears to show that the table should indeed be in the article.

claimed that there were problems with WP:OWNership.

In the cited diff I did not claim there were "problems with ownership". I asked the editor who said: "Malleus and PoD were the main contributors who got this article up to FA and John and myself also made some contributions along the way. You have made one drive-by edit that changes the whole look of the article on the day it appears on the front page. As far as I'm concerned If Malleus doesn't want to see it there it shouldn't go in unless you can convince him and PoD otherwise" to "please read WP:OWN". The claim that I had only made "one drive by edit" to the article was false; I've made many eidts, adding content to the article.

again making accusations of WP:OWN

No; I said "We have a policy for this. Please see [{WP:OWN]]" in response to a reference to "consensus among those who work on articles in this category" (I removed the quote of "as the most frequent toiler in this particular vineyard", seen in the diff mischievously cited, within seconds, as I realised I had taken it out of context). The correct diff is this one.

attempt to start edit wars on FAs of the day

No evidence is offered to support this false accusation regarding my supposed intentions. I have calmly discussed and justified my edits on the talk pages of the articles concerned. in the case of the ship canal, I made one singe revert of the removal of encyclopedic content, which is not otherwise available in the article, for reasons explained above. In the case of Solti, I made no reverts.

things should be kept as quiet as possible when something is FA of the day

I'd be interested to see the policy which enshrines this dictum.

There has been a long-standing agreement on infoboxes and classical music articles of which Andy is fully aware

Bunkum. There is no such "agreement", other than among a limited and self-selecting subset of editors. I am though, aware of the wishes of that group of editors; but the RfC which they initiated found no such consensus, as its conclusion makes clear. I made this point to Peter on the Solti talk page, but he chooses to ignore it.

he removed an instruction that explicitly said that no infobox should be inserted into the article

Rexxs has addressed this point already. But really: an instruction!? Surely, it is the people who place such messages, or seek to enforce them, in contravention of their own RfC and wider policy, who should be facing sanction?

the issue regarding infoboxes and coordinates is one of ownership too

If this is intended to refer to me, then, again, no evidence is offered for this unwarranated slur.

Finally, for now, this page says at its head: "Before posting a grievance about a user here, please discuss the issue with them on their user talk page." Where did Peter do this?

I'm out of time now; I may comment further later. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:10, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Andy, I might agree with you conclusion about infoboxes, but I find your timing to be incredibly bad. That is my problem, that you couldn't wait until it came off the front page. You can quote all the policies and pillars you want, I'm relying solely on common sense here, which dictates that if it is controversial, just wait a couple of days and discuss it. It almost seems perfectly timed to create the maximum amount of drama, instead of being timed to create the maximum chance of your perspective being considered. As to policy regarding the day FA articles hit the page, no policy should be needed. Common courtesy and common sense should be sufficient, and that is what makes your timing look intentionally disruptive, and pushes the boundaries of good faith. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 14:10, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

There were over 50 edits to Gregorian mission during its time as yesterday's TFA. While a few were vandaism and reversions thereof, most were not. There is clearly no policy (explicit or de facto; "common sense" or not) against working to improve an artice while it is a TFA. Further, as already pointed out above, {{TFA-editnotice}} says "Constructive changes are welcome". {{ArticleHistory}}, on the talk page of FAs, says "if you can update or improve it, please do so". One or both of those also link to WP:BOLD. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:37, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Are we by that statement supposed to infer that ownership digs which eventually end with the departure of FA writers are "constructive changes"? Eisfbnore ^{(下さいて話し)} 14:44, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

quit trolling. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 15:07, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Are we supposed to infer that "FA writers" are somehow different from ordinary writers? I'm an "FA writer", but I don't demand special privileges as a result. If you want a policy saying that no established editor may edit TFA (other than vandalism reverts) go and propose it at WP:VP and see how far you get. --RexxS (talk) 15:16, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Andy, your motives on the day, I feel, were not to "improve" but to enforce your weird ideology that all articles should adopt your preferred format. An infobox, IMO is not an improvement. Also, your timing was completely inappropriate and may or may not have been a primary factor in WP loosing one of its greatest ever contributors. -- Cassianto^Talk 15:20, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

The answer to your first question is yes, and if you would have read this novel you would have known what happens when you sabotage the individuals who create something. I'm not sure whether the departure of Tim riley was the intended goal for Andy & Jack, but their subsequent unapologetic behaviour does indeed give me the impression that they thereby have gotten a feeling of mastery. Eisfbnore ^{(下さいて話し)} 15:42, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

your bad faith is appalling: diff of User talk:Tim riley. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 16:07, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

AGF doesn't mean to switch off your brain. That post of yours at his page was simply a politically correct message, so that you could continue in the same vein as before. Why didn't you simply apologise for your sniping at Talk:Georg Solti and Talk:Peter Sellers? Tim's last edit before the day of retirement was the addition of a comment to the former talk page; you ought to be somewhat more compunctious and not put the blame on MistyMorn. Eisfbnore ^{(下さいて話し)} 16:24, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Because it's not sniping. You and MistyMorn are not acquitting yourselves well here. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 16:30, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Advice on a failed RTV

Please see [32]

Short summary:

• • I see a user page on my watchlist deleted as a G6, but mostly as enforcement of a RTV
  • I ask Magog about the deletion
  • After discussion Magog restores the user page, though it stays protected (totally ok with that)
  • I also notice that the contributions are missing
  • Neither Magog or I know the proper thing to do/request
  • I come here

My preferred outcome would be to either link the contributions with the failed RTV account, or to the current account.

Opinions? Arkon (talk) 01:04, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

• I wasn't necessarily thrilled with this whole vanish and start over thing, but this particular situation has really been talked to death about a dozen times, at ArbCom, at WP:BN, I'm sure at ANI... and I can't understand why we need to discuss it yet again. --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:42, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

• If you could link me to those that would be great. -Removed previous bad reading on my part- Arkon (talk) 01:51, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

  And by the way, this needn't be user specific. I tried to not mention names for that reason. In similar situations (SA), the contributions remain. Arkon (talk) 01:56, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

The initial account was re-named to User:Vanished user 03, and that is where you will find the contribs (October 2003 to August 2010). -- Dianna (talk) 03:06, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Yeah [33], I found that when I went looking for the SA situation. It's in one of my self reverted edits to this section actually. Arkon (talk) 03:08, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

This was just hatted. I reverted that. The rational given is that 'there is nothing to do'. I proposed 'something to do'. I'd appreciate comments. Arkon (talk) 08:01, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I did. So, what administrative action exactly do you want here? Regards, — Moe ε 08:17, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

It's in the original report, right above you.

I quote: "My preferred outcome would be to either link the contribs with the failed RTV account, or to the current account."

I (or any non-admin) can't do this. Arkon (talk) 08:25, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

If you're looking for prior conversation about Prioryman and his RTV, there are discusssions at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Archive 9#Official Comment requested and a couple threads at the top of Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Archive 10 from a year ago, along with other threads at different boards I haven't been able to find yet. Like I said, ArbCom is already fully aware of who Prioryman is (as well as several other parts of community). Again, what is it exactly you intend to accomplish by restarting this conversation? Why is it necessary to have a link between the two or have the contributions moved? Regards, — Moe ε 09:16, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Appreciate the links, I hadn't read any of that previously. Arbcom being aware or not aware isn't the issue. The issue at this point is the linking of the contributions. I see no discussion related to the issue in your links, but admit to not reading them fully at this time (will do tomorrow.) Just because the failed RTV has been discussed, doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to come to a consensus of what to do when RTV fails. The fail I've personally seen was SA, and contributions are fully available. Get back to you tomorrow on the details :) Arkon (talk) 09:27, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

In my view, several things need to be done to normalise the situation:

• User:ChrisO should be marked as indefinitely blocked, and redirect to User:Prioryman.
• The contributions history currently attributed to User:Vanished user 03 should be reattributed to User:ChrisO (or User:Prioryman, whichever he prefers).
• User:L'ecrivant should be marked as an indefinitely blocked sockpuppet of User:ChrisO.
• Prioryman should tell the community and/or the arbitration committee whether or not he authored the material contributed to Wikipedia by User:Helatrobus (which, in case anyone is wondering, was not an arbcom-approved sock). JN466 13:06, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
  • More or less, that seems to be consistent with WP:RTV and would make sense, and I would support that. Vanishing should never be maintained by Wikipedia unless it is maintained by the user. I have no problem with Prioryman being here, but clarity and honesty as to the past should be required, as I would expect it to be for any user that unvanished themselves. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 14:16, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Television series templates

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

---

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the templates for navigating television series should be solely text, right? I reverted edits on Template:Grey's Anatomy, Template:Private Practice, and Template:Awake (TV series) using the show's title image text in PNG and SVG as a template heading rather than text as not meeting our image guidelines under WP:NFCC#9, but was reverted by major editors to both TRLIJC19 (talk · contribs) and TBrandley (talk · contribs) (who has reverted and understood my concerns per the results of this discussion) because the logos are public domain. Even then, I argue they shouldn't be used because template navigation should be textual, not illustrative if not needed, so I need clarification on this issue if I cited inappropriately because I assumed logos meet NFCC. Thank you. Nate • (chatter) 03:10, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Template:24 also used the logo until TBrandley reverted. Also, the logo is in the public domain per not meeting the threshold of originality needed for copyright protection. TRLIJC19 (talk • contribs) 03:15, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

That's already noted above in the main lead. TBrandley 03:18, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't see it as a big deal, and will also be wondering. Doesn't meet NFCC, as it is not "non-free". Is there another policy/guideline that the images meet? Thanks, TBrandley 03:21, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Not everyone can see images (blind people, those on certain limited browsers.) Key navigation and browsing elements must be text-based. --MASEM (t) 04:12, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. TRLIJC19 (talk • contribs) 04:13, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

In the future I should cite WP:ACCESS for issues like this in hindsight. Thanks for the clarification on this issue; we had dealt with it a couple years back on some other templates and NFCC#9 was cited at that time, but those were on clearly NF images (show intertitles are PD in most cases outside of copyrighted image representations), and I think readability should be paramount over beauty. This can be closed then, thanks for the understanding, TBrandley and TRLIJC19. Nate • (chatter) 06:38, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

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

User:SHEKHAR GHANTALA

SHEKHAR GHANTALA (talk · contribs)

The user in the heading has repeatedly written unencyclopedic articles about himself which have been speedied twice and AFD'd once (by yours truly - well, the AfD). I was unsure If I should report in AIV, so I've come here. FloBo A boat that can float! (watch me float!) 15:58, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

You want someone blocked because they (poorly) wrote two autobiographies? It sure is not vandalism. I have left them a template that explains why autobios are bad. Nothing more to see, hopefully. dangerouspanda 16:18, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Partial unblock of Peter Damian

Over at Wikipediocracy the topic of the Core Contest has recently been raised (in a positive manner). User:Peter Damian, who has been banned on Wikipedia, but who is a specialist in the field of late 13th century philosophy indicated that he would be interested in massively improving the Duns Scotus article for the contest. Duns Scotus is one of the top three medieval Philosophers, along with Aquinas and Ockham so the article definitely falls within the purview of the Core Contest.

It is my understanding that Peter was originally blocked for some mutually problematic interactions with another particular, single, user. Notably, AFAIK there has never been any question as to the quality and integrity of his content related edits in the Philosophy area, and importantly for this request, the “other user” involved in past conflicts with Peter has never edited or shown an interest in that particular article.

Hence, I would like to propose that Peter Damian is provisionally unblocked for the sole purpose of improving the Duns Scotus article. Effectively Peter would be “topic banned from all of Wikipedia EXCEPT the Duns Scotus article and its talk page” (and also his own talk page, since I think he’s not blocked from that either). He would work on improving the Duns Scotus article, hopefully get it up to GA or FA status, and then submit it to Core for review. If he does edit anything but the Duns Scotus article and its talk page, his block can be reinstated.

If all goes well, this would be an opportunity for Peter to show that he is capable of non-controversial participation in Wikipedia and after the contest ends we could have another discussion about whether the ban could be relaxed further. VolunteerMarek 16:10, 11 August 2012 (UTC)