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Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
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Scribe711/Wired for Books

On January 27, 2009 Scribe711 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) added links to over 35 biography articles, mostly in their "External Links" sections. The links were to an external website, Wired for Books, consisting of audio interviews of important authors. One of those articles was Maya Angelou, one of my "pet projects" on Wikipedia. Several hours later, I reverted Scribe's edit, and put a warning on his talk page. Then administrator Anthony.bradbury (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) wrote a note on Scribe's talk page, explaining why his additions were spam. In spite of this, Scribe replaced the link, which I again reverted.

This began a discussion over the next several days between Scribe, Anthony.bradbury, and me. Instead of spending time detailing this conversation, I direct you to Anthony's talk page: [1] and [2] and mine. As you'll notice from these discussions, Scribe was rude and condescending. You'll also notice that Scribe711, on several occasions,[3] [4] [5] deleted content from all three talk pages. It certainly is his right to delete content from his own talk page, but certainly not the talk pages of other editors. After some warnings, he ceased deleting Anthony's and my talk pages, but he continued to delete any kind of communication from either of us on his. This in spite of the fact that I offered to listen to the Maya Angelou interview and determine if its content was suitable for any Angelou-related article. (In the meantime, I placed the link on Talk:Maya Angelou, as per WP policy.)

It's obvious from Scribe711's behavior that he's not at all interested in contributing to Wikipedia. He has an agenda and as Anthony.bradbury states, he's arguing from a conflict of interest. (Scribe711 is David Kurz, the creator of Wired for Books.) He has accused me of eliciting other editors (meaning, I suppose, Anthony.bradbury) to label his additions as spam and vandalism, but Anthony, someone I've never had any kind of contact with in the past, joined the controversy on his own. Anthony and I both believe that adding a link to the end of an article, and doing that to dozens of them, constitutes spam. Scribe711 disagrees, and instead of negotiating a compromise with either of us, has chosen to reinsert the link with no conversation about it, or to delete content from talk pages. I believe this behavior warrants a block, at least a temporary one. Thank you for your consideration. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 05:35, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Warned one last time, will keep an eye on him. yandman 10:42, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I see he's been banned for multiple accounts. Apparently someone recognised him... Figure, would you mind removing some of the links he inserted? I doubt I'll have time this afternoon. yandman 10:48, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Be happy to. I'll probably have time to do it tonight. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 14:32, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I blocked the socks, and yes, we have been here before:

• wiredforbooks.org: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• Bono06 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)
  • Bono06 was blocked a long time ago for persistent spamming
• Dkurz (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)
• Scribe711 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)

I will add the link to XLinkBot, so new socks will come up pretty quick, and do some cleanup on external links added by these three accounts (and see if there are other spammers as well). I should note, I think that the link has been used in a proper way as well, and it may be of use to the project here and there (as long as the links obey WP:NOT#REPOSITORY and WP:EL). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:00, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Someone may want to look at Rex User (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam) too. He's been creating articles with the WiredForBooks link in the external links section, with the link in the same format used by the Bono06 sock brigade. Flopsy Mopsy and Cottonmouth (talk) 16:30, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

• Michael Blohm (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)

Another user who added the links, I have cleaned a lot of the link additions by the SPA-edits, and I see that Flopsy Mopsy and Cottonmouth has done the edits by Rex User. The rest seems to be added by non-involved editors for as far as I can see. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:31, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

• 132.235.75.195 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)

An (old) IP adding the same links. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:38, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

• As far as I'm concerned, once someone demonstrably associated with a site starts spamming links here, the consideration of NOT#DIR and EL go out the window. The site is spam, links should be deleted, the url should go on the spam blacklist, and future additions should be reverted on sight. That's probably a minority opinion. :) Protonk (talk) 17:41, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I found exactly one reasonable use of the site while I was looking over the contribution lists for these socks, and that one was used as an actual reference. (Wow! A real use for it!) I made sure the reference had the correct title and let it be.  :) Flopsy Mopsy and Cottonmouth (talk) 19:03, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I saw 2 of these links being removed via my watchlist, and have a few queries. I'm fully aware of the problems we have with being spammed (and serial-spammed, as in this case), but I'm distressed by Protonk's attitude above. I've listened to a few of these interviews, and found them informative, and have now added the link as a ref to Isaac Asimov, and would like to continue examining, and replacing where warranted, the links to these interviews. Is there going to be a further future problem with this, or can non-COI editors add/replace these links where appropriate? Thanks. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:44, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

If there's good information in the interviews, then they should be used as references for specific facts in the article, in which case there's no question that the links should stay. Just as plain links in the External links section, though, the interviews wind up looking an awful lot like linkspam. That's my take on it, at least, from reading the policies. But I'm not an admin, just some guy or other.  :) Flopsy Mopsy and Cottonmouth (talk) 21:10, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Well FM&C, at least you reviewed the links. From reading only this thread, I am very tempted to suggest that the site be added to the blacklist, so that this person can't keep coming back & adding his spam. However, if there is useful content at this website, then the best solution would be to work with this person to have him add the content to the body of the article -- per Quiddity's comment. -- llywrch (talk) 00:06, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

He's been socking for at least two years. It also, from the comments made by another editor who was from Wired for Books (named something like WiredBooksEditor), looks like the people at Wired for Books were having interns add links to their site to Wikipedia as well. I found one good link out of a couple hundred, and that one link had - I believe - been added as a reference by someone other than the spammer *after* the spamlink was added. Therefore, I honestly think it's best to leave this sockfarm blocked and let other editors link up any interviews that have references they need. Flopsy Mopsy and Cottonmouth (talk) 00:46, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

After following this discussion, I've changed my mind about using the content of the WFB interview in the Angelou article. I believe in compromise and assuming the best of people, but it's simply not worth my time. I'm sure that the information can be gained in other places. Let the guy's interns do it. At least I know what to look for if and/or when he strikes again. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 01:29, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

FM&C, in response to last comment I formally suggest we list this site on the spam blacklist with the understanding that any established Wikipedia editor can whitelist individual URLs -- unless people here enjoy playing whack-a-mole with spammers. The tool is available & intended for situations like this -- so use it. -- llywrch (talk) 07:46, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Question though: When trying to add a blacklisted link, is there a link on the 'you can't do that' screen to the whitelist talk page and a 'If you are trying to add a citation or firmly believed in link relevant to the article, please leave a message here to request and exception for this page.' note? ThuranX (talk) 14:17, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to object to that blacklist proposal. This isn't someone trying to promote a commercial product - this is a former library director and grandfather (yes, I'm playing the age card) who seems to be a bit baffled by people deleting links to thoroughly relevant information ("Wired for Books was chosen in 2006 by the National Endowment for the Humanities as one of the best online sites for education in the humanities."). The repeated removal of all wiredforbooks links is following the letter of WP:SPAM, but I don't think it is following the spirit. 35 articles is not a gargantuan cleanup problem!

I suspect that he is simply one of the many academics who find our methods and manner of communication to be slightly-hostile and slightly-overwhelming (talkpage warning templates, referrals to large pages of instructions and simplified-legalese, being "talked about" by many people at many pages at once, etc).

Also, it was stated above that User:Rex User has "... been creating articles ...". [Say that 3 times]. I'm really confused as to why this is seen as a bad thing.... Isn't that what we're trying to do here? Did anyone explain to Rex User that it is preferable for references to be directly cited, or placed in a ==References== section, rather than in the EL section?

In the spirit of AGF, I'd like to propose that I make an attempt to contact Mr Kurtz via email, and convince him to stop adding links to the EL sections of articles (and to explain the preferred methods of adding citations/content to articles). Would that be acceptable, until/if such time as further mass-link-additions are made? Thanks.

[disclaimers: I have only skimmed through some of the many usertalkpage history linked above (deletions, arguments, confusion, etc) and realize that attempts were made already - but I'd still like to try again myself. I'm also not familiar with how the blacklist works - MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist admin-instruction#3 seems to suggest that the remaining citations pointing to wiredforbooks would need to be deleted - how easy would it be for an anon or autoconfirmed editor to add wiredforbooks-citations back in afterwards (eg a captcha or similar?) ?]

Thanks for considering the other points of views. Sorry if I've missed any critical details - more coffee required. :) -- Quiddity (talk) 19:27, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Quiddity for this view. I must say I am already past my GF on this one (I wrote a rant here yesterday, but I did not save it). But I am not yet inclined to put it on the blacklist. I have gone forward and indef blocked the current users, and put it on XLinkBot. That should revert the new users (socks) and IPs that add the link, while established users can use it without noticing. If this still results in more and more socks who don't (want to?) get it, then we can consider blacklisting.

I left a note on the talkpage of the major user, I hope to get a response on that.

As a note, these links in the external links sections fail WP:ELNO. A.o. because rich media is unfriendly for users behind a slow internet connection, and (as I saw on many pages large linkfarms) we are not a repository for external links. It is however useable as a reference, as they are more for verifyability (the link does not need to be followed to understand the document, while external links invite to follow as the information is probably not incorporated in the document). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:15, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the reply. I do realize that the links were being "spammed" in batches (over the course of 2 years), and that some of our articles have very large EL sections (to their detriment, from some perspectives). I have written an email to Mr Kurz, which will hopefully explain some of (what I think were) the earlier miscommunications. I have (gently) repeated the advice that he reads WP:COI, and re-suggested the change in behavior of adding content/refs in the future, instead of plain ELs.

I am still a bit distressed that the site and the contributors who have linked to it are being vilified for what could be seen as a trivial detail (this might never have been an issue if the contributors had instead been adding the links to the References sections all along - everyone seems to agree that it is a good site, just badly placed in EL sections, and too many COI additions at once). There's more (like starting off with level-4im template warnings instead of level-1), but I'm trying not to belabor the point. Patience, above all!

Hopefully this can all be resolved amicably, as the resource appears to be unique and interesting. I will try to keep an eye on all the relevant userpages, and a few of the relevant articles. Thanks again for your help and understanding. -- Quiddity (talk) 23:37, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I think I gave the 4im template warning on one of the accounts, it may seem Bitey, indeed, though I do think that other accounts were appropriately warned before. I want to say, I'd prefer them to be used as proper references, putting them in a 'references' section instead of the external links section does in my opinion not make much of a difference. I would stress here more '.. If the website or page to which you want to link includes information that is not yet a part of the article, consider using it as a source for the article, and citing it. .. ' (intro of the external links guideline). If there is nothing more that the link adds to the article, then putting them in the references section is similar to putting them in the external links section. I will keep an eye on it as well, as I have been involved in this case for quite some time now, hoping that we can get the (involved) editor(s) to expand their points on talkpages more, and maybe join appropriate wikiprojects. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:52, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify: It was Figureskatingfan as the second message on Scribe711's talkpage (I can kind of see how the multiple links added in Scribe's usercontribs would lead Figure to use the harsh template, but the content of the links (a relevant resource) should perhaps have been given more weight and hence only a low warning template (or even a manually typed helpful message). But that's a sideissue). I just get frustrated when I see University departments being alienated by simple miscommunication (on both sides. but we should be trying harder (in some cases)). Context clarity calm requested.

Anyway, back to the trenches. :) -- Quiddity (talk) 17:33, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Reversion of large numbers of my edits by User:Pigsonthewing

Another contributor, User:Pigsonthewing has made good contributions to Wikipedia in the past and he often has good insights on problems. Although we have had frequent incidents of friction over matters of a fairly esoteric nature regarding microformats, I honestly value his opinion, and have responded to suggestions he has made. However, we have already had one requiring the intervention of an administrator on commons User:Swift. The most recent incident is today with a mass reversion of work I have been doing with Wikipedia support for extreme dates. One particular revision prevents me from demonstrating the benefits of a proposal I have made to the owners of the protected template {{Infobox_Former_Country}}. I am requesting assistance from a mediator who is willing to install a Firefox extension so they may understand the positions of the two parties. The user believes that this work constitutes "sandbox" work, whereas an examination of the templates {{start-date}} will reveal that they are robust, nontrivial, and can provide substantial benefit to users. The change has been discussed civilly at this page. So far only one user other than myself and Mr Mabbett have voiced an opinion. Mr. Mabbett believes that it is necessary to revert any use of the template rather than give me the opportunity to fix whatever he thinks is wrong. As far as I know, none of the "damage" he claims has been made is visible to Wikipedia users, so the remedy of mass reversions is difficult to understand. I have attempted to reach agreement with this user over some ground rules over settling these differences, but I have failed, and I am reaching out for your assistance. Thank you. -J JMesserly (talk) 22:47, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

As I explained on your talk page and in the relevant edit sumamries before you came here, I reverted several of your edits, but by no means "a mass revert", because in each case the metadata you were emitting, and in some cases the on-screen text, was broken (for example a place-name of "Boeotia,country=Greece"; BC dates rendered as AD dates). I can supply screenshots if necessary. If you wish to test or demonstrate your work on templates, please do so in a sandbox, not in articles. Your proclamations about my supposed beliefs are fallacious, and fail to assume good faith. Where have you attempted an failed to reach "ground rules"? Besides, the Wikipedia ground rules are already established: Boldly edit; if Reverted; Discuss. In at least one case, you have simply re-reverted, to again emit faulty metadata. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 23:24, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

There are many ways to emit microformats. You certainly have strong opinions on the subject as you have amply shown at the commons geocoding project, and that is good. You have given me instructions in the past as you have the geocoding group, and you have been proven to be correct as many times as are incorrect. I proposed that we mediate these disagreements on the microformats.org mailing list, but you have declined to participate in that process. As it was, it turned out that your advice was incorrect. I value the input though because I know there is an issue to investigate. However, I cannot presume that you are correct without evidence. I repeat my request for mediation. There are pages that exhibit new behavior (for example linking to map sites) that can be shown to no longer function due to Mr. Mabbett's belief in the rightness of his position. I ask for an unbiased observer to make a decision. I will happily comply with whatever ruling is made. I'd like to move on and get some work done. -J JMesserly (talk) 00:06, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

There are indeed many ways to emit microformats, including many wrong ways, such as those you used which I reverted today; and cite above. I have given you advice and assistance, not instructions. You are wrong to imply that I am incorrect half of the time. Please provide evidence to support your assertion that "There are pages … that can be shown to no longer function" due to anything I have done. External mailing lists are not the place to resolve disagreements over Wikipedia templates. Please cite evidence of me declining to participate in any discussion. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 00:13, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Here is a pointer to the commons thread being discussed where Andy requested that I do things his way which was found to be incorrect by the experts at microformats.org. My Mabbett asserted that "There are no authorities in that community, and my answer is as authoritative as any you will get there." I am not sure why Andy asserts this. Last year's book on microformats Microformats: Empowering Your Markup for Web 2.0. cites Brian Suda, and Kevin Marks as internationally recognized experts on microformats. Their advice contradicted Mr. Mabbett's, and I chose to follow the guidance given by the microformats community. I meant no offense by not following Mr. Mabbett's opinions, but I cannot take his assertions at face value, so I go to authorities to settle these matters. That seems like a process that is workable, since this subject is fairly obscure at this point. I am not sure if there is some restriction on Mr. Mabbett contributing to the mailing list, because I know he was banned for 16 months from edits to their wiki. But I would certainly agree to post his arguments verbatim and ask for a ruling from them. Anyway, next year maybe this process will not be necessary, as many major browsers will be microformats aware. What I am asking is that until then that anyone asserting incorrectness to be concrete in their descriptions of what is incorrect with each others templates, and to show that what is being done is recognized by authorities to be incorrect. If any party cannot show this, and if there is no recognizable harm to Wikipedia, then it seems reasonable for WP administrators to take a wait and see position, and ask that each of the parties not interfere in the activities of the other. WP can defer consideration of such correctness debates until such time as there are sufficient contributors who understand and care about these differences in style. If there is some other proposal for common ground, I am open to any suggestions.-J JMesserly (talk) 01:02, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

It's generally worthless to come here without diffs to the problems you are complaining about. AnyPerson (talk) 01:03, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Nothing which I proposed at Commons was found to be "incorrect" on the microformats mailing list, nor anywhere else. Indeed, I provided (on Commons) citations from that list to support my position, at the request of J JMesserly; he disregarded them Do we really have to rehash that debate here? I have already provided descriptions of the bugs produced by J JMesserly edits, and offered to provide screenshots if necessary. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 11:28, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. Here is a side by side comparison of the kind of thing we are talking about. EG: My version of Battle of Chaeronea (338 BC) changed a single parameter to an infobox: [edit- locality change better shows value of feature]

|place={{address|[[Boeotia]], [[Greece]]|locality=Chaeronea|country=Greece}}

The original line read:

|place=[[Boeotia]], [[Greece]] 

With my change, users with microformats aware browsers will see map buttons for (google, yahoo or mapquest) activated when they visit this page. Click on the google map button, and you can see where the battle occurred. Pretty cool. With Andy's change, this capability no longer works. This template talks in a way to the outside world that Andy thinks is wrong. It works, it delivers functionality, and it has no negative visual impact on anyone viewing the article- the article looks exactly the same as before. To see for yourself, add Firefox's free Operator toolbar, visit the page, and see for yourself, then compare to Pigs on wing "Fix". It will be clear that his "fix" actually removes functionality. -J JMesserly (talk) 01:28, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Case 2:Lamian War Here, Andy's summary edit reads: "rv - emt8s bogus metadata (323-321 AD)"

1. in operator, click options box. Click data formats, and check the debug box.
2. View the current version [6], you will see no events button highlighted.
3. View the edit from J JMesserly: [7]. You will now see the events button.
4. You will see that once again functionality is present with my version. Now, let's look at this claim of "bogus data" that Andy is talking about. He claims the emitted dates are AD dates, not BC dates. Click on Events.Lamian War.Debug. you will see a dialog that gives the dates 323 and 321. Andy assumes these are AD dates. Now click on the source tab. If you can't search the dialog, copy paste it to a word processor and search for dtstart. You will see the value is -323Z. Now, no one sees any of this stuff and it really impacts zero applications, but Mr. Mabbett feels that this number is incorrectly formatted. That is what he is talking about. According to the docs I have, ISO8601 standard for BC says the year should be negative. It is.
5. Why will this matter? Well- one day, just as you can click on a google map, you will may be able to click to go to a scene that recreates a village in ancient greece, or with a video recreation of the battle. The other site needs to know what time period you want to go to. This data shows where. (A technical note on the second date, the end period of an event is always +1 unit, so if the event ends on friday, you have to give the date for saturday. This war ended on 322 BC, so the correct number is -321Z. This calculation is done by my template, and correctly does it whether the precision is hours, days, or months. (Respectively, +1 hour, +1 day, +1 month). Template editors can imagine that this is non trivial code, and puts in context Mr. Mabbett's edit summary suggestion "rv please do your testing in a sandbox". I do my testing in a sandbox, and move changes when they are stable. Sometimes errors happen, but the number of articles is fairly low, and I check my work.

Should folks doing this work be needing to go to the adminstrator's board to request arbitration on this sort of minutiae? I think not- Seems like we all have better things to do. If and when it turns out that these numbers could be formatted better, well what the heck- WP contributors will rise to the challenge and fix it. Until then, why should we have edit wars over this stuff. I'm just asking for a live and let live policy until we have more folks that understand these debates. -J JMesserly (talk) 01:53, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

In your first case, you were emitting a metadata 'locality' value of "Boeotia,country=Greece". There is no such locality, and the string "country=" should not have been included as data. The correct output would be a locality value of "Boeotia" and a 'country-name' value of "Greece". You again misrepresent me by claiming that I think something which in fact I do not. Please desist from doing so. I see that you have since fixed the problem, thereby acknowledging the initial fault. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 12:21, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

In your second case, I concede that the BC/AD date is indeed a parser bug and I have written to the author of Operator (with whom I am in regular contact) to request a fix. However, Your comments about end dates also shows a basic error; the need to increment by one does not apply to year values.

In another example, your metedtaa asserts that the Battle of Caer Caradoc took place at "Herefordshire Beacon, Herefordshire UK"; whereas the text in the infobox is "Location - Unknown. Possibly Herefordshire Beacon Herefordshire Beacon or Caer Caradoc Hill"

You clearly misunderstand several aspects of microformats and what you are doing with them; that's OK, because we all have to learn, but please do your learning in sandbox pages - not in live articles - and accept help. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 12:29, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Andy, whether or not you are the authority on microformats that you have portrayed yourself to be is immaterial. No one would contribute if they didn't think they knew something that others hadn't put in wikipedia yet. I really like the fact that you understand how revolutionary microformats are. Heck- my first published paper on the subject of encoding semantics of encyclopedic material in SGML is now 20 years old. Today, the world still doesn't appreciate the value. Microformats are revolutionary, and many admins reading this thread may have discounted this subject matter as yet another dispute about arcania of no consequence. We both know that this isn't the case. Of course the battlers always say that, but the point is that I really I view you as a brother in this cause. But as a brother, I ask that you give me a little more of the benefit of the doubt. Ok, in Battle of Chaeronea (338 BC)I left out a pipe character before country=. Ok regarding typos you got me there. But the template if given location information delivers great functionality to WP users. Admit it. It is cool to click on that "find with maps" feature of Operator and be plunked down where the battle occurred. Contributors can describe locations with ease that can be looked up with any of a variety of map sites. In some cases, you can just mention a Pub's name and a city, and the click will show you the satellite view of the roof of the establishment. That's wicked cool. And this has been done in a way that is simple for contributors to do- simply taking locations mentioned in the article and putting them in the template you removed from this page. No time consuming procedure of determining the exact latitude and longitude. Both on Commons in a previous dispute and here you have insisted on the correctness of your position when in fact you are as often incorrect on these matters as incorrect. Regardless which one of us is correct, it can be seen by independent observers that the effect of your actions is to remove functionality from Wikipedia articles based on mistakes you have made regarding microformat encoding. My actions have been portrayed as that of a neophyte, when in fact {{start-date}} handles end dates in the superior way as described above. So please, perhaps we can express a little more mutual respect and collaboration with each other?

I proposed a solution to handling arbitration of such microformat disputes. Will you please agree to mediation of this dispute by an impartial admin, and agree to follow the ruling whatever it is? -J JMesserly (talk) 16:07, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I have never portrayed myself as "the authority on microformats", though I undoubtedly have more experience of implementing them on Wikipedia than any other editor; please feel free to cite evidence if you disagree. This is not an academic debate about "encoding semantics of encyclopedic material in SGML", but a very practical consideration of the means of doing so to a specific set of standards, with the tools available in this medium; at which you do indeed appear to be a novice. I am happy to give you "the benefit of the doubt" where doubt exists, but in the cases under discussion the facts are indisputable. You are free to propound reasoned arguments otherwise, but don't seem to be doing so. I have removed no functionality from Wikipedia articles or templates; I have merely prevented them from emitting bogus metadata. I am quite happy to collaborate, an have already asked you to do so on your talk page here and in Commons. Your responses seemed to me to indicate a disinclination to do so, in both cases. If you wish to initiate a mediation process, this is not the forum, but I will not object if you do so properly; though it seems a very long-winded way of arriving at the point which we will reach anyway, if you desist in your current approach to adding microformats. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 17:46, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

And please stop edit warring, as you are on Augustus and other articles & templates, until these issues are resolved. WP:BRD refers; and you should be using sandbox ages for your testing. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 17:50, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I already have shown where you have claimed authority, in fact authority equivalent to recognized authorities at the microformats.org site. You chose to be dismissive of them. Who knows- maybe in the end you will be proven to be right. In any case, as I remarked, whether or not you are a authority doesn't matter. What matters is what benefits the visitors to Wikipedia most. You make the surprizing claim: "I have removed no functionality from Wikipedia articles". This is demonstrably false using the instructions above. The functionality removed can be verified by anyone using those steps and there is no point in denying it. Mr Mabbett reverted article Gojoseon [8] with an edit summary of:"rv please do your testing in a sandbox". The purpose of the demo was announced on the talk page. With Mr. Mabbett's edits, the user cannot do map searches on the article as described. With the edits they can. Mr. Mabbett has removed functionality just as he did with {{Infobox Roman Royalty}}, Augustus, Battle of Caer Caradoc, Battle of Chaeronea (338 BC), Zagrepčanka... on the basis of arcane and controversial points of microformatting correctness. Wikipedia is not a testbed for research on microformats. We use what demonstrates benefits to users. Mr. Mabbett has not demonstrated any tangible harm caused due to this alleged "bogus" encoding. That in a nutshell is what I am requesting mediation on. To establish ground rules for dealing with this sort of dispute so that there will not be recurring instances of it burdening admins. There are multiple disputes Mr. Mabbett has had with multiple users over this very theme. It is not productive, and mediation is respectfully requested. -J JMesserly (talk) 19:58, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I have removed no functionality from Wikipedia articles. You have not and cannot cannot demonstrate(d) that I have done so. The functionality is in microformat parsers, which I have not touched. They act on metadata emitted by out articles, I have removed metadata (and things causing metadata to be emitted) which was bad: bogus; malformed; erroneous; misleading and unhelpful. Bad metadata does not benefit our users; bad metadata is harmful. The fact that you mentioned your testing on a talk page does not mean that the article was the correct place to carry out your testing. Again: please use sandbox pages: why will you not do this? I have already told you, more than once, that Wikipedia already has ground rules; they are in WP:BRD. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 20:25, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) So exactly what admin intervention is requested here? Seems like you two can either discuss this on your talk pages or go to Wikipedia:Mediation without admin involvement.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 20:06, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Mr. Mabbett has not agreed to mediation. These disputes are unary- you either agree that a particular tag is permitted or it isn't. It is new terrain- there isn't a lot of published material to cite, so discussions quickly reach an impasse. This is a general class of problem that Mr. Mabbett has frequently been involved in with other contributors. This is nothing against Mr. Mabbett, and I freely admit that Mabbett may have been correct on the theoretical principles he has battled with other users and with other communities over. My point to him is that if there is no damage of any consequence to encoding it one way or the other, what does it matter that WP encodes it the "wrong" way for a year or so if there is no perceivable negative consequence to the "wrong" encoding? We can always correct it later if it turns out that some mistaken way of doing things was is in fact wrong. That is the beauty and perfectibility of wikipedia. We don't have to have immaculate conceptions in some pure form. We go with what works until some better way of doing things comes along. I propose a tie breaker metric that any admin can apply. The measure is, "What benefits Wikipedia?" I propose that if one party can't demonstrate harm to wikipedia, and the other party can demonstrate benefit of the change to an admin, that such microformat related edit wars be remedied with a block on the party that is basing reverts on unseen and unfelt harms. I agree that this should be a mechanism of last resort and that all parties must still agree to good faith efforts to reach compromise before this kind of escalation. -J JMesserly (talk) 01:14, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

For admins reading this, I realize that it is unusual to request such a standard operating principle for microformats disputes. While I believe Andy is motivated by a belief in the correctness of his positions and long term benefit to others, his methods require consideration for unusual action by admins. A new approach is necessary because this is not the first incident of this user in microformats dispute. Apparently the most recent dispute escalated all the way to an Arbcom ruling. I had no involvement of knowledge of this fact when Mr. Mabbett first began with the disputed behavior I describe on Commons. I was completely a clean slate for him, and yet I soon found myself involved in an edit war regarding Microformats- the same subject involved in the 2007 arbcom ruling (as summarized in this Signpost). The Finding of fact of the Arbcom was that "Evidence has shown that Pigsonthewing disregards the Wikipedia way of doing things and is unable or unwilling to improve his pattern of participation."

Given this context, I think it is proper to request a new approach to the problem, given that the same pattern of behavior is in evidence in the incidents with me, a contributor entirely uninvolved in the previous disputes on wikipedia or at other sites where Mr. Mabbett has also been subjected to 30 month bans and is currently subject to an 18 month ban[9]. Soon after the arbcom ban on Mr. Mabbett had lapsed, he is again involved in the same behavior. If my proposal for a new approach is not the best one, then I request advice on what course I should take on this matter. Thank you. -J JMesserly (talk) 16:16, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Again, I ask what is it that you need an admin to do? You've asked several times for mediation -- this isn't the place for it. If you're worried that Andy won't agree to it (have you asked him?), Wikipedia:Dispute resolution lists other options. Other than that, you two seem to have a content dispute. Again, this isn't the place for content disputes. So what are you asking for here? I'm not seeing a blockable offense, I'm not seeing a need for page protection, and I'm not seeing a situation where a note from an admin on someone's talk page will move things along. Have I misread this?--Fabrictramp | talk to me 22:04, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The blockable offence is damage to Wikipedia pages, specifically the quickest one to view is that described before "Case 2" above. This is not about content, it is about template behavior. When these templates are used widely, the impact is hundreds if not thousands of pages. Mr. Mabbett removes functionality as described. You can't see where the battle took place by searching maps with Mabbett's edit. (See steps just prior to "Case 2" above. In the earlier incident at Commons, I referred to this sort of damage as vandalism in the edit summaries. Although the intermediary did not understand that Mabbett's edits had in fact damaged the pages, it was unnecessary to belabor the point since the solution made it academic. As for the damage on Wikipedia, it is reproducible and easy to see using the steps described above. It's as if most people did not use CSS capable browsers and someone nuked some div code in a template, but none of the admins could see the damage because their browsers didn't displayed the results of the damage.

To your earlier questions, yes, I earlier proposed that this esoterica be arbitrated at microformats.org where everyone understands these issues. Refused. I made a proposal for mediation in this thread to Mr. Mabbett, and have sought participation of an intermediary (to date unsuccessful). After the earlier incident at commons, the recommendations of the intermediary were not followed by Mr. Mabbett ("Pigsonthewing hasn't heeded my advice"- source). Regarding the current situation, yes I have proposed mediation, as well as arbitration at microformats.org (to date, both are refused). There have been multiple Revert-discuss cycles, but I have refused to edit war on the subject. There has been discussion, but the other party is intransigent, as is the pattern in disputes with other contributors. This is not a content dispute, because it involves template behavior, not the content that is in the templates.)

I am not sure that locking pages or sending a note on someone's talk page would be effective. Mr. Mabbett was sanctioned by arbcom over his behavior on microformats related dispute and we are seeing similar behavior. Previous methods have failed. I repeat: I am simply another contributor getting exposed to the same pattern. What is your recommendation? -J JMesserly (talk) 00:33, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

←J JMesserly makes a number of dishonest claims in his above posts, most notably the false claim that I have been "subjected to 30 month bans" on any site. He has previously had to apologise to me for making false accusations about me on Commons; it seems that he is determined to continue to do so here; and to resort to ad hominem attacks rather than address the demonstrable problems with his edits. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 20:50, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Big Dunc, blocked

Resolved

 – block-length reduced from 1 week to 48 hrs, reversing the effect of the block extension. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 07:03, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

[10] Punishing this long term content editor editor (with an exemplory block log) in this fashion for an outburst of frustration is plainly ridiculous. Could someone please unblock, while things are still reasonably calm. Giano (talk) 23:23, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

• I see, so insulting the dignity of the Admins is now a capital offence. Even to long standing content editors, in a moments of rare frustration, with unblemished block logs. The new rule is "Insult us and you will be banned for a week and forbidden to edit your own page" That appears to be the new diktat to Arb's clerks. I had hoped we had a new regime here, it seems I was mistaken, it's worse than ever it was. Giano (talk) 23:52, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
  • The arbitration enforcement function is not part of the clerking function, although the two are often performed by the same administrators. No "diktats" have been given by the committee to the clerks or the admins active in enforcement or anyone else, beyond those contained in motions that have been openly posted on the site. I would appreciate input from other administrators on both the initial block here and the extension. Giano, please provide notice of this thread to the blocking and extending admins if you have not already done so. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:54, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I have better things to do with my time than inform Admins who have performed bad blocks that their conduct is being discussed. I am going to bed - I am not the blocking Admin - one asumes they have not already done so! Giano (talk) 23:59, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate your having brought this forwards here, Giano, but intentionally not notifying the blocking admins in a case like this is assuming bad faith on their part, and a gross insult to them. It's an expected part of the usage and policy of this page, which you are aware of, to notify admins on review of their actions here. Please make it more of a priority in future reports. Thank you. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 01:20, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I believe that the additional extended block violates the longstanding policy that we let blocked people vent a bit on their user talk page. While I am opposed to incivility, and this clearly was some grossly abusive incivility on BigDunc's part, blockees are not expected to be perfectly gracious about being blocked. The incivility was restricted to BigDunc's talk page and talk page edit summaries.

I'm going to leave an intent to unblock note on Tnzaki and Deacon's talk pages along with a pointer here. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 01:11, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

• I haven't reviewed the original block but I agree with GWH on reducing it to the 48 hrs. Being blocked is stressful. –xeno (talk) 01:35, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

  So is editing in an environment where people constantly chew at each other. You're frustrated go do something else. No one is forcing you to stay on wikipedia and vent your frustration here.--Crossmr (talk) 03:09, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

  Both of these views hold some merit.

"Im have better things to do with my time than notify admins of ANI posts" - Giano. It bears repeating, every time. MickMacNee (talk) 02:44, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, Admims are supposed to post such blocks here. They did not - explain? Giano (talk) 09:51, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

...I think the complaint is that you come here, stir up a hornets nest and then depart, claiming that you don't have time to come here and stir up a hornets nest. Protonk (talk) 13:53, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Giano's narrative of the events is inaccurate. BigDunc was blocked by me, for 48 hours for violating a Arbitration enforcement related revert restriction. I was honestly not particularly pleased with the block, and would not have objected to another admin stepping up and coming up with a better idea - but no one did. BigDunc's unblock request was denied, I believe twice without my knowledge or involvement or even notification. After that his block was extended to a week for gross incivility by Deacon, and his talk page access was removed after a rather nasty message from BigDunc. This popped up on my watch list this morning and I restored BigDunc's access to his talk page, shortly afterwards BigDunc posted this which begins "Probably better if the page remains protected Tznkai." (I reverted this message, an action I now think was ill advised) This, as far as I am concerned was an invitation to restore Deacon's block extension and the remainder of the message confirmed that Dunc intended to continue cursing and railing and so on. I'm not sure when this longstanding policy of allowing venting started - I certainly havn't seen it written anywhere, but I'm not particularly worked up about this, I don't object to BigDunc's block being modified, shortened, lengthened or even overturned. For the record, Domer48 was also blocked for 48 hours, Mooretwin for 2 weeks, resulting from the same AE thread, and someone else is welcome to handle those blocks, modifying them, and otherwise handling the situation.

Giano has mentioned something important, BigDunc( and Domer48 ) are longstanding content editors, and they've created a decent amount of material - but they don't get in trouble for "insulting admins" - they get into trouble for edit warring, and POV problems related to the Troubles. My sincerest encouragement and thanks to anyone whos got the balls, creativity, and political capital to genuinely solve the situation. I'm unable to do it myself--Tznkai (talk) 04:42, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

TL;DR summary of above: read the history, but unblock away.--Tznkai (talk) 05:13, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, for all good will in the world, BigDunc continued such language even after the block was extended. He also sent me a nasty foul-mouthed email, which he subsequently apologised for in a mature way in another email an hour or so later. I agree with Giano that people might need to be given breaks in such circumstances. But it is situational and now isn't the time to review, esp. in the shadow of BigDunc's hot-headedness and the context of this AN/I thread. This would be bad for the respectability of rule enforcement if nothing else, and probably wouldn't do BigDunc any favors. The block was merited, and if a review is to happen it should be in a day or so. The AE block should definitely not be overturned (the other party got two weeks anyway); i.e. the original block by Tznkai should run its course. The additional 5 days can be looked at only after that ... if everyone's happy doing so. So leave it another day at least. Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 06:40, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

This is rather depressing to read and review. I think that the original block was justified, and a 24 to 48 hour duration was appropriate in the circumstances (note: if the original block was any greater than 48 hours, I would not have considered it appropriate). As for the block extension, while there is no longstanding policy on venting, I think insufficient consideration has been given to the fact that he was responding to a block that he felt was unjustified (although in reality, it was justified - despite his assertions). A block extension may have been appropriate (to echo in no uncertain terms that such incivility will not be tolerated), but the duration of the overall block was manifestly excessive. Either increasing it to 72 or 96 hours was enough; increasing it to 1 week is more of a punitive measure of bad faith. Had the conduct still gone out of control after this time, then you can always reblock.

Nevertheless, the block log now has an annotation of 1 week, so I propose the following way forward from here. If there's clearly signs that such misconduct will continue, leave the block as it is. If he makes an unblock request that is convincing and makes the right sort of assurances (with regards to civility), then unblock around the time the original block was set to expire (AGF; lapse in judgement). If there are no such assurances, but at the same time, no clear signs that the misconduct will continue, then unblock after 72 or 96 hours as time served; excessive extension. My view anyway. Ncmvocalist (talk) 08:04, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

The AE thread launched by BigDunc resulted in the block of three users. The one whom BigDunc reported, who had committed exactly the same offense as BigDunc, got two weeks. Afterwards BigDunc went ballistic with abuse[, and sent a nasty email]. It's papably absurd to declare then a five day extension "a punitive measure of bad faith". I don't even think that borders on reasonable. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 08:15, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Ok. I've been hanging low here due to my break, but Deacon, you're WAY off track here. Actually, Mooretwin got off QUITE easily with two weeks. He was told previously his next block would be for a MONTH, mininum. When you add in the fact he basically swore he'd keep doing it, if I had a say in it, it would be indefinite. Dunc.. Well, I guess I'm going to send him an email telling that swearing isn't going to make things better. I would support limiting it to the two days IF he made assurances that he wouldn't continue. SirFozzie (talk) 08:29, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I think I commented elsewhere, but to reinforce SirFozzie's point, we have a longstanding policy that it's unfair piling on and escalation by the administrators to punitively block after mild to moderate venting on talk pages after blocking.

While I agree that what BigDunc did is improper and antisocial, we have had users who did this sort of stuff for days and days and were allowed to wind themselves down into being reasonable again without further intervention or provocation, because everyone was pretty sure that they would be ok if left alone to vent for a bit and were not in fact basically bad guys / girls.

Admins have a lot of power. We also have to have a sufficiently thick skin that we can turn the other cheek and accept some abuse sometimes. What we have to do makes us a focus of some abuse. It's part of the job. If you aren't thick skinned enough to accept that then you're not doing the job right.

We don't expect admins to be perfect, and lord knows you were provoked, but it's situations where you're provoked where it's most important not to respond in kind.

I am going to reduce the block length now, to expire when the original 48 hrs would have. Deacon - I appreciate that he frustrated you. But you didn't give him enough patience here. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 08:39, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Even 48 hours for affronting an Admin is ridiculous. I hope though Tzkai has learn that he cannot impose these Draconian sentences at a whim (even if he is the Arb's clerk) it does not make him a one instant justice dispenser. Furthermore why was this block not posted here, properly - rather than kept buried away? Giano (talk) 09:58, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

As I understand, BigDunc was not blocked for 48 hours for affronting an admin, but was blocked for violating a 1RR-remedy. Last year, a few editors were blocked for between 24 and 48 hours for the same type of violation in the same area. As such, Tznkai's action has received the support of those administrators who declined the unblock requests of BigDunc, as well as the support of other administrators and editors here. Finally, are you asking about the original block, or the block extension in the final line of your comment? Ncmvocalist (talk) 10:44, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the original block is really being discussed, but more the block extension. Blocks are intended to be preventative rather than punitive. While BigDunc seems to have vastly overreacted to his block, Deacon notes above that he "subsequently apologised for in a mature way in another email an hour or so later". I don't see what is being "prevented" - my personal belief is rule the original block valid, rule the extension invalid, and get an assurance from BigDunc that this is the end of the matter and that such outbursts are unacceptable, even if understandable. Orderinchaos 09:29, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Reply to Deacon

My review covered the AE thread - yes, I'm aware that 3 users were blocked. You're wrong on the second point though; Domer was blocked for the same length as BigDunc for doing the same thing. But BigDunc reported Mooretwin, and Mooretwin was the one blocked for longer. I think the rationale for a longer block on Mooretwin was other circumstances; a greater number of reverts than other parties who violated revert-remedy, a block log that shows a clear, recent, and outstanding history of edit-warring, etc. This was worthy of a 2 week block.

And I don't think my characterisation is absurd or unreasonable. In fact, I think BigDunc's reaction was quite predictable to some extent. No experienced editor is incapable of criticizing without abuse; for some reason, he was unable to control his reaction and it was more abusive than anything else. I considered that this was the only evidence you had to justify 'block + unable to edit talk page'. However, that is not enough to justify the length of your block. Can you provide other diffs of him going "ballistic with abuse" in between the original block and your block? I can't find any. A reasonable person who assumes good faith would not expect him to send such an email to you.

I thought the email, like this, came after your block? And that he apologised (and hopefully made the assurance that it won't happen again)? If the answer to both questions is yes, then unless he sends such emails again in the future, he should not be prevented any further or it would end up being a punitive measure. As an administrator, a trusted member of the community, it is implicit in your duty to give due consideration for the personal hardship that may be caused by your actions, warranted or unwarranted. If you are unable to do so, then you shouldn't be adminning in that area, if at all. A decision to block isn't what I'm faulting; it's the length of the block where you were definitely wrong.

To conclude, I support Georgewilliamherbert's action to reverse your action, more-so in the light of BigDunc's wise decision. This was what I was getting at in my proposal. Ncmvocalist (talk) 10:23, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

this thread illustrates one of the problems with AE. As is usually the case with AE AN/I threads, the blocking admins (me and Tznkai) could have handled this easily on our/their own, and this talk shop overkill was quite superfluous. Almost nothing said here was necessary or useful (except for SirFozzie's comment) to resolving this matter, and most of what has occurred from it is damaging to the process. Another reason for reform. ;) Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 17:23, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

For goodness sakes. Lets make it clear, AN/I is for controversial blocks or blocks one assumes would result in drama (or for people to create drama - that does happen time to time). There was no reason to believe that blocking Dunc for 48 hours for violating an arbitration related remedy that specifies up to a week long block for the first offense. It was a naked violation of a revert restriction (read the AE thread). Civility was never a part of the equation (for that matter, neither was clerking) for the original block. It was as simple as that.

My reasons for first re-allowing Dunc's talk page access, and then re-disallowing them are stated above. Those are separate issues, and none of it has to do with insults to me or affronting capital-'a'-Admins.--Tznkai (talk) 17:55, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, no admin was affronted. I find it difficult to belief anyone would think any seasoned admin would be personally bothered by such language, even if it was directed at them. And the block extension was for blatant incivility cumulatively added to previous block reason. Georgewilliamherbert's claim in the log when he rushed to revert the block that it was against long-standing policy just underlies the amateurishness of how this was conducted. I really hope I don't have to see this again. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 20:21, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

It is against longstanding policy to pile on recently blocked users. The original block was arguably not a mistake and hasn't been challenged other than by BigDunc and possibly Giano, though I'd have to reread the details of what he said everywhere again.

Turning off someone's talk page access is EXTREMELY UNUSUAL in a block. It's normally reserved for the worst repeat offenders or the worst threats or abusive behavior.

Again - I've been here for many years, I've been dealing with editor abuse issues for many years, and BigDunc's reaction was only moderate at worst. The response from you two was disproportionate and inappropriate. There are numerous RFC and Arbcom findings / statements that we let people vent without further punishing them.

Giano is not particularly my friend here, but his bringing this to ANI was appropriate, and the responses here have been pretty uniform. The two of you who blocked went too far. Please don't do it again. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 07:37, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The disputed action is primarily yours Deacon, and let me put it bluntly; there is no consensus for your position or your rationale. It's problematic that you were not familiar with the relevant facts and circumstances (this is evidenced from your reply to me, and your subsequent lack of reply - alternatively, it's clear from here). However, what's more troubling is your apparent failure to appreciate, even now [11], how your action was problematic enough that it needed to be overturned. I echo what SirFozzie said earlier; you're way off track. I suggest your first priority is to reform your approach above anything else, if you value your tools/status anyway. There was no issue with Tznkai's original block, or giving BigDunc a chance to give a civil reply, so I'm not sure why you're addressing Tznkai in your reply, Georgewilliamherbert. Ncmvocalist (talk) 08:11, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

George, link me please to the proof of "longstanding policy", and then tell me why it was necessary to shorten a block so long before it was an issue, despite the opposition? While you're obviously entitled to your own philosophy on leniency, it looks to me that you're tripping yourself misrepresenting your own "administrative philosophy" as some kind of truth or policy. It's not. I have a slightly different view also based on experience and it would not be influenced much by memetic assertion as you seem to think, but by reasoning, and certainly not when the person asserting genuinely believes some of things you've stated. Incidentally, the block of talkpage access, though theoretically justifiable based on the offence and its context, was not intended by me and was an accident when altering the default ticking of the boxes; by the time I looked again at wikipedia Tznkai had lifted then reimposed it (very wisely at that point I think). @ Ncmvocalist, none of the things you say concern me and most of what you probably think should is based on misunderstandings on your part; e.g. the new info in SirFozzie's comment though relevant to one matter, the length of Mooretwin's block, were not otherwise [or at all] relevant to matter being discussed. And since we are apparently being frank in our opinions, Nc, I don't think your comments have brought much to the conversation. Anyway, neither I nor Tznkai have a crystal ball for Giano interventions, and I redirect both of you to my comments above which really are the pertinent ones to the issues at hand. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 05:53, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Very disappointing Deacon; you're the only one here that thinks I may be missing the pertinant comments - by stark contrast, several users have told you that you're way off track. Your comments are not pertinant as they do nothing but evade the issue - problems with your judgement. And this is the final time I'll remind you that you're the one that has things to lose if you repeatedly act and respond in this manner. It's interesting (even convenient) that you only thought of mentioning that "accident" now. On the other hand, I think it's a pity you fail to take responsibility for your actions. Also, it is utterly unbecoming of administrators to insist on intervening without familiarising themselves with all relevant facts and circumstances in a matter - you're the one who brought up Mooretwin in this discussion, and in effect, demonstrated that you did not familiarise yourself with this incident. Mooretwin's block is relevant in ensuring remedies are not enforced inconsistently to the detriment of this project (or its contributors) - something you were clearly willing to disregard. To conclude, the manner in which you handled this incident (and the criticisms thereafter) show more reasons why you shouldn't retain your tools than anything else. Ncmvocalist (talk) 06:28, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

You're wasting your time Nc. Your comments (and some of your other edits here e.g.) seem to show why you are not and likely never will be trusted by the community to be an sysop, despite your famous devotion to acting [unhelpfully] in so many mop-related places.Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 07:03, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Continuation of edit warring by User:Arimareiji in Rachel Corrie

There was an edit war in progress over material in the lead of the Rachel Corrie article, so I moved the disputed material to the talk page until the dispute could be resolved. (These are the reverts by various editors of the same disputed content since Jan 31:[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27])

Arimareiji has ignored the moving of the material to the talk page, and returned the disputed material to the article lead [28]; and thereby undoing the attempt to resolve the problem by discussion on the talk page. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 00:25, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I've already made my reply at Talk:Rachel_Corrie#Wikipedia:Edit_war, but I'll repeat some of the salient points: Malcolm Schosha was not "removing disputed material," he was continuing to revert to one of two disputed versions. He was doing so after arguably having followed an editor to Rachel Corrie whom he had been repeatedly warned and blocked for edit-warring against. If there's consensus for removing that section of the lede altogether (rather than fighting over which version to use), that's quite possibly the best course. This is not what Malcolm Schosha was doing. arimareiji (talk) 00:47, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Arimareiji has accused me of "continuing to revert". I only made three edits to the article, and I am a marginal player in the edit warring on Rachel Corrie. One of my edits had nothing to do with the disputed content, and one edit was to move the disputed content to the article talk page. According to my understanding, moving disputed material to the talk page is not edit warring, but rather a way to stop editing warring. It was my intent to stop the edit warring that was already in progress when I made my first edit. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 01:06, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Three edits = three reverts in three hours, and two before saying anything at all on Talk. He had no prior involvement with the page whatsoever, much less familiarity. arimareiji (talk) 01:16, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

NO. It was two edits. The third edit was well explained on the talk page. Just what do you thing is wrong with three edits? You have far more reverts there than I do. I am the most marginal player in the ongoing edit war, which was not my doing. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 01:27, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I have nothing against you making edits or reversions. I do, however, think it's highly inappropriate that you only made edits to this page after an editor you were repeatedly warned and blocked for edit-warring against did. Your first two edits at the page were reverts-by-proxy of him through PR and myself. You reverted him directly three hours later, and only after that did you come to the Talk page. This is exactly the same behavior as before, and 3RR is not an entitlement. arimareiji (talk) 01:37, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

That is surmise, and is incorrect. I have an interest in articles involving the Israel/Palestine conflict, and have edited a number of such articles. That, and particularly the problem with the lead, is what got me involved in the article. I do not need your permission to edit. I was never warned not to edit articles with Untwirl, and the first I saw of Untwirl today was when he/she reverted my edit. Had he done any editing to the article before then? I have not looked.

You seem to think the issue is me. But it is you who has persisted in edit warring, and that is why I brought the issue here to AN/I. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 01:54, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

The claim to innocently stumbling across Untwirl gets less and less credible. Now you're asserting you don't even know the contents of your own Talk page or the block log that documents the block you got because of it, one of several. You seemed proud of it then; I'm guessing you've changed your mind. arimareiji (talk) 02:56, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Arimareiji, the problem is that you (not me) were edit warring on the Rachel Corrie article. Will you, as I requested, move the disputed material back to the talk page so the dispute can be settled without further edit warring?

Every thing you have said here so far amounts to ad hominems against me, the ad hominem being the most famous logical fallacy. If you think I am a nice guy has nothing to do with the validity or truth of my argument. For instance, I have heard it argued by those who are against vegetarianism, the argument that Hitler was a vegetarian. But if a bad man happened to be vegetarian does not refute the premises of vegetarianism. Likewise Hitler wore clothes, and breathed air; but that does not stop even those who despise Hitler the most from wearing cloths (at least in public), nor do they they refuse air and hold their breath.

So, Arimareiji, once again, my question is: will you return the disputed material to the article talk page for discussion? Malcolm Schosha (talk) 13:17, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Malcolm Schosha - I would suggest that you read the talk page instead of only using it to make demands. You would see that I've been talking to editors on both sides and we've got consensus to remove both disputed versions from mainspace, rather than keep reverting to only one of them as you were doing. arimareiji (talk) 14:03, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Bravo! Malcolm Schosha (talk) 15:25, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Arguably amusing, but the edit is not what you kept reverting to. I admit, however, that I got the idea from your false claim of "removing disputed material" - it made me realize that actually doing so would be a good idea. arimareiji (talk) 16:10, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

For the edification of anyone who cares - removal of both versions was proposed at Rachel Corrie Talk at 0221, with endorsement by IronDuke at 0223 and Untwirl at 0325. Malcolm's demand to restore his version was here at 1317. I leave it to your good judgment whether he was even aware of Talk discussion, let alone heroically "trying to stop an edit war." arimareiji (talk) 17:42, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I said the situation was better, and it is. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 17:49, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

---

(undent) To whom it may concern: Malcolm Schosha received this warning from DGG (who has since recused himself) two weeks ago. It was immediately subsequent to his receiving yet another block, this one for revert-warring against Untwirl (my bolds):

"And the only practical way you will be able to avoid violating 3rr again is to avoid reverting altogether. Discuss the matter on the talk page instead. I suggest further, that you not concentrate of the exact wording of specific points in controversial articles--such disputes are rarely productive. The best thing to do with a difficult article, is usually to find some additional indisputably good sources.

"You now have a choice: if you do mean to stop editing, you can stop. If you want to contribute peacefully, you can. Or, if you contribute in the manner you have been doing, you will receiver longer blocks, soon quite likely indefinite. IO won;t hesitate to do it myself."

In several different aspects, he's flagrantly disregarding this warning. He had no involvement with Rachel Corrie until Untwirl (the editor he just got blocked for edit-warring against) came to it, eight edits prior to his. His first edits were to twice revert (against Untwirl's perceived "side"), and revert again (Untwirl himself) three hours later, over "exact wording" in a "controversial article". Only after doing this did he come to the Talk page for the first time. His reverts were, in fact, to remove reliably-sourced wording and replace it with unsourced wording - not to find better wording based on sources.
Finally, please note that the warning admin above refers to Malcolm Schosha's claim to stop editing. You can still see this claim on his talk page. He did not do so; he came back and quickly resumed the same behavior. Please do not think this is a moot issue. An RFCU may also be appropriate, as one of his blocks (June 2008) was an indef for socking.

This will be my last post on this matter here. If an admin has questions, they can reach me at my talk page. arimareiji (talk) 14:03, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, then so be it ... decisions may be made against your liking in your absence. You're not compelled to be here, but while you're still a subject, it's likely a good idea to hang around. (talk→ Bwilkins / BMW ←track) 14:24, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

The reason I did not block was that I saw this as a minimal violation. I'm aware of the problems with the article, though I haven't to be recollection worked on it. The material Malcolm removed from the lede was in my opinion clearly inappropriate for a lede, being contentious detail material not necessary to give a clear introduction to the article. It should almost certainly be used elsewhere in the article, but that wasn't the question. I doubt it was wise of him to get involved at all, but it wasn't heinous. Arimareji has repeatedly insisted on my talk page that I proceed to a block. My own view is that this should just die down, unless it becomes a pattern continued there or repeated elsewhere. But at this point I think it would be fairer if I left others to judge. DGG (talk) 15:00, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I brought this issue here in an attempt to resolve an edit war. I was not involved in the edit war, aside from in the most marginal way. If Arimareiji (or other users) think I am a wiki-creep, schmuck and/or liar, they are entitled to that viewpoint. But that has nothing to do with the issue I brought here. I think the attention the edit war got on AN/I did add enough pressure to motivate the necessary change. Despite a lot of surmise by Arimareji, that is all I wanted.

I have not been placed under any editing restrictions, and I think that my edits of the Rachel Corrie article were helpful, even if much resented by Arimareiji. It is not my intention to do more than occasional editing of WP. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 15:45, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I contradict myself to note that this is already a long-standing pattern, arguably wikistalking of an editor whom he'd been blocked for edit-warring against, and to note again that Malcolm was not removing characterization of the sides - he was reverting to one of two disputed characterizations. The actual removal which he alludes to is not what he was fighting to attain, as a quick comparison shows. Bwilkins - I will try to be quiet, but that doesn't mean I'm not present. I will be; I'm not walking out. arimareiji (talk) 16:08, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Arimareiji I only made three edits. One of those was to move the disputed material to the talk page, and another was not related to the edit war. On the other hand you were edit warring for days, as can be easily seen by anyone who takes a look at the the article's recent history. But despite that you want to insist that everything wrong with WP is my fault, that there is absolutely nothing at all is your fault, and that there is nothing wrong with your edit warring. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 16:36, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

(ec) (ec)

i also would like to stress that the disputed material was not removed by malcolm, only the part that he disagreed with. and this "moving disputed material to the talk page is a one way street for malcolm. he did the same thing at the article he was last blocked for edit warring on, yet when i attempted to follow his lead and 'moved disputed material to the talk page', he immediately reverted it.

malcolm, if you care to review the history you will see that you reverted 3 times in three hours. you did not "(request) to move the disputed material back to the talk page so the dispute can be settled without further edit warring" you edit warred to remove only the viewpoint that you disagreed with. those of us participating in fruitful discussion have agreed to remove all of the 'disputed' material' from the lead until a version both sides can agree on is found. my interpretation of arimareiji's posts to DGG's talk page is not a request to block, but a request for him to warn malcolm that he is repeating the same behavior for which he was recently blocked. his first participation on the talk page was after his third revert. whether DGG believes that the content removal was right or not seems to be beside the point, his methods clearly are disruptive. his first edit to the article was to revert me after he had been blocked for incivility and edit warring against me on a different page. DGG's continued defense of malcolm's disruptive behavior:edit warring, wikistalking and unwillingness to participate in discussion, especially after he was the one to unblock malcolm last time, shows poor admin judgment. regardless of dgg's personal views on the content, he should not defend tenditious editing practices.Untwirl (talk) 16:29, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

as i think I mentioned, I am simply saying I see no grounds for further action. Once I had said that, you were free to ask any other administrator. I certainly am not going to take further action once I am accused of being partisan in the matter--it would be totally wrong at this point for me to do so. DGG (talk) 16:43, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Untwirl, was there an edit war in progress before I made my first edit? Has the dispute now been settled? Just to answer for you, there was an edit war in progress, and the dispute is now settled. Perhaps you can explain why you think I made things worse even though the editing situation is obviously better? Malcolm Schosha (talk) 16:53, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

seeing how you didn't participate in the discussion or suggest the removal that has now occurred, only did drive by reverts to match your pov, i dont see how you can claim responsibility for those of us who actually have been discussing and working out a compromise.Untwirl (talk)

Untwirl, you did not answer my question. To repeat: can explain why you have accused me of making things worse even though the editing situation is obviously better?

By the way, WikiStalking is a rather serious accusation made by Untwirl and Arimareiji against me. I would appreciate it if any administrator, or other experienced user reading this, could point out if it actually appears that I have been harassing any user. If there is any suspicion that this is the case I will try to clarify -- or if it should be that I have done something I should not have without intending (because there has been no such intention on my part), I will apologize. But, since Untwirl edits only Israel/Palestine dispute articles (to the point of being a single purpose account), and since I also edit Israel/Palestine articles, an expectation that I will never edit the same articles as Untwirl seems an unfair, and irrational, demand. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 17:28, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

dgg - i beg to differ with you as well. your response to malcolms edit warring without participating in discussion was "I consider that the material he deleted has no place in the lede." that is a content dispute. you ignored his disruptive tactics and supported his (in your words) "good editing." this was after you had overturned his block and told gwen gale you thought she was involved in a test of wills. any neutral admin could see that reverting 3 times in 3 hours is disruptive and deserves a warning to participate in discussion. if you endorse the version malcolm was pushing for, you should come to the talk page and discuss it, not refuse to warn an editor that he shouldn't edit war. especially considering it was you who unblocked him a couple weeks ago, with the caveat that you wouldn't hesitate to call him out for edit warring. Untwirl (talk) 17:06, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

just in case anyone has been misled by the above comment, I have ever made any edits to the article, nor have i protected it or unprotected it, nor have I taken any other administrative action about it. The above comment seems to imply that I am in some way bound to take administrative action even when I think it will not help the situation. As anyone can see from my log, I very rarely do take any actual administrative action, other than deleting spam and blocking persistent spammers, because I think it very rarely does help situations. On the other hand, I say-- asked or unasked -- whatever comments I think appropriate about the quality of edits, and I usually do so without the least regard to whoever it might be who has made the edit. DGG (talk) 02:09, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

inserted

i apologize if i implied that you were "bound to take administrative action." of course you weren't. my comment was on the fact that you unblocked him after at least 3 other admins found him too uncivil and unrepentant to do so. (his 2nd unblock request included the phrase "(I) still feel that the article was gang raped"). your willingness to go against the decisions of 3 (actually there was a 4th one who expressed his approval of the block) admins to unblock him did make me think you were a forceful admin. the tone of your comments to malcolm about refraining from further reverts and participating in discussion was stern. when he started making multiple reverts, i expected that you would offer him another suggestion to avoid reverting and discuss. there was a content dispute, and reverts arent the way to solve that. does the fact that you agreed with his version mean that it would be okay for him to do one more revert and pass 3rr? i am new, and i may misunderstand the role of an admin in these type of complaints, but i didn't think that an admins personal opinion about content came into play in a case of 3rr unless it involved vandalism. i'm truly sorry if i'm coming across bitchy about this, but i dont understand that aspect of this situation. thanks for your patience. Untwirl (talk) 04:29, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Malcolm, please dont divide comments, my signature was lost from the above comment. did i say, "malcolm has made things worse?" i don't remember that. this is an example of your straw man arguing. i stated explicitly that it does not matter whether you (or dgg) think your edits reverts were "good," many people disagreed and were discussing it on the talk page, in which you did not participate. is it just a coincidence that the 7th page you edited after being unblocked for edit warring and incivility against me was a page you had never edited and you then engaged in multiple reverts without discussion against me and others who supported the same wording? if it is, then i apologize and retract my accusation. as to my being an spa, this is not an inherently bad thing, i am active in discussions and dont perform ninja reverts like you did here.Untwirl (talk) 20:14, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Untwirl, you and/or Arimareiji have accused me of incivility, wiki-stalking, disruptive tactics, edit warring, of making three edits in three hours (is there a rule against doing that?), unwillingness to participate in discussion, deleting sourced material, putting words into your mouth, cherry-picking sources, repeatedly reverting back to one version, chasing an editor whom I've "repeatedly" been warned to leave alone, and I am sure I have missed some accusations. (Arimareiji also suggested a check user, which is okay with me.) I had not realized that I had done so much in just three edits to the article (and in just three hours!).

Of course, not a single one of these accusations has anything to do with the reason for this AN/I thread, which is that you and Arimareiji were edit warring for days at the Rachel Corrie article. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 20:58, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Just saying, but I don't know if you're doing yourself any favors by repeating your activities when they're easily verifiable by following the links and this present conversation. Carry on. arimareiji (talk) 21:04, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

You have not verified anything. You just hoped you could get me blocked if you made a lot of accusations, and repeated them often, and tried to convince two administrators to block me [29][30], all while you continued to edit war. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 21:17, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Comment on the complainant Malcolm Schosha is a problematical editor who makes a practice of wasting the time of good faith editors with tendentious editing[31] and accusations such as this one. He takes a hard-line and abusive attitude to anyone with whom he has a disagreement.[32] He has edited under different problematical UserNames and, when reminded, boasts of having been blocked "Yeh, I have been blocked plenty of times. So what? I take pride in not being an ass kisser. Do you have a problem with that?". I don't see a serious complaint here, and this ANI should be kicked into touch right now. PR^talk 22:59, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

PalestineRemembered, if your point is that no one should pay any attention to what I say because of my block history, then no one should pay any attention to what you say either because you have been blocked more often, and with longer blocks, than I have.

But what I think you are really saying is that you want to see me gone from WP because we have edited on different sides in disputed Israel/Palestine articles. In other words you find me an inconvenience to your editing goals. That attitude is certainly understandable, but deplorable. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 02:35, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

malcolm, leave it alone. your constant need to bring up i/p is tiresome. yes, many of us have different opinions, but that doesn't excuse personal attacks and disruptive editing. Untwirl (talk) 03:52, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I wondered across this thread not expecting to find anything funny, but I was pleasantly surprised. User:Untwirl, who is just one of the many POV-SPA's that have popped recently at Talk:2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict was accusing another editor of wikistalking at the Rachel Corrie article. Let me relate my wikistalking problem that I had with Untwirl at the very same article. For some reason or another I found myself at the Rachel Corrie removing some POV. This was at the same time that I asked Untwirl not to be incivil over some attack he made at Talk:2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict. Next thing I know, who is making his very first edit at the Rachel Corrie article and reverting my edit? You got it - Untwirl! Things are quiet for a few days; none of edit the article. On the 6th, I make another edit to the article, and - you got it - twenty minutes later Untwirl is again reverting my edit. The irony in his wikistalking accusations is delicious. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 07:58, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The disruptive tactics of editors making tendentious allegations against others will be better understood by reading this complaint at "Arbitration Enforcement" and this comment at the end of the section. PR^talk 14:08, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

This thread was initiated by me about the edit warring of Arimareiji at the Rachel Corrie article, an issue that is now resolved due to a compromise. Since the issue of the thread is resolved, I would appreciate an administrator closing the thread.

Strange to say neither Arimareiji, Untwirl, nor PalestineRemembered, in their numerous edits, ever had a single word to say about the dispute that caused the edit war at the Rachel Corrie article. Instead, they chose to discuss me, and what they consider to be my negative personality traits, and my shortcomings as a WP editor. In other words every single comment was an ad hominem, which is the most notorious logical fallacy. It should be noted, particularly, that ad hominems are still logical fallacies (and therefore worthless), even if the attacks made against the person are true, because they do not concern the real issue. However, in this case, since I made only "three edits in three hours" to that article,the accusations seem particularly silly. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 14:39, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

malcolm, this thread was begun by you misrepresenting yourself. you came here claiming to be the noble edit war ender, which was complete bs. you did not remove disputed material to the talk page. you removed only the part that you didnt like.

strange how you rewrite history. you perpetuated the edit war by making three reverts in a three hour time frame without participating in discussion. so your coming here to report arimareiji is rather comical.

brewcrewer - as i said before, dont flatter yourself. you are not interesting enough for me to follow. you and malcolm both have come to this page and reverted consensus based material without discussion.

see this diff - http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rachel_Corrie&diff=269301128&oldid=269126999 where you reverted to a disputed version just 2 hours after your comment here. if you had read the discussion page you would see that the 3 of us who were discussing it (not you or malcolm, who only make ninja reverts) had compromised on the version that was there. do not revert again. participate in discussion.

in fact, brewcrewer, your only participation on that talk page has been to accuse me of stalking you. you are disruptive. do we have to get the page protected at the compromised version to keep you from edit warring? Untwirl (talk) 17:26, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

brewcrewer also takes this vendetta out at various admin boards against respected neutral editors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:AE#User:Cerejota_accusing_editors_of_.22taking_marching_orders.22_from_CAMERA.28redux.29

cerejota and i have disagreed (in fact he defended you when i thought you were wrong), yet you feel like you can get sanctions imposed on him and have him banned from an article in which he has made excellent, balanced contributions. Untwirl (talk) 17:52, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Untwirl, I started this thread because there was an edit war at the Rachel Corrie article. By your own admission I had not participated significantly in editing the article. But there is no requirement to have participated in an edit war to report an edit war on AN/I. However I did participate in talk discussion here [33] in an effort to stop the edit war. Virtually every statement you have made about me here is either a distortion, or irrelevant to this thread. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 19:34, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

By the way, Untwirl, I think it would be accurate to call brewcrewer's change to the article lead an edit, not a "revert" -- as you called it. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 19:42, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

1. You tried "to stop the edit war"... by making your very first appearance at the page to make three reverts in mainspace against three separate editors in three hours ([34],[35],[36]) to your preferred version, then finally appearing at Talk after your third revert to claim your deletion of one side (and putting it on the talk page) was a neutral edit? Followed by threatening two hours later to bring it here ([37]) unless your version was reinstated?
2. Editors from both sides came up with an unquestionably-neutral solution to remove both versions. Not only was it without your input, you obliviously demanded again ten hours later that your version be reinstated. And now, you're upset that when Brewcrewer reverted again to your version a full day later, Untwirl accurately calls it a revert?
3. No question, you're a real peace... maker. arimareiji (talk) 23:46, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

User:HorseGirl070605

This user has so much bad behavior, it's difficult to know where to focus. She has abused [38] (and perhaps threatened in earnest) editors, has a sockpuppet account (71.68.223.17), has ignored several editor's requests to stop vandalism, edit wars, blanks her discussion pages to hide final warnings,[39] and repeatedly announces she's retired, when she is editing as usual.[40] I have consulted with other editors,[41] and the suggestion was to begin here. She shows no sign of changing her habits of making off-hand, often childish edits, based on personal opinion, or information from social sites. Of particular concern is indicating she's willing to delete other, established edits for no reason. She wanted the articles for Santa Claus and The Easter Bunny entirely deleted, for example.[42] She seems to be largely unwilling to improve her behavior in even small matters. This thinking is so contrary to Wikipedia values, so persistent, it seems time to take some action.Piano non troppo (talk) 02:21, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Some of this evidence is really questionable; she does not actually want Santa Claus and The Easter Bunny deleted, she was attempting to make an other stuff exists argument for the inclusion of The Volten Sins. Her threats are clearly not serious ("I'll get my dog Nsync to bite ya'll and I'll get my cat Spicey to bite and scratch ya'll"). Editing after announcing retirement is not forbidden and may just indicate a change of heart. And I would hardly call editing while not logged in a sock puppet, unless it was done with the intention of presenting an alternate identity, which you have not demonstrated evidence of. Nevertheless, her uncooperative attitude and poor communication ("I'm not going to work together with any of you peons. And ya'll can't make me."), as well as her technique of avoiding conflict by pretending to cooperate and later misbehaving again, not to mention her persistent OR edits, are really difficult to deal with. Dcoetzee 05:42, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

The idea of retirement she has I introduced her to but she's run with it and now believes she has retired, just not enough to actually cease editing. She has recently been editing whilst logged out but I don't think it's an honest thing as she still blanks the IP talkpages with "(retired)" even though IP accounts can't actually be retired so I do feel it's more to do with gaming the system than just editing without being logged in. If she edits whilst logged out, to her it doesn't count and if her HorseGirl070605 account is blocked then she still gets to edit and nobody gets to bug her. All I'm wondering is just why we shouldn't be considering this to be sockpuppetry, she might not be identifying as someone else but is trying to avoid scrutiny by doing this. treelo _radda 14:27, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, difficult to deal with. We were, in part, seeking a suggestion about what to do. Statements such as "You A-Holes can't stop me."(cited above) suggest she has no intention of changing behavior without correction. (Switching from editing as HorseGirl070605 an anon IP is a part of a larger pattern of avoidance, that is, she stopped editing in one, and started in another. Only later did the editors watching her discover what she'd done).

I got involved only lately, and was appalled at the amount of effort earlier editors had expended trying to reason with her. Her disdain for proper sourcing is real enough, and based on a worldview coming from social sites, and apparently her interpretation of the Bible, as, for example, in this edit on Ghost: "Ghosts are mentioned in The Bible. Ergo ghosts are real."[43]

We've tried reasoning with her, what's next? Thanks. Piano non troppo (talk) 06:19, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Inspecting her recent edits, I think most of the damage is limited to The Saddle Club, and she's stopped editing there for the moment. She may be uncivil and have a poor attitude, as well as the issue with reliable sources, but relatively few of her edits are manifestly bad and she doesn't continue pushing them if challenged, so I don't think there's a significant problem. I've left a clear warning on her talk page (and that of her IP). Dcoetzee 07:03, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. That would be the warning that she just blanked without comment. [44] But thank you for your message to her, that at least lets her know there are some rules and guidelines. Piano non troppo (talk) 07:14, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Blanking warnings on talk pages is fine - we can take it as proof that they were received. - Bilby (talk) 07:18, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Unless the user is that naive. In either case, it looks like she bucking for a block. Someone should remind her that a person cannot revoke his/her contributions under the GFDL. The user has acknowledged all such warnings given and still does not heed them. MuZemike 09:06, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

User:Aoi has been keeping a record of every contribution added to the talkpages of accounts she's used and given just how many times she blanks the page it really isn't acknowledgement of the contribs but more that she doesn't want to read what others think. treelo _radda 14:27, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Images used in Intelligent design covered by Non-free content policy?

Some editors of Inteligent design are teaming up and overcoming the non-free content policy to use non-free book covers and magazine covers against site-wide policy and consensus.

I'm about to violate WP:3RR since I have to deal with a whole team of editors that insists that people wanting to enforce the policy are just "NFCC regulars" that, unlike them, can't understand the topic of "Intelligent design".

It's well established, and derived from WP:NFCC, that we don't use non-free book-cover images in articles that just happen to mention the book. We use it in the book's article or in any article that discusses some topic that couldn't be fully understood without seeing the specific image. This is nothing special about book or magazine covers, but something valid for all non-free images, according to WP:NFCC#8.

A recent discussion on the article's talk page faded away after the image proponents turned it into a discussion about how bad our policy is. --Damiens.rf 04:28, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and protected the wrong version (in this case, I actually think that it is the wrong version, since I agree with you on our non-free image policy, but I'm not going to enforce it after protecting the page). Sarcasticidealist (talk) 04:32, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

And I've warned those who were edit-warring in breach of policy. Happy to block if need be. Let's hope it won't be necessary. --John (talk) 05:04, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

You warn me for edit warring? Since when is one edit edit warring? Completely uncalled for. Aunt Entropy (talk) 05:07, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I have taken the initiative of notifying the other editors you warned of this report. Aunt Entropy (talk) 05:20, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Given the venomously misleading title of this section (The thread was originally titled " == Inteligent design editors teaming up to abuse non-free images ==", and subsequently changed here and again here to its present section title), I'm now not at all surprised to have received User:John's note on my talk page. At the moment, I'm glad I'm not an admin-- I might have fallen for that myself were I not already familiar with the situation. Here's the problem in part: Those editors that choose to frequently file and/or participate in FFDs and who hang around WT:NFC and related pages are not the only users capable of participating in the consensus process to assess whether a given file meets the NFCC. The editors who've descended upon intelligent design in the past week or so appear to be under the illusion that they're the only ones capable of making this assessment. Guettarda's comments immediately below give some perspective on what the arguments ended up being about. In terms of the NFCC, the argument ended up being about the often-subjective and highly debatable assessments called for in NFCC#1 (no free equivalent) and the especially subjective NFCC#8 (significance). These are not the kind of criteria that are appropriate either for a CSD assessment or for any other kind of purely ministerial action by an administrator. ... Kenosis (talk) 05:41, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

The use of these images is in keeping with our fair-use policy. Rationales have been made per WP:NFCC#8. No one has bothered to address the rationales for inclusion under NFCC#8. There is no abuse of policy here. John, on the other hand, is making threats which constitute an abuse of his admin privileges, including issuing "warnings" in which he made no attempt to explain what policy he claimed was violated. Guettarda (talk) 05:15, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

No Damiens, the discussion never addressed the issue. It didn't peter out because of "how bad our policy is", it petered out because the only argument that was made against inclusion of the images was WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Guettarda (talk) 05:17, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. The only argument was "because I said, that's why" and and dismissal without consideration of any argument for keeping the images, and any editor who disagrees is part of an abusive gang. That is not fair. This is a content dispute period. And there is absolutely no consensus to delete the images. Aunt Entropy (talk) 05:25, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

The Fair Use guideline is consensus. We don't have to reach a new one for each article. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 05:30, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

RE "The Fair Use guideline is consensus." : So is the definition and description of the proper scope of a "guideline" in WP:Policies and guidelines. Please go refresh memory about what a guideline is, by consensus, within Wikipedia. ... Kenosis (talk) 05:53, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

The content part of this discussion belongs at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content. The editor conduct issue can continue to be dealt with here. If a consensus is reached in the proper venue that these images meet our policies, this issue will be resolved. If editors edit-war to restore stuff which breaches our policies, they will be blocked. Straightforward stuff, I would think. --John (talk) 05:32, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually the thread at NFCC says to go to Talk:Intelligent design. [Disclaimer: I should be blocked for this edit.] siℓℓy rabbit (talk) 06:00, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I emphatically disagree with John. The discussion on WT:NFC#Use of book covers in intelligent design has been short, superficial and in violation of WP:AGF (denigrating the WP:CONSENSUS on Talk:Intelligent design as "another case of majority rule ILIKEIT"). The issue has been done to death on Talk:Intelligent design. The regular editors on that article (including myself) believe that there is a long-standing consensus for the inclusion of this "stuff", no contrary consensus has been formed, and there is no objective evidence (only subjective back-and-forth arguments) that it "breaches our policies". It therefore follows that any blocks to enforce one side of this debate would be unlikely to be seen as "uninvolved". YMMV. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk(P) 06:06, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Despite User:John's excellent suggestion that I take this up at NFCC, apparently there already is a discussion there explicitly shunting all further comments to Talk:Intelligent design. There is a pronounced lack of consensus at the latter discussion page, to which I have contributed. Presumably further discussion should occur there as well. Under the circumstances I have just described, a block threat seems to be particularly unjustified. siℓℓy rabbit (talk) 06:24, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I left a message for John re his warning on my page ... he seems to have missed the quid pro quo and gone for the qui. Sad, really, but, well ... •Jim62sch•^dissera! 05:37, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

NFCC policy

1. No free equivalent. We meet that criterion
2. Respect for commercial opportunities. We're good there.
3. Minimal usage/Minimal extent of use. Not a problem.
4. Previous publication. Yep.
5. Content. Yep.
6. Media-specific policy. Looks good.
7. Significance. Case made. Nothing beyond IDONTLIKEIT has been offered to suggest why the case is flawed.
8. Restrictions on location. Not a problem.
9. Image description page. Got that.

No policy is being violated. The case was made for #8. Once that was done, the discussion petered out. No one pointed out any flaws in the rationale. Inclusion of the images in the article appears to be consistent with the NFCC policy. Guettarda (talk) 05:41, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

But that doesn't justify an edit war. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 05:48, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't recall anyone saying it did; do you? •Jim62sch•^dissera! 05:55, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I see a heck of a lot of people making excuses here, yeah. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 07:19, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

...for removal? siℓℓy rabbit (talk) 07:22, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I see a lot of people talking about how the photos satisfy (or do not satisfy) policy. That doesn't really matter, as far as ANI is concerned. Even if the images were public domain, nobody has the right to edit war to keep them in the article. And it's not urgent to remove them, either.

Policy can be debated by any user; the only action here that calls for admin intervention (which is what this page is for) is the edit war. I'm with John - I'm willing to block anyone continuing it, on either side. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 07:32, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Then why did John only threaten those on the "wrong" side of this debate? siℓℓy rabbit (talk) 07:36, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

It was a warning, not a threat. Warnings are good things. If you're getting warnings, that means you haven't been blocked yet. Which is always nice. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 07:42, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Ok, so threats are a good thing. But still, why was only one side threatened with a block here? siℓℓy rabbit (talk) 07:51, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Why are you asking me? I didn't warn only one side. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 07:58, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Because you have said that you are "with John", without (apparently) bothering to examine what "John is with". siℓℓy rabbit (talk) 08:03, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Get off your high horse. Nobody's interested. I know you've got a smart-ass answer for everything, but it's obvious what I meant. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 08:08, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

John's threats seem to have sewn a bit of bitterness. Charges regarded horses and asses do not seem to defuse this situation. siℓℓy rabbit (talk) 08:49, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

W.r.t. John's warning(s), I tend to think he might have been misled by the opening gambit and the title of this thread. (The thread was originally titled " Inteligent design editors teaming up to abuse non-free images", and subsequently changed here and again here to its present section title.) Obviously he thought he was enforcing clearcut policy and as such his approach, rendered against only one side of the dispute, is somewhat understandable to me. But the fact of the matter is, as I said above in this thread, the assessment of whether the images at issue meet policy is not anywhere near that simple, and the only credible "policy" issues being asserted by Damiens.rf and several others are based on NFCC#8, interpretations of what are debatable, subjective editorial decisions, not by any means clearcut policy-based decisions. Advocates of removal of the images also took a couple shots based on NFCC#1, though these were highly stretched arguments that free-licensed images of the authors should be used in lieu of the cover images, and, as should be obvious, there are no legitimately free-licensed replacements for the cover images themselves. I should add that in October 2007 the article was featured on the main page with these images present in the article, as well as withstood two WP:FARs, so you can dependably bet that many admins have seen the images in intelligent design before, the consensus among admins being that the use, while not bulletproof, was reasonable. Perhaps needless to say, several admins have also disagreed with this assessment that the images' use was reasonable under the NFCC, notably NV8200p and CBM. ... Kenosis (talk) 08:12, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

• The entire conversation above shows why use of non-free images of enwiki is out of control. It is the same every time someone tries to enforce WP:NFCC. Standard timeline;
  • Images removed per NFCC
  • Images replaced
  • Edit war (optional)
  • Goes to talk
  • Regular editors of article claim they have "consensus" to keep the images
  • Alternatively, a "rationale" is cobbled together which is claimed to "meet NFCC#8" (it almost never does)
  • Edit war (optional)
  • Either stalemate, RfC, etc, (or editors eventually see that images aren't viable)
  • In the meantime, those seeking to enforce WP:NFCC will often be subject to random violations of NPA and CIVIL (this hasn't been the case so much this time, but is normal otherwise)
  • And we wonder why enwiki's use of non-free material is is such a terrible state?

Black Kite 11:25, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Let's run Black Kite's comment from the top from a slightly different perspective:

• The entire conversation above shows why policing of non-free images of enwiki is out of control. It is the same every time someone tries to enforce their view of WP:NFCC. Standard timeline of an NFC raid on Intelligent design (there've been multiple);
  • Images removed in spite of existing rationale and consensus
  • Images replaced
  • Edit war (apparently compulsory)
  • Goes to talk
  • Self-appointed NFCC enforcers dismiss pre-existing consensus
  • Self-appointed NFCC enforcers dismiss pre-existing rationale on NFCC#8 -- which inevitably goes nowhere as the criteria is completely subjective and quite vague.
  • Edit war initiated by NFC advocates, taking any pause in conversation to being an admission of surrender
  • Either stalemate, RfC, etc, (or self-appointed NFCC enforcers regroup to try again in a few months time)
  • In the meantime, those seeking to defend legitimate content will often be subject to random violations of NPA and CIVIL
  • Rinse and repeat
  • And we wonder why these self-appointed individuals have a reputation for precipitate and non-consensual behaviour?

It really depends on who's telling it, doesn't it? Hrafn^Talk_Stalk(P) 12:02, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

• The use of the phrases "self-appointed NFCC enforcers", "NFC raid", "policing", "pre-existing consensus" and "non-consensual behaviour" proves my point exactly. Thanks for endorsing my posting. I don't think I need say any more. Black Kite 13:38, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

• The use of the phrases "claim" & "cobble together" proves my point exactly as well. And I am amused that you would take umbrage at "enforcers" "raid" & "policing" given your prior use of "enforce". As to "pre-existing consensus", you and your fellows were pointed to archive giving exhaustive detail on previous discussions. And I believe "non-consensual" is pretty accurate for unilateral deletion. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk(P) 14:06, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

• The Foundation has tasked us with only two areas to keep control of on WP: WP:BLP and NFC. BLP is heavily policed (evidenced by the number of ArbCom cases over it, along with numerous ANI postings), but when it comes to NFC, that seems to be second bananas. Adherence to getting to the free mission goals of WP is not optional. Anything that can be done to reduce non-free use has to be done, with the understanding that some non-free use on en.wiki is needed to help with articles. --MASEM 13:43, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
  • I find it surprising that we still have people who work on the thankless task of NFCC compliance (given how "significance" is rather subjective, it is impossible to get right). I don't think that non-free images are worth the trouble they bring (a clear decision "only free images" would be so much simpler than deciding where the border is), and they are certainly not worth compromising our mission as a free encyclopedia. In support of wikiveganism, Kusma (talk) 13:55, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
    • The problem is that we don't have many people working on it, because they end up going to work on something else when they get sick of the abuse and tendentiousness that they encounter. The real issue is that many enwiki editors play lip service to the idea of a "free" encyclopedia, until it's "their" articles that fall foul of NFCC. More worrying recently is that there have been a number of cases recently (I'm not talking about ID here) where admins have been amongst those agitating to keep images in articles against policy. IMHO, those people really need to consider their position as so-called defenders of policy. I'm coming round to the idea that we either go one of three ways. (1) No non-free use, per de-wiki (2) tighten up NFCC severely (3) allow all non-free images and call ourselves "The Encyclopedia". We wouldn't keep a BLP violation in one of our articles because a few editors banded together and declared it "consensus" so why do we appear to allow it with NFCC? Black Kite 15:45, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
      • Actually I think we should have no one working on NFCC compliance. That time would be better spent writing articles or lobbying the Foundation to drop support for projects that are not committed to a free-content-only principle. Kusma (talk) 07:10, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

• I vote we frame that comment as a perfect summary of the problem. Somebody tries to enforce the policy, they get trolled to hell and back, they give up, the insidious creep of unfree images continues unabated. Are we actually serious about enforcing that policy? If so, we should adopt a protocol which makes personalising the issue blockable, because that is the root of 99% of NFC drama, IMO. Guy (Help!) 22:40, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I changed the title of this section. - Eldereft (cont.) 15:22, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

And I fixed your way too common mistake. --Damiens.rf 20:28, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Sheese. This of course largely negates my statements in partial defense of John's response to the thread, as well as my description of the tone of the thread. I'll go make "note(s) to reader" where appropriate. ... Kenosis (talk) 15:36, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I think the images are obviously non-compliant, and need to be removed. Editors that may restore them should be apprised that intentionally violating NFCC is an offense that can result in a block.—Kww(talk) 15:44, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes they are, but do you see the problem now? I haven't edited that article at all, but say I was to block someone restoring them - I haven't got time to respond to the ensuing RfC, because this article appears to be "defended" by a number of senior editors. I mean, ID is a featured article, it's a really good article, and it doesn't need to stamp all over one of our policies. So good luck on that one. Black Kite 15:49, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm well aware of the problem, Black Kite. And it is a shame ... it's a good article that doesn't need to be tainted by policy violations, and the violation is so flagrantly obvious that there really shouldn't be any controversy at all in enforcing it here. Blocking any editor that restores the images after warning is the obvious move, and, in a perfect world, would be able to be done without blinking an eye.—Kww(talk) 15:58, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but... While I recognize the importance of keeping the NFC to a reasonable minimum and the importance of the work of those who parse through the many--many-tens-of-thousands of NFC files as a housekeeping matter, in reality usages such as the three in intelligent design are most certainly not a problem except to the extent that those who choose to focus on removing NFC choose to make it into a problem, to make it into a poster child or example of some kind. Remember please that the NFC is a guideline. What works for comic-book covers, album covers, stamps, etc., as a general guideline does not apply here even as a guideline. What works for book and magazine covers as a general guideline may apply here to some extent, but again is a guideline that should properly be treated as a general guideline-- read that: "inherently flexible". Among the various arguments rendered by those who've targeted these three cover images (originally four), only one is a credible policy argument, the highly subjective "catch-all" criterion NFCC#8. The use of these cover images is by no reasonable stretch of imagination a "blatant" or "clear" or "obvious" violation of any policy. To the contrary, they are completely reasonable, thoughtful, minimal uses that are well within both the letter and the spirit of WP's Exemption Doctrine Policy (WP:NFCC). The consensus for their inclusion among the many participants in the article, many of whom became fairly well exposed and familiar with WP's EDP, was, and remains, virtually unanimous that the uses were minimal, reasonable, and significantly enhance readers' understanding of the topic. As to justifications based on the idea that WP's mission is to be a totally free-content project, the argument is fair enough but not consistent with the existence of the many tens of thousands (I believe it's over 100,000 but correct me if I'm wrong) of NFC files. Again, there's no need to make a posterchild of these images, as their use is entirely reasonable and well within WP's EDP. ... Kenosis (talk) 17:27, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Except that the EDP is a frequently-waved straw man. Let's look at WP:NFCC#8. The question that arises is simple - is the reader's understanding of the subject of Intelligent design significantly increased by being able to see the cover of a book about it, when the contents of the book are discussed in the article anyway? Answer: clearly not. And that, really, should be it. However ... Black Kite 18:06, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia's EDP is the NFCC, although WP:EDP presently redirects to the guideline page, WP:NFC. ... Kenosis (talk) 18:55, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Hence my specific reference to NFCC. Resolution:Licensing policy redirects to NFC, but that's just a guideline, NFCC is the policy (even though it's transcluded into it). I've found a need to be precise in the past... Black Kite 19:54, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

• Proposed Compromise Cut down WP's coverage of Intelligent Design by about 90% and lock it. Tell ID supporters to go edit articles on religion and critics to edit ones on science. Steve Dufour (talk) 18:33, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to be honest and say that this is one of the most destructive proposals I have ever seen. Remove 90% of coverage of a notable topic from Wikipedia? That's insane. And besides, this isn't about the validity of ID, this is about whetehr some images come under fair use.--Patton^t/c 18:54, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Please consider the immense scope of WP's articles on this fairly minor topic, and the waste of time, talent, and energy involved in their upkeep. Steve Dufour (talk) 10:23, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I guess another major component to this is that the policy is (or at the very least seems) subjective. Is there anyway a community wide discussion could lead to the policy becoming more concrete? Do we purposely leave it flexible, even though it leads to conflicts such as this one? Is there anything we could do in terms of policy/guidelines to make the issue more clear for the future, or will this not lead anywhere because any policy based changes would mean one of these sides would loose, and the sides are too polarized as it is? Would those wanting to include the images on this page be willing to give that up if the policy was changed to make it clear those sorts of images in that usage was inappropriate? Would those wanting to remove the images be willing to give that up if the core policy behind all this was made clearer so that a case like this was unambiguously acceptable? -Andrew c ^[talk] 19:11, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I tend to subordinate my personal judgment to policies and guidelines, and, if I think they are wrong, discuss that issue on the appropriate discussion pages for policies and guidelines. If there was a policy that said "Book covers can be used to decorate articles about related subjects", I would leave them be, but lobby pretty hard to change that policy. This really isn't an ambiguous case where the subjectivity is causing problems, though. It's more a case of editors that believe having an attractive article is more important than following guidelines and policies.—Kww(talk) 19:38, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Please assume good faith. The authors of that article clearly believe they are following guidelines and policies. They merely interpret those policies and guidelines differently than the WP:NFCC regulars. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:06, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I assume good faith in as much as I think they have an honest belief that NFCC prevents them from producing the article they think is best, and are attempting to evade it on that basis. I don't see any evidence that they believe they are following NFCC#8, as they have never been able to answer a straightforward question: what aspect of intelligent design is it that a reader might have difficulty grasping, that, having viewed the book cover, they would then find easier to grasp? When faced with that straightforward, simple question, one receives replies about how humans are visual learners, the nature of correct graphic design, comparison of the use of the book covers to album covers, claims that consensus is required to remove the material, but never an answer to that question. Unless that question can be answered, a defense of an image in terms of NFCC#8 can't even be mounted.—Kww(talk) 21:17, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

The question kww proposes, "what aspect of intelligent design is it that a reader might have difficulty grasping, that, having viewed the book cover, they would then find easier to grasp?" , is not the policy w.r.t. NFCC#8, but rather is made up by kww. The policy, NFCC#8, states: "Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding." This question has repeatedly been asked and answered, addressed at great length by at least ten editors in at least twenty or thirty places, most or all of which were recently linked for convenience on the article talk page. And Guettarda and others including myself have outlined at significant length some of the benefits the images confer to readers in the current set of talk threads. The response among those who've come into the article with no significant purpose other than to advocate deletion of the cover images has been, essentially, "no they don't" and "that's not the way we use cover images" and "our goal is to create a free-licensed encyclopedia". I don't ordinarily draw on WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS because it's just an essay, but if the goal is to make the encyclopedia completely free-licensed, then argue at WP:NFC and WP:NFCC to make the EDP simple-- no NFC allowed, and delete all of the 100,000+ NFC files. But until such time as there is agreed to be no NFC in Wikipedia we have an exemption policy in place' (an EDP) that explicitly allows NFC on the wiki, specifically WP:NFCC. The NFCC are designed to allow NFC on the wiki within reason, with reasonable restraint, and with reasonable justification as set forth in the NFCC. The images at issue have unquestionably satisfied NFCC#s 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10a, 10b and 10c, and quite reasonably satisfied the very subjective and always debatable question in #8. ... Kenosis (talk) 23:48, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

In that case, please, here and now, put this to bed by using those "twenty or thirty" comments you mention and actually answering the question - How is the reader's understanding of the subject of Intelligent Design significantly increased by being able to see the cover of a book about it, when the contents of the book are already discussed in the article anyway?. Then we can mark this resolved and all go to bed happy. Black Kite 00:04, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm back, briefly. The links were given on Talk:Intelligent design. I'm not able right now to grab every significant diff and list them here. I am willing, though, to go over them and give a reasonable sampling of them as well as a re-recitation of the substantive arguments in support of the proposition that readers' understanding is significantly enhanced by the use of the cover images in that article--as soon as I have an opportunity, which will probably be in a day or two. I'll post them on the article talk page with a link-to on this page. Fair enough?... Kenosis (talk) 03:47, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Excuse me for trying to frame the issue in a concrete form that made it easy to evaluate whether you had any rational basis for your position. I don't see how you can satisfy its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding if there is no aspect of intelligent design that is made simpler to understand. Can you explain that to me? If there isn't an aspect that is difficult to understand without the image, the absence isn't detrimental, and if that difficult thing isn't made easier to understand by the presence of the image, then the image can't significantly increase the reader's understanding. You appear to be dodging the question by claiming I made things up.—Kww(talk) 02:19, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

There's no dodging of any kind going on here. You've framed the question incorrectly, because making simpler to understand is only one of a number of ways to significantly enhance readers' understanding. Fact is, they do make the iconography used by the "intelligent design movement" and by Time magazine simpler to understand. But they also add information that can't be properly conveyed with text, important visual information that significantly enhances readers' understanding of the topic. Please see also my note just above in response to Black Kite's last post. ... Kenosis (talk) 04:22, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Because it puts the discussion in context, by making visual referents to things the reader has previously seen, to arresting visual statements made on book covers, to classic related images. Communication by images is as important s communication by words--and for topics where emotion is involved,is often much clearer. DGG (talk) 01:59, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

But not when it is other people's copyrighted images. As a free project we don't do that. --John (talk) 02:13, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

John, the NFCC are not "we don't do that", they're "we do that only when it significantly enhances understanding" (with other technical criteria). As DGG just argued in broad terms here, and as I recently argued in more specific terms on Talk:Intelligent design, in this instance they do in fact significantly enhance understanding. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:27, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that the argument you, DGG, and others are presenting is not specific to these images. The argument Articles with pictures and images are easier to understand and digest than articles without them is a hard one to refute on a general basis, and I wouldn't really even think of trying. The question is whether these individual images have characteristics that increase the understanding of this specific topic, and people aren't providing concrete arguments in support of.—Kww(talk) 02:48, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

You didn't read the comment I linked to above, did you? It was very specific. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:11, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Certainly did. You argued that presenting images of various milestones in the topic served to draw you in, and would possibly persuade you to read text that otherwise you wouldn't have read. That isn't an argument demonstrating that those particular milestones needed to be illustrated and that no text could have explained the occurrence of those milestones. "I wouldn't have read the text" isn't an argument that says that text couldn't explain the pictures, that's an argument that says articles should be attractively laid out and contain pictures to draw the readers eye.—Kww(talk) 03:31, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I argued that the specific pictures had the specific effect of significantly enhancing my understanding, and that the text did not. I don't know why you bring in arguments like "that no text could have...": it's not a hypothetical, about some article that doesn't exist and some reader that doesn't exist, it's my actual reaction to the article as it now exists. If that doesn't meet WP:NFCC #8, then that criterion is meaningless and we might as well simplify WP:NFCC to "delete all unfree images". I realize that some ideologues might think we should delete all such images regardless, but by WP:AGF I'm hopeful that you're not one of them. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:48, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Could the subject be adequately conveyed by text without using the non-free content at all? is part of NFCC#1, which intertwines a bit with the need for the absence of the image to significantly detract from understanding: if the image could be replaced by text, it's hard to argue that the absence of the image is detrimental. No, I'm not really an NFCC extremist, but I do believe firmly that the arguments for using NFC should be strong and in support of that specific use of that specific image. I don't argue against the use of book covers in articles about the books, or pictures of stamps in articles about stamps, for example. I think the need for images in this particular article could be covered by things like File:Flagellum_base_diagram.svg, illustrating one of the key contention argument points of irreducible complexity faction of the ID movement. If there was a fair-use image of the bone structure of a panda's thumb, I'd probably support inclusion of it, because without it it's hard to explain to laymen how the panda became the poster-child of the ID controversy. There's a real need for images in this article, and a lot of images that would actually enhance it. Stuffing book covers in it as a substitute isn't the way to go.—Kww(talk) 04:12, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

RE "There's a real need for images in this article, and a lot of images that would actually enhance it" : You've presumably become more familiar with the topic in the course of your analysis. In support of your statement, kindly point us to a couple such images that are free-licensed, or even just one.... Kenosis (talk) 04:48, 8 February 2009 (UTC) Actually, I'll take part of my statement back. the flagellem diagram is a good illustration of the debate about irreducible complexity, though may be overly specific for the intelligent design article. IMO, there's a good argument to supplement the Behe book cover, though it would not be an equivalent replacement for the presentation on the cover of Darwin's Black Box because the cover shows how the ID proponents have publicly framed the debate in part with their misleading use of iconography (plenty of RSs in support of this). I'll bring it up on the article talk page, if someone else doesn't mention it first. Good catch. ... Kenosis (talk) 05:27, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

You should watch your assumptions ... I'm intimately familiar with intelligent design, and have been debating and arguing against creationism for decades. Dig through the talk.origins postings archived on the web, and you will find that some of the earliest archived postings are from "Kevin W. Williams".—Kww(talk) 13:34, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Great. Then I trust you're familiar with the importance of the slick cover presentations and other approaches designed to manipulate the popular mind and to foist their philosophy onto biological science. As you might perhaps have realized, without the elements of various manipulative or misleading presentation, "intelligent design" would hardly be controversial to the extent it has become in the United States. ... Kenosis (talk) 16:46, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

User:Godvia

User:Godvia was blocked indefinitely for a variety of tenditious behavior. The user has returned tonight to post a series of personal attacks upon established editors on her/his talk page here, here, here and here. I am asking for protection on this talk page as the user apparently has no intention of asking for the block removal and is now using that page to attack editors. Thank you. Wildhartlivie (talk) 11:10, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I suggest you take the page off your watchlist; the editor is indef blocked and is likely to remain so while they post such rantings, but it does not help move the situation forward by reverting them. Once the situation calms and the editor drifts away or apologises or becomes World President and Gets Various Asses Seriously Pwned then the page can be restored to the appropriate version - in the meantime, let them air their grievances and do something more fun somewhere else. LessHeard vanU (talk) 14:32, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Excuse me? That's the best an administrator can offer when presented with vile attacks posted by a banned editor when I've reported personal attacks aimed at me?? With all due respect, that's the poorest answer I've actually read on this noticeboard. Meanwhile, the editor is being encouraged by someone whose best response is to mollycoddle the person who is posting viciously against more than one person. Does it have to be an adminstrator that is called racist and "wildhog" for you to act upon this? Bluntly, this answer sucks and certainly is in no way supportive of any editor in good standing. Wildhartlivie (talk) 18:53, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

We get indef-blocked users ranting all the time; LHvU has a view that many take - ignore them until they actually request an unblock, or until they go away. I've left a note for the editor that if an unblock is in the works, to request it without the personal attacks or else their page may be locked. Tony Fox (arf!) 19:44, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I had two options here - the one I was suggesting to you; ignore it and get on with more fun stuff, or two raise the ante by responding. I shall follow the course that most appeals to you; I have in the past two days received 3 sets of postings to my talkpage regarding blocks I have enacted. One called me an "ass-wipe" and was ignored, one laboured some point about my blocking creating a biased (ie not their pov) article which I attempted to address before withdrawing, and the last one who called me an "Asswhole" (presumably being a complete mule is a vile insult in some parts of the world, although I would be more affronted by being referred to as only 73% of a mule personally) and who I responded on their talkpage - they being blocked on account of the attacks on my page - in a fairly humorous manner. So, really, I actually do know what I am talking about and my advice to you (and I shall write it more slowly and in shorter words this time) is "do not let it get to you - or you will end up getting angry to no effect." Now, does this help or do you now think it would have been best if I had let this pass following the good advice already given to you here? LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:52, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

As the subject of the "vile attacks" – who was the administrator that was called racist in said attack – I think my poor sensitive self can cope with the trauma of leaving his talkpage unblocked. I get worse abuse than this all the time and so does everyone else. – iridescent 20:03, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that, Tony. Iridescent, you weren't the only person called racist in the series of rants posted, so was Pinkadelica at one point, and my name and another were left. However, it isn't true that everyone else gets that sort of abuse all the time. I certainly don't get abuse like that all the time or I wouldn't waste my time here. It may be something that adminstrators get inured to, but then, that's why I never wanted to be an adminstrator. We tried being decent to this person, that didn't work either. Wildhartlivie (talk) 20:20, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Wildhartlivie, he's only being rude to you on his own talk page and if I protect his talkpage he'll have no place to contest the block; and when I blocked him indefinitely, I did it with the firm intention of "indefinite meaning undefined", not "indefinite meaning infinite" (I deliberately removed the autoblock the next day as well, in case he wants to make a quiet fresh start under a new name). If it bothers you that much, unwatch his talkpage. – iridescent 21:00, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Godvia is also accusing me of racism, most likely based on the erroneous assumption that I am white. I think the page should be protected so that other users aren't be defamed on Wikipedia's own server, but whatever is done, I think it should be done quickly. We can probably all agree that no matter what action is taken, lengthy discussions about the situation likely serve only to satisfy the blocked user's desire for attention. Chicken Wing (talk) 08:35, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Eugene Krabs dilemma

I've come to report a growing problem; new user Eugene Krabs. The username pretty much gives away that he likes Mr. Krabs. At first you'd think that he's just a normal new user, but if you look at his contributions, you'll see he's getting very close to being disruptive, he makes all these weird edits and when someone reverts them, he leaves a false warning on their talk page.

And when i tried to help, he got mad and said that i'm trying to boss him around. I thnk we've either discovered a very disruptive sockpuppet, or a disgruntled child/teenager. I decided to come here for some advice on what to do, Eugene obviously doesn't want help. Elbutler (talk) 13:43, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't call him new anymore. We had an issue with him moving his talk and userpages to articlespace awhile ago (December I think), and he recently asked for someone to be blocked here. He certainly doesn't understand the concept up escalating his warnings (or indeed, he isn't that great at warnings at all). I don't perceive him to be a sock ...merely "misguided". (talk→ Bwilkins / BMW ←track) 14:32, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

(note: I have advised the user of this discussion) (talk→ Bwilkins / BMW ←track) 14:34, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

We are clearly dealing with competence issues with Eugene. I do think he's a good faith editor. Turning down a mentorship offer was clearly a bad move on his part, because I think it would have helped. I've been friendly, and tried to point out why his missteps were missteps, but never quite gotten the feeling that he understood my explanations ([45] for example).—Kww(talk) 15:20, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

• This is not a competence issue--this is simply a threat. Drmies (talk) 02:13, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

• He certainly gets snippy when cornered, I'll grant that. I could find a half-dozen such examples in his edit history. I don't see that so much as making threats in the classic WP:NPA sense of the word so much as a sign of just not understanding what's expected of him. That's why I wish he had taken Elbutler up on the mentorship offer.—Kww(talk) 02:24, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

• Hey Kww, I'm not saying it's a serious threat or that I'm scared or something. It's just really irritating. And if it's really a half dozen you can find, perhaps we should ensure that it doesn't become a full dozen. Drmies (talk) 03:17, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

• I'm not arguing. The word "competence" in my original comment linked to WP:Competence is required, which specifically advocates blocking good-faith editors when they simply can't live up to our expectations of an editor. I'd just like to hear someone come up with an idea that will help. He doesn't seem to want mentorship, but I think we are very near the stage of blocking him until he accepts mentorship.—Kww(talk) 03:35, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

• Leaving aside the distinct possibility that we are being subtly trolled, perhaps that is precisely what needs to be said to EK: "You need a mentor, or you will be blocked from editing as you refuse to learn from your mistakes and when people try to help you." //roux   03:47, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I just realized something, Eugene is high school student (and judging by the attitude i'd guess male high school student); students think they don't need help and have a short attention span...that explains everything! We just have to get Eugene to listen to reason; if he doesn't....block time. Elbutler (talk) 15:13, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

He's provided us with another example of his responsiveness to corrections from other editors.—Kww(talk) 18:38, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Update: I gave Eugene a firm (may-be a bit harsh) warning. I sincerely hope he follows, if not yo can block him for trollings. If he does follow it; i assume responsibility for this user. Elbutler (talk) 19:50, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

No offense, but I think that's a horrible block warning. I suggest you adjust that to be a bit less patronizing. I also don't think we should force mentorship on him at all. That's not going to work.--Atlan (talk) 23:02, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Upcoming revert war on several articles

User:Tool2Die4 deletes information in all lead section about the award achievements of film industry artists. He states, that it would be against NPOV or violates any term of MoS. Infact there is no single entry on this matter in these WP policy articles and awards are simply facts, which are clearly NPOV. I warned him at the userpage already, but he quickly re-reverted all articles. He is also using offensive language diff --Ultramegasuperstar (talk) 16:20, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

• I notified this editor and left an actual message about the edits. Please don't simply substitute template messages for communication. Protonk (talk) 16:49, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I always get a kick out of these ill-advised ANI's. I'd like an apology on my talkpage after this is cleared up. Tool2Die4 (talk) 17:02, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I also request that the "Ultramegasuperstar" re-revert his erroneous edits, and he be forced to read up on the MoS sections in question. Having to deal with abrasive editors who don't understand policy only hampers the project. I also got a good LOL at the notion that the diff he listed was "offensive". Tool2Die4 (talk) 17:08, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I think, you are not able to keep a respectful tune. Kindly advise you to leave wikipedia, if you don't have intentions to change your attitude. --Ultramegasuperstar (talk) 17:31, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Please take some action administrators. I'm getting warned by him for the rereverts, because he is not sticking to the mediation initiated by User:Protonk. --Ultramegasuperstar (talk) 17:58, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Have you read up on the requested reading material yet? If so, you'd understand the maintenance tags being added. Tool2Die4 (talk) 18:00, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

First you have to show all complaints at the discussion pages of the articles. All arguments will be reviewed and only then we can tag the articles with maintenance tags. You have ignored this demand on your talk page already. --Ultramegasuperstar (talk) 18:04, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Both of you Stop. UMS, I don't think that your approach to this is productive (note, the tone that editors need to take here is collegial, not "respectful", both imply civility but the former implies mutual respect and the latter implies some sort of dominance). Tool2, you should slow down or stop adding tags to those articles. Like I said on your talk page, the preferred solution is for you to edit the pages in order to improve them, not necessarily just to tag them. Tagging them being only more preferable to deleting materials altogether. Protonk (talk) 18:06, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Ultramegasuperstar was just listed on AIV for this[46], but I removed him from there as this is being addressed here. rootology (C)(T) 18:05, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Blocked both of them for edit warring in an attempt to stop this from spiraling out of control. Protonk (talk) 18:15, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Note: Tool has been now indef blocked. Tan | 39 18:19, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Since he claims that "If you're this fucking stupid, just make it an indef ... This way I can stop trying to be constructive, and can just go back to good ole' anonymous vandalizing" a CU might be useful to see if there's a static IP behind him that can be blocked. Black Kite 18:22, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I set the autoblock, so if he is on a static IP, it shouldn't be a problem. Tan | 39 18:24, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Only works for 24 hours, though. Black Kite 18:28, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

True. Tan | 39 18:30, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

(out) I believe the consensus at WikiProjectFilms, as reflected in WP:MOSFILM is:

Avoid using the phrase "award-winning" in the opening sentence of the lead section, as it provides insufficient context to the reader. Instead, provide a short overview of any significant awards and honors later in the lead section.

So, it's not that "award-winning" or its equivalents should simply be removed from the first sentence, it's that it should be removed and replaced with a fuller mention of the subject's awards later on in the lede. Ed Fitzgerald _{t / c} 20:20, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

• That's a good read of the policy side. I agree that "award winning" isn't really proper but the edit warring and nastiness was pretty uncalled for. Protonk (talk) 22:06, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Is that really what the MOS says? Almost every bio I have seen lately starts out with "award winning this that and whatever" and I find it so annoying, but since I saw it everywhere, I thought it was the preferred MOS. Anyways, --Tom 00:32, 8 February 2009 (UTC)ps, opps, sorry, that is for films, what is the MOS for bios? Can somebody link to that? Thanks, --Tom 00:34, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

It is on Wikipedia:PEACOCK#Words_and_phrases_to_watch_for as well. Protonk (talk) 01:02, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The dilemma is that there's always the rule to establish "notability", and saying that someone won an award is one way to do that. Of course, there are brazillions of actors who are apparently considered "notable" who never won anything. But it certainly makes sense to state in the lead which award they won, in order to set them at a somewhat higher plane of notability. Starting out with just "so-and-so is an award-winning actor" sounds kind of cheesy. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 08:06, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

User:Cheapfriends and North / Northern Cyprus

Cheapfriends (talk · contribs) appears to be duplicating every article and category with "Northern Cyprus" in them by changing the wording to "North Cyprus". It's all a huge mess, rather that propose redirects or page moves he appears to just have starting creating new articles. Does anyone have an automated way of cleaning this? After I queried it he left a legalese justification on my talk page. It's obviously getting out of hand very quickly and there appears to be no link to a wikipedia discussion in his edit history. --Blowdart | ^talk 20:11, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Cheapfriends (talk · contribs) probably comes under Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of VivaNorthCyprus . . . Rcawsey (talk) 20:24, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I'll ARV and sock puppet it then, and start to flag/revert, unless someone with some "power" wants to save me the trouble *grin* --Blowdart | ^talk 20:26, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

OK this got a little more worrying, by the way the following explanation on my [talk page -

Dear Friend Blowdart, please do not misunderstand us. North Cyprus is under embargo, and the internet is the only way of getting our voices out. If someone blocks the one NC Wiki-user, the other NC Wiki-user can try to express the things truely. So, putting me to the list of sockpuppets is not a good thing: Here, I am in the dorminatory of a NC University. What NC people do here is follow the internet. You can be sure that another NC Wiki-user in another NC Univ's dorminatory will edit the Wikipedia with correct knowledges. Thx for you patience to read this much :)

To me this reads like there will be a concerted attempt to push their POV onto North(ern) Cyprus articles. Gosh that will be fun. --Blowdart | ^talk 22:24, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Blocked User:IntensityOfTheLight as a sock of the above. How big is the list of likely target articles, and will semi-protection give the required dissuasion without compromising the ability of good faith ip editing? LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:35, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Get the big guns out? I think these articles should be semied for some time, just in case. and also protect the North Cyprus pages from being created. Simon^KSK 22:37, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Keeping the North Cyprus articles as redirects - they may easily be search terms - and fully protected will stop that malarky. Is this an option? LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:43, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I honestly don't know; I only noticed because I was patrolling new pages; it's not like I'm admin, but my mummy tells me I'm special (I can has barnstar now? *duck*). There were quite a few pages created, check my contributions today roughly 100 db flags or reverts, it was painful; I'd guess anything with Northern Cyprus in the title, or whatever links to there is fair game for them *sigh* Maybe salting or creating then locking the North article titles might help somewhat. --Blowdart | ^talk 22:47, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

And we have another one already Literal64words (talk · contribs) --Blowdart | ^talk 23:00, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Reported and reverted. Ironholds (talk)

Beat me to it :) Thanks. Shut eye time here now though, have fun with it all. --Blowdart | ^talk 23:08, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

And another TitanicLordIceberged (talk · contribs) judging by this edit on my talk page. Right sleep time! --Blowdart | ^talk 23:29, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

• I have worked through Blowdarts contrib history as relating to North/Northern Cyprus articles and have make all North Cyprus pages redirects to the parent Northen Cyprus one, and then indef protected; this is a type of salting, but means anyone searching under this supposedly new official terminology will get the historical page with full history. I would comment that I recreated and then redirected a few pages that had been deleted for that same reason (and also to have a live page should the name change actually be correct and the old page needs merging to the correct version). I have further sprotected for a week all pages that were targeted by the socks, per Blowdarts contrib history, to dissuade the waiting new socks - I only did a week both to release the pages to legit ip editing asap, and new accounts would easily be autoconfirmed within that timescale. If I have missed any page, please feel free to let some other sysop know... or me, if you really have to. LessHeard vanU (talk) 00:14, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

And we're off again Hansiermann (talk · contribs) --Blowdart | ^talk 23:02, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

And Else where we are (talk · contribs) --Blowdart | ^talk 23:17, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

And SecondInventory (talk · contribs) --Blowdart | ^talk 23:21, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

And Newlysaturateds (talk · contribs) --Blowdart | ^talk 23:35, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Infoboxification by Dwiakigle

User:Dwiakigle is vigorously adding bio infoboxes to articles that have (in the opinion of various editors who've brought them up to FA) existed perfectly well without. He seems immune to warnings on his talk page to get consensus first. If I did not have such a straightforward and oft-expressed opinion on bio-infoboxes (briefly, that they suck), I'd warn him that continuation of this activity would be regarded as disruptive and would risk bringing on etc etc. (Of course, he's most welcome to argue for these things, but not to add them unilaterally.) However I do have such an opinion, and thus am not the person to issue such a warning. -- Hoary (talk) 02:36, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I also left a note for Dwiakigle asking him to check with article editors first; infoboxes are by no means universally loved. For a while he was adding an "infobox-needed=yes" param to project tags, which seemed a reasonable way of signalling his intent and allowing for discussion. I think any editor should feel free to add infoboxes to any article they like, but since it is something on which reasonable people can differ, it may be unproductive to do so to a long list of articles at one time. If this is not regarded as disruptive behaviour I suppose there's nothing to be done, but it seems both uncollaborative and inefficient to me. Mike Christie (talk) 02:45, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I for one do consider it disruptive. Most of the articles involved are featured articles; major changes to formatting can have a very significant effect on these articles. Earlier today when he was adding the "infobox needed=yes" templates to some of these pages, I asked him to discuss on the talk pages. He failed to discuss then, and has repeatedly failed to discuss after requests from three separate users. This is not appropriate. Risker (talk) 02:52, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

He is also using obscure edit summaries such as add junky "infobox". Dabomb87 (talk) 02:59, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

By contrast, I might term that a splendidly candid edit summary, free of obscurity, though one that of course raises the question of why he's consciously adding "junky" material. -- Hoary (talk) 03:10, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, Risker. -- Hoary (talk) 03:10, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps "confusing" is the correct word. Dabomb87 (talk) 03:16, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I, too, have asked him to desist, on his talk page. Giano (talk) 10:30, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

User:TAway

User:TAway has been removing text from Jesus myth hypothesis without giving any explanation on the article's talk page, despite a request to do so on his/her talk page. Diffs: [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] [53]. TAway hasn't violated 3RR, but has 3 reverts in the last 24 hours. (So do I, but at least a started a section on the article's talk page about the disputed text.) Could someone uninvolved please remind TAway to use the talk page? Thanks. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:30, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

User:Deskana posted a note to TAway's talk page just as I was writing the post above. However, if anyone wants to join the discussion at Talk:Jesus myth hypothesis, we could use more input there... --Akhilleus (talk) 02:33, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

He's still removing the content, and still not using the talk page [54]. In addition, it looks like he's used an IP address to make the same edit: [55]. I think a block is in order. --Akhilleus (talk) 16:41, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I've given TAway (talk · contribs) a final warning (another admin also gave a warning). Seems the IP (user|85.225.123.178}} also shared edits with Joe hill (talk · contribs), engaged in his own edit war at Historicity of Jesus. Will monitor. --ZimZalaBim ^talk 20:47, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Vandal harrassing User:MBisanz

Either Gr*wp or a Gr*wp-wannabe is vandalizing User:MBisanz and his Talk and Talk archive pages. The socks keep getting blocked and new ones keep cropping up. Semi-protection of MBisanz's User space may be necessary. Note, however, that the same vandal was also creating an article attacking NawlinWiki. AnyPerson (talk) 03:51, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

MBisanz is an admin with more than enough gumption to protect his own pages if necessary. I'm guessing he doesn't see it as necessary. //roux   03:55, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

He isn't currently active. So you're saying that if a vandal is repeatedly attacking the User space of an admin who isn't currently active, nobody will bother to do anything? Thanks for letting me know. I won't bother to undo vandalisms on admin pages any more. AnyPerson (talk) 03:56, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Looks like Rootology already semi protected the user page. --Kralizec! (talk) 03:58, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

But not the Talk page and the Talk page archive pages. AnyPerson (talk) 04:00, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

No, that is not what I'm saying. I'm saying that nobody needs to do anything. For one, the Hugglers will catch it quickly, as will anyone with his upage/tpage on their watchlists. For another, the repeated vandalism just builds more information in the CU logs, which allows us to nuke and pave sockfarms. //roux   04:01, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

(after edit conflict) no, don't stop reverting vandalism. What I'm saying is that protection probably isn't necessary, and Mbisanz can implement it himself if he wants to. //roux   04:01, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

As long as the pages are not protected, the vandal will continue. If nobody's going to do anything, I see no point in trying to carry water with a sieve. AnyPerson (talk) 04:03, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

His user and main talk are already protected, that's why they moved on to the archives. rootology (C)(T) 04:04, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I won't be fullprotecting my archives or semi-protecting my talk page, per the whole idea that I shouldn't take admin action with regard to people who are attacking me personally. Although it another admin saw it fit to fullprotect my archives, that would be nice. MBisanz ^talk 04:05, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

(ec)Actually, Rootology also semi'ed User talk:MBisanz, and I just semi'ed User talk:MBisanz/Archive 1. --Kralizec! (talk) 04:06, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

@MBisanz: I've just fully protected all your archives per your request here. — Aitias // discussion 04:10, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

He doesn't want his page protected; every IP/named account that vandalises his page gives them one fewer to use. HalfShadow 04:59, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Hello hammer, I believe you just encountered a nail in the headular region. //roux   05:17, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Large sockfarm

Resolved

 – According to the discussion after the list of sockpuppets, they've all been blocked. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 09:11, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

See User talk:Luna Santin#Checkuser request (permalink). 200+ likely sockpuppets, mostly disrupting articles on Windows Vista or relating to Barack Obama, though there's some vandalism at "central" pages like the village pump or Talk:Main Page. Many of these accounts are blocked, already, but I'd appreciate it if someone else took over the review from here. – Luna Santin (talk) 06:28, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Incivility by User:Panlatdelkwa

This is a relatively new user that is being disruptive, particularly in Middle East. After reaching an agreement in this article with User:Mttll, he comes along and undoes the consensus version, claiming to represent "the community". He then proceeds to leave insulting messages on my talk page [56], which remove, and which he re-posts twice: [57], [58]. Not content with that, he also laces his comments on Talk:Middle East with personal attacks such as these: [59]. After I remove the personal attack [60], he re-posts it twice: [61], [62]. He then goes on to call me a vandal for leaving a civility warning on his talk page: [63]. He also falsely claims to be representing "the community" and "the consensus", when all he is doing is pushing his own POV. --Athenean (talk) 10:37, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

-Sigh You don't stop. The user clearly does not agree with you hence the fact he has been reverting you, and explicitly stated on the talk page that he disagrees with you! Also, you're reporting me for incivility after I warned you over WP:CIV for calling me names - what a laugh. Panlatdelkwa (talk) 10:39, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Panlatdelwka ... why in the world are you re-adding posts to someone else's userpage when they distinctly asked you to stop ... you should not be refactoring anything on someone else's talkpage. (talk→ Bwilkins / BMW ←track) 10:46, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I reverted because his edit removed a comment to another unrelated thread. I of course acknowledge that he is allowed to remove the warning once he has read it though. Panlatdelkwa (talk) 10:57, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines#User talk pages. It clearly says that "users may freely remove comments from their own talk pages ... The removal of a warning is taken as evidence that the warning has been read by the user." Aecis·(away) ^talk 11:16, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

"I of course acknowledge that he is allowed to remove the warning once he has read it though." Panlatdelkwa (talk) 11:27, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

That's why you re-posted twice, edit-warring on my talk page. --Athenean (talk) 11:31, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The removal itself indicates that the message has been read. Aecis·(away) ^talk 11:55, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

He did not undo this edit of mine [64], even though he had all the time in the world to do it. That implies agreement. You are clearly lying, and breaching my consensus with him. And then you repeatedly call me the "rudest editor" you've come across. --Athenean (talk) 10:49, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Having reverting you countless times on the page anyway, after your last revert, he did this, which effectively undoes your relocation of Turkey into the "usually considered Middle Eastern" category anyway. Yes, I stand by my complaint of your civility, after you called me arrogant for doing nothing more than reverting you. Panlatdelkwa (talk) 10:53, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

But he kept Turkey in the "Territories and Regions of the Middle East"! That's the whole point! All he did was remove the "Usually considered ME" title heading, which makes it even more explicit! And he did not undo my edit, you did. And no, I did not call you arrogant for reverting you. You are lying once again. But then, what is this little comment by you: "Stop POV-pushing. The community has had enough."? What is that supposed to mean? Who made you "community spokesperson"? --Athenean (talk) 11:00, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh really now?. I did nothing other than transfer Turkey from the "usually considered middle east" back to the "greater middle east", and I was told you didn't want me to "arrogantly" come reverting you? What sort of superior status exactly do you think you hold? Panlatdelkwa (talk) 11:05, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The incivility continues, with innuendoes such as this: [65] and this [66]. --Athenean (talk) 11:16, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

This is now beyond amusing. One of the diffs you provided was from before this, so how is it "continues"? And secondly, please have a look at what incivility actually is - heaven knows you could do with it. I also notice that after ranting on that I'm a "liar", when I disproved this in the comment above, you completely ignore it. Also, after checking your contributions, you've been in literally dozens of edit wars in the last month alone. I suggest an admin take a deeper look at this user. Panlatdelkwa (talk) 11:19, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

LOL at "dozens". And though you are a new user, you are already immediately involved in two edit wars, on Middle East and List of reservoirs and dams. Not bad. And I did not call you "arrogant", all I did was use the adverb "arrogantly" to describe the way you undid the consensus claiming to represent "the community" [67], which is a fairly apt description, but not name-calling per se. And now you have stated your intent to revert without discussing [68], which is highly disruptive behavior. --Athenean (talk) 11:27, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Yet both of them are with you? I haven't had any problems with anyone else. Oh, and again you're clearly not telling the truth are you. Let's have a look at what you actually said after I reverted the first time:

"we really don't need you arrogantly coming in out of nowhere" (that's the bit you talk about being an adverb)

"I'm starting to get really tired of your arrogant and hypocritical attitude" - but wait... "I did not call you "arrogant""??

And that was all for me doing this? Panlatdelkwa (talk) 11:31, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

FYI, making false accusations, e.g. such as "dozens of edit-wars in the last month" is also a form of personal attack. --Athenean (talk) 11:33, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

• Suggestion: Both of you obviously need to calm down and take a break. You guys are just yelling back and forth at each other. Edit somewhere else for a while, or maybe even push the "off" button your computer and do something else for a few hours. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:03, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Possible sock of Manhattan Samurai

Resolved

• Manhattan Samurai (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• An Argento Fan (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Is Google Making Us Stupid?
• Talk:Is Google Making Us Stupid?/GA1

An Argento Fan has been inactive for almost a year, and has "returned" today to make a few edits and nominate Is Google Making Us Stupid? for FA-status, an article which Manhattan Samurai worked on and helped. In the FAC nom, An Argento Fan states "My editor Skomorokh and I have been collaborating on this article for some time now." - the edit count for that article disagrees. Suggest indef-block for block evasion. D.M.N. (talk) 10:44, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

• Blocked, and left a note to explain themselves using the unblock template in the unlikely event that this is not the case. Black Kite 11:37, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

IP 69.14.222.125

Could someone rollback all of this user's edits please - they are all indiscriminate link-promotion of a certain band. They're adding them as quick as I can undo them and I don't have rollback. Thanks.--Michig (talk) 10:58, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Dealt with by User:Heimstern. Thanks.--Michig (talk) 11:05, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

User:Miklebe impersonating User:Mikebe

All of User:Miklebe's contributions are linkspam; furthermore they're linkspam for an organization that User:Mikebe opposes including and which he has been the target of harrassment for (by socks of User:Newcrewforu) in the past. --Killing Vector (talk) 11:39, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I have just reverted most of this user's edits, simply because most of his links are invalid links (404 errors). E Wing (talk) 12:08, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

He's put all the links back up. --Killing Vector (talk) 04:03, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

3RR discrepancies

Today, User:THF specifically invited Benjiboi to correct an cquote which User:Benjiboi added. THF and Benjiboi got into an edit war over whether or not the fix fixed it. These edits resulted in a 3RR report by THF. William M. Connolley then blocked both editors, because they were both violating 3RR. But William M. Connolley wrote on THF's page:

With some reluctance, I've blocked you for 3RR on BART Police shooting of Oscar Grant. I'll be amenable to unblocking, if you can find me a good reason[69]

THF, then gave him a reason,[70] and Connolley unblocked THF[71] No such offer was given to Benjiboi. I asked two admins to look at this case, none did, and three editors opposed this block. Benjiboi recently put up a unblock request,[72] and it was denied.[73]

I would ask that an uninvolved admin look at this case, and give Benjinoi the same offer that Connolley gave to THF. Ikip (talk) 11:41, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

As User:Allstarecho wrote: "Considering Benji was only making content changes that THF asked him to, then THF reports him for 3RR? THF is unblocked even though he broke 3RR too?" Ikip (talk) 11:49, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

From reading the actual dispute, what you said there is possibly the most negative spin one could put on it in regards to Connelly and the most positive to Benjiboi. It appears that Benjiboi added a cquote or such. THF asked him to fix. They got into an edit war over whether or not the fix fixed it. William blocks both. Why weren't both users given the same unblock advantage? They were. Benjiboi could just as easily put in an unblock request to plead extenuating circumstances as THF. Whether they are treated differently may be because they are different people, even in law courts you will find past behaviour taken into consideration, justice is not digital. --Narson ~ Talk • 12:02, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply, I agree with your factual assessment and I clarified what happened. You didn't mention the offer which the admin gave to one editor, and not to the other. Ikip (talk) 12:28, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Acctually that is what I was referring to with the treated differently comment and the equal ability to use the unblock command. I am not familiar with either editor, but it is entirely possible (And likely) that they both have different pasts on wikipedia that lead WMC to be willing to consider an unblock. As it is, Benjiboi did appeal for an unblock and was turned down by an uninvolved admin. I must say, only from a quick glance at their user and talk pages, I can see that Benjiboi has had some issues in the past that he seems reluctant to let go of (the topic ban et al that is so prominently featured), and while I make no judgements as to him being right or wrong on that, it may make an admin less willingto extend their engagement with him, if they felt it would turn into a protracted drama. For better or worse our admins are not paid arbiters but untrained volunteers, as such we cannot force them into extending their interactions with people they may not wish to converse with. --Narson ~ Talk • 12:41, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Benji's disputes have nothing to do with this one and therefore you shouldn't have even brought them up. The fact is, the block - and following decline to unblock - was total shite. William handled THF with velvet gloves with all that "reluctantly, I blocked you but give me a good reason to unblock and I will" but beat Benji over the head with a block and left it at that. Any person with a brain can see there is most definitely a seemingly favoritism for one of the involved parties. And if you want to bring up the past, William has been at notice boards numerous times for bad blocks. Regardless now, an admin with a brain saw fit to finally unblock Benji. Cheers. - ✰ALLST☆R✰ ^echo 22:37, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

No. "Any person with a brain" can see that one user was treated differently from another. That observation might support but is not sufficient to justify the related claim that WMC "favored" one user over another. Considering that we have an operating principle that requires us to be distrustful of such a claim, we would need some strong evidence to support it. Because it is a strong claim. If you are asserting that WMC intervened in a dispute to disproportionately punish one editor and reward another, you better be prepared to back it up. Protonk (talk) 01:59, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I support both editors being unblocked so that they can discuss the changes on the talke page. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 18:27, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Content Managment System pages and Deletion

I bring this up due to the fact, this is the second time Seditio page has been brought up for deletion. No the CMS does not have news articles or awards given to it, but its a CMS that as been around for many years, and was created from a Previously known CMS as Land Down Under which is 7 Years old. Seditio which is 3 years old which was built upon Land Down under. I'm not going to continue debating on if it should stay or not. I do not have the time, and have better things to do.

But what I would like to bring up, is I feel this decisions is biased. I can link to half of the List of content management systems which could potentially fall under the same critera. For this reason it is unfair and biased for one article to be deleted and not others. If you take even a moment to look at half the articles, most are no better, or even worse then the Seditio page. Half are marked for no notablity or biased, or cleanup. Yet they do not receive deletion. This is clearly biased. If need be i'll go through and link all the articles of such myself for this discussion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kilandor (talk • contribs) 12:29, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Inclusion is not an indicator of notability. It is quite possible that many of these pages do not fit our criteria. But there does not seem anything here that specifically requires administrator attention (the AFD discussion still has some time to go, and nothing has been decided yet). Kusma (talk) 12:35, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

BLP concern John Burris

Would some other Wikipedia editors watch-list this article, John Burris. He's not really the nightmare of a human being portrayed in the article, whose editors seem to have missed a less negative thing about him that also received tremendous publicity, and that was in most of the articles used as references for the Wikipedia article. This concerns me, when someone is recently in the news, but has had plenty of other news about them, including something that could represent them in a different light, yet this is ignored in the Wikipedia article. The article needs to find a neutral ground that isn't there. Thanks. --KP Botany (talk) 13:09, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

This might be more usefully discussed at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:15, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Addendum; That said, I did watchlist it and note that User:THF appears to be working through most of the concerns and is interacting with other editors. LessHeard vanU (talk) 15:00, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I think just getting another pair of eyes or two going from posting here will do fine. Thanks for watchlisting. --KP Botany (talk) 19:52, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Continued userspace campaigning by indefinitely blocked user

Posturewriter (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is on indefinite block as a disruptive single-purpose account.

He has been told by an admin: Continuing to use your talk page as a forum whilst blocked is inappropriate - either request an unblock using the {{unblock}} template, or stop editing. If you continue to soapbox on this page your ability to edit it will be removed.[74]

However, he is continuing to use the Talk page to solicit discussion by other editors outside the {{unblock}} process (see [75]). Any chance of the block being upgraded? Gordonofcartoon (talk) 16:26, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

What they need to do is clear and protect his talk page. It appears that the user does not understand what the purpose of wikipedia is. Specifically it is NOT "to publish his ideas". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 16:31, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay, the warning and the breach of it are both pretty clear. I'm blocking Posturewriter from editing that page. There is no sign from their contribs that they are moving in any way in the direction of understanding or appealing their block. If anyone wants to offer advice tho them, the user talk page is still open, but further output from Posturewriter is going to have to be via email. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 20:09, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

User:LOLthulu

Some technical data for this post is available at User:Deskana/LOLthulu. All personally identifying material has been redacted.

During a routine CheckUser investigation of User:LOLthulu, which was endorsed by another checkuser, it came to my attention that both User:LOLthulu and User:GrendelLover contributed from the same connection, which appears to be a private residental connection. As you can see, the behaviour of GrendelLover was less than above board, and the user ended up getting blocked. I asked LOLthulu what his intentions were with this account. His response was that multiple people contribute from his connection (using NAT), and that someone else was responsible for these edits. Unfortunately, this explanation is not entirely consistent with the checkuser data.

Initially when GrendelLover started contributing, they did so with a different user agent to LOLthulu, and that user agent was fairly unique. This part is consistent with his explanation. Then, GrendelLover switched to a different user agent, which was also identical to LOLthulu. It is at this point that his explanation is inconsistent, as the identical user agents points to both users contributing from the same computer. LOLthulu made a few edits afterwards, noting that his IP was blocked, which was due to the GrendelLover account. LOLthulu then began using a different user agent, one that was identical to the somewhat unique user agent that GrendelLover has used.

LOLthulu has explained that the person on his connection behind the GrendelLover account is not him. GrendelLover clearly is not new to Wikipedia; a fair portion of his vandalism was directed at checkusers. It seems odd that someone who doesn't edit Wikipedia at all would then decide to start throwing abuse at CheckUsers. A much more plausible explanation is that LOLthulu is behind the account. This explanation is made much more plausible by the fact that it is unlikely that there are multiple computers involved, and by the fact that LOLthulu is also not a new user as it may seem at first inspection (though I do not see any inappropriate attempt from LOLthulu to hide this). LOLthulu denies all of the above, and maintains that there is a second person on his network behind the account. Given this person has never contributed to Wikipedia from his network before, and that they do not appear to be contributing from multiple different systems, it is odd that they would be as familiar with Wikipedia as was suggested by their edits.

It is my opinion as a checkuser that these accounts are operated by the same person. A wider review of this is required. As GrendelLover is blocked indefinitely, I would be inclined to block LOLthulu for a short period, for the abuse of multiple accounts. An indefinite block on LOLthulu would be excessive, given the good contributions of the account. --Deskana (talk) 16:40, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I disagree, I would block LOLthulu indefinitely or (preferably) not at all. If the previous contributions are generally good then there is nothing to protect the encyclopedia from, and they are now on notice that GrendelLover type edits will get their account blocked. LessHeard vanU (talk) 16:49, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Multiple people (actually, about 14) behind one DSL line with a dymanic IP. User-agent strings are not uniquely identifying. User:Deskana is not pointing out that this account regularly edits from another IP range, whereas User:GrendelLover, presumably, did not. There's no story here. LOL^thulu 17:08, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

No, that's not true. You appear to edit from two connections: one which appears to be a private residential connection (where only you and GrendelLover have edited from), and a public one (which appears to be some sort of business) where there are multiple people editing, who are obviously unrelated to you. --Deskana (talk) 17:12, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I said fourteen people share the connection. I didn't say that fourteen people regularly edit Wikipedia. Can a CheckUser see the user-agent strings of everyone who browses (as opposed to edits) Wikipedia from behind an IP? I guarantee you'll see more than two users, even if you can only count unique user-agent strings.

That business is where I work. Notice how the edits from there are primarily made during business hours on weekdays? It's emphatically not public; the wired and wireless networks are 802.1x-authed. It's probably the most secure network I've ever had access to. LOL^thulu 17:22, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

You're either not listening, or are attempting to twist what I'm saying. The GrendelLover account edits from your residental connection, and has never edited from your business connection. The other users on the business connection are clearly unrelated to you, so why would I want to check them? --Deskana (talk) 17:27, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

No, you're missing it. I never have access to a private internet connection. At home, I share it with a bunch of other people. I do so at work too. This account is the only account that edits from both places. It is evidence that this account is not controlled by the person who controlled User:Grendel Lover. I'm done with this; you're persecuting me. LOL^thulu 17:32, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

What Deskana said, the same residental computer computer appears to have been used. Given your intransigence and "persecution" comments I am inclined to review my comment about your not being blocked. LessHeard vanU (talk) 17:35, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Either LOLthulu lives in a dorm or something where they share an internet connection, and his house mate GrendelLover likes to attack people. This kind of situation certainly exists. The strange thing is that GrendelLover doesn't appear to be new to Wikipedia and CheckUser didn't find any other accounts. Or, LOLthulu registered GrendelLover to do some attacks without getting his main account blocked, then saying it's someone else. --Apoc2400 (talk) 17:38, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Check my early account contribs. Dorm-like, to say the least. LOL^thulu 17:43, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I just mention because nobody else yet has, that both names are derived from monsters, Lovecraft's Cthulhu and Grendel from Beowulf. Looie496 (talk) 18:39, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Having been asked by Deskana to look at the accounts, and to post my findings here, I believe that currently available technical and behavioral evidence indicates that it is  Likely that the following accounts are related/the same PC:

• LOLthulu (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• GrendelLover (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• GrendleLover (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Tdasch (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Hceline23 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

It is  Possible that the following account is related as well:

• Uglymepretty (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

I'd be happy to have a third checkuser verify these findings.

-- Avi (talk) 18:35, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I'm totally HCeline23 and Tdasch. Decided I didn't like either of those account names. No problems there. LOL^thulu 19:12, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

 Doing... Triple checking the data. — Coren ^(talk) 19:31, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

LOLthulu (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki) is  Confirmed to be

• Hceline23 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Tdasch (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

and very  Likely to be

• GrendelLover (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• GrendleLover (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

especially given the behavior, and timing, I find the argument that different persons that happen to share a connection to be unconvincing.

• Uglymepretty (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

is  Possible in isolation, and given the context, I would call  Likely. In other words, I concur fully with the evaluation of both checkusers above. — Coren ^(talk) 19:52, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

User moving articles without discussion

User:Albnaian have moved the article Prokletije to North Albanian Alps two times, although he was warned not to do so without discussion (see: Revision history of Prokletije). The name of the article was discussed at Talk:Prokletije, and there was consensus that the name should be "Prokletije". Albnaian was warned on his talk page not to do so by User:Tadija after the first time. Vanjagenije (talk) 16:57, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Drake Circus

There has been a long history of countless editors who have been blocked or banned for attempting to publish any fact or article that might conflict with the promotional activity of a handful of other editors To summarize Drake Circus is an area of Plymouth which is home to the university of Plymouth, the Art gallery, the Museum, the Art College, grade 1 and 2 listed buildings, the planetarium, the Drake reservoir, the scene of the great bomb shelter tragedy etc etc and yet all and any attempts to publish articles or facts on these topics have been deleted in favour of an advert for a shopping mall. Indeed the search phrase 'drake circus' has been redirected to the mall advert. I recently entered this debate when I tried in vain to point out the mall is not even in the Drake Circus area (the only similarity is its name). The co-ordinates in the article will, on any map (e.g. Google earth), point to Drake Circus the area and not the mall which is located further south. My attempt to discuss this issue rationally has been met with hostile abuse and deletions from webhamster a.k.a hoary and jolly janner. If you look at the history of both the article and the discussion pages you will see the endless number of people who have been blocked. On one occasion somebody in Indonesia was blocked as being a sock puppet for somebody who was online and with an IP in the UK. Various ip's from all over the world have been constantly blocked. So why are these handful of editors so desperate to protect and preserve an article which is factually wrong and a blatant piece of advertising. The only inference one can draw is that they are going to these extraordinary lengths in order to benefit the mall. If you Google search 'drake circus bomb shelter' the first web-site contains many interesting comments that in the long term will lower the reputation of Wikipedia. There has already been an attempted deletion however so many useful facts and comments were edited out by the pro-mall spammers it made a discussion pointless. Those same few editors are gaming the system to skew any reasonable discussion, debate or introduction of fact.86.157.96.112 (talk) 17:10, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I only see one edit to Drake Circus, a 2007 redirect to the mall. Am I missing something? Just put the article about the geographic area there. ThuranX (talk) 17:53, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually there's evidence at Talk:Drake Circus and Talk:Drake Circus/page 2 that there's been controversy and article deletions. And, the mall article has been protected due to perceived vandalism. Perhaps the option of editing a redirect was not clear. I just changed it from a redirect to a stub Drake Circus article to receive info about the place, separate from the mall. doncram (talk) 18:08, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

thank you for helping to create an article on drake circus. I (and hopefully many others) will try and add to it however given the past history of the spammers activities i suspect it will not last more than a few days.86.157.96.112 (talk) 18:12, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

you were wrong - it lasted only 2 hours! Distan russell (talk) 23:54, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

for whats its worth i re-published it however i suspect that by doing so i will be called a troll/vandal or whatever and like soooooo many before me i will be blocked for trying to rid this encyclopedia of the spammers commercial bile81.132.107.66 (talk) 00:26, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually no, you'd be accused of spamming and vandalism for the rest of your activities. --WebHamster 01:16, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Discussion is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Drake Circus; history is at Drake Circus Shopping Centre thanks to a history merge. --NE2 18:21, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

There is a loooong history of disruptive editors related to the location/shopping-centre, with a whole puppet show and morphing roles of even the same IPs. As such, the article got protected, blocked handed out, etc. IPs have thus far done nothing except rererepost the same comment and spam links (to the point that the links got WP-blacklisted). Given this history, we really need a viable article before we can overcome the previous AfD=Delete consensus. Users have been (and are again) invited to create an account and file deletion-review of the Drake Circus article. If this location is really notable, they will have no problem supplying WP:RS supporting that claim, and writing a viable article in their sandbox. DMacks (talk) 20:15, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

100% agree with DMacks. Until the user does so, let's try not to waste our time over it. Jolly Ω Janner 20:46, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I see the article on Drake Circus has been torn down without discussion and replaced with a redirect to the nonsense about the mall. As an impartial observer even i can see how the same user webhamster/jolly janner/hoary is intent on keeping out notable academic material in favour of their own commercial agenda.Distan russell (talk) 23:54, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

While i think that the place/location deserves an article, and while i think it is inappropriate to put in place a redirect to the shopping centre nearby, I think it is entirely preposterous for Distan russell or anyone else to assert that the regular wikipedia editors and administrators involved have a "commercial agenda". I am willing to put in some effort to develop a hopefully-acceptable article (please see Talk:Drake Circus and the related Temp page for a draft article). But if Distan russell and others choose to keep insulting people with ridiculous projections about their motives, i am certainly willing to walk away. By wikipedia processes, the other editors were entitled to remove the draft I was starting to work on, despite my request not to, because the previous article had been well-discussed in a quite reasonable AfD. The AfD was not a final decision that there can never be an article here, but it was a reasonable decision given the state of the work. doncram (talk) 00:46, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

the same user webhamster/jolly janner/hoary: If you believe that you have evidence of this, you shouldn't hesitate to ask for investigation by CheckUser. -- Hoary (talk) 00:50, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

The national archives or theuniversityor thelocal authority and land regisrty sites all refer to Drake Circus the area in much the same way London refers to Picaddily Circus. As the mall is not in Drake Circus surely the redirect should be removed otherwise anyone and everyone who like me searches Wikipedia for information on Drake Circus is redirected to an unrelated article on a shopping mall and is then accused of being a troll, puppet or whatever the minute he or she tries to rectify what is so obviously factually wrong.81.132.107.66 (talk) 01:38, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Piccadilly Circus is not an area, it's a roundabout, regardless of which it is a notable place. Drake Circus is a single, short, boring road that could well be in any city in the UK and is entirely without note. The correct area is North Hill which is equally as boring and surprisingly enough also doesn't have a Wikipedia article. All of which is just more feeding of the troll. It may be more insightful if we start a sweepstake as to which puppet master you belong to. Your arguments and sentence structure are very familiar but I can't quite put my finger on it just yet. I'll get there eventually though. --WebHamster 02:05, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

The redirect is an alternative name, it isn't there to imply they are the same thing, also the shopping centre is on the edge of the area, its just that the address is on one of the other streets (I think it's Charles Street) but it could have been Drake Circus. Maybe a separate article could be written but the references you mention only refer to it as a street, in a postal address of various buildings, not as an area. —Snigbrook 02:07, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Could we all pause, breathe deeply, and calm down a little, please? Not referring to others as pains in the arse, dicks, trolls, and so forth would probably be a help. -- Hoary (talk) 02:11, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm just wondering why being a dick/troll/spammer/sock-puppet (delete as applicable) seems to make more sense to some people rather than creating an account, writing their own article in their own user space and then asking experienced editors to see if it answers the arguments that were brought up in the AfD. If I were to assume bad faith though, it might be thought that to take the sensible route is the route to far less dissension and attention-seeking. But who am I to assume bad faith about anyone? Hmmmm. --WebHamster 02:30, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

if you search for 'drake circus bomb shelter' in google you will see the parts of the originaldrake circus article and this intresting link exposing the corruption of the same editorswho are now blocking anyone attempting to challenge their spamming activity.81.132.107.66 (talk) 02:45, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Why go to Google? The article's history will give you the same result. Duh!. Meanwhile in another part of the galaxy I see no part-built articles in this SPA IP's user space. --WebHamster 02:51, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I searched google as there was nothing in Wikipedia on the subject except a reference to an unnecessary speedy deletion[76] made presumably because such historic fact interferes with your malls marketing agenda. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.132.107.66 (talk) 03:04, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

While I'm not sure that everyone redirecting is a spammer working for the mall, calls for an ironclad article at first edit are insane, and contrary to the collaborative spirit of the project. I do note, however, that if all we DO have is the old wiki-article and some postal code maps, then the editor, after trying to build it up fairly, will either overcome the burden of a legitimate AfD, or he won't. But giving him an hour or two then reverting and attacking is hostile to every new editor here. If there's an article there, in a week or two it'll be apparent, and if there's no article there, the same applies. AGF here, let him try it. ThuranX (talk) 05:38, 9 February 2009 (UTC) DMacks' behavior on the talk page is getting surly. He's demanding a level of completeness and quality far above the minimum standards for articles, and that's a problem. It's BITE-y and overly authoritative. ThuranX (talk) 06:03, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Given that the article has already had AfD=delete, I think we really can't just start with the old article in mainspace comparable to that deleted content and let it grow for a while and hope for the best. That's pretty clear CSD-A4: there is consensus that that form of the article is not viable for mainspace. So the article can either be written in a form that clearly establishes notability beyond what that previous one had (i.e., resolve the consensus-opinion concerns) or else...um nothing really. Writing an article out-of-mainspace is a perfect way to let it grow until it's viable (i.e., does make some new claims of notability). That's a process that has already been started. Please participate there so we can finally get a decent article written about this place if indeed such task is possible. DMacks (talk) 06:05, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Forget it. It's clear that DMacks would rather see all new editors shot than encouraged, and new articles discouraged rather than given a chance. I've seen no proof the old and new articles are identical. IF they aren't simply a resurrection of the old, then AGF ought to apply. that said, I've got enough walls on wikipedia into which to smack my face, so I'm walking off from this one. My condolences to the editors who tried. ThuranX (talk) 06:13, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I too am walking away from the redirect/article for a day or two, maybe some new notability will be added and we can get on with it. DMacks (talk) 06:16, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

User:Johnlemartirao

Can someone block this user for a short time? I don't think I am neutral enough to do this. He repeatedly removes deletion tags from images, removes image listings from PUI, etc (please read the warning I left on his talk page for explanations and diffs) and has kept on with this after being warned. See here for the latest. Now he has taken to vandalizing user talk pages of anyone who has warned him with {{expand}} tags, somewhat puzzlingly.[77] He has good contributions but I think a block is necessary to make clear that this nonsense must stop. Calliopejen1 (talk) 17:13, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Racism and the panarabism ideology

Ok... I just spotted this in new pages patrol. I have no idea what to do with it, it seems like it's a blatant POV essay with mondo links to blogs and the like. AfD? Can't be speedied. PROD? Any ideas? §FreeRangeFrog 21:14, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Speedied. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:05, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Wow, dodged that one :) Thanks. §FreeRangeFrog 22:18, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Israel Shahak article

Issue:
1. Deletion of other user's posts. I can't find any explicit policies on deleting other users' posts from talk (not his talk, article talk), but it seems like a very bad thing to do. See here.

• edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Talk#Others.27_comments states, "Do not strike out the comments of other editors without their permission."

2. Escalating revert war between User:Jayjg and: myself, User:Dynablaster, User:Nishidani and User:PalestineRemembered at Israel Shahak

a. each and every change we make, he reverts with wikilawyering, and outright dismissal of consensus opinion.

For example, he refuses the consensus opinion of some CAMERA articles aren't appropriate for use in the article due to our acceptance "EI's propaganda spin" - that CAMERA is an absolutely trustworthy WP:RS. Oddly enough, he states that, "CAMERA was attempting to do was to bring some of the more egregiously anti-Israel articles in line with Wikipedia policies" - to which the evidence seems to be directly the opposite.

b. additionally, he seems to dismiss Israel Shahak's writings and readily accepts any criticism on the basis that "Shahak was likely knowledgeable about chemistry, but he was a non-expert when it came to the works for which he is most famous, his polemics on Judaism." - while there is no policy on this, it seems to be disingenuous to involve oneself in an article to which one cannot maintain a neutral stance.

Before this escalates any further, I ask for an administrator to intervene. The chances of a calmly discussed consensus being reached, seems to be nil. GrizzledOldMan (talk) 21:21, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually, from my view the wikilawyering seems to be entirely the other way. For example, you keep insisting that you can insert original research into an article because you are simply stating "FACTS AS THEY ARE". I've brought up that very issue on the NOR/N noticeboard (Wikipedia:No_original_research/noticeboard#Shahak_vs._Jackobovits), only to be followed there by PR, who, not content to insert irrelevant soapboxes onto the article talk page, insists on inserting them on the NOR/N board as well. Perhaps you can explain how a two and a half year old discussion which mentions neither Shahak nor Jakcobovits can be, to use PR's words, "on just this topic". I defy anyone, in fact, to explain how PR's comments are actually on the topic of the article, which is Israel Shahak. In addition, I object to your mis-stating my positions on, well, practically everything. I did not, for example, state that CAMERA "is an absolutely trustworthy WP:RS"; rather, I pointed out that EI's spin on CAMERA's motives were not fact. In any event, I'm not seeing where this rather standard type of content dispute has become an administrative issue. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:53, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I'd rather not personalize this, though there is a problem with the way Jayjg has consistently defended the extensive citation of worthless smear sources against Israel Shahak on that page. I'm not interested in edit-warring, and have advised that each improbable smear be analysed according to standard criteria before we actually work the page. But the page does have a troubled history. We have managed to keep pages on other controversialists in the area, such as Norman Finkelstein, relaqtively clear of poor partisan smears, yet this has invariably failed with this page, and many editors havce given up on it. I understand why the Israel Shahak page is so subject to special treatment: he wrote a critique of totalitarian tendencies in a certain vein of Judaism, and this is sensitive stuff. But the way to handle this is not to trivialize the subject by citing extensively gossipmongers with their lethal rumours, but to look for criticism by competent scholars of where Shahak's scholarship is wrong, if wrong.

There is almost nothing on what he actually thought, but a lot on innuendoes, smears, patent lies, and deliberate misinterpretations of what he thought, by agitprop specialists of mediocre credentials, such as, to cite one example only, Rachel Neuwirth. There is no reliable source I know of which says Shahak was an antisemite. Many critics of antisemitism were his intimate friends. Yet this rubbish is consistently defended. The result is an unbalanced page, thick with suspicion, and short on intelligent NPOV material on his thought. I simply would like clarification from administrators and fellow editors on how much of these 'trashing' polemics by non-notable polemicists without a knowledge of Shahak's life, and without his kind of academic formation, is allowable. That he is hated is obvious. It should be noted. I however fail to see why patent smearing by non-notable people who have a clear agenda to continue a whispering campaign against him should be given more than passing mention, with a few references to the mags that print their hackwork.Nishidani (talk) 21:36, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

It would be helpful if you would actually "not personalize this", rather than claiming you don't wish to, then proceeding to do so. Shahak was controversial in a way that Finkelstein was not, in that Shahak wrote polemical books about Judaism, while having absolutely no expertise in the area. His works on Judaism are comparable to Robert Spencer's on Islam, except for the fact that Spencer has a degree in a relevant field, religion, whereas Shahak did not. It is for precisely this reason that Shahak's views have been considered antisemitic. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:53, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

My not wishing to personalize this meant, in context, that the problem is not immediately 'you' personally, but the fact that the page is a mess of smears from quarterbaked POV warriors in the war over national images and ethnic honour. That you happen to be a longtime defender of this rubbish is secondary. The former is what I should like to be addressed. As to your remark about no expertise, Shahak read Talmudic and rabbinical literature for 40 years, and, secondly, closely followed the development of fundamentalism in Israel. That Shahak is not an authorized authority on Judaism, which you repeat ad nauseam, is wholly immaterial to the issue. Shahak is famous for a book he wrote on one current of Judaism, as Karl Popper is famous also for a book on Plato's thought, though he wasn't a qualified classicist. The page on Shahak therefore must deal with that critique. I'd be more than happy to see good sources from within the academic mainstream on Judaism cited in their deconstructions of his interpretation. We don't have that. We have a ragbag of smears about an ostensible antisemitic attitude by the usual bunch of tabloid warriors in the lowermuddle brow level of the commentariat, skewering him with smears and insinuations that are palpably wrong and trivial. As for your view that 'Shahak's views have been considered antisemitic' because he wrote a polemical book on Judaism, I'd like a source for that.Nishidani (talk) 23:19, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

"That Shahak is not an authorized authority on Judaism, which you repeat ad nauseam, is wholly immaterial to the issue." Wow. And yet you wish to use him in a "Criticism of Judaism" article. Right, then, let's toss out WP:RS altogether. Time to take it to WP:MFD? Jayjg ^(talk) 02:00, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I am one of many, many who has totally given up the Israel Shahak-article. We can only note that no critic is too insignificant to be noted on that page. However, strangely, Israel Shahak´s own views are all apparently "non-notable" on Wikipedia. Have fun. Huldra (talk) 21:50, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Err, yes, Shahak's polemics on Judaism aren't reliable sources about Judaism. Why on earth would you imagine they were? Do you really think, given the hundreds of scholars of Judaism who have written on the topic of Judaism, the thousands of books, and tens of thousands of scholarly articles, that we should be quoting the works of chemists? Jayjg ^(talk) 21:57, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh, rrright, but anybodys polemics on Shahak is a reliable source about Shahak? I recall how hard I had to fight to at least keep neo-nazis like David Duke out from the Shahak -page. As for the "hundreds of scholars of Judaism who have written on the topic of Judaism, the thousands of books, and tens of thousands of scholarly articles" written on Criticism of Judaism; hmm, no, I don´t know about them. They are certainly not in the article. Why don´t you add them, Jayjg? Regards, Huldra (talk) 22:05, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that the quality of sources one will find on Shahak will in any way approach those you will find on Judaism? Are you really suggesting Shahak's writings on Judaism compare in any way to those of the hundreds of actual scholars of the topic who have written about it? Absurd! Jayjg ^(talk) 22:20, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

You are not answering my question: if there are "hundreds of scholars of Judaism who have written on the topic of Judaism, the thousands of books, and tens of thousands of scholarly articles" written on Criticism of Judaism; why don´t you add some of them? And for most of us it is not an absurdity, but a hypocrisy, to demand another standard of notability on Shahak-article -sources, than say, on Criticism of Judaism-sources. Regards, Huldra (talk) 23:10, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually, Huldra, it is you who is not answered my question: "Do you really think, given the hundreds of scholars of Judaism who have written on the topic of Judaism, the thousands of books, and tens of thousands of scholarly articles, that we should be quoting the works of chemists?" Jayjg ^(talk) 01:24, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

This comment from PalestineRemembered was precisely on-topic, but removed by Jayjg. I fail to see how its removal was justified - he's simply using a previous NOR discussion to communicate that NOR is not a black and white issue. The only reason I can see for Jayjg removing it, is that it presents a strong case that his wikilawyering on NOR isn't as watertight as he makes it sound. Instead of allowing PalestineRemembered's observations to weaken his stance - he summarily deletes them from the discussion.

Or has it suddenly become policy, that it's OK to delete other user's comments just because one doesn't want others to see them?

As for his edit-warring, Jayjg simply reverted a large number of changes - citing only WP:SELFPUB contention in the discussion, but completely ignoring the extensive comments in history, where the changes were justified. It seems Jayjg is far more interested in stonewalling the other editors, than discussing changes and improvements that the article is in dire need of. GrizzledOldMan (talk) 22:19, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

This comment from PalestineRemembered was precisely on-topic, but removed by Jayjg. - and there you have it. A comment by PR referring to a 2 1/2 year old discussion which nowhere mentions Shahak is somehow now "precisely on-topic". As for the material I restored, I explained in a number of different areas on the Talk: page why I disagreed with the various edits. And yes, the removal of Cohn because he was somehow "self-published" in Israel Horizons, a magazine with which he has no apparent affiliation, was one of the more ridiculous of those edits that I reverted. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:24, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I think editors imagined that anything that was worth writing and true 2.5 years ago is still true and valid and useful - and some were startled to discover that messages were being deleted and important information was being concealed from him.

Of course, if the rules have changed since you explained the exact meaning of "Original Research" back then, then it's most fortunate we have you to explain the new system to us. PR^talk 23:04, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Jayg seems to have completely missed PalestineRemembered's quote, "The debate is about whether the disputed edit constitutes "analyzing and arguing with," as some here assert and assume but do not demonstrate; or whether it constitutes "summarizing and paraphrasing," as others here have demonstrated exhaustively" - no, it's not about Shahak, but it's quote precisely on topic for the question of WP:NOR - but Jayjg simply deleted it out of hand. PR didn't try to bring up the Finklestein debate - he simply used it as a reference on the question of interpretation of WP:NOR guidelines. I fail to see how that's completely off topic. I can, however, see how it might threaten Jayjg's position and he'd want to delete it, and hope nobody calls him on it. GrizzledOldMan (talk) 23:08, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

So, you really think that a 2 1/2 year old debate, about an entirely different topic, using entirely different sources, will actually be able to shed light on the discussion here? Or rather, is it another example of an attempt to re-hash an old debate, one which in no way can have an impact on the current issue? The latter, of course, which is why I removed it, as opposed to your insulting assertion that it might "threaten Jayjg's position". The only thing it "threatened" was wasting everyone's time with irrelevant material; no fear, however, you've ensured it has done that anyway. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:24, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

(undent)The whole WP:SELFPUB argument is moot, by the way - the discussion had gone on to WP:WEIGHT - I questioned whether or not such an amateurishly written review, in an obscure little magazine, really has a place in Shahak's article. But Jayjg completely ignored the development of the discussion and arbitrarily reverted the change (and all others). I think this is quite telling that he's edit-warring and not trying to discuss points of contention to reach a consensus. GrizzledOldMan (talk) 23:20, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The whole "SELFPUB" argument was only "moot" because you were called on it. The only "telling" thing was that when your original rationale for removing the material was utterly refuted, you then moved the goalposts, and suddenly declared that the real issue was "WEIGHT". Jayjg ^(talk) 01:24, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

PR, while I don't think it was a good idea for Jayjg to delete this comment, (i.e. the first diff given by GrizzledOldMan above; see Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines#Others' comments), I note that he's called it "soapboxing". At the moment I don't know enough about the discussion to know whether it was soapboxing or not. If it was on-topic for that article talk page, it must have had some connection to article content. I would appreciate it if you would explain to me what suggested change to the article that comment was connected with, and how, or give me a diff of a comment that explains that. You might want to use the article talk page or my talk page to avoid taking up too much space on this noticeboard.

I've added the article to my watchlist but am not sure whether I'll have time to get involved in editing it. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 23:58, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

All honour to Jayjg for trying to keep reasonable perspective in this article. I fail to see any reasonable reason why the edit conflict should be taken to the Administrators' noticeboard... -- Olve Utne (talk) 23:41, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Wikilawyering, deleting other editors' comments in talk, edit-warring against four other editors? You applaud that? Seriously? GrizzledOldMan (talk) 23:59, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, the first and third clauses there describe your own actions. I note that your edits have been reverted by six editors in whole or in part. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:24, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

This is a content dispute, and not appropriate for this board. Take. It. Somewhere. Else. Thanks, all. IronDuke 00:58, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, this is a content dispute and does not belong here. By the way, the fact that Jay is willing to take on four edit-warring editors at the same time is not a bad thing; it shows his dedication to making sure articles comply with Wikipedia policies. 6SJ7 (talk) 02:22, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Totally inappropriate for this forum. This is clearly a conflict dispute. bad faith here seems likely.69.242.115.186 (talk) 04:19, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

"you then moved the goalposts, and suddenly declared that the real issue was "WEIGHT""? Did you bother to check the discussion thread? I didn't move the goalposts - the discussion had moved on from that. The goalposts didn't move - you didn't read. If it doesn't belong here - then

• 1. Where does it belong - since Jayjg is completely refusing to accept consensus, and simply edit-wars hos POV to death?
• 2. Where does the comment removal issue belong, if not here? If it's pretty clearly against policy to remove comments without VERY good reason - where should that behaviour be discussed? GrizzledOldMan (talk) 05:06, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Tag-abuse by Dicklyon of a page for which he is already in formal mediation

This is newly repeated tag-abuse by Dicklyon of a page for which he is already in formal mediation (here).

Dicklyon recently nominated Feminine essence theory of transsexuality for deletion, a nomination which was defeated nearly unanimously [78]. He immediately followed-up by filing an RfC [79], which also failed to provide support for his POV about the page. Apparently displeased with these outcomes, Dicklyon multi-tagged the page [80], with the edit summary “a few tags to point out some of the made-up assertions in this stupid article.” Those apparently being insufficient, he added more: [81][82].

To fast forward a bit, the mediator has referred to the issues about the page as "water under the bridge" (here). Now apparently displeased with that, Dicklyon added to the page another dozen or so dubious-tags, who-tags, and cn-tags (here). (He has inserted more tags than the page has sentences.)

I am posting this at ANI instead of the at the vandalism noticeboard because, in my opinion, tag-abusing a page for which one is already in mediation and for which one has been forum-shopping for opposition is a very different issue from regular vandalism. Dicklyon has a substantial history of blocks [83] and topic banning [84].

Although Dicklyon has every right to disagree with the page and to accuse me of any of many things (and he does), this is not how to participate in dispute resolution.

I have notified our mediator here, and I am making this ANI post because it's not quite appropriate (to my mind) for the mediator to perform anti-vandalism and other admin actions for the same case. Finally, because I am also in the mediation, I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to revert the page on my own.

— James Cantor (talk) 22:20, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, but I reverted it as blatant tag-abuse. LOL^thulu 22:34, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Is there a policy or guideline someone could point me to that defines tag abuse? I ask because of a totally unrelated article, but it may help in could be looked at. Thanks ;) — Ched (talk) 23:47, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

It's described at [[WP::Vandalism#Types_of_vandalism]] — James Cantor (talk) 00:07, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

(EC)

In this case Ched, wp:POINT is exactly what Dicklyon is broadly guilty of. Look at #10 under the 'Gaming the system' for a more specific clause. There may be more guidelines we could cite, but Dicklyon himself said "a few tags to point out some of the made-up assertions in this stupid article." Because of the repetitive nature of this issue, WP:STICK also applies. NJGW (talk) 00:09, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Dicklyon just reverted the vandalism right back onto the page [85].

Thanks anyway, LOLuthan. Dicklyon used the edit summary "That was a complete revert and gave no idea which aspects of my calls for discussion of dubious claims were considered inappropropriate." Personally, I think that's just doing what WP:civility calls "playing dumb" and "Taunting or baiting" to pull you into a dispute with him. I think an admin's look is necessary. (The mediation broke down, by the way.)

— James Cantor (talk) 00:19, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

And yet again. [86]
His edit summary this time: "Reverted 1 edit by NJGW; These tags are not pointy; they are serious; please address on the talk page".
— James Cantor (talk) 01:40, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

He's now at 3rr. I mentioned that on his talk page, and started a talk page section to discuss how to continue. NJGW (talk) 02:00, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I just noticed that Cantor had mentioned this on my talk page; I missed that before, as another item came in after it. My point with the tags was to more specifically point out the assertions that are dubious, in the sense of being made up as opposed to being supported by the sources that Cantor cited. This can also be addressed in mediation, assuming that resumes, but to help the issue along I felt it appropriate to indicate those specific aspects of the language that are dubious, or, in actuality, quite absurd and unsupportable. If there's a better way to do this, someone please let me know. Dicklyon (talk) 03:52, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

At Talk:Feminine essence theory of transsexuality#Dubious I've add three subsections on the first three dubious tags; I want it to be clear that each tag had a serious intent, and that I was not intending this a pointy tag abuse; but I can see why it might have been taken that way by some not familiar with what James Cantor has done with this article. I invite your comments on the talk page. James has also not approved moving forward with the new mediator, after he gave the old one a vote of no confidence, so it's not clear how he thinks this is going to get resolved. Dicklyon (talk) 04:44, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

User:Nationalist320 and his sock User:Sea888

User:Nationalist320, AKA User:Sea888, AKA USer:David873, and crossed the line in his major sockpuppeting here, trying to push a POV that cantonese are vietnamese yueh.

User:David873 is blocked, and he is using proxy ips to avoid checkusers, he has been posting his own agenda all over the nanyue, cantonese people, hoa people, han chinese, and other articles to make it seem as though cantonese are related to vietnamese and not chinese. its sort of obvious looking at his contributions that the 3 are the very same, look carefully though all the contributions of all 3 accounts at the articles i mentioned and their talk pages.22:49, 8 February 2009 (UTC)~~

He is located in Australia, all his sock ips trace back to there.

he also has been placing personal attacks on USer:HongQiGong's talk page with his nationalist320 account. he has been spamming his POV for too long, i recommending watching the Nanyue article closely and its history and its talk history for his POV pushing.22:55, 8 February 2009 (UTC)~~

his sock account attacking HongQiGong, totally innapropiate and POV pushing all over his and his other socks USer:Sea888 looking at all 3 account's edits, you can hardly tell them apart.....23:00, 8 February 2009 (UTC)~~

His sock ip using the very same link USer:DAvid873 once used

two of his sock ips, i suspect both trace back to australia, no? 122.105.149.69 151.151.7.53

trace the ips

23:06, 8 February 2009 (UTC)~~

Nationalist blocked for being troll only, likely on proxies. The other two aren't related. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 23:06, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

if they are on proxies, that EXACTLY why checkuser doesnt work

i doubt you ran a checkuser, considering that your live in australia and are vietnamese like david —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.83.163.24 (talk) 23:11, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

He ran three checks. But then again, you'll just come up with a reason to not believe what I'm saying, like you did with Yellowmonkey. --Deskana (talk) 23:34, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

This IP troll keeps on saying that I am David873 even though I blocked him (David) last year YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 01:20, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

since you block him for trolling, pray tell why didnt you block his trolls, or was it because you are the troll?

I have no idea if those accounts are related, but Nationalist320 did vandalise my userpage once.[87] Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 02:26, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

• Comment Given the same writing habit like USer: and obsession with David873 and HongQiGong, this IP reporter is endlessly block evading ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ (talk · contribs · page moves · current autoblocks · block log). See Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Julius Ceasarus From Primus and Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ. I guess another range-block for a long period would be necessary.--Caspian blue 02:34, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
• Comment Caspian blue has quite a history of getting blocked, and is butting into a conversation into which he is not involved, considering his block record, ignore him. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ㄭㄭ (talk • contribs) 05:03, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

caspian blue's extensive block record, quite the credentials to butt into a conversation into whch hes not involved. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ㄭㄭ (talk • contribs) 05:05, 9 February 2009 (UTC) caspian blue has quite a history of 3rr edit wars and personal attacks, not to mention POV pushing on comfort women, and also having an obsession with User:ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ . and his history of accusing everyone of fighting with him a troll of a japanese sock. since caspian blue descided hes the boss, why not give him adminship after all his blocks and accusation and personal attacks?ㄭㄭ (talk) 05:21, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

caspian blue

caspianblue gives himself way to much credit for getting huandi blocked, #1 huangdi was already blocked when caspian blue brought up the checkuser. #2 huangdi was blocked for posting a sock template on dave1185's page, not from caspian blue doing anything. caspian blue claimed "haungdi had a grudge against him for getting block". this shows typical korean arrogance, when huang di was blocked BEFORE caspian blue even posted the checkuser link LOL —Preceding unsigned comment added by ㄭㄭ (talk • contribs) 05:01, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Note: The 2-square user above was indef-blocked due to his string of uncivil comments here today. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 06:12, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Disruptive editor/Sockpuppet

It has happened:

User PARARUBBAS (at least the first account i acknowledge) had the custom of the following: removing, just because, links, references, sections ("SEE ALSO", "NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH") and paragraphs, "gluing" all sentences (list of "contributions" here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Pararubbas); i provide an example here (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aly_Cissokho&diff=prev&oldid=226305530).

(Over)Duly warned (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Pararubbas#Blocked), including in what seemed his mother tongue, Portuguese (i am also from that country and did so), he, after having made zero edit summaries and responded to zero talkpage "interventions", was finally blocked indefinitely (see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Pararubbas#Blocked).

Afterwards, the person logged in under the account PEP10 (list of "contributions" here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Pep10), continuing with the same disruptive patterns (example here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jo%C3%A3o_Pereira_(Portuguese_footballer)&diff=prev&oldid=257327999). After a while and some reports, this account was blocked indef as well (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Pep10#December_2008), after a check user was performed by admin/user Satori Son (see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Pep10)

It did not deter this individual still, as he opened a third account, PASD08 ("contributions" here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Pasd08), with same modus operandi (example here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pawe%C5%82_Kieszek&diff=prev&oldid=265304604). After extensive reports (see here for instance http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&diff=prev&oldid=265562039#Disruptive_editors) a sock puppetry pattern was finally acknowledged and the person received its due punishment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Pasd08#Sock_of_Pararubbas).

You'd think the vandal had had enough by now, would you not? Well, here is the FOURTH account, KAKD08 (list of "contributions" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Kakd08), with the same patterns (example here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vitorino_Antunes&diff=prev&oldid=269312444). He has already been warned in this fresh new "vandalic adventure" (talkpage here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Kakd08#February_2009).

Attentively, VASCO AMARAL - --NothingButAGoodNothing (talk) 23:31, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Sort of kind of a legal threat

Posted on a talk page i watch (good chance the editor in question is logged of for the day) by 68.38.147.199: "If you continue to post on my talk page harassing me I will resort to a legal threat against all of wikipedia for continued copyright infringement of my works. Resorting to WP: No legal Threast will only help my case against you. Wikipedia is NOT exempt from the law." [[88]]. The context is unclear to me; the IP only has about 10 edits. I leave whether this needs to addressed up to the wise.Bali ultimate (talk) 23:39, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, definitely seems to be a legal threat. Judging from the other contribs by the IP things do not bode well as they reek of axe-grinding, harassment, and vandalism (see "USER WAS BANNED FOR FURFAGGOTRY" on Zetawoof. Could be a sock of a previously-blocked user, but definitely is bucking for a block on the contribs alone. MuZemike 00:01, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh ya, that is blockable. And blocked. 3 days should give the IP time to find a new owner. Chillum 00:03, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

The IP's history shows nothing but editorializing, to put it charitably. However, the banner on his page says "indefinite", but it's only a 3-day block. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 00:27, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Personal attack by User:Damjanoviczarko

An edit summary written by User:Damjanoviczarko (addressed to me) on the Blagoje Jovović article history page states "Napuši se kurca pederčino!", [89] which in Croatian and Serbian languages means something like "Suck cock you faggot!". --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 00:32, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Having noticed the report, User:Damjanoviczarko proceeded to summarize his edit in the UDBA article with "I opet... napuši mi se kurča pederčino.... molim prevedi im opet......", which literally means "And again... suck my cock you faggot.... please translate it to them [the Admins] again......" [90]. He appears to enjoy his freedom of speach, don't he? :) --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 00:56, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

He then responded to my notification of this report with another salute of the same sort [91], and another [92], you get the idea.... :P --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 00:59, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Anyone who is supporter of Pavelić, Hitler or any other fascist bustard can suck my cock. —Preceding unoriginal comment added by Damjanoviczarko (talk • contribs) 00:54, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

What's the Croatian expression for "begging for a block"? P.S. He got a short one, 2 days, just as a test. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 01:41, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Heh, its something like "Pliz blokiraj me" ("Please block me"), the expression comes close to bridging the cultural barrier, don't it? Just like ignorance... :P --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 01:46, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

He's been blocked, DIREKTOR, who basically violated 3RR on UDBA, has been warned. Like I said on your talk page, DIREKTOR, literally the only reason I didn't block you was because it wouldn't have prevented future edit warring (because the only other person was Damjanoviczarko). Don't skirt the rules on that again. Protonk (talk) 01:52, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Right, rest assured I take your warning seriously. Like I said on my talk, it was like reverting someone's persistent inclusion of an "alien assassination theory" about the death of JFK (which probably has better sources than this). I had the idea I was reverting what amounts to little less than vandalism (plus he was removing the AfD tag, so...) --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 01:57, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Once an edit war gets to 3 reverts, it's clear that it's likely futile, and then it's time to turn the other guy in here (or somewhere) and let additional users review the matter. The exception is that if it's obvious vandalism, turn the guy in to WP:AIV and let them block him. Then you can fix the article, since fixing true vandalism is exempt from the 3 revert rule. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 02:20, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Steve Gatena (3rd nomination)

I'm not sure exactly what I'm asking for, but it seems like someone should step in here. There are comments being added at the top, the bottom, and the middle of the debate, making it hard to follow. There are numerous spa accounts whose only contribs are to this AfD, so something fishy is probably going on there too. It's a real zoo, and if this keeps up for the full five days this AfD will be a mile and a half long and just close as "no consensus" yet again. Anyone got any ideas? Beeblebrox (talk) 02:09, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Steward Vote Notice Box

Moved discussion to MediaWiki talk:Common.css#Steward Vote Notice Box. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:26, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Block review

Resolved

I've just blocked Tongueincheeky (talk · contribs) for 48 hours for patently for patently inappropriate edits to Jeremy Bash [93] which continued after warnings [94]. Somebody could argue that I was an involved editor, since I was the one reverting his additions, but they were so self-evidently inappropriate that I didn't think it was really a content dispute. Anyway, I'll be on-wiki sporadically, if at all, for the rest of the night, so other admins should feel free to handle this however they like without further input from me. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 03:33, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Gee. A single purpose account whose sole edits have been to input grossly-POV material into a high-profile public figure... blocked? Good block. seicer | talk | contribs 04:07, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Seicer beat me to it. That was a good block. I'll go leave a longer note on his talk page which will hopefully explain Wikiprocesses in more detail but I'm not optimistic. I've taken the liberty of marking this as resolved. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:38, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Checkuser abuse

My apologies if this is in the wrong place, but I've got a bit of a serious problem that I need resolved quickly. Recently, I was accused of being a sockpuppet. I've only just joined, and I've made only a few edits. She has opened a Checkuser on me, but since I'm innocent, I figured it was just a mistake. The person accusing me has gotten quite a lot of people banned in a very small timeframe, accusing them all of being sockpuppets of the same person she's accusing me of being one of, so I'm naturally worried. However, after looking into it and checking out the talk pages of the many people she claims I am, I fear that there is foul play going on, and that I will be blocked regardless. There are claims that the reason these users have been getting blocked, is actually because this person is friends with several admins, and the talk pages of the person most recently blocked-a user name WhiteKnightLeo-seems to provide proof of this. An admin named Luna Santin seems to have been abusing her checkuser powers to falsely claim that people share the same IP, in order to back up her friend Erigu's accusations of sockpuppetry. Just check out the block log link on WhiteKnightLeo's talk page. Luna claims Leo's IP is the same as the one that was being used by two other users, even though both those IPs had been blocked indefinitely some time before that. Her argument against this was that the blocks might not have been indefinite. However, she confirms the block log is indeed for the IP she blocked. But her block is the only one in the log. If the IP were really the same one used by those two other users, then there would have been at least two other blocks recorded in that log. I hope I'm wrong, but Erigu has already specifically asked Luna to handle the Checkuser, so I don't want to take any chances. +20 EXP (talk) 05:17, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

She has opened a Checkuser on me

I'm still a man. It's funny how all those obviously different people I've accused of being one and the same just happen to assume I'm female. Uncanny, even.

Here's the SPI. Erigu (talk) 05:19, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

And this comment is relevant to my post here how? You're just spamming. Stop trying to antagonize me. And for the record, I've seen the quite a few of them have referred to you as a man. You cling to whatever you can find when you make your accusations. Since you have no proof because you are lying, you're choosing to cling to the fact that I mistook you for a woman based on your username. Don't keep making snide comments everywhere I go, and don't continue to spam my talk page. +20 EXP (talk) 05:23, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Personally I find it a little odd that Erigu's very first edit was to open a sockpuppet case. DuncanHill (talk) 05:28, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

On the other hand, Eirgu's been here 7 months and made over a thousand edits, 58% of which have been article edits. +20 EXP, on the other hand, has been here a few days, and made 16 edits, none of them to articles. Ed Fitzgerald _{t / c} 05:50, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I was editing as 88.161.129.43 and didn't want to create an account initially (basically, I can't say I'm a strong believer in the Wikipedia project... I just know the site is popular and would rather try and improve some articles for those who consult it), but this is how it went... Erigu (talk) 05:38, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Erigu is a user who really needs to be banned, but I've no idea where to request that kind of thing. He has a bunch of pages staked out, and if anyone disagrees with him or makes and edit he dislikes, they are automatically a sockpuppet. He opens a Checkuser, then goes to the page of an admin friend and requests they handle it. And until the user is banned, Erigu will, as you've just seen here, stalk the editor around Wiki, quoting their posts on talk pages and making snide comments. Several of his victims pointed it out before they were blocked. He antagonizes people until they get fed up and fight back or defend themselves, which he uses to make them look guilty. He'll also go to pages they edit and undo their edits, making up whatever reaon he wants. And with all the rules Wiki has, it's easy to make it look legit. You can contest any edit if you claim it is unsourced or that the source is not legit. And also, Erigu constantly accuses someone named "SyberiaWinx" of being in charge of these accounts, but there's no user here by that name. That makes me believe this is all just some massive personal attack from some troll. Just take a look at his recent contributions. I feel bad for all those other users... +20 EXP (talk) 05:35, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

A user who's been on here for less than 3 hours, calling for another editor to be banned. That's a good one. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 06:11, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Been on here less than 3 hours, yet went and opposed Luna's arb com election claiming he is lying about the check user results to help his "friend" Erigu.[95] Interesting indeed that he feels such a strong need to defend the banned socks to the point of slandering a long standing and respected administrator. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 06:19, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

What's your point? I know harassment when I see it. And to the person who said I've been here for three hours and haven't edited any articles, there are reasons for that. I intended to edit the page for a game called "Umineko no Naku Koro ni", but I checked out the talk page first and got into a discussion. That has been taking up my time, and then, out of the blue, there's that sockpuppet accusation meant to discredit me in said discussion. After that, I was too busy reading a bunch of stuff in relation to the accusation. When I learned Erigu's habit for following people he accused to other articles and harassing them/undoing their edits, I figured it would be best to wait until the accusation was settled at least, though I doubt that would stop him...I'm not interested in one of his edit wars. +20 EXP (talk) 06:18, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Hey, long-standing and respected people do bad things all the time. It's terrible, but it happens. If I hadn't been accused of sockpuppetry, I wouldn't have even know this was going on. But I was. And naturally, I read the talk pages of the users I was accused of being. I read the accusations against Luna, found the evidence backing it up quite well, and then saw Erigu doing what he often does and asking a specific admin to handle it-in this case, Luna. And when I saw that there was a vote going on, I posted the situation there too. If it's true, then she is abusing her Checkuser powers, and a lot of undeserving people have been banned as a result. +20 EXP (talk) 06:24, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

If you're an actual newbie here, then I'm the Man in the Moon. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 06:27, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Please leave. You are not contributing anything to this conversation-you're just making rude comments with nothing to back them up. I am a new user, and like many other new users who have encountered Erigu, I'm being harassed by him and his friends. +20 EXP (talk) 06:32, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

You know way too much about wikipedia for a guy who's been on here just a few hours. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 06:48, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Seems like a reasonable assumption. +20, you've been here long enough you should know you can't just tell another editor to leave. Dayewalker (talk) 06:51, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Let's just see what checkuser says. I can believe in good faith that many users edit as anons until they decide to create a username... whcih may explain greater wikiknowledge than total newcomers have, if this was the case. Its the checkuser that will find if there is anything to assertions of puppetry and it would be prudent to wait until this is done. No need to create an environment of negativity... any of us. Yes? Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 06:59, 9 February 2009 (UTC) Striking and running. Yikes. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 07:56, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Comment I've been on Wikipedia since 2006, and I have never seen Luna Santin abuse any of the processes here. Yes, I've sat in the shadows, quietly perusing massive amounts of posts, arbitrations, checkuser investigations, mediations, etceteras over the past few years, in addition to my normal editing. (Learning the political side of Wikipedia.) In every instance of these that I have seen where Luna Santin has been involved, I've seen nothing but integrity, dedication and follow-through. In those instances where there was a possible conflict of interests, Luna Santin did the honest thing, and recused.

I find it extremely far-fetched that Luna Santin did anything in this instance that could even be conceived as impropriety. Edit Centric (talk) 07:29, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

In my experience also, I have found Luna Santin to be a good and fair-minded admin. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 07:39, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I hate to be a prude, but the quote The person accusing me has gotten quite a lot of people banned in a very small timeframe, accusing them all of being sockpuppets of the same person she's accusing me of being one of leads me to believe that this is yet another sock of Fragments of Jade who just reared her ugly head yet again recently as Akari Kanzaki (talk · contribs). Actually, as I type, I already see the SPI report (as well as the previous one right here and will comment there appropriately). If that is the issue then there is not much there ANI can accomplish. If everyone can excuse me, MuZemike 07:27, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I "know too much" about Wikipedia? And you are getting this from where? And someone says I've been here long enough to know I can't tell someone to leave? I've been here for a couple of days, if even that! And said user is just being disruptive. To Edit Centric, the evidence speaks for itself. It clearly shows how she lied just to get a person Erigu accused banned. Schmidt, while what you say sounds reasonable, it's not that simple. That's why I posted this. I want someone unrelated to Erigu or her friends to do the checkuser, so they won't lie about the IPs being the same. And Mu, you say that, but you haven't actually stated WHY you are saying that. +20 EXP (talk) 07:39, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Well..... Let's see here: You know about the terms sockpuppet and checkuser. You know the meaning of wikipedia jargon that only someone who's been here awhile would know. You know about Arbcom, and the arbcom elections. You voted oppose on an arbcom election, despite the fact that this account has run into that admin zero times in the mainspace. As I've seen, this account has edited in the mainspace almost zero times.

You know about this noticeboard, not something a new account would find so fast. Do I need to go on? I mean, everyone here can see that you're a quacking sock. Just give it a rest, the only one you're fooling is yourself.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 07:48, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Why, because he's my friend, obviously. Erigu (talk) 07:45, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

It is apparent, as noted in the recent SPI, that the account was created in retaliation aimed towards current checkuser Luna Santin (talk · contribs) for the CU results from Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/67.163.193.239/Archive. MuZemike 07:51, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

That was a nice attempt Dae, but lacking. Yes, I know about "sockpuppet" and "Checkuser"...because after I made about five edits, Erigu came to tell me and the people in the discussion I was part of that I was a sockpuppet and that he had opened a Checkuser. He also posted that same message on my talk page twice. I have no idea what the heck abcrom is. I found Luna's election when I looked at her contributions after Erigu went to her page to get her to take care of the Checkuser, and I spoke out against her because, as I said above, I've seen evidence that points to her abusing her powers. No idea what mainspace is either. And I found this noticeboard through Luna's contributions as well. Need you go on? Yes. You're making a serious accusation, and there is not even a shred of proof. All I did was join a discussion. That doesn't make me a sockpuppet. I don't know all this stuff about Wiki that you claim I do, and even if I did, that still wouldn't make me a sockpuppet. You're just as bad as Erigu, going around clinging to whatever you can in an attempt to get someone banned and making snide comments. There's no good faith here, and there's no one enforcing the rules either. Harassment against new users should not be tolerated. And Mu, you are wrong. I never even knew who Luna was until Erigu stepped in. But now that I know, I'm determined to ensure I'm not falsely punished. And, at the very least, I want to make sure Luna's abuse of power is known, even if no one listens. No one has yet to even comment on it, even though there is evidence. +20 EXP (talk) 07:58, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough, I'll comment on Luna's abuse of power. I see no evidence of it. Meeting adjourned. Dayewalker (talk) 08:01, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Please do not spam. If you have no intention of actually looking at the evidence and responding seriously, then there is no point in responding at all. This is a very serious matter. +20 EXP (talk) 08:04, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict x2)I suggest you retcon that, as his response is not spam. I suggest you read WP:SPAM, in case your master account hasn't already. But besides that, as far as I can see, you have posted zero evidence of your claims. To finding this noticeboard, you say that you were following Luna's contribs. I find it funny there isn't a single link on Luna's userpage to her contributions, so that does leave the question as to how a new user found her contributions in the first place.

Secondly, a block log cannot prove someone lied.

Lastly, I know I stated it before, but here it is again, you have given us zero evidence of your claims, but of your claims, you've revealed that you're stalking Luna.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 08:13, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes it is, and that's why I looked at your evidence and commented. Dayewalker (talk) 08:07, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

No, you just said there wasn't any. That block log proves beyond a doubt that Luna lied when she claimed that that IP she just blocked was the same IP belonging to at least two other accounts. The Checkuser didn't say that, because it was impossible. The block log just further proves that she was lying. +20 EXP (talk) 08:10, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Again, a very poor attempt. Did you read the first post or following posts at all? The evidence is given and completely explained to show how Luna lied. Also, I am not stalking Luna. I looked at her contributions after Erigu told her to handle the Checkuser, to see if she had done so, so I would know what had happened. Please, stop with the baseless accusations. +20 EXP (talk) 08:17, 9 February 2009 (UTC)