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Review of unblock request and discussion of possible community ban

Unresolved

See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/CCI

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

Blocking MickMacNee from AfD boards permanently for PA and UNCIVIL violations

I was wondering if it is possible to bar a user from participating in Articles for Deletion. I was shocked at the level of uncivilty displayed by the user MickMacNee in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wind Jet Flight 243. He was unacceptabally nasty in his responses to anyone that disagreed with his views. While passion is good, taking any dissent as an attack on ones' self is not only bad, but damaging to the project, as it steers the focus off of the issues at hand and onto the user and his own personal dramas.

His decision to badger users who disagreed, and I mean badger, which is distinct and different from offering counterarguments, as well as his name calling and borderline personal attacks on Kafziel demonstrate to me that he should be barred from participating in AfD for a significant amount of time. His continued beheavior after being told he was acting uncivil is a primary motivator for such a harsh proposal.

Please advise, Sven Manguard _Talk 02:14, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Addendum: I just had the destinct displeasure of reading an exchange between MickMacNee and Kafziel on MickMacNee's talk page. Quite simply, MickMacNee has demonstrated extreme violations of good conduct, launching a series of increasingly angry and illogical personal attacks. I was tempted to slap the upper level personal attack and uncivil warnings on his page, but I doubt it will do any good. He has a long history of blocks and including one explicitly justified as ‎ "attitude not compatible with this project" from January of this year. For posterity, the attacks on the talk page are available here [1] It's time to ban this person for an extended period of time. Sven Manguard _Talk 03:27, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, saw that gem awhile ago. Mick feels the need to badger most (all?) of the keep comments. I've seen him do it elsewhere as well. (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Republic of Ireland vs France (2010 FIFA World Cup Play-Off)) Grsz¹¹ 03:33, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I think Sven brings up a good point. Everybody has the right to reply to comments in AFDs, of course, but his answers are becoming heated and incivil, and yes, badgering; and his replies to Kafziel ("Fucking 'TLDR', that just about sums up the issue for me, pure and utter laziness.", "I am bloody amazed you are an admin tbh") are unacceptable. He has also received a final warning for incivility. I'm not sure about barring MickMacNee from AFD is the best way to deal with this, but the situation is something that requires attention. That being said, I'm fairly new on the English Wikipedia, so I'm probably not the best person to comment on this. → Clementina [ Scribble ] 03:39, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

You have as much right as anyone to speak your mind Clementina. I think that it is high time to permanently block this user. He has had more than enough chances. I'm sure there is precedent for banning perpetually uncivil people, and there certainly is precedent for banning users with personal attack track records of this magnitude. Sven Manguard _Talk 03:48, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Edit: Changed header title to reflect change in circumstances. Blocking from AfD is not enough, considering that the user takes his attacks beyond AfD. Sven Manguard _Talk 03:50, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Just to ask, where is he being uncivil in the page linked? I only read the first half, but every one i looked at was quite appropriate. To take a random example of a strongly-worded but perfectly civil response:

Arguing that it is both notable right now, and that it should be kept to see if it becomes notable, is not sound reasoning in the slightest. It is positively unsound reasoning infact. You would have more chance of having your vote counted if you didn't just piggy back other people's thoughts, when it's not even clear what policy or guideline is backing up their rather vague and WP:ATA-like opinions. MickMacNee (talk) 01:12, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Pointing out logically bereft arguments is the duty of any wikipedian. That's just plain good looking out for the project. Not every opinion is valid, AfD is not a vote. He may have stepped over the line, like i said i only read the first half, but this has been done before with him and afd, and the end result was whining about having to make your afd !votes actually defensible is not productive. -- ۩ Mask 04:02, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I think the issue are with his tone most of the time. He comes off rather stand-off-ish. [2]. As a note, I agree with him that the article in question should be deleted, do not agree that he should be blocked indef, and am just commenting as an observer. Grsz¹¹ 04:09, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

• Mick's tone is not exactly conducive to mature and healthy debate, however, he is right. It would be a travesty if the AfD were closed as keep and nobody so much as challenged the the drive-by "follow the leader" votes. It's not much to ask people to produce some kind of informed rationale for their vote. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 04:14, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I don't think a ban is needed here. He has been blocked often in the past for repeated incivility, but as HJ Mitchell said, MickMacNee's opinion is usually not unreasonable - it's just that the tone in which he expresses them which is troubling. And while "follow the leader" votes may count as less than a personally written vote, yet sometimes a personally written vote is really just be a repetition of what another has more fully commented on, and the voter might feel that a succint endorsement would express his or her opinion just as well. → Clementina [ Scribble ] 04:22, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

HJ, I thought that I had given a rationale as to why the accident is notable. Mjroots (talk) 06:46, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

• Given the OP is now effectively asking for a community ban, I would vote to oppose that remedy. But Mick has been here long enough to know that news stories in popular areas never get deleted, regardless of policy. Fighting that hard against the tide wont win any friends. Sometimes one has to simply accept what is and move onto other battles. Resolute 04:15, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Edit conflict:

You are correct that pointing out bad logic is okay, but the way he does it is by attacking users, specificly saying that users are not entitled to their own opinions because they do not think for themselves. This is what I have the problem with.

Direct cut and paste quotes:

You really don't have any opinions of your own on the matter? None at all? Are we playing follow the leader here today? MickMacNee (talk) 01:17, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

This is an Afd. It is not disrespectful or badgering to expect you to have your own opinion on the matter. Given that your only contribution here is to agree with a contradictory rationale, whose actual intention w.r.t. the issue is still open to interpretation, I should think that it is more respectful for you to realise the deficiency of making such a vote, and correct it, rather than implying wrongdoing in others. MickMacNee (talk) 01:51, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Treating it as a game as ever WR. I'm guessing you put as much thought into this Afd as all the others based on the evidence. I am pretty sure that whatever happened in those other debates, the outcomes really had nothing to do with anything you might have said, which is generally not a lot, as you can only seem to manage these sorts of 'per x' votes anyway, and then fall back on this ridiculous grandstanding act of yours. MickMacNee (talk) 02:43, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Plenty of things add nothing to an Afd. This warning was just one of them. You should just concentrate on not making the sort of reading mistakes like you did down below, and let others worry about their knowledge, or lack of, of the contents of CIVIL. MickMacNee (talk) 21:08, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Each of these are violations of civility policy. Telling people you disagree is okay, telling people that they are not thinking and don't deserve opinions is not okay. These are mostly from the first half of the article. There are other bits and pieces elsewhere, some of them better than these (although the first one is a real gem) but I didn't want to be accused of taking things out of context. Also, read his user talk, in the big blue box, for the reason I moved for a full ban. Sven Manguard _Talk 04:20, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

May I respectfully suggest that we allow editors to read the AfD for themselves and form their own opinions? Taking quotes out of their original context, while not your intention, I'm sure, has a tendency to alter their meaning. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 04:26, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree, I just did that because I've proven time and again how bad I am at the linking that everyone else seems to do easily. I encourage everyone interested to read the whole thing. My intention is not to distort. Sven Manguard _Talk 04:31, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

• Mick's tone is unfortunate and I wish he would moderate it. No cause to ban or restrict him though, as far as I can see. --John (talk) 04:23, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Not to beat a dead horse, but the focus of banning him came up after reading his talk page. Read the section "Wind Jet" on [3] and you will see why I think the user has outstayed his welcome. Sven Manguard _Talk 04:27, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't see anything here remotely approaching ban level. In the linked AfD, his comments may be a little more heated than need be, but they are addressing the issue—whether the article should be kept or deleted. He can argue with everyone who comments if he wants to. They're not required to engage with him, and the closing admin will also make the determination on which arguments are most firmly grounded in policy. I would also agree that "Fucking TLDR" is not the most civil thing to say, but responding to someone's argument or comment (as Kafziel did) with "tl;dr" is quite uncivil in itself—it's a dismissive handwave, and is quite rude. So while his response didn't exhibit the best behavior, what he was responding to exhibited rather poor behavior as well. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 04:27, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

• I'd suggest that if anyone ought to be banned then it's you Sven, for bringing this nonsense to the punishment board. Malleus Fatuorum 04:29, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Now that comment certainly isn't helpful. Why does this page and its contributors have the terrible habit of creating more drama? Grsz¹¹ 04:30, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
    • (edit conflict) Now that is harsh. I again point out that this is a ban for a pattern of activity, it wouldn't be his first for incivilty, and the reason I am so concerned, despite what would normally be of little personal interest, is his treatment of Kafziel at "Wind Jet" on his talk page.
    • I'm staggered that you apparently can't see the irony in your question Grsz11. Malleus Fatuorum 04:39, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
      • The pile-on was not needed. Obviously nothing was going to come of Sven's proposal, but he brough up legit concerns. But stupid counter-comments aren't helpful. Why not just keep your mouth shut and ignore it? Grsz¹¹ 04:45, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
        • You've clearly lost the use of your irony muscle Grsz11, or else you wouldn't consider "why not just keep your mouth shut" to be a civil response. Malleus Fatuorum 05:14, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
• I agree with Seraphimblade's assessment in that Kafziel shouldn't have used "tl;dr" in a discussion. It's counterproductive. On the other side, Mick is standoff-ish. I don't think he's at the level of communal ban. I would say open an RFC first, or take it to mediation. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 04:44, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Wait, what? I'm confused here. What just happened, was Malleus being uncivil as an illustration of why we shouldn't tolerate incivility, or am I reading into this poorly? These last few posts have made no sense. Also, I am completely serious about the ban, but everyone is ignoring the talk page, the reason I am asking for the full ban, and focusing only on the AfD, which is now secondary. Sven Manguard _Talk 04:49, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
    • You ban him from XfD, and then block on the normal scale for being uncivil. But I'd rather people go through RFC and mediation first. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 04:56, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
      • I don't think even that level of formal dispute resolution is warranted. This whole thread would be better suited to WQA than the drama board, but how many of the people here have taken the time to actually have a serious conversation with Mick about comments you perceive to be uncivil rather than berating him or reaching for the pitchforks at ANI? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 04:57, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose any sanction. MickMacNee has had, on occasions, civility issues, but his behaviour in this AfD is absolutely fine. I don't see any evidence of incivility, and legitimately questioning weakly (or even well) reasoned opinions is part of consensus-building, it isn't badgering. --Mkativerata (talk) 04:53, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Except that he seems to be doing that to every single opposing opinions, and keeps arguing the same point when it seems that it is addressed. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 04:56, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
    • Well if people will insist on giving pathetic rationales for keeping such as "per nom" or "per the drive-by voter before me"... HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 04:57, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
      • Well what's more repetitive and annoying: comments arguing the same thing, or Mick arguing with the same argument. Grsz¹¹ 05:02, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
      • HJ, I want to be sure I'm understanding you here... are you suggesting that any voter at AFD must come up with their own unique reason? If they agree with the nominator (or indeed agree with someone else), what purpose isn't served by them saying per X'?→ ROUX ₪ 05:05, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

The talk page thread I have been referring to. Please read it.

===Since this is being ignored, I'm just going to transpose it here=== Wind Jet The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. Hey man, you seem to be getting a little upset at that AfD. While the purpose of AfD is to discuss the articles, you're not going to win any points by a) arguing with everyone who disagrees with you, or b) telling the closing admin what he should or should not pay attention to. Of course, both are within your rights... but that doesn't mean they're good ideas. At this point you can rest assured that every visitor to that page will be well aware of your point of view, and for the sake of your own happiness, you would probably do well just to walk away from it and let it unfold however it will. If the article should be deleted, other editors will take up the cause. If it shouldn't be deleted, there's no use wasting any more time there. Not saying you can't, just saying you shouldn't. Kafziel Complaint Department 16:41, 29 September 2010 (UTC) I'd rather you just clarified your rationale than give me advice. The only thing I get upset about is people ignorantly piggy backing on Afd voting rationales that for all the world appear to contradict both policy, and their own logic. MickMacNee (talk) 17:30, 29 September 2010 (UTC) Isn't it possible that my rationale is quite clear, and that everyone else who is "piggy backing" simply understands and agrees with it? I haven't responded there because I've found that in AfDs it's best to address the issue, not individuals. If something I said was really out of whack, that would be one thing. But since nobody else seems to be confused by what I wrote, and since you have argued with everybody for one reason or another, it's hard to see how a reply would help anything. I've voiced my opinion and I don't feel the need to defend it against all challengers; there are plenty of better things to spend my time on around here. All I did was give you the same advice I follow myself. It works. Kafziel Complaint Department 17:57, 29 September 2010 (UTC) Frankly, 'keep, it's notable, and we should wait to see if it becomes notable' really is out of whack. As is your idea that I nominated this because nobody died. A reply would make it clear to everyone, not just the piggybackers, that you really do know what you are on about, and have really attempted to address the deletion rationale. If you don't, then that's a pretty easy angle of attack for me in a DRV, if the closer doesn't bother to engage his brain when reviewing that discussion. MickMacNee (talk) 18:07, 29 September 2010 (UTC) I didn't say "we should wait to see if it becomes notable". My meaning—which was apparently clear to everyone else but you—was that it is notable (by virtue of broad, international news coverage) and that we should wait to see what more comes of it. Notability can always increase as time goes by and further analysis comes in, but that doesn't mean it isn't also notable now. The two are not contradictory, and I don't think it's a coincidence that the very argumentative nominator happens to be the only person who claims not to understand that. I'm not worried about your "angle of attack" at DRV, except to say that the fact that you look at this as a battle says a lot about your frame of mind. You're taking this too personally. I am by no means required to address the deletion rationale if I dismiss it out of hand; if I can make a case for why it should be kept (which I did), that's all I need to do. I said what I wanted to say and I'm comfortable with it. Kafziel Complaint Department 18:36, 29 September 2010 (UTC) I doubt this was your intention. I think it's pretty obvious from your nomination that you wanted to wait to see if it became notable, hence the 'keep, for now'. If you simply thought it was notable right now, you would have just said so, and not bothered with the rest of your post, as it was completely irrelevant. You can dismiss the deletion rationale all you want and make up whatever case you like, but EVENT is the guideline which was written to combine the GNG for current events, so I think that is a pretty bizarre thing to do in an Afd on an article about a current event. The only remotely relevant part of your keep rationale was where you said "verifiable, has received significant coverage in third-party sources". It's pretty weak, simply a stock statement trotted out parrot like by everybody and anybody, and as such, it does not convince that you've even read the article, let alone are confident that you can actually justify it's exsitence here wrt actual policy wording and theory, by expanding on your rationale in the proper way. You can be comfortable with this approach all you want, you can even believe it's a good way to make a case in an Afd, but it really isn't, according to all our policies and guidelines on the practices and purposes of the venue. And this sort of thing is precisely why DRV exists, to stop lazy admins making the mistake of taking this sort of non-argument as read. It is probably about as far from being all you need to do, as if you had just rocked up and given a basic WP:JN vote. MickMacNee (talk) 19:27, 29 September 2010 (UTC) tl;dr I tell you what: You go ahead and rage, and argue with everybody, and file a DRV, and argue some more, and I'll leave what I wrote there, move on to other things, and when this is all over we'll see which of us is happier. Kafziel Complaint Department 20:52, 29 September 2010 (UTC) Who gives a fuck about happiness? I'm only concerned with having articles and processes adhere to policy. If that's impossible because people like yourself would rather fool around giving non-arguments and feeling ever so pleased about themselves afterwards, so be it. It definitely won't be me who suffers the consequences in the long run. I really hope you haven't invested a lot of time here writing and defending articles that fail EVENT, because one day they will all be gone, either that, or Wikipedia will be gone. Either way, my happiness is completely irrelevant. Fucking 'TLDR', that just about sums up the issue for me, pure and utter laziness. MickMacNee (talk) 21:03, 29 September 2010 (UTC) Dude, if you don't enjoy editing here, there's no point. The world is not going to say, "Thank god some heroic soul took a stand to get rid of that accursed Wind Jet article. It had really been rubbing me the wrong way." Nobody cares about you or the work you do here; case in point, I've been here a damn sight longer than you, I've written a good number of articles, taken more than my share of images, and made thousands of edits to the Wikipedia namespace, not to mention all the work I've done as an administrator... and you don't care at all. See? But it doesn't matter that you don't care, because I'm enjoying myself. That's the key. I don't know what "consequences" you think I'm going to suffer... People like me not giving a shit about people like you is what makes the Wiki go 'round. Kafziel Complaint Department 21:37, 29 September 2010 (UTC) I am bloody amazed you are an admin tbh. Maybe you've been here so long that you really don't know what you are doing any more, and are just happy to mess around and have fun irregardless, but maybe you haven't kept abreast with what the Wikipedia of 2010 actually is, and how it's basic operations like Afd work now. EVENT was written in 2009 - read it, and get with the programme, and don't pretend that simply giving sub-standard arguments and having fun is what flies here for decent practice anymore. Playtime's over. I don't care about what you've done, and you don't care, or more likely, have no idea, what I've done here. So what, as you say. I'm fine with that. So you're here for happiness, good for you. I think that's pretty sad myself though. I get my happiness in the real world, I come here to get shit done, like, y'know, writing an encyclopoedia that is credible, and not a dumping ground for non-notable worthless junk that will need to be deleted eventually if this site still wants to be called a serious reference work and not a fancruft database. I could give a monkeys if anybody notices me for doing so, as long as they have their own shit in order and are doing good work. It's hilarious that you thought I was talking about consequences for you. Again, that just about sums it up. Now, have your last word, but then kindly just do one, I've had it with you. MickMacNee (talk) 23:43, 29 September 2010 (UTC) tl;dr. Looks angry, though. Kafziel Complaint Department 00:23, 30 September 2010 (UTC) You read it. Go and have fun with an article somewhere, and stop wasting my time pretending you have a clue what Wikipedia is actually for. MickMacNee (talk) 00:33, 30 September 2010 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. Yes this is drastic, but as I have kept saying, it is this, not the AfD that is the basis for the block. This is what is out of hand, IMO. Sven Manguard Talk 04:59, 4 October 2010 (UTC) Oh, Sven. They weren't ignoring your comments - they just thought that it was not unprovoked, and doing like this probably won't help anything. Thinking over it carefully, though Mick's comments were growing quite incivil, I do think WQA is probably preferable in this situation than ANI. → Clementina [ Scribble ] 05:05, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

As I'm sure many will be aware, this has been going on for months. Please see the RFC that MickMacNee filed about my participation at AfD and the associated talk page for further information. See also Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive635#Disruptive behaviour at AfD where I attempted to gain the community's support in curbing MickMacNee's behaviour at AfD without success. This should not just be about MickMacNee, as there are other editors who indulge in similar behaviour. Mjroots (talk) 06:42, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

[expletive] You know, on the one hand this guy has pushed a whole lot of boundaries far too often, on the other hand it's 3AM where I am and I need to get some sleep. After seeing your post, I sincerely hope someone just up and bans this menace, but I am formally done with the issue, and unless this explodes onto my userspace, I'm not perusing it tomorrow morning. That being said, if you need anything don't be afraid to call. Sven Manguard _Talk 06:56, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Resolve and move on?

Okay, this has gotten out of hand, and it seems unlikely that there will be any blocks, so can we settle on a harshly worded final warning for incivility and a request that the user takes disagreement less personally, then move on. Either MickMacNee will calm down or he won't, and if he does this again, we can take this up again, but again, this ANI isn't going to end in a block or a section ban, and there continuing serves no purpose. Sven Manguard _Talk 05:23, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

• I wasn't going to participate here, but I do think I should at least say that I do not think Mick's comments to me were out of line. We're both adults, we were speaking our minds, and in the end we agreed to disagree. I do think some of his comments at the AfD are pretty bad, which is why (as I said on his talk page) I declined to respond to him there, but it's certainly nothing that's going to get him banned from AfD. So let's just close this and move on to something more productive. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 05:32, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
• Mick is often abrasive, but all I see here is him trying to make a strong case for deletion and to point out invalid arguments and to debunk the straw man arguments advanced for retaining the article. There is fairly terse language on both sides, and it would be unfair to single Mick out for any punishment. Anyhoo, it may be that the OP to this thread genuinely thinks Mick is being exceptionally uncivil, or simply that he may feel threatened by the relentless assault on his own hollow arguments. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 05:37, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I posted my keep vote after this whole thing began. I doubt that Mick even knows I exist, considering that this entire thing appears to have taken place while he was offline. Sven Manguard _Talk 06:06, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Ohconfucius, I hear what you're saying, but by doing so, isn't MickMacNee insulting the intelligence of the closing admin/editor? In my experience, regular AfD closers are quite capable of evaluating the arguments for and against deletion, and making a decision on the merits of those arguments. In the rare cases they get it wrong, there is a mechanism for dealing with it. Mjroots (talk) 07:22, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

He may well be, but he hasn't to my mind breached WP:CIVIL (and if he has, he's not the only one), although he may have perhaps overstepped WP:POINT. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:32, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

• A final warning? He didn't do anything. So no, we can not settle on that. This entire thread has been people saying they dont see what you're upset about. -- ۩ Mask 05:39, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

  "Didn't do anything" is laying it on a bit thick. But, yes, it's not THAT big a deal. Sven has been editing for all of two weeks, so maybe everyone could give him a break already. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 05:42, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

  I actually did not know that, and I do apologize. I just assumed someone who has found ANI has more experience then two weeks. This can be a learning experience for him, and I don't hold it against him at all. No harm, no foul :) -- ۩ Mask 10:55, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

• How about we just give both Mick and Kafziel a trouting for letting their talkpage discussion get a bit overly heated, and all move on with our lives? No harm, no foul on both sides, IMO. rdfox 76 (talk) 05:44, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
• As a clarification, this began as my objection to Mick's beheavior on ANI, then I saw his warnings and block log and realized that he has a history of these things. That's when I went all out. I admit that it might have gotten out of hand, but I saw him as an aggressor mistreating a half dozen people and stepped in out of what now seems like a misplaced desire to protect others from what I perceived to be a community threat. I'm sorry for the trouble I caused. Sven Manguard _Talk 06:06, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

As to the suggestion that this is marked as resolved, I think that we need to hear from MickMacNee before this can be done. Mjroots (talk) 13:51, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Late to my own party as usual, I miss all the fun around here, although I was having much more fun in RL while this was going on.... As ever, given this is a venue for cluefull independent review against actual policy, from people without horses in the race, I've nothing to add here beyond the very cluefull feedback given by most, except to extend some thanks to this month old editor who, through his attempted banning of me, has brought some much needed independent community input to that Afd. MickMacNee (talk) 15:29, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

• Given lots of previous discussions with lots of different editors on this very subject, why don't we simply stop kidding ourselves and simply remove WP:CIVIL from being core policy and one of the five pillars. That way, we'll save on soooo much wasted time where innocent editors make complaints only for other editors to say things like "Yeah, that was maybe uncivil, but true and everyone is entitled to their opinion". Why bother with WP:CIVIL at all if its not going to get enforced? --HighKing (talk) 15:50, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Probably not the right place for that discussion; but as "pillars" go, WP:CIVIL is pretty damn crumbly and not acutally supporting the real day to day workings of Wikipedia. There are essay-level admonisions that get applied far more frequently and with greater impact. Active Banana (^bananaphone 15:55, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough comment that roughly agrees with my own thoughts. I certainly don't mean to divert this discussion away from the community's ongoing battle with Civility. I wonder where a more appropriate place for this discussion might be? --HighKing (talk) 16:07, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Civility? --John (talk) 17:04, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

• Mick loves to spout lots of Wikipedia rules & guidelines at people (WP:NOT, WP:NTEMP, WP:AIRCRASH, WP:GNG and WP:EVENT is this ONE edit alone). But he seems to fail to understand the important of one of the five pillars on which this project is built on, that of Civility. Something will have to be done about this at some stage before it get further out of hand and I get the strong impression from above that people just want to sweep it under the carpet in the hope that it will go away. Bjmullan (talk) 16:27, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

• Bjmullan, believe me, I'd love to block MickMacNee for the next thousand years or so for the behaviour brought up here. Unfortunately, I'm way too involved to even click on the block button. This issue will only go away when MickMacNee tones down the rhetoric and stops badgering every editor who holds the opposite view to him in AfDs. Whether that can be done before another block is handed out is down to MickMacNee. Mjroots (talk) 16:45, 5 October 2010

• What makes you think he fails to understand civility? This community runs on consensus, and the community consensus reached in this thread is that Mick was above-board on all counts. If you disagree with the community's decision that's one thing, but dark, sweeping pronouncements of future consequences based on failure to heed your words are not only impractical, but a touch more then slightly amusing as well. -- ۩ Mask 16:47, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

• MickMacNee understands civility all right. Putting it into practice is another matter. Mjroots (talk) 16:57, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

• I had meant that as a response to Bjmullen, but touche. This does illustrate a point though. Many of the things said towards MickMackNee in places like this thread, his RfC in regards to you, any of the other ANI threads, are farther over the line then most of the things others complain about him saying. He was called a menace, a cancer before . And yet he doesn't even mention them. He never holds it up as justification, or a shield. Mick, honest to god, doesn't seem that interested in this if others didn't try to stir it up. He's not trolling, looking to get a rise and stir shit up. He's working on making the encyclopedia better. -- ۩ Mask 17:12, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

• the community consensus reached in this thread is that Mick was above-board on all counts - reading the comments, just about every single editor expressed a negative view on Mick's tone and comments. I'd go so far as to say that Mick is right (a lot) more often than he is wrong, and maybe he is working on making the encyclopedia better, but there is a systematic civility issue here and if Mick refuses to .. adjust, then this topic is going to continue to rear it's head again and again. This isn't the first ANI opened on Mick relating to civility in the last 60 days, and his Talk page is peppered with pleas from editors to tone down his comments. While this isn't the worst example, it doesn't take long to find examples in his contributions. As a community we should ask ourselves, is letting Mick "get on with it" working? Clearly not as evidenced by the drama surrounding him on a daily basis. So what are the options? (Sweeping it under the carpet is not an option). --HighKing (talk) 17:21, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

• Besides the OP and mjroots, did any editor comment on the push to ban Mick favorably? Or the plan to restrict him from XfD? No. We are not 'sweeping it under the rug', if you want him punished we have to wait for him to actually do something worth punishing. A lot of people bringing ANI threads with nothing behind them does not dictate that we 'must' do anything. -- ۩ Mask 17:38, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I pulled you up on your comment that Mick was above-board on all counts. This is clearly not true. While the community consensus is that Mick does not deserve a block in this instance (and I also agree with that btw), the community has also acknowledged that there's a problem with his tone and his comments (just not quite enough for a block). That is not the same as bringing ANI threads with nothing behind them. If you take a look at Mick's longer-term behaviour, it's clear that there's an ongoing systematic behavioural problem relating to CIVIL policies. But what to do? We can agree that Mick's intentions are good. Waiting for him to do something worth punishing is sticking ones head in the sand, and the block ends up being a punishment. Perhaps a civility probation is in order before we have to resort to blocks or bans might be more productive all round. --HighKing (talk) 17:52, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Mick's view on WPCIVIL and its application to him are clear: Per this diff]: "If you want to chat to people about the theory that demanding civility before you feel the need to justify positions or defend arguments is remotely conducive to taking discussions to a higher intellectual plane or achieving a defensible outcome, then go and have a chat with Giano or one of his hangers-on, they love debunking that sort of tosh." That's quite clear that he doesn't feel bound by WPCIVIL, and is further stated in his comments above and below that post. In addition, his constant badgering of other editors is usually accompanined by such incivility. He doens't veiw himself as bound by WPCIVIL in anyway. How is that compatible with WP's policies?

As to the assertion "I'd go so far as to say that Mick is right (a lot) more often than he is wrong", pray tell where? The majority of the AFDs that he has participated in have been kept inspite of his lengthy protestations, and most of them were upheld on apeal. So no, he doesn't appear to be right more oftern than his is wrong, but just the opposite.

While he may aguably do good work in contributing to articles, his "contributions' to discussions are far from productive. Perhaps the soultion would e to totally ignore his badgering on AFDs, but editors unfamiliar with him contribute at each new AFD,a nd theire unaware of his behavior, so enforcing that is problematic. Should we ban him from talk pages? That doesn't seem workable either, and his history of edit warring and uncivil edit summaries on articles suggests that would would continue. I don't see another way of handling his incivility other than an outright ban at this point. He's proven he sees no need to change ehavior in anyway. - BilCat (talk) 17:55, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

his "contributions' to discussions are far from productive. His contributions to the AfD this started in relation to were the only intelligent thing on that page until this thread got more eyes on the discussion in question (eyes that then proceeded to agree with him, I'd like pointed out). Mick doesn't personally attack very often. He comments on contribution (your rationale) and not contributor. Not always, none of us ever do, but the vast majority of the time. WP:CIVIL makes that exact distinction, too. It protects you from assholes, not things you dont want to hear. -- ۩ Mask 18:03, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I've never felt intimidated by the Mick, at AfDs. GoodDay (talk) 17:57, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't go as far as an outright ban but perhaps being placed under civility parole (as happened to a couple of disruptive editors at WP:BISE) may be the first step in getting Mick to understand what civility means. Bjmullan (talk) 18:04, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

If such a parole will help prevent Mick from getting banned? then that's a good plan. GoodDay (talk) 18:06, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Such a parole does not help Mick get banned, all it does is give the people who enjoy causing drama a nice clearly defined line they need to bait him over to get their desired outcome. Holding him to the same standards as everyone else clearly just isnt working because they misjudged where the, you know, actual line is. -- ۩ Mask 18:15, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I hope it doesn't get him banned. I rather it help prevent that, by saving Mick from himself. GoodDay (talk) 18:17, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

We haven't even gotten that far yet my friend :) I doubt there's consensus to implement any sort of parole. There might be, I just dont believe there is. Might be wrong though. -- ۩ Mask 18:38, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

As previously predicted, here we go again....see below. I believe a civility parole is the only way forward. It was successful at BISE, to be fair. --HighKing (talk) 10:29, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

A civility parole does not lower the standard of what is and is not considered incivility. Nobody neutral is going to start changing their mind about whether these complaints have any merit or not. If they are not actionable now, then they won't be under a parole. Infact, I will put myself under a parole, I will advertise every future Afd here just so I can be put under extra scrutiny. I am more than happy to do that, as the only time any sense has come out of one of those Afd's, is ironically when it came to the attention of the wider community during this frivelous complaint. How I am sure you would hate it if the same phenomenon were to occur at BISE. But as it is, those BISE paroles seem more like process wonkery than anything else. The people who have been dumb enough to be gamed off that page by you through such blocks, would have been blocked for civility with or without a meaningless parole in place, as iirc had already happened anyway. Still, if it keeps you in your bubble of perceived legitimacy over there, while you make such obviously POV pushes like asserting that food is a geopolicital subject, and making such brilliant arguments like 'I've never heard it being used that way in Ireland, so it must not exist', then go right ahead. It made me laugh the other day as you went on and on about how we should be naturally suspicious of editors who are only editting Wikipedia for one purpose. Too funny. Again, unintentional irony seems to be the theme in these complaints. MickMacNee (talk) 16:29, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I've been thinking this over. It won't surprise MickMacNee to learn that I am in favour of a civility parole. However, any editor baiting MickMacNee to breach such a parole should be dealt with by means of blocks, even for a single instance. Mjroots (talk) 07:27, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Personal attacks continue

MickMacNee recieved a final warning for incivility on 2 September. This morning, he called another editor a "basic troll" on the talk page of my RFC. Please, will somebody do something about this continual breach of WP:CIVIL? Mjroots (talk) 08:01, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

That one is pretty clearly over the line. I defend Mick when he keeps it focused on the content of arguments and their merit. That diff is just straight name calling. Congrats, just when I thought this whole pursuit of Mick was going to play out like Ahab's obsession, you found your white whale. -- ۩ Mask 11:01, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

AK, I can keep it focused on content all day every day, up to a point, just like anybody else here. And the point was crossed here. The guy is a troll, that's a fact. He stuck his oar in at that section to simply state that I don't "understand anything" and I am "incapable of learning" [4]. I mean seriously, if this is not trollery, what is? Am I supposed to take this utter bollocks as constructive feedback? Am I supposed to happily bend over and take this rather obviously biased 'report' from the most biased and partisan admin I have seen in my goddam life? Here is a selection of previous trollery from this editor towards me: stop making ludicrous arguments again and again. stop being disruptive to the project and find something useful to do...The same lame arguments/excuses were made by both these editors...yet another waste of time by (MickMacNee)...stop these ridiculous AfDs...we will soon know who is clueless here. just wait and see...I highly doubt anybody can have a reasoned argument with you Mick. stop wasting every bodies time...even if I made one (a reasoned argument) you will not be able to comprehend it. trust me on that one...stop your completely non sense rants and do something useful for the project...get the message MMN. nobody wants you and your ability to contribute is marginal at best. Mjroots didn't raise an eyebrow to a single one of these comments, and he sees every single one. It's no coincidence that both think the same way on the disputed Afds, in opposition to me. And my personal favourite, his latest comment in the most recent Afd: there is no way in hell this article will be deleted...I dont think that you get it that nobody cares what your arguments are anymore. this AfD is another fine example. needless waste of time. The outcome? An article Mjroots created and asserted was more than notable, got deleted, and then we have this latest call to block me. I've have had enough of this rahter obvious campaign of intimidation, so I'm making the proposal below of an interaction ban. MickMacNee (talk) 16:22, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

The reason I didn't take any action against Wikireader41 is because I generally agree with him. I think that any incivility from him is nowhere near as bad as that MickMacNee has committed. I do think that the constant questioning of every vote, and every reply to every challenge, is not productive or conducive to a collaborative atmosphere. Compare Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/UPS Airlines Flight 6, which MickMacNee had plenty of input on, with Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alrosa Mirny Air Enterprise Flight 514, which MickMacNee had no input into whatsoever. Both had the same result - keep. BTW, the Wind Jet Flight 243 article was not deleted, it was merged. I'm OK with that, as it allows easy recreation once the final report is released and we can evaluate the cause, recommendations, any changes made as a result etc. The question remains, is calling an editor a "basic troll" a PA or not. I say it is, and at least one editor agrees with me. Mjroots (talk) 17:20, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

This is a classic. 'Civility is OK as long as you agree with the editor in the dispute' is what that explanation effectively sounds like to me. This comes from someone who has, without any sense of shame or embarassment, continually declared that he can separate his conduct as an admin and an editor in this dispute, and that he always acts neutrally in either case anyway. Pretty obviously this is not happening, and he has no right to claim he should be considered worthy of being trusted as someone allowed to dispationately and neutraly comment on this dispute, and that people should not treat his reports here as anything other than wholly biased, and certainly not with the respect you would treat any normal admin's comments. I didn't think you would actualy admit you are completely biased in whether you do or do not consider a breach of civility is worth reporting is down to whether the editor is on your side or not, but here it is, in black and white. Unbelievable. As for the rest, as if it were remotely relevant to this report, the Windjet article no longer exists as a separate article, and if you recreate it against the Afd outcome, without attempting at all to show how it meets WP:EVENT, but simply on the basis that the investigation report was published, then I will simply renominate it for deletion, and it will get deleted. I urge everyone to look at both those Afds that were kept, look at the quality of arguments and the people involved in making them, and then look at the Windjet outcome, where the exact same arguments for keeping were made, but this time it got input from the wider community, rather than just the article creators, project editors, and other interested readers, and was examined by a closer who did a bit more than just vote-count, and thus the article was not kept in any practical sense. Mjroots is most certainly unaware of the difference between the significance, relevance, and ultimate legitimacy, of the two keeps, compared to the one delete, and I've given up even trying to explain to him what the difference is. Would Mjroots pass Rfa with this demonstrated level of understanding of WP:AFD, WP:CON and WP:NOT? On recent evidence of SilverSeren's application, I severly doubt it. He's not open to the idea of standing again of course. The only understanding he seems to have of the issue is that if he can have me eliminated as an opponent in this dispute, then there will be more likelyhood that even more Afd's will sail through without any decent arguments being made, and any proper examination from the wider community against our actual inclusion policies and guidelines being done. This is a content dispute, and by rights, I should be completely free of Mjroot's attempts at intimidation and elimination. MickMacNee (talk) 18:02, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

OK, let's try and put it in nice and simple language. Any incivility from Wikireader41 did not cross the line, whereas calling other editors "basic trolls" most certainly does cross the line. What I was trying to show in the two AfDs I referred to, is how much smoother it goes when the nominator gives their rationale for deletion, and then everyone else gives their rationale for retention, deletion, merging or whatever without the constant challenging of every arguement opposite to the nominator's view, followed by the constant challenging of every reply to every challenge which degenerates into a mud-slinging match. As I have said before, most recently only yesterday, my goal is not to "eliminate" MickMacNee as an "opponent", it is to get him to cut down the constant badgering at AfDs and the incivility that goes with it.

As for the Wind Jet Flight 243 AfD discussion, and the participants therein, all editors across Wikipedia have the right to participate in all AfDs. The fact that most of them don't does not mean that the views of those who do participate are invalid. As far as I'm aware, there has been no canvassing for !votes in any recent aircrash AfDs. Relevant WikiProjects have been informed of AfDs by means of neutrally-worded notices, mostly in the form "Foo Airlines Flight 123 has been nominated for deletion". This is completely in accordance with accepted practices. There is no guarantee that a project member, on seeing such a notice, will vote "keep". All editors are encouraged to form their own views and !vote accordingly. Mjroots (talk) 18:38, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

And for the millionth time, your ideas that Afds should be very short, with a nomination, and then a nice neat list of one or two line sentences with no challenges, no discussion, with absolutely no care in the world as to whether people make a strong argument, or a weak one, and that the ignorance of crowds rules all, has been dismissed as an idea of Afd that is completely and utterly devoid of any understanding of the purpose of the exercise. And there has been canvassing, you'e done it yourself and it's linked to above. I did not allege there was any problem with Projects being involved, but there is a clear and obvious difference between the quallity and legitimacy of the Afds you like, and the one's you don't. I'm sorry you don't appear to see it, but it's there, and been observed and commented on by everyone who has investigated them. MickMacNee (talk) 19:38, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with a view being challenged. Once a reply has been given to that challenge, that is where is should stop - the closing editor will evaluate the challenge and response, and consider the merits of each when closing. Where I do have a problem is when the response to a challenge is further challenged, because this is what leads to the mud-slinging matches. So, Mick, how about limiting yourself to just one challenge (per editor), and leaving it there in future, no matter what you think of the answer given (if any). Mjroots (talk) 20:24, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely not. This is not how Afd works. If you want to change the way it works, pitch it at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion, but I am not going to operate to some special arrangements at Afd just to accomodate your dislike of debate. MickMacNee (talk) 21:50, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

The constant badgering of any editor with a conflicting view in the AFDs is what is the real issue. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 15:23, 7 October 2010 (UTC).

No, if you think that's the issue, you want WP:DR. This section is for dealing with an alleged PA. Either you follow DR, or you follow Mjroots' example, and just carry on bitching and moaning about what you think the issue is at every opportunity and at any venue, without ever doing anything about it. MickMacNee (talk) 15:35, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Request a reporting/commenting ban of Mjroots

I have just about had it with Mjroots and his biased observation and reporting of my behaviour, and his constant behind the scenes rabble rousing and general slagging of my reputation. Forget about vague notions about not being 'rude', this is what is actually incivil behaviour. And on this issue, he crossed the AGF line years ago. He is knee deep in a content dispute with me, and this latest attempt to get me blocked in the section above, while he conveniently ignores the actions of others, even when it concerns the post being replied to with alleged incivility, is beyond the pale. I would like him to be completely banned from making ANI posts about me, and from generally talking crap about me on other people's talk pages in thinly disguised Afd canvassing attempts, such as this, where he wanders to a friends talk page, casually drops a link to an Afd, and is waffling on about how I am 'at it again'. I can be reasonable. He can nominate a neutral and uninvolved point of contact, where he can go if he sees something that he thinks needs raising, and they can make the call whether to post at ANI, or do something else. But there have been two ANI posts so far about my alleged wrongdoings at Afd over this dispute, and they have resulted in no sanctions at all. Mjroots just refuses to drop the stick. If this interaction ban does not happen, then Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Mjroots will be getting some content very soon. I've tried Rfc on his actions, and it got derailed, and he has just ignored it anyway, and continued to resort to just more unactionable and unjustifed general bitching and whining against me. He has not once followed WP:DR over this, not once. He has simply carried on the same behaviour outlined in the Rfc, while claiming that the support of trolls like the one he is defending above, shows he is an excellent admin. He needs to get real. This conduct is simply not acceptable in any admin. This is going beyond simple concern of one editor over another, as he rather ludcirously claims this campaign does not affect his standing as an admin because he hasn't yet been stupid enough to actually block me himself. Time to stop it now, one way or the other, as I'm just about done with this guy. We have 2000 admins here, and I am fine with 1,999 being responsible for looking out for incivility, all forms of it, at Afds in this dispute. MickMacNee (talk) 16:22, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

So, MickMacNee is still trying to deflect attention away from his own behaviour. "...there have been two ANI posts so far about my alleged wrongdoings at Afd over this dispute, and they have resulted in no sanctions at all..." - just because no sanctions have resulted does not mean that his behaviour is acceptable. He has been told it is not acceptable numerous times. My RFC was not derailed (except in MickMacNee's view). A number of editors evaluated MickMacNee's outline of the dispute, and my reply to his views. I'm sure a RFC about MickMacNee's behaviour at AfD will generate much more response.

As an admin, shouldn't I be raising issues about MickMacNee's behaviour with other editors and admins where I feel it is warranted. As I said on the talk page of my RFC, there is no requirement to notify MickMacNee that I have raised an issue about his conduct, as those pages are not ANI. He knows I'm too involved to take any administrative action against him. What I'd like to know is why is there no other admin prepared to take action over this issue? Mjroots (talk) 17:40, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Again, unbelievable. You tell me where in WP:DR or WP:CIVIL it is that allows you to wander randomly around the pedia talking crap about other users without telling them, and then claim that this is you doing your admin duty. This is the board you come to if you want immediate admin attention, nowhere else. And you are getting your answer. If you don't know these things about adminship and Wikipedia already, and are still scratching your head as to why nobody but fellow weak keep voters will join you on your bandwagon, then seriously, wtf. I'm not deflecting anything, I'm trying to deal with your conduct in the proper manner, as you've shown absolutely no inkling that you will ever get it, that what you are doing is not only not proper admin conduct, it's barely even proper editor conduct. You won't find me creeping around in the dark corners bitching and moaning and flapping my gums, this is the relevant board, and here I am, seeking a solution to the problem that deals with your abuses, and also very generously still lets you retain your ability to 'raise issues' about me. MickMacNee (talk) 19:50, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I cannot believe you're quoting WP:CIVIL at somebody! LOL  :-)

Seriously though, I don't know why the community has to continue to put up with a seriously abusive editor that refuses to adhere to core policy. Either we tear up WP:CIVIL as being unenforceable, or we, as a community, start to pay attention to it and enforce it. As it is, Mick has his supporters, but he's not bigger than core policy. Nobody is. --HighKing (talk) 10:35, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

What utter self-delusional garbage. CIVIL is enforced everyday here, by neutral observers against editors they have no current dispute with. Which is a category neither you or Mjroots is ever going to fall into w.r.t me. MickMacNee (talk) 15:12, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

These comments immediately above are examples of the abusive language and incivility that continues unabated. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 15:23, 7 October 2010 (UTC).

My e/c post below applies to you too. MickMacNee (talk) 15:25, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

(e/c)Although as ever, it is always entertaining to see someone spouting off about CIVIL making an unintentionally ironic breach of the policy themselves while they do so. Unless of course HighKing wants to provide diffs for the allegation that I am a "seriously abusive editor that refuses to adhere to core policy". But knowing that he, like Mjroots, has never once follwed WP:DR in their disputes with me, I know he doesn't have any. MickMacNee (talk) 15:25, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

DNFTT applies equally. Bzuk (talk) 15:29, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

How is that page relevant exactly? Does DNFTT have a clause that allows incivility as long as are complaining about a breach of civility? Infact, just wtf are you on about generally? Are you trying to contribute to this thread about me allegedly making a PA by calling a troll a troll, by calling me a troll? That's inventive at least, I have to say. MickMacNee (talk) 15:39, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

• Am I the only user who is thinking that the entire thread might have outlived its usefulness? Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:42, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

As indicated earlier, there does not seem to be any use in discussing this any further. See record. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 15:46, 7 October 2010 (UTC).

Exaclty. The only thing left happening in this thread is the bitterness, butthurt and jealousy exemplified by this user's pointless contributions to it. Shut it down, and maybe he will do something about the 'real issue' as he sees it, in the right way. Or maybe he is just full of it, and is just one of the people who are apparently so deeply upset that nobody agrees with them that they should be allowed to make poor Afd arguments as and when they please, and think that challenging them is somehow a breach of civility, even though funnily enough, this is only a view held by them, and other hopelessly non-neutral people w.r.t me, like HighKing. Nobody else sees it their way, and they cearly just can't deal with it, and we now see ironic trollery, in a post that was originally about alleged PA from me on a guy who has been nothing but a complete troll, as he went about expressing his concern in those Afds and other pages, over what Bz laughingly calls the 'real issue'. Double standards and hypocrisy over CIVIL etc, is starting to be a general theme in this dispute frankly. Clearly nobody sees an actionable breach of civility here, and if I can't get a comment ban on Mjroots, I guess I will just have to accept that I must stalk him forever to monitor what he is saying about me in various different venues, in his rather bizarre idea of how you go about your adminly duties of being 'concerned' about other users. MickMacNee (talk) 16:12, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Getting the last word in, doesn't justify anything. FWiW, nor is wikistalking. Bzuk (talk) 16:18, 7 October 2010 (UTC).

Check your facts. Mjroots thinks himself that this is what I should be doing, as he has made it absolutely clear that he won't be telling me where or when he is going to be informing people I am 'at it again', asking for the hundredth time to the hundredth person for 'advice' on how to deal with this supposed issue that he can't get anyone to block or sanction me over, but won't let that get in his way of trying and trying over and over again using the time-served tactic of general bitching and whining and generally ignoring WP:DR, much like yourself. And apparently this is all OK because this is allowed by WP:ADMIN (which it isn't), and because all of his contributions are publicly trackable. And thank god for that is all I can say. At least you are consistent, and make it known when and where you are making another non-contribution to resolving the dispute. Or have I just missed the places where you've been following WP:DR to get a resolution for your perceived issue? MickMacNee (talk) 16:44, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Second attempt at resolution

I got out of this early in but I think I have a solution that will suit everyone:
1. Resolved: MickMacNee is abrasive, but has not crossed the line to the point where a ban would be constructive. Further abrasive interactions will result in the rolling of the eyes and shaking of the head by others, but will not result in another long and drawn out battle at ANI unless the abrasiveness reaches the level of personal attacks on a consistent and blatant level.
2. Resolved: The above statement is a guideline and in no way indicates that MickMacNee will reach that level.
3. Resolved: The users Mjroots and MickMacNee have an unpleasant history and should not occupy the same space. This means that when one is the topic of proposed sanctions, the other should avoid posting more than once or twice, and only post a record that there is an existing conflict that may be of relevance. If at all possible, both users should avoid posting in pages where the other shows an active interest. Constant arguing between the two is not constructive to the project.
4. Resolved: As a statement of fact: Mjroots, by his own admission, is too involved with MickMacNee to use admin tools in incidents involving MickMacNee.
5. Resolved: Taking points 3 and 4 into account, neither user is to be blocked from AfD, however Mjroots is advised not to close AfDs where MickMacNee has posted considerably.
6. Resolved: As a statement of fact: At the time of the first posting at ANI, Sven Manguard had no knowledge that MickMacNee had been involved in these types of civility conflicts in the past, had no prior connection to MickMacNee, Kafziel or Mjroots, and did not mean to stir up the hornet's nest that he did.
7. Resolved: This ANI was not one of Sven Manguard's better ideas.

8. Resolved: As a statement of fact: Sven Manguard apologizes for the chaos he has caused.

Proposed and Endorsed by Sven Manguard _Talk 03:20, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

TLDR: Sven is sorry for causing all the chaos with the bad ANI, and Mjroots and MickMacNee need to stay away from each other if at all possible.

Roger that. Resolution accepted. Now, please stop speaking in third-person. ;) Strom (talk) 11:20, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

AMuseo, Broad Wall & Historicist

Firstly, a declaration, I have have recent negative interactions with Amuseo and do not feel sufficiently dispassionate to act neutrally. I noticed a link on their userpage to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Historicist which reveals that Amuseo is actually a sockpuppet of a user Historicist used to get around a ban from PI articles enacted under ARBPIA.

• Historicist (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Broad Wall (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• AMuseo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

AMuseo was created first but appears to have been abandoned in favour of Historicist then resuming after the topic ban was enacted. Broad Wall became active from 1 January and appears to have been created for editing PIA articles as a quick scan of AMuseo's contribs suggests that this account was mostly clean of PI edits after the ban was enacted. Broad Wall was abandoned on 22 July and AMUSEO has been extensively editing PI related articles in breach of their topic ban since then. The relevant wikistalk report is here.

The question is what do we do about this? There is no real evidence of abusive socking except for the flagrant disregard of the topic ban although the absence of recent issues does suggest that behaviour has improved. I do feel that some response is required but, apart for reaffirming the topic ban should we consider a community sanction to restrict AMuseo or one account or is something more direct required. Since I'm too partial to involve myself in the decision I am simply reporting the facts for further discussion. Spartaz ^Humbug! 17:37, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I think that they should be indef'ed as the accounts have been used to escape detection of the topic ban, and as such are not valid WP:Clean start accounts. Also any pages that they have created in violation of the topic ban (that they are the only significant editors of) should be CSD G5'ed. Codf1977 (talk) 17:54, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Whether it was created by many editors or just one, Historicist and AMuseo have created dozens of new articles and expanded many others, earning DYK recognition for a substantial number of these articles which have been reviewed by other, unrelated Wikipedia editors. While I understand that there is a rush to delete any articles that are believed to be irretrievably tainted by their association with a particular editor, in this case such deletions will only serve to create greater disruption to the encyclopedia. I am more than willing to review and take editing responsibility for any article created by any of the editors in question here and oppose any effort at mass deletions using CSD G5 as a justification. Alansohn (talk) 19:28, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Well G5 shouldn't be applied on a blanket scale, no; if other editors have made significant contributions since AMuseo's creation of it, and/or it has reached DYK status, then it shouldn't be used. But in cases where neither applies, .e.g Café Hillel bombing, Nava Appelbaum and so on, they should be speedily deleted right now. These are the types of charged, and mostly non-notable, articles that this user has been arguing fervently for for months now, in violation of the topic ban. Tarc (talk) 19:44, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I was on the fence about this one, never having had a bad interaction with any of the iterations of this editor (and only a few positive ones, all with AMuseo) but the fact that the topic ban was documented by a sitting arbitrator is pretty compelling. I don't think that G5 is appropriate, given that the user had not been "banned" from en.wiki entirely when the edits in violation of the topic ban were made, but I agree that an indef block for socking is the correct response and the appropriate starting place for further discussion. I want to commend the editor in question for being forthright in explaining his intentions, although they do indeed appear to have been a de facto admission of guilt. Jclemens (talk) 19:38, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Tarc. AMuseo has a long history of creating slanted articles about events in the news that don't merit encyclopedia articles. G5 is appropriate in these instances. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 20:09, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

• As a confirmed sockpuppet and topicban breaker, shouldn't AMuseo/Historicist be revoked their special rights visible here and here (but not here), right away by an admins discretion? -DePiep (talk) 20:09, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I had already indef-blocked AMuseo before finding this discussion, and I think the same should clearly be done to Broad Wall. Perhaps it is less clear cut for Historicist, so I shall wait to allow more discussion. However, my own view is that this account too should be indef-blocked. We have here an editor with a long history of troublesome editing, with a string of blocks and bans extending back over almost two years. Three of the editor's previous blocks were for abuse of multiple accounts or topic ban evasion. If an editor with a history of that sort continues to blatantly evade a topic ban by using other accounts, then I think the time has come to decide "enough is enough". There is no sign that the editor intends to stop defying consensus, and the net loss to Wikipedia through the time and effort wasted on continually dealing with this editor's transgressions will far outweigh any gain by letting the editor have yet another chance. (Incidentally, one of the previous blocks was originally indefinite, but reduced to allow the editor another chance.) JamesBWatson (talk) 20:19, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Spartaz is mistaken to say there has been an "absence of recent issues" with regards to Amuseo. The user in question has created a string of problematic articles in recent weeks, all of which were heavily POV, containing numerous misleading statements and even outright flights of fancy, most of which were immediately nominated for AfD and a number of which have already been deleted. I myself had to do a complete rewrite of a couple just to bring them up to a remotely NPOV standard. He did exactly the same kind of thing when he was editing as Historicist.

Amuseo/Historicist is a relentless POV pusher who just wastes huge amounts of other users' time. Certainly his topic ban should remain in place; whether a wider ban should be enacted I will leave to others to judge. Gatoclass (talk) 20:39, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

• I have taken the liberty of removing some material that violates WP:BLPTALK from Amuseo's user page. As can readily be guessed, it related to an individual involved in Israeli-Palestine disputes. This would appear to be another example of the sockpuppet account breaking other guidelines related to the topic ban area, in addition to merely breaking the topic ban itself. I will refrain from making further comments until a little later; I am far from impartial on this since, as a completely new editor, many of my first interactions were with Amuseo, I did my very best to assume good faith, and it is very clear that any such trust placed by me or other members of the community was comprehensively betrayed by this individual. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:06, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

(AMuseo's user page has now been replaced with an appropriate tag by another user - I'm also fixing the redlink in my previous comment) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:18, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) A couple of thoughts:

• I haven't interacted with this editor myself, but I remember noticing when he was topic-banned, and thinking that he really hadn't done very much to deserve a topic-ban. (Expressing an opinion of a living person in too-strongly worded language on a talk page; but the editor offered to redact the comment, as I recall. It wouldn't have been obvious to me, either, that it was not allowed to express negative opinions about living people on talk pages).
• Looking at the articles that have been linked to above, Café Hillel bombing and Nava Applebaum, both look notable and well-sourced, although the prose in both could use cleaning up to adhere to WP:NPOV.
• From spot-checking some of the user's recent contributions, they all seem constructive.

The question I have is: will blocking this editor, who seems to be a prolific content contributor, improve the encyclopedia? From what I see, it looks to me that this is a basically constructive editor who has gotten tangled up in the wikibureaucracy surrounding the I/P topic area. CordeliaNaismith (talk) 21:36, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

An editor with a long history of troublesome editing, with a string of blocks and bans extending back over almost two years, three of whose previous blocks were for abuse of multiple accounts or topic ban evasion, and who then continues to blatantly evade a topic ban by using other accounts? An editor who made more than eleven thousand edits with the account on which they were first topic banned, and explained this by saying "it takes a while to learn the system" ?

An editor whose comments on what he had learned about that "system", expressed to a newer editor who was being advised by others that bickering with an admin about being blocked was not the right approach, were that "there are several dedicated bullies who get away with murder by the expedient of always being exquisitely polite and never technically violating a rule" ? An editor who continued to mass-produce POV articles often under dubious WP:COATRACK disguises, to the extent that anyone who wanted to avoid such POV material dominating the topic area and other prominent parts of the encyclopedia, was forced to propose and then re-write some or most of each article (just two examples, but I'm sure there are dozens [5] [6] )

An editor who, when a newbie editor (myself) adds a completely neutral note to an AfD (opened by someone else) referencing one of the many POV articles pushed in that manner, describes that newbie editor as "editors who have little more to offer than Wikipedia:I just don't like it" and accuses them of "manufacturing arguments" ? [7]

An editor who, right up until he was discovered, was using the user page of one of his sock puppet accounts in flagrant violation of the very clear very first sentence of WP:BLP, in fact concerning a living individual in the topic area from which he had already been banned? (Incidentally I'm not sure if your comment "It wouldn't have been obvious to me, either" referred to the instance of that I removed from his user page today, or if he'd already had action taken against him for a previous breach of that policy - in either case, it's outrageous to suggest that a user with over ten thousand edits, including many on this noticeboard itself, would be unaware of the very first sentence of a key policy.)

An editor who still - after all that refuses to admit that he has done anything wrong? But instead warns (threatens?) the community that ""you cannot ban the entire world, not even the entire university" ?

I would say yes, for an editor like that, the encyclopedia would benefit from saying "enough is enough".

I have a question for you in return. For someone like myself who has relatively recently started using Wikipedia, and for whom this is the first other editor with whom I had a serious difference of opinion about content, how do you think it feels to discover that despite my attempts to assume good faith, the other editor was committing a serious breach of trust against the community covering several years? Some of the suggestions made here and elsewhere, leave me feeling that quite a few people really do agree with AMuseo/Historicist's stated view that you can "get away with murder" so long as you never technically violate a rule. People really have actually said his behaviour as AMuseo was somehow "acceptable" and therefore it's all OK. Is it the right message to send to anyone - me or another newbie editor or anyone else - that if your POV doesn't always get top billing, then you should scream and scream until you get warned that you're breaking the rules, then you should break the rules some more until you get blocked, then you should break the rules some more until you get topic banned, then appeal it, then break the rules again, then immediately start up with a sock, then switch socks to another one, and just keep on going? And then when you finally get caught, people will still say "well I think he's a prolific contributor!" If I had a POV I wanted to push on Wikipedia, what this would tell me is that by acting in this disruptive manner, in flagrant breach of multiple policies, I could indeed do that for years and still be defended. Do you think this is acceptable? Do you really think it benefits the encyclopedia?

Sorry this was rather long, but as can probably be seen, I feel very very let down and disappointed - and angry. I have paraphrased JamesBWatson in the first sentence but I hope I'm not being unduly repetitious.

--Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:15, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

• For the sake of fairness, his contribution as AMuseo has been praised multiple times in the comments to the Sockpuppet_investigations. --ElComandanteChe (talk) 22:06, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

That praise has all come from I-P conflict partisans. I am quite familiar with this user's contributions since I have had to do a great deal of work to try and clean up his submissions to DYK, I could provide examples of his problematic editing chapter and verse but perhaps a couple of examples will suffice:

• Here is an article recently submitted to DYK for front page exposure by Amuseo. The article contains next to no information about its ostensible topic, and is basically just a WP:COATRACK for listing attacks made by Islamic extremists against Gaza's Christian community. The article repeats references to the same attacks to make them look more numerous, conflates attacks by unidentified militants with the governing authority Hamas in several places, fails to mention that Hamas has strongly condemned attacks against Christians, fails to mention that attacks against Christians in Gaza are "rare" and that the Muslim and Christian communities there have always enjoyed good relations, and fails to mention that the Christian leader murdered there in 2007 was the first such religiously motivated killing of a Christian in living memory. By omitting all such details, Amuseo created a false impression of a Christian community in Gaza under siege from Muslim fanatics, led by Hamas. I was forced to completely rewrite this article, you can compare Amuseo's version with my own.

• As another example, here's just one of Amuseo's recent edits that I had to amend. See if you can find the details added by Amuseo in the original source. Amuseo just fabricated most of these details to make the crime appear as heinous as possible, it's simply a piece of fiction, and this is far from the only edit of this type I have found by this user. Gatoclass (talk) 23:15, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the first article you've linked, it's really not bad for a new article. While the omissions that you describe make useful additions to the article, they aren't necessarily obvious facts that an editor would know to include, especially if the editor is reading news articles to learn about the topic (since news articles often lack some relevant context). I also don't see the repetition in the description of attacks that you describe. Your version is a clear improvement, but even the early version seems to be a reasonable article about a bookstore and the attacks on it. In fact, your version gives me more of an impression of a "Christian community under siege" than the original version. (In particular the last sentence, "In the three years since Ayyad's death, the growing Islamization of Gaza, along with a tough Israeli blockade[1] and rising chaos and lawlessness, have placed increasing pressure on Gaza's Christians,[4] and the Christian community there has dwindled from 3,000[2] to barely more than 1,000.)"

Regarding the second diff I agree that misrepresenting sources is one of the most hugely frustrating things that an editor can possibly do, and I'd like to see, in general, editors being more proactive about challenging assertions for which the sourcing does not match the article text. However, the diff you've cited doesn't seem to be an egregious example of this general problem. I can think of some good-faith explanations for the edit, for example that the details not in the source cited were something that the editor read somewhere else. To be honest, I'm not even sure that the added details make the crime sound more heinous. (The sources describe terrorists murdering 4 people and stealing their bodies with the goal of sabotaging peace talks; does the unsourced assertion that they also planned to give the impression that they had kidnapped live victims really make it sound worse?) In any case, I'd like to hear what Amuseo has to say about it.

So, at least from the diffs you've cited, I don't see evidence of unconstructive work from this editor. The first looks like a good start to an article, the second might well be an honest mistake or a missing source. CordeliaNaismith (talk) 00:36, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Quite frankly, I find it astonishing that anyone would describe such a POV screed as "a good start to an article". I would be ashamed to load something like that into mainspace, and I think most responsible editors would concur. In any case, this wasn't merely a "start" to an article, this was an article he nominated for frontpage exposure via DYK.

When you say the omissions I mention "aren't necessarily obvious facts that an editor would know to include", I can only suppose you didn't read the article sources, because those omissions appear in source after source and could hardly be overlooked. And if you're "not even sure that the added details make the crime sound more heinous", then I must assume you haven't thought about it very hard, because it should be clear to anyone who gave it a moment's thought that the falsehood added by Amuseo makes it appear that Hamas planned to deliberately mislead the families of the victims into believing their loved ones were still alive. It would be hard to excuse such a cavalier misuse of sources even as an isolated incident, but in Amuseo's case there is a consistent pattern of such editing. Gatoclass (talk) 01:39, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

• Several articles by Amuseo were nominated for speedy deletion, under WP:Ban#Bans apply to all_editing, good or bad. As that page is talking about site bans, not topic bans, I have declined the speedy on Café Hillel bombing, which just needed some language changed, on Abu Ubaida (Hamas military leader), which was an unexceptional stub, and on Shawarma restaurant bombing, where the speedy certainly does not apply because it had also been edited by a good faith editor who had made the correct edits to remove the improper POV & the article was presently in his good version. I did delete Jihad and Genocide", an article about an extremist book whose notability seems highly doubtful. I know not everyone will agree with me, so if anyone wants to send the articles to AfD, feel free. DGG ( talk ) 00:43, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

• • So your rationale is that G5 only applies to literal blocks/bans, not indefinite topic bans? That's some pretty interesting hair-splitting/wikilawyering, and not one that other admins share, thankfully, i.e. Nava Appelbaum. I think this interpretation of the speedy deletion criteria needs a larger discussion. Tarc (talk) 01:17, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I would expect such decisions on speedy are part of the discussion here. That would also prevent using hand picket arguments per article-for-speedy, even contradicting in Café Hillel bombing vs Jihad and Genocide. (BTW, CSD-G5 is only available in Speedy, not in AfD). So the topic-ban evading sockpuppet gets their limelight in POV-pushing after all. -DePiep (talk) 02:47, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

My view is that for notable subjects the procedure of first removing the article and then writing another gives the user the attention. Making use of whatever is usable is DENY. The only admin action I've taken here is to delete one article, and if any admin disagrees with that,I have no objection if they revert it. Declining a speedy isn't even an administrative action, since anyone can do it, and the remedy if one disagrees is AfD. Any good reason for deletion is valid at AfD. The alternative course if you like is to speedy delete again, justifying it by IAR--I have other things I need more to work on and I will not challenge it. This does not apply to Swarma, which just plain does not meet the criterion. DGG ( talk ) 05:07, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

"Making use of whatever is usable is DENY." - indeed, except that only G5 was used as argument in all speedy cases. You applying various arguments to motivate a string of decisions, is more like "whatever is usable" to me (and what Tarc here called "hair-splitting/wikilawyering"). Curiously, the one deletion you made was on "non notable", which (I learned later), is explicitly not a reason for speedy. Since I am not an admin, and I don't want to start speedy-warring with admins discretion, I could wait for AfD. But even there there will not be an outcome on your ban-and-G5 interpretation and motivation, keeping the field of admin's discretion so wide, and so empty when it's about motivating. Because then the admin "ha[s] other things I need more to work on" -- that should be outside of Wikipedia then, because your arguments here are the first thing we need to discuss. -DePiep (talk) 12:06, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I hasve alreaedy said that amnyone is fullly welcome to reverse any of the actions, & I shall not protest.I do not see hwta more you can want. As I strongly disagree with the prpevailing interpretation here, I shall in the future simply not deal with that particular reason for deletion---there are enough other admins patrolling speedy, As for other things, I have other things to do on wikipedia than do deal with this question of interpretation in an area where I have no particular interest. I decided when I became an admin, & say on my user p., that if anyone is unhapppy with my speedy actions in good faith, that I simply ask any admin to revert them , & just let me know afterwards. As for discussing thegeneral issue of how to handle banned or quasi-banned editors, I think that is better done outside the context of a particular case. I rather think the consensus is somewhat stricter than I think it should be, but changing consensus takes years, and as I said, I think there are many more important things for me to do here than concern myself with our practices with respect to banned or topic-banned editors. I have never beeen much involved in Arbitration enforcemeent or blocking--there are quite enough people who are. De Puip, if you want to quarrel with me it will be somewhat difficult to do so over this, because in something I don;t think involves basic principle, I always leasve the issue alone rather than get into a quarrel. DGG ( talk ) 17:05, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I want to quarrel? This is what I wrote (about): I was disappointed that in a serious case like this, admin's discretion allows quite a lot, and the admin can walk away without motivate or discuss their discretionary decisions. An admin can take higher level decisions without even having to explain. I have no such discretion, and I am supposed to discuss and motivate every contested key I touch. And no, a specific case will not change policy, but fleshing out a case is instrumental (necessary and useful) to change policy. Don't call this 'not AGF': it's not testing 'good intentions'. I am looking for a line in leaders/admins decisions. Without that one, the community will disintegrate. I have not seen yet a forum for policy change. Next level is arbcom and so - conflict resolution, not policy change. -DePiep (talk) 20:32, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

• More misbehaviour from Amuseo - an apparent attempt to canvas a sympathetic editor over a recently opened AfD. Gatoclass (talk) 05:06, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

AMuseo was blocked. Sean.hoyland - talk 05:14, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, debate seemed to be ongoing regarding the status of that block. Also, it seems the Historicist account has yet to be blocked, and I thought that issue had yet to be resolved. Gatoclass (talk) 05:44, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Historicist is topic banned, see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Palestine-Israel_articles#2009 Sean.hoyland - talk 05:53, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I know that, but I was referring to the comment made by jamesbwatson above, when he said: I had already indef-blocked AMuseo before finding this discussion, and I think the same should clearly be done to Broad Wall. Perhaps it is less clear cut for Historicist, so I shall wait to allow more discussion. However, my own view is that this account too should be indef-blocked. No-one seems to have actually addressed that question yet. Does Historicist escape further sanction for circumventing his topic ban via sockpuppetry, or do we maintain the status quo? Unless I missed something, that question wasn't resolved yet. Gatoclass (talk) 06:18, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I see. Yes, I guess that needs clarifying. For what it's worth, my view is that editors who use sockpuppets in the area covered by the discretionary sanctions should be banned not blocked unless they explicitly agree to comply with mandatory policies at all times and their edits following the agreement demonstrate that that is consistently the case. Sean.hoyland - talk 06:34, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I'll elaborate on that a bit. There is, in my view, a permissive atmosphere of "the ends justify the means" in the I-P topic area. It's facilitated by editors who don't use sockpuppets but who bat for the same team lending their tacit support to such activity and even praise for the editors who use this strategy and their products. This would not be the case if the sockpuppets were advocating for the 'bad guys'. Those editors would be part of an evil conspiracy to spread lies etc. There would be articles about it in YNet, JPost, INN, etc discussing the terrible corruption of Wikipedia, the dishonesty of the bad guys and their propaganda campaigns. Some of them would probably be written by a long term sockpuppeteer. Oddly, there also seems to be an attitude that people who identify these sockpuppets are doing something wrong. It's been going on for years. We could do with a few more bright line rules in the I-P topic area to help people stay on the rails. Sean.hoyland - talk 07:41, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Looking more at Historicists edits through his AMuseo puppet, he violates his topic ban in this edit, notice that the text he ads: "shootings of Israeli civilians are a legitimate means of conquering all of the land that is now the state of Israel." are nowhere to be found in the source and is completely made up. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 11:44, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

The source referenced in the article stating "Al-Zahar said liberating all the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River is both a moral and religious duty for Muslims and armed resistance (a euphemism for terror attacks) is the way to defeat the occupiers." would appear to be the derivation of the material added. You may disagree with the paraphrase, but the claim that this is "nowhere to be found in the source and is completely made up" appears unjustified. There have been plenty of editors, including myself, who have reviewed and edited articles created by this editor, and there have been dozens of articles that have passed scrutiny for content and sourcing and been included in DYK, representing a broad range of articles that filled holes in Wikipedia. Alansohn (talk) 18:26, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Inclusion at DYK does not give an article an award for passing any stringent requirements. Although I have vast enthusiasm for DYK, it should be made clear that the requirements for DYK are little more than that the article can pass AfD, certain requirements about sourcing (not every source needs to be checked for DYK), rules on length, newness and a lack of obvious negativity or controversial content in the hook. DYK does not evaluate articles for whether they have "filled holes in Wikipedia". In my personal opinion, many of AMuseo's recent submissions to DYK have caused holes in Wikipedia by requiring other editors to spend time on "clean up" duty dealing with the POV material that he was trying to push onto the main page (in flagrant and egregious violation of his topic ban) using it. I have already provided an example above of an article he created and then tried to submit to the main page via DYK, where he had simply cherry-picked every single statement that could be made pro-Israeli from all of the sources he cited, and ignored everything else. This is how he was editing - even after his earlier topic ban from that area on a different account. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 04:38, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

• Inclusion at DYK is explicitly intended as an award to recognize creators of new content, and dozens of articles created by Historicist / AMuseo have met that standard as determined by independent reviewers. I have yet to see any of the many editors participating in the I-P who don't have preconceived notions that directly effect the tone and wording as content is created. In such cases, editing by the community has overwhelmingly determined that the articles Historicist / AMuseo created were appropriate for inclusion in DYK on the Wikipedia main page. My objection here is to the overbroad application of CSD:G5 as a justification to delete content that has been scrutinized, as has already happened twice with the article for Nava Applebaum. None of these articles should be speedied without consensus here that the content is not encyclopedic and redeemably updatable by other editors. Alansohn (talk) 13:29, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I would also note that Historicist was explicitly prohibited from using alternate accounts, per Wikipedia:ARBPIA#2009. Tarc (talk) 19:30, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

This is a key point, and I think what should be considered is if Historicist should suffer no sanctions whatsoever for his use of multiple sock-puppet accounts in breach of that prohibition, or if some action against Historicist should be taken. If no action is taken, then presumably whenever he feels like it (remember he has said that he has not abused anything and that you cannot ban the whole university) he will create yet another sockpuppet and carry on as before. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 04:38, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

• I have indefinitely blocked Historicist (talk · contribs). This doesn't seem like a gray area at all, in any way, to me. You have an editor with a prior history of abusive sockpuppetry, multiple behavioral concerns, and explicit warnings under the WP:ARBPIA sanctions to avoid alternate accounts. They've created other accounts, used them to violate the topic ban, and apparently see their actions as justified. I will log this action at WP:ARBPIA, as it falls under the discretionary sanctions enacted in that case. MastCell ^Talk 00:04, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Arbcom amendment case

This concerns the specific case Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Amendment#Request_to_amend_prior_case:_Race_and_intelligence. The amendment was filed about one month ago. Unfortunately during this period there has been very little input from the arbiters. It is possible that there may be a backlog of cases or some other circumstances that have kept the Arbiters from addressing the matter. However in the absence of a decision, the uncertainty over the matter is increasing the tension between editors and the atmosphere is turning ugly. It is for this reason only that I have decided to take the unusual step of bringing an open arbcom case to the attention of the broader community. In the absence of an Arbcom decision, maybe the community can reach a preliminary consensus over the case. Furthermore Arbcom has authorized administrative discretion for this particular dispute Briefly, the details of the dispute are as follows. User:Captain Occam received a topic ban on Race and intelligence matters. Effectively the day the topic ban was issued, an account known to Captain Occam, Ferahgo the Assassin (apparently his live-in girlfriend) declared interest in editing the articles Captain Occam was banned from, and within a few days started to do so in manner similar to that of Captain Occam. An SPI case, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Captain Occam/Archive was filed and it was closed with the recommendation that WP:SHARE applied. An Arbcom enforcement request was filed, but the request was deferred back to Arbcom for an ammendment. Since no decision has been reached, some users believe that Captain Occam is evading his editing restrictions by proxy editing whereas Ferahgo the Assassin suggests that such suggestions are without merit. Wapondaponda (talk) 00:09, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Would it not be more appropriate to ask Arbcom to speed up their deliberations? → ROUX ₪ 00:12, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

It seems pretty clear to me that the Arb's word on the matter is that Ferahgo should not be editing on that topic. There did not seem to be a point in making any sort of formal motion on the matter given that the case is fairly clear. — Coren ^(talk) 00:55, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I have given Ferahgo the customary notice.[8] ArbCom really seems to be between a rock and a hard place here. Note that an administrator has already told Ferahgo to back off from those articles[9] but she is continuing to insert passages[10] that misrepresent published sources[11] into articles within the scope of the topic ban. Her approach to writing Wikipedia article text shoves an extra load of fact-checking and reference-checking onto the backs of all the Wikipedians who are trying to clean up the mess after the ArbCom case. If one meat puppet can chew up so much of the time of administrators and conscientious editors even after an ArbCom case is decided, what hope does ArbCom have of ever catching up with its caseload? It was my understanding that ArbCom set discretionary sanctions in the case decision precisely so that any administrator could wield the mop and clean up the mess. I think it best respects ArbCom's role in the dispute-resolution processes of Wikipedia to respond to this situation according to the discretionary sanctions already decided after a lengthy ArbCom case that included statements by the involved Wikipedian here. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 01:01, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

• User formally topic banned: [12] NW (Talk) 01:09, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
• He/she should be blocked for violating the topic ban "live-in-girlfriend" doubt it. Secret ^account 01:18, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Everyone knows nobody on Wikipedia has a girlfriend → ROUX ₪ 01:23, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I would like to have one but my wife would kill me mark nutley (talk) 01:24, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

The fact that you dare to write that while editing under your real name proves that you don't actually have a wife.·Maunus·ƛ· 02:12, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Some of us have boyfriends, though. <wink> Horologium (talk) 01:26, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Pre-emptive topic ban for User:Captain Occam Jr? Count Iblis (talk) 01:33, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Seriously this "girl-friend" is interested in every topic that the "boyfriend" has, it's a clear cut case of sockpuppetry by looking at the contribs. Secret ^account 01:44, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

That’s simply false. Compare her editing history to mine. There isn’t even any overlap between her and my ten most edited articles.

The SPI about me and Ferahgo reached the conclusion that she isn’t a sockpuppet, but that she and I are closely-related accounts per the definition of WP:SHARE. Extending my topic ban to her based on this policy is somewhat reasonable—we’ve always been aware that this was a possibility—but a block based on actual sockpuppetry isn’t. --Captain Occam (talk) 01:53, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

It's meatpuppetry then, just as violating, why would you tell your girlfriend to edit these articles even though you are topic banned. That's common sense. Secret ^account 02:03, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Do you really think you’re bringing up anything here that hasn’t been discussed to death already? If you had read the amendment thread, you would know what the reason was for her involvement there, and that it has very little to do with me. She also doesn’t fit the definition of a meatpuppet, which is “A new user who engages in the same behavior as another user in the same context, and who appears to be editing Wikipedia solely for that purpose.” Ferahgo has been registered at Wikipedia since 2006, neither of us became involved in race-related articles until 2009, and the majority of her contributions were and are outside this topic area.

The only policy that’s relevant here is WP:SHARE. Any claim that policies other than this are involved contradicts every previous discussion that’s been had about this issue. --Captain Occam (talk) 02:17, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

• I see no reason to re-enact the Arbcom case here. Anyone disagree?→ ROUX ₪ 02:07, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
  • I see no reason as well, though I see a block for meatpuppetry as a stern warning. Secret ^account 02:08, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
    • What I meant was, admins can either do something (unlikely, probably a bad idea and bad precedent) or do nothing and punt it back to ArbCom (likely, good idea, right thing to do). Rehashing the case here is less than pointless. → ROUX ₪ 02:14, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

How many times is Wapondaponda going to file these, I am sorry, but regardless of merits (or not) this looks and smells like something personal. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 02:20, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Vecrumba and Roux - this is a bad precedent. In effect we have one editor tryng to speed up/override an arbcom process by going through ANI. It doesn't work, and its not how it should work. ·Maunus·ƛ· 03:00, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

(od) I'm curious about one thing though. Would defending the right of an editor to edit articles on race and intelligence violate the 'broadly construed' part of Captain Occam's ban? --RegentsPark (talk) 03:23, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Outside of commenting in ArbCom cases in which he is a party? I would say yes. → ROUX ₪ 03:24, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

At Wikipedia:BAN#Exceptions_to_limited_bans, one of the exceptions listed to topic bans is "Legitimate and necessary dispute resolution, that is, addressing a legitimate concern about the ban itself in an appropriate forum", and one of the specific examples listed of this is "asking for necessary clarifications about the scope of the ban." Since the question here is about whether my topic ban applies to Ferahgo also, I think this clearly falls into the category described there. --Captain Occam (talk) 03:32, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

It seems to me that the legitimate questions exception refers to the scope of the ban as it applies to you as the affected party. I don't see why it should apply to the banned party questioning the scope as applied to other editors. IMO, it looks as if you're trying to have some say over the direction of the article, which would violate the 'broadly construed' tenet. --RegentsPark (talk) 03:38, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I was being accused of sockpuppetry, and both of my comments were in response to Secret’s argument that I should be blocked because of this. Considering I’m already topic banned, how is it “trying to have some say over the direction of the article” for me to respond to the claim that I should be blocked as a sockpuppeteer? --Captain Occam (talk) 03:45, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Hold on!! Enuff wikilawyering minutia!! Captain Occam, Ferahgo the Assassin and Wapondaponda are all pulled here because the dispute resolution process leaves too many trying to intuit what decisions say or mean and who has authority to enforce them. Nobody's to blame for this wikiwonkery, certainly they aren't. For heaven's sake, if a dispute has been decided somebody announce what's what with one authoritative oomph behind it so the people involved don't have to guess where things stand? Professor marginalia (talk) 04:49, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Roux, Vecrumba and Maunus have all stated they think it's a bad idea to use AN/I to short-circuit the resolution to an issue being dealt with by arbcom, especially when the reason is just impatience at arbcom's response time. I agree with this, obviously, but for a different reason - as I stated in NuclearWarfare’s user talk, the issue under consideration from arbcom involves more than just me, and the amendment thread involves a proposal for a topic ban of another user also. [13] If AN/I is being used to circumvent arbcom's examination of the issue, the other issues related to these articles will not get examined at all. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 05:15, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

{eyeroll}...Long and short of it is, cryptic dispute resolutions are not really resolutions--they open doors to an infinitude of future wikilawyering. Professor marginalia (talk) 05:42, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I believe that Captain Occam's editing restrictions did not constitute the "end of the world" when it comes to his involvement in race articles. Per Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race and intelligence/Proposed decision#Review_of_topic-bans, Captain Occam would have been able to appeal the editing restrictions in six months, and the restriction would be lifted if he had demonstrated his "commitment to the goals of Wikipedia and his ability to work constructively with other editors". I would like to believe that this does not include mechanical edits to other articles just for the sake of proving that the restrictions have faithfully observed. IMO six months can fly by quite quickly these days. But seeing that Occam chose not to take this offer then it would be nice to know what the current timelines are. According to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race and intelligence/Proposed decision#Enforcement_of_topic-bans_by_block,

Should any user subject to a topic ban in this case violate that ban, that user may be blocked, initially for up to one month, and then with blocks increasing in duration to a maximum of one year, with the topic ban clock restarting at the end of each block.

Wapondaponda (talk) 10:04, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

When did I ever indicate that I was choosing not to take this offer? Thus far I have not been blocked for violating my editing restrictions, and there are several articles outside this topic area that I still intend to edit and would like to be editing. The only reason I haven’t been devoting much time to them is because almost perpetually for the past month I’ve been having to deal with your accusations that I’m violating my editing restrictions, and this makes it almost impossible for me to focus on editing in other areas. --Captain Occam (talk) 17:10, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

NW has just rejected my appeal of his topic ban. His reason for this was that he considers the arbitrators to have already "informally decided" in the amendment thread that I was topic banned. [14] I don't think this is fair. Arbcom hasn't yet made a clear decision about my topic ban, and not all of the arbitrators who've commented agree a topic ban is appropriate. Especially in light of the newest comments from editors over the past week or so, it isn't yet clear what the outcome of the thread is going to be. In this situation a single admin should not have the authority to preempt a decision that's in the process of being made by arbcom, based only on his interpretation of the views expressed by the individual arbitrators so far.

This sanction also doesn't appear to have been implemented in a way that's consistent with how discretionary sanctions work, or any other type of sanction for that matter. The policy page for discretionary sanctions states that before being sanctioned under this policy, a user needs to have been warned in their user talk that their behavior will lead to a sanction under the discretionary sanctions if it continues, which hasn’t been done in my case. There also isn't anything close to a consensus in this thread for me to be topic banned - at least half of the users expressing an opinion about this agree that this question should be left for arbcom to decide. I didn't even have the chance to comment here before NW implemented the topic ban, a decision that was made only ten minutes after I was notified of this thread's existence.

On the basis of the problems I and others have pointed out about NW's decision in this thread, I would like admins to review whether his decision was appropriate, or whether the outcome of the arbitration amendment thread should be left up to arbcom. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 20:23, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

NW's action does seem pre-emptive. --Michael C. Price ^talk 07:32, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Update: Another arbitrator has now commented at the amendment request page. This means that a majority (five out of eight) of active and non-recused arbitrators have commented. The strong consensus is that WP:SHARE applies in this instance. On the technical issue of the warning, the request was active for about a month, which is warning enough. The topic-ban was properly applied under discretionary sanctions and there is no reason to suppose that it was is irregular.  Roger Davies ^talk 17:47, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I would appreciate it if we could not regard this decision as having been made until a majority of active arbitrators are actually supporting my topic ban. Right now, four are supporting it with one opposing it, and five are required for a majority. However, I do agree the likely outcome of the amendment thread is pretty clear now, so I'll regard Occam's topic ban covering me under WP:SHARE unless the thread ends up producing an unexpected result. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 19:29, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Please re-read Roger's comment, a majority have already commented which is the standard used. Your topic ban stands as should have been crystal clear already given you've gotten the same answer in every venue. Shell ^babelfish 19:39, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Five arbitrators have commented, but only four are supporting a topic ban. The fifth, Kirill, is opposing it. Sorry if I'm not understanding how this works. Is the only thing that matters that a majority of arbitrators comment in general, even if there isn't a majority supporting the decision? -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 19:58, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

A majority of the currently active and non-recused arbiters have commented, which is necessary to close any request. Of those who commented, the majority felt that a topic ban was appropriate. Further, a topic ban by any administrator is standard under discretionary sanctions and there is no compelling reason to overturn that decision. Shell ^babelfish 20:04, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Alright, thank you for your explanation. Up until now I didn't think this decision was being made by anyone with the authority to decide it, but it looks like I have a clear answer now. Unless the consensus among arbitrators ends up changing, I'll be content to edit in other areas while Occam's topic ban is in place. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 21:24, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

User:Phichimed

Initial Statements of Principals

I blocked Phichimed (talk · contribs) as the edits showed that the account is named after an organisation.

They have made requests for unblock, and these were declined by 3 other admins.

I have explained fairly fully why I feel that their edits are problematic, indicating an CoI. They had then agreed that they would use reliable sources for their future edits if unblocked and renamed. However, another admin declined their unblock request as they were editing while blocked, so I suggested that the editor re-requests an unblock in a week.

They are now accusing me of abusing my power as an admin. Although some of their points (about not being told of problems with their edits) have substance, the main reason for the block is the user name alongside the edits which show a clear CoI.

I am now going to withdraw from this case, but would appreciate some non-involved admin eyes on the case.

I am notifying the editor of this thread - although they are blocked, they can read it, and if they leave a message on their talk page which they want to be placed here, I am willing to copy it over.

Regards, -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 08:12, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

• Involved admin: This editor has issues comprehending many policies, and comes up with unique interpretations of them. I have been involved in trying to help them to get to a point where they could become unblocked. I also was responsible for blocking their IP due to WP:EVADE. What we have asked of Phichimed is no different from what we ask of any other COI editors with names contrary to WP:U. I can picture perhaps unblocking with a topic ban and significant mentoring right now, but so far the block is good, as are the declines. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 09:45, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
• Involved Editor: I wrote him email offering to help by adding *referenced* material to the articles. Part of the issue is that secondary sources on these fraternities are rare (and mostly consist of editions of Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities) and that even though the sources are secondary, they weren't made yesterday. The account has been a Single Purpose Account, which also contributes to the issues, though if that were the only concern, it would be OK. therefore, my honest guess is is that a Topic ban would be unacceptable to him. I'm willing to Mentor, as I'm in a fairly similar situation (I'm on the National History and Archives Committee for my Fraternity and for example actually added a Fraternity magazine from the 1890s as a reference for an article on another Fraternity) and have become a more rounded editor. It is welcomely surprising that WP:NPOV doesn't appear to be that much of an issue, his contributions seem to be done in a fairly neutral tone.Naraht (talk) 15:14, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
• Blocked editor (copied from talk page): I appreciate PhantomSteve taking this issue to ANI and wish to convey my POV on this block.
  

I was blocked because of two reasons 1) my username and 2) my COI. According to the Wikipedia guidelines outlined in the Username, COI and Validity articles which the admins are references as justifications behind my blocking all state that the admins should have started a discussion with me over these issues and warn me first. This was NEVER done and I was blocked from the start. Your admins also do not seem to read previous posts or the articles to which they reference and repeatedly make these mistakes even when I have asked them to please check their references.

1) To address the username issue:

I agree that my username violates the username policy, a policy I did not know existed before this. Because of this I have no issues with changing the username. I was never asked about my username and was never “warned” about the name as outlined in wiki’s guidelines. I have stated this from the very beginning of the block and so far have not been allowed to change the username despite multiple requests. The blocking admin and those that refuse to unblock my account keep bringing this up even though I have repeatedly stated I would change it.

2) To address the COI issue:

a) The blocking of my account began after I disclosed my COI on my user page. According to the wiki guideline on COI, I should disclose these potential COIs and such a disclosure should not be used against the editor. My attempt to become more inline with Wikipedia’s suggested guidelines is being used against me. Although I am not required to disclose a COI, I was doing so believing it was in the best interest of everyone. I had never looked up anything on COI before this and did not realize there were articles about this topic.

b) I was later informed that I was blocked because of poorly referenced edits and a concern they weren’t verifiable. This was the first time I had ever been informed of this concern and it wasn’t even introduced during the initial block notice but as an “add-on” later. I was also never approached about this issue or warned about it as outlined in wiki’s guidelines. Under the wiki verifiability article, it is best to have a 3rd party (which I have done but agree it needs some work) but you can also use "self-published and questionable sources as sources on themselves".

c) I have been told I am too close to the subject to edit the pages. Once again, I was also never approached about this issue or warned about it as outlined in wiki’s guidelines. Also, according to your COI article: you can edit if it is in the best interest of wiki, maintain a neutral POV, verifiability (already addressed), disclose interest (already addressed and this is what caused the issues and is being used against me)) and finally, per your own article, “closeness to a subject does not mean you’re incapable of being neutral.”

d) I was also accused of not being neutral and being biased. According to your own POV article, all editors have bias but you can still create a neutral article as long as all content presented are facts, not opinions, another neutral individual would agree with the edit, and it is verifiable (already discussed). And if an admin has a concern they should approach the editor about the issue, per your own guidelines, which never happened.

e) Finally, according to your own guidelines on edits, the other users and admin should assume good faith in edits. Something that the admins have not been doing.

As for SPA, I would agree that this would describe my account but even in light of this, wiki guidelines state that doesn’t mean I can’t still edit and that these concerns should be DISCUSSED with the editor which was never done.

I would suggest that in the future, if an admin is looking to block an individual, they should pay attention to the guidelines they are trying to reference and that they are trying to represent. I realize individual make mistakes but admins such as PhantomSteve have refused to recognize their errors and editors such as BWilkins have now jumped in repeatedly misquoting the very guidelines they claim to enforce. He believes I have issues comprehending many policies, I would suggest that the admin take a look in the mirror. Other admins seem to have put in their input/denied unblock requests without actually looking at the issues being raised. Wikipedia should put into place some kind of guidelines for their admin, if there isn’t one already, so that issues such as this don’t pop up again. Admins should be sanctioned for repeatedly abusing their powers be it through being monitored or limiting the areas they can patrol.--Phi Chi (talk) 22:48, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Additional

There have also been issues of WP:EVADE. I show edits to related pages by 68.61.113.212 (talk · contribs) and 71.197.25.62 (talk · contribs) that are likely to have been by the same user occuring on the pages originally edited by Phichimed (talk · contribs). However, the last of these on an article was about 4PM on October 3.

I believe the the situation can be divided in half.

1) Is the fact that these articles were edited by this person under this name a problem?

• Yes. There are issues of Promotional User name, Single Purpose Account and later IP address evasion.

2) Are there any of the edits to the articles that would be objectionable if they had been made by someone else?

• No. I haven't found any of his article edits that are specifically objectionable. Some of them lacked references, but most of his later edits were to add references. I think pretty much all of the articles could be improved with information from version of Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities more recent than 1915, but I'm personally working on that.Naraht (talk) 10:50, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I skimmed the articles and they seem fairly dire puffy promotional pieces chock full of weasel words - I suggest you take a chainsaw to them. --Cameron Scott (talk) 10:57, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. I took a look at Phi Chi Medical Fraternity which is probably the article around which his contributions feed out from. The only line that jumps out at me as being promotional is "Phi Chi is one of the oldest and largest international medical fraternities of its kind in the world." for which the oldest probably could be referenced to Baird's, but largest would be more difficult (and probably should be removed). Beyond that, the article may go into too much detail, though being formed from a merger like that, both groups should be referenced (whether Phi Chi Society should be a separate page is a different issue). Some of the Notabilities could be made 'Drier' but not much. I think there is definitely the heart of a good page.

I show the following 7 pages (excluding re-directs, images and categories) created by him : Phi Chi Medical Fraternity, Pi Mu Honor Society, Phi Alpha Gamma, List of Phi Chi Medical Fraternity Chapters , Phi Chi Society, Omega_Upsilon_Phi, and Phi_Beta_Pi. All seem similar to me, more history than you'd expect, but rather dry.Naraht (talk) 20:07, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

British Isles TfD sanity check requested

Okay, I admit that my current mood towards Wikipedia doesn't make me the best judge of this matter, but does anyone else see this ongoing template deletion nomination as anything more than an act of disruption? I can't tell whether this is intended to be an argumentum ad absurdum against, or a consolidation after, some bizarre agreement made over that tedious "what should we call the British Isles" controversy. (And if I'm wrong, I'll eagerly strike out all of my comments in this discussion & exit from it; at this point in time, the less stuff concerning Wikipedia I have to worry about the happier I'll be.) -- llywrch (talk) 21:11, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

To me, it looks like a war over the content of an article-space template (which is much the same as an edit war over an article) has spilled into a war over whether it should exist at all; not necessarily deliberate disruption, but probably the wrong venue for the argument. (Yes, it's called "Templates for discussion", but it's designed for discussions about things that need admin rights...) --ais523 21:18, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

• Sigh. It was all quite simple, or so I thought, but the levels of wrong end of the stick getting over that nomination reached epic proportions. So for the benefit of anyone still interested, even though this post has seemingly got the thing shut down anyway, here it is, in the simplest terms possible that I can explain it.

1. The template recently got changed so that on certain Irish articles, the title displays differently, so as not to display the supposedly offensive term 'British Isles'
2. This is quite obviously a total violation of NPOV, not to mention completely non-standard template practice
3. It is never going to be changed back without someone frog marching the small band of Irish dispute regulars who unsurprisingly supported the change (and especially the one who has a habit of ignoring half a discussion and implementing BOLD changes as 'consensus' backed solutions), to someone who knows NPOV (I suggested Jimbo), and forcing them to ask that person to give feedback on their actual understanding of NPOV over this issue. Preferably this person/s would have been an experience adjudicator of NPOV, but the issue is so obvious imho any old veteran with no horse in the BI dispute would have done the job, but no, all you get is the 'I cant hear/see this part of the discussion' treatment.
4. Violating NPOV is one of the officially mandated reasons to delete a template, and it is also of course one of the 5 pillars.
5. So I nominated it on those grounds.
6. This post was made here, and the discussion has been duly shut down, with the rather ambigous conclusion that I may be right, or wrong, but either way, somehow the template gets kept, because Tfd apparently isn't the venue, even though as said, violating NPOV is one of the mandated reasons for deletion (and due to the crazy misunderstandings in that discussion, I challenge anyone to actually discern a consensus in that discussion that no, the implemented appearance morphing code is not an NPOV violation).

So there you go. Quite how people looked at that nomination, and somehow came to the conclusion that I was wanting to rename the template, or was myself supporting the use of alternate terms instead of BI, is completely beyond me. But you live and learn. Maybe I need to log some training hours at Simple Wikipedia before I attempt something like this again. MickMacNee (talk) 04:35, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Looking at that debate, I think you were onto something. The notion of having variable names for things, just to be PC for a few editors, seems to violate something here - I'm just not sure exactly what. But it does sound like some brand of censorship. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:46, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I also think so (as I said here) I do not think the nomination was an act of disruption, I see it it as an attempt to bring the issue to the attention of a wider community. The issue now, is what next ? Codf1977 (talk) 08:05, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Mick's mostly right. The template has had, for many years, a parameter which allows the template's name ("British Isles") to be replaced by "something else" if desired. What's happened recently is that editors who object to that (i.e. object to replacing "British Isles") have raised the issue, and as result a compromise-of-sorts has been reached whereby additional items are added to the template to clarify the situation when the template's name isn't used. I think it's a bloody silly compromise, and my preference for any compromise would be to use the template's name and any alternative name - i.e. pass "British Isles - also known as X when Y applies" instead of merely "X". In some ways the situation is actually better than it was - at least a reader clicking on a template apparently named "X" doesn't arrive at a template named "British Isles" and is left scratching their head - but I still feel it's less than ideal. TFOWR 08:03, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Agree with your solution. Codf1977 (talk) 08:08, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

If a consensus is reached there, to change it all back to British Isles? that's fine by me. GoodDay (talk) 13:55, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

MNN, had you presented your case as clearly as TFOWR did for you, I might have voted in favor of your nomination -- although the best solution in cases like that one is to fix the object (e.g. article, template, image), not delete it. Your own worst enemy in that tFD thread was your impenetrable presentation. Better luck at WP:NPOV/N. -- llywrch (talk) 23:48, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I've raised it as a an Rfc on the NPOV noticeboard. MickMacNee (talk) 16:32, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Use of sock account to attempt to gain access to view deleted revisions

Use of sock account to attempt to gain access to view deleted revisions

• A NRM Researcher (talk · contribs) is a sock of Weaponbb7 (talk · contribs), now using account ResidentAnthropologist (talk · contribs). [15], [16], [17], [18]

1. A NRM Researcher (talk · contribs) = requests access to "researcher" userrights group, which would allow the account to view deleted revisions just like an administrator or oversighter could [19].
2. At the account's "User:A NRM Researcher/Wikipedia Cult Wars" subpage, A NRM Researcher acknowledges the Weaponbb7 account is an involved party to its "research", labeling it as a "Important Wikipedians in The Wikipedia Cult Wars - Minor" [20].
3. In email to Wikimedia Foundation, (self-disclosed by the user on-wikipedia [21]) - the account failed to acknowledge the existence of sock accounts.
4. The sock account A NRM Researcher (talk · contribs), therefore acknowledges it is a party, an "Important Wikipedian", to what it refers to as "Wikipedia Cult Wars", and yet has failed to disclose this in the request for access to view deleted revisions under the "researcher" userrights group. This is a very serious sock violation, and also a significant concern regarding breach of Wikimedia Foundation privacy policy.

Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 21:17, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Cirt Really can we not centralize this at the SPI Which I am giving a full account of all this there?The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 21:23, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I consulted with a checkuser who recommended that I file a separate report to ANI regarding the specific matter of the use of a sock account to attempt to gain access to view deleted revisions. -- Cirt (talk) 21:26, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I am going to go ahead and refer anyone there for evidence and responses, as too lines of conversation is a little ridiculous. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 21:33, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

• Note: This email self disclosed on Wikipedia by ResidentAnthropologist, failed to disclose the existence of any of the multiple sock accounts, to the Wikimedia Foundation, when requesting access to view deleted revisions. -- Cirt (talk) 21:35, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

The motives for Weaponbb7's actions are suspect, to say the least. For example, it appears that multiple accounts – under your control, as per your admission at the SPI – were used to edit or discuss the Twelve Tribes communities article in a manner that seems to be a WP:SOCK violation. In addition, the user failed to reveal in his private OTRS correspondence the identity of his alternate account. I believe that simply wasn't an oversight on Weaponbb7's part. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 21:37, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

No Action was ever done, Examine the log of Contributors Article Article Talk page The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 22:36, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I take that back paritally I uploaded This Gallery to Commons then here are the two diffs in which I altered them from a deleted file here to the one on Commons [22][23].

As a general statement, I would expect that anyone making a researcher access request would fully disclose all accounts under which he or she has ever edited, and all uses to which the privileged access would or might be put. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:39, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by ignorance" Is It unreasonable to want to keep my academic research separate from General editing. If asked I would have disclosed it The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 21:40, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the above comment, by Checkuser Nishkid64. Thank you, -- Cirt (talk) 21:41, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Newyorkbrad on general principles. Access to deleted revisions is generally a userright given only to admins. Anyone not disclosing alternate accounts at RfA risks summary desysopping should it be found out. I fail to see why applying to the Foundation directly should be any different. one hopes the request has been denied. Nishkid's comments above are concerning. → ROUX ₪ 21:43, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes mistake on my part, however given no guideline on specific way to go about Reaseacher Permissions. I wanted to keep my acdemic account seperate from any actions conudcted researching. There are not multiple edit on Twelve Tribes communities page that are not simply forgetting to log out of the other account. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 21:46, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps, but the smallest application of common sense would have told you that you should disclose. If it were okay not to disclose, what would prevent blocked users, other socks, users in bad standing who have created socks, whoever, from simply creating a new account and asking for such permissions? Nothing. That gap in basic common sense and having a clue makes me hope you have not been, and will not be, granted the ability to see deleted material--which is often grossly inflammatory, revealing of personal information, etc. → ROUX ₪ 21:55, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Error In judgement I fully admit, my intent was to have two separate account for two separate purposes, one for academic research one for general editing. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 22:03, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

@Roux: Shockingly, it appears the user was already granted access to view deleted material, see [24]. -- Cirt (talk) 21:59, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

(cutting in out of chrono) - Cirt, please rephrase - the user was not granted access to view deleted material, they were provided with a limited amount of deleted material by an administrator. These are two very different things. –xeno^talk 13:20, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Oh, yes shockingly.

No evidence of abusive sockpuppetry, just a strange witch hunt launched by Cirt for unclear reasons. I agree that anyone requestiong access to deleted stuff for academic purposes should be required at the foundation level to provide bona fides, and disclose all accounts. Anthropologist screwed up on that last one. He has now confirmed all of his accounts and the rest appears to be between him and the foundation. I suspect if Cirt had evidence of anything nefarious going on here he would have informed us by now. Does anyone think something nefarious is going on here? It's not like it's that a big deal; so many incompetent teenage admins etc... have access to deleted material, it's not like the keys to fort knox have been given away.Bali ultimate (talk) 22:01, 7 October 2010 (UTC)~~

Yes, old mediation pages and deleted articles with scientology. Not interested in anything beyond thatThe Resident Anthropologist (talk) 22:03, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

You've provided your name, academic affiliation, perhaps an advisor/dept. head? (I'm assuming yes). That means you've disclosed far more than Cirt (as far as i know, and certainly far more than most admins who wield a lot more in the tool department), have at least theoretic academic reputation risk if you get up to no good (that is, theoretical real world accountability), and will constrain your behavior accordingly. If you didn't know, Cirt has had a rather deep interest in scientology himself on Wikipedia. I'm sure that's just a coincidence though.Bali ultimate (talk) 22:08, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I Have provided those (though not Department head), I know Cirt's interest in scientology, I intended him when I was ready to do the qualitative portion. I also intended to disclose to them my WBB7/RA account so they could choose in full knowledge and Consent to who they were talking to. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 22:17, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

(outdenting)

I am not finding any policy discussion on enwiki other than Wikipedia talk:Research#RFC: Researcher permission which seems to have concluded with a (poorly discussed / advertised) consensus to let the Foundation handle it. We don't seem to have imposed any local restrictions or policy.

I see where those saying "should be predisclosed" are coming from - I think I agree with that - but we didn't get that written down anywhere or consensus agreed anywhere. We should probably reopen the discussion with the Foundation about that.

RA seems to have made no effort to hide connections between the accounts, and to some extent already have disclosed them explicitly or implicitly before this started.

I think I agree with Cirt that this was worthy calling attention to and reviewing; my reaction, given Weaponbb7's history (until his account was hijacked, at least, which we aren't holding against him to my knowledge) is that between RL identification, use of "role accounts" to set the research activity and permissions off from his ongoing normal editing, and open admission of all the connections once asked, this as disclosed now doesn't worry me.

Where would be the appropriate place to start a discussion on disclosure policy now that we're aware we need one? Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:27, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

This looks like a clear application of Hanlon's razor to me. I can't see any evidence of malice or intent to disrupt or decieve, just of forgetfulness. Since this has now been fully disclosed, I am of a mind to resolve the thread. Anyone have a reason not to? --Jayron32 05:02, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

There is a potential for malice. I have concerns regarding the multiple accounts. If one is applying for extra privileges how is one to determine their eligibility if they are not able to easily follow the edit history. Allowing editors to compartmentalize what they do into different accounts will decrease Wikipedia's transparency below its currently low level and thus not a good thing. I would advice returning to one account and developing the communities trust with that one account. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:40, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Your concerns are very valid, I did not intend to confuse, I was attempting as part of my reaseach to create and Index of NRM activity on the site. Thats where 99% of the edit involved that page. I made the intent and of the account and my reasons for the account right on the user page of said account up front and everything. [25]The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 16:44, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Blocked

I have blocked the account.

This all lies on my shoulders. The account holder contacted Jimmy Wales, who forwarded it to OTRS. I got in touch with the account holder, who presented a legitimate case for access after requesting several deleted page content (which, if not out of scope, may be provided). The requests were innocuous and provided material for Indian cultural involvement. At no time did he disclose that he had other accounts. It is my feeling, based on communication with the account holder and what he was requesting to see, there was no malicious intent. I was unfamiliar with the strict permission of researcher, and I erred in granting it to this account. My apologies to the community. The account is blocked, and I will be in touch with the account holder. Keegan (talk) 05:37, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Followup: Phew. I did not give him researcher. I didn't know what that was when mentioned, and didn't strike a bell, so that's all good. I denied the user the request for two deleted pages, provided one reasonable one, and just the header from a medcab case. Keegan (talk) 05:58, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I've initiated a discussion about the researcher bit at Wikipedia talk:Research#baseline requirements for researcher permission. --John Vandenberg ^(chat) 08:40, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Apology

I Intended No malice nor harm to anyone or to deceiving one beyond what I felt was proper to keep my real life identity Separate from my normal editing. I requested Temporary access to the privilege,(I specified a month Apparently i did not state a timed duration but that was the intent) as I stated in my letter of intent. I had no intention of keeping that privilege any longer than i needed. OTRS Volunteer Keegan offered instead to email copies of deleted pages (always under his discretion) which achieved the same goal as wanted the privilege for. I apologize to the community and especially you Keegan it was merely my intent to keep my Work separate from my normal free time activity under my usual account. I apologize for any breach of trust of trust between myself and the community. I restrict myself to one account as usual and apologize for this whole debacle. (Though I'll keep the one with my publishing name for what I upload on commons so i can be properly attributed) I have cooperated entirely with both ANI and the SPI, and hope those in the community will be willing to forgive me (at least to a degree) based on that. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 13:13, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

• - This is a strange story all round, the weaponbb7 account was allegedly as reported by the user:Weaponbb7 had his account compromised and allegedly as reported by weaponbb7 had sex toys attempt purchase with his credit card and weaponbb7 was one of the extremely vocal users against David Appletree, demanding his blocking and such like and weaponbb7 is an affiliate of the fundamentalist group twelve tribes and an investigator into people like David Appletree and David Appletree mentioned to be that was worried his location would be compromised through his contribution to wikipedia and then weapons new account User:ResidentAnthropologist asks to see hidden content and deleted content. I am glad he was not given the right and he never should be given it given his edit history and affiliation. Off2riorob (talk) 18:03, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I am not an affiliate, I have no COI no more than any one else who eats at the Yellow Deli.It is a topic of local and public interest in chattanooga and a topic. i have researched intently. I think you are missing some information as my ResidentAnthrpologist and my Weaponbb7 have always been my primary accounts. The NRM researcher and became active in June when being summer i had lots of free time to devote to digging in archives. It was merely meant as a seperate account for academic research on the Subject of NRMs & wikipedia which grew out of my time spent editing and getting to know people around here. Thus naturallyI thought it would be an novell and interesting topic and one that might get me published. I was not granted access to researcher but a middle ground was agreed upon which achieved the same goals of accessing a handful of pages that here deleted. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 02:36, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

On a side note my behavior involving the JIDF was less than ideal in the dispute. The resulting compromised cuase a lot of confusion as my Facebook, Amazon.com and Wikipedia account to be compromised so i was less than Frazzled when I showed explained about the stuff purchased on my account on amazon. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 02:44, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Continued disruptive behavior and personal attacks by BsBsBs

Having had weeks of personal attacks from BsBsBs, I turn to ANI as a final step. The full argument is presented below, but its key points are:

• User BsBsBs is engaging in a long campaign of personal attacks direct at me and at other users, in breach of WP:NPA
• His personal attacks seem to be escalating, as in this latest one [26]
• User BsBsBs is also in breach of WP:OWN, having stated several times that he will refuse to even discuss the article he created with certain users, myself included.
• User BsBsBs has twice been warned by Retro00064 that his uncivil behavior might lead to ANI. It has only resulted in even more abuse.

A few weeks ago, I nominated the article World's largest municipalities by population for AfD [27]. The nomination is not the reason for now turning to ANI, so suffice to say was that I argued that the article is a POV-fork of List of cities proper by population; users interested in the whole argument are welcome to read the AfD. I thought it proper to inform the creator of the nominated article of the nomination and did so [28]. I expected BsBsBs to defend the merits of the article, but most of his "defense" turned out to directed at me personally and at previous editors he had been in dispute with. Admitting that the nominated article was created due to a dispute at List of cities proper by population. This dispute was an edit war between BsBsBs and other users, of which BsBsBs in the AfD-discussion say that "some editors of List of cities proper by population resorted to blatant forgery" [29], "After the most egregious acts of fraud had been exposed". I cannot comment on whether that is the case, but I find it a rather strong accusation. As for me, BsBsBs claimed that "The requester is aware of the compromise, he does not mention the compromise in an attempt to mislead other editors." [30]. I find it insulting, to say the least, to be accused of attempting to mislead others. I might add that I was not aware of this "compromise", more about it below. BsBsBs also said that a full discussion would "expose the true motivation behind the nomination"[31], again claiming that I has some hidden motive. He went on to claim that I "left a few not very enlightened tags and suddenly recommended the article for deletion"[32]. It is true that I twice tagged the article for what I perceive to be factual errors, I explained my reasons for doing so on the talk page. Both times BsBsBs deleted the tags [33], [34]. At this point other editors stepped in and recommended a more civil tone and a focus on the matter at hand. BsBsBs reply was that "Unless someone has reading comprehension issues, it will quickly become evident that the list is not the same." [35]. I responded to BsBsBs that I understand his frustration over "his" article being nominated, but asked him to stop the personal attacks and focus on discussing the article [36]. In reply, he did present his arguments for the article to remain, but also took the time to attack my honesty and my motives again with claims such as "A fact which you are trying to hide" and "Apparently, this is what you are trying to prevent with your AFD" [37]. I again commented on starting to be fed up with his continued insinuations about me [38]. BsBsBs argued that the AfD should be thrown out as it was "frivolous" [39]. At this point another editor stepped in and warned BsBsBs to stop his attacks on me, otherwise his behavior could end up here at ANI. [40]. As for the "consensus" BsBsBs kept talking about, I found a discussion but no consensus on the talk page of List of cities proper by population and if there were a consensus to merge two months ago, it's strange that nothing has happened

The result of the AfD was "merge and redirect", with the closing user suggesting that "How much content to merge, if any, can be discussed on the article talk page". [41]. At the talk page BsBsBs started a new discussion, still largely focused on me [42]. I asked him once again to stop talking about me (I'm really not that interesting) and in order to try to build on the AfD-decision of merge and redirect, I asked him to focus on how to continue, and asked him what parts of the article he thought he should be merged before redirecting [43]. His reply consisted only of more abuse and personal attacks "Thin skinned editors, especially those who don't have their facts together, better refrain from AFD requests." and " If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen." [44]. He also made it clear that he will refuse to discuss the merger with me "I have little motivation to discuss this with an uninvolved, antagonizing editor who wanted the article to die." [45] I find it rather bizarre that nominating an article for AfD should exclude an editor from discussing the future of the article... Once again another editor stepped in, told BsBsBs to stop his continued personal attacks at me, warned him that he is violating WP:OWN and also warned him again that he might end up at ANI [46]. BsBsBs response was simply that he will refuse to discuss with that editor as well [47]. He also took the time to heap even more abuse at me, as in "I am at a serious loss about what to think about a person who mounts one of the most aggressive, albeit unprepared, attacks, and when running into opposition, he complains about being attacked and makes thinly veiled ANI threats. If you can't stand up for yourself, don't attack other people and then run to Mami" [48]. For the record, it was another user who had talked about ANI, but that hardly makes a big difference. He also made it clear what he thinks of my intelligence "this sometimes complicated and counter-intuitive subject-matter seems to be beyond your horizon of understanding." [49]

In short:

• After an edit-war at List of cities proper by population, BsBsBs created his own article. I thought it to be a POV-fork, but that is of course up to everyone to judge for themselves, and nominated it for deletion.
• When I nominated the article created be BsBsBs for deletion, he started a continuing campaign of smearing directed at me, as can be seen from the many diffs and quotes above.
• BsBsBs has repeatedly been told by other editors to stop his personal attacks, with no result. He has twice been warned of ANI, which has only resulted in even more personal attacks.
• At the article he created, BsBsBs has repeatedly removed fact tags and he has made it very clear that he refuses to even discuss the future article with me or with the only other editor who has entered into discussion. I find it strange that an editor should think it is his right to decide with whom he wants to co-operate on Wikipedia and refuse to discuss with those who do not share his view.
• BsBsBs is, in my view, clearly in breach of both WP:NPA and WP:OWN. I find him to be an uncivil and disruptive editor who seems unable to co-operate with other users.

Jeppiz (talk) 10:08, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

the AfD was closed by User:Atmoz who is not an administrator. I think it was a perfectly correct non-admin closer--I would have closed in the same way, using, probably the exact same words. There was in my opinion, pretty good agreement that some (probably small) portion of the article should be merged, but that most of it was duplicative. AfD is a perfectly good place to discuss whether to merge or delete a problematic article. DGG ( talk ) 21:17, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand your comment, or whether you meant to place it somewhere else. The topic here is a long series of personal attacks by BsBsBs, continuing after several users have urged him to stop. That is not at all related to and AfD-closure by User:Atmoz that nobody is contesting.Jeppiz (talk) 10:51, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

It is just a correction to the statement "The result of the AfD was "merge and redirect", with the closing Admin saying..." and the following comments on the qurestion of whether there should have been an AfD at all. DGG ( talk ) 15:36, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Ok, you're right about Atmoz not being an admin, I changed the text to say "user" instead of "admin". To return to the topic, I don't think disagreeing with an AfD is a reason to continuously attack the nominator. Wouldn't that equal saying that personal attacks are quite ok as long as we direct them at users with whom we disagree? I certainly hope that is not the case.Jeppiz (talk) 15:40, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

WritersCramp ban evasion

WritersCramp (talk · contribs) was unblocked by the Ban Appeals Sub-Comittee ([50], [51]). The terms of his unblock included "The user is topic banned from any article relating to fighting dogs and/or attack dogs and/or the associated dog breeds, broadly defined." He has returned to these topics - and is, in fact, engaging in the exact same disruptive behavior that earned his initial ban - including

• [52] - calling long-term valuable users socks, and inserting misinformation,
• Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Yomangani - starting disruptive wiki-lawering incipd sock investigations against people that disagree with him.
• [53] turning articles into non-encyclopedic story-book quotes.

However, regardless of all of this, he is violating the terms of his ban by editing Lion-baiting and Monkey-baiting, articles "relating to fighting dogs." Please help. Hipocrite (talk) 14:22, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

This is less than 2 weeks after his last block was over. I think a better approach than this discussion is to ask John Vandenberg to deal with him as appropriate. This may mean that he gets another mile of rope or two, but even then it won't be long until that is used up. Nothing to see here.

Oh, I see you have already contacted John Vandenberg. Just lean back and wait. Hans Adler 14:29, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

• Just to clarify the long and sorted story, I exposed Hipocrite as a sock puppet a year or two ago and he then posted AFD +tags on most of the Baiting articles that I started out of spite. He continues to delete cited information from the articles and cries when I put the cited information back. I advised Hipo where the citations are located as they are at the bottom of the articles, yet he continues to vandalize the articles. Time to block this editors account. —Preceding unsigned comment added by WritersCramp (talk • contribs) 14:31, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

• WritersCramp blocked for 1 month on topic ban violation and NPA grounds. NW (Talk) 14:46, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Evaluating his unblock request. What I don't understand is, the unblock/topic ban (and one account restriction!) applied to Green Squares (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). How is this account related to WritersCramp (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)?  Sandstein  16:39, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Second diff at top explains that. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:41, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Sarek addresses the issue about account relation. WritersCramp says in his unblock request "I was asked not to edit baiting articles, such as monkey-baiting and lion-baiting for six-months and I agreed to those terms. The six-months has not gone by and I am allowed to edit any article I want at Wikipedia." I see nothing about six months in [54]. The ban instead looks like it is an indefinite one. The unblock request also completely fails to mention the violation of our civility policy. NW (Talk) 16:46, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I agree that the topic ban did not provide for a time limit. The block is correct (indeed, the original, conditionally lifted indefinite block could probably have been reinstated) and the unblock request is declined.  Sandstein  16:53, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Just a quick note that there is also this edit by WritersCramp. It is very unfortunate that nobody replied on-wiki, one way or the other. I expect John Vandenberg or Roger Davies will clarify the situation. Meanwhile there is no damage if he stays blocked, since his battling behaviour and open display of scurrilous bad faith assumptions so soon after his 2-week block clearly deserve a longish block anyway. Hans Adler 18:35, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

The topic ban is indefinite, though in email the user asked me in email when we were discussing terms how long it was for (he asked whether it was for three months). I replied: "I suggest you request the topic ban is lifted after say six months. If everything has gone smoothly, it shouldn't be a problem." However, no actual request has been made to lift it so it remains in force. I'm sorry I didn't notice his 12 Feb message: it would have been far better to have clarified on-wiki.  Roger Davies ^talk 18:51, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. It's unfortunate he asked on the wrong talk page, but I don't think he had a chance anyway since his conflict with Wikipedia is evidently due to circumstances that neither he nor Wikipedia can change. But I can imagine good reasons other than optimism to try anyway. Hans Adler 22:09, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

User:LucyLondon -- repeated promotional edits

LucyLondon (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) -- repeatedly performing this edit on London College of Communication. Very likely she is part of their PR/marketing office. No reply to warnings. It's not 3rr -- she doesn't show up often enough. But I suggest banning as a promotional-only account. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 17:03, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Concur - SPA only editing this article in a problematic way. Exxolon (talk) 21:03, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Not sure what is going on here, all 2010 edits are deleted (usually image files) or are RevDeleted - the ones complained of above from a sample I reviewed. Since the edits are not of themselves apparently violations of policy I am wondering if there is something going on in the "back office", so I am going to action my usual response to such things - which is to walk away, pretending I never saw nothing! LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:59, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

The edits I am bringing here were revdeleted after I started this thread. They are violations of WP:PROMOTION, and (apparently) WP:COPYRIGHT (the reason they were revdeleted). If she isn't blocked, you'll surely get a chance to see what she's up to, the next time she makes the same edit. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 07:46, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Co-editor apparently banning me from pages

I've never done this before, so correct me or direct me if this is not the appropriate forum.

I appear to have been functionally banned by one editor from editing a page, and I wish to know, not whether an editor without administrative rights can do this, but how this is to be classified, and where can I make an appeal to overrule the diktat.

The page in question is the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship, which happens to be related to a subject I have long worked on (the Shakespeare Authorship Question). This is a WP:FRINGE area which I, and a few others, am endeavouring to source to academic works, rather than a mishmash of popular amateur books, or marginal websites.

While looking over the page today, I noticed a good many of the problems associated with the original Shakespeare Authorship page, poor referencing to unreliable popular books where quality academic sources abound, numerous errors, a link to an article originally published in the New York Times, and freely available, sourced to a fringe theory site, an abundance of text that was both unsourced, and consisted of editorializing and clear WP:OR violations. I took the trouble [55] from the outset to begin explaining in depth the reasons behind my edits.

All I got was a series of comprehensive blankings of my edits here, here and here, with edit summaries justifying the blanking and reverts as the removal of a POV. Here , the editor User:Smatprt actually restores the new bibliographical items I had used to justify my introduction of fresh material, which he had elided earlier, together with the material they refer to. I.e., he found my new material unacceptable, but thought the bibliography useful, and so retained it, with the effect that the text is lacking, but its supporting sources are conserved, though nothing in the article refers to them.

I reverted this here because nothing in the edit summaries explained what was wrong with any of my specific editing suggestions, and then explained in concrete detail that his reverts were restoring patently false information, independently of any other consideration. This was again subject to a blanket revert, and User:Smatprt then finally explained his reasons for refusing to allow me to edit that page, and for therefore systematically reverting anything I added to it here.

As the last diff shows, Smatprt blanks me on the grounds that (a) I am an POV warrior. This is sufficient to say (b) he will refuse to answer the problematical points I raised on the talk page (c) that the biography written by the world's ranking academic authority on Edward de Vere, Stanford's Alan Nelson, cannot be used because the scholar is a 'muckraker' (WP:BLP violation, as well as an improper assessment by a mere wiki editor of who does and who does not count in academia); (d) that my behaviour is congenitally vandalistic.

I don't think this is a content dispute. It's a behavioural problem. Perhaps I am part of it, in some eyes? The objection to my behaviour is that I insist articles be written according to the best academic authorities under university or major press imprints, which few of these articles are. I should like input, not on the content, but on the specific instance of behaviour here. It seems to me that a co-editor has effectively put me under an administrative site-ban by refusing to judge my work edit by edit, by adducing a generic label of POV warrior to justify expunging everything I do there, by refusing to even listen to my reasons for making each edit, and characterizing me as a vandal to be chased off that page at sight. WP:OWN and WP:IDONTLIKEIT seem to also be part of the problem.Nishidani (talk) 19:40, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

This is in fact a content dispute. Wikipedia policy doesn't provide any way of resolving problems like this other than appealing for help at the relevant noticeboards, which in this case are WP:FTN or WP:RSN (whichever is most suitable, but not both). If you can't get help there, you aren't going to get it here, and the only thing you can do is to try to negotiate a solution with the editor you're having problems with. Looie496 (talk) 19:54, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

How can it be a content dispute? I have been given a very clear warning that one other editor will revert whatever I post on that page, merely on his a priori perception that I am a POV warrior (WP:AGF violation by the way). That edict means I cannot edit there without suffering a revert on generic grounds, and appears to me to be trumping administrative rights in site-banning me, which is what sight-deletion amounts to. Of course, I could edit-war on content but I don't want to be sucked into that. It's seems rather extraordinary to me that I am given no option by a co-editor than disappearing from the page, or edit-warring, since he refuses to answer any question I might put, or consider any edit I may make. That is behavioural, not an issue of content, surely? Nishidani (talk) 20:02, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Again, neither WP:FTN nor WP:RSN are relevant, since it has already been classified as Pseudohistory, a branch of WP:Fringe, with regard to extensive arguments in the former, and, with regard to WP:RSN every source he elides is by definition RS, since they are articles and books by tenured academics in academic mainstream journals or under imprint from major presses, university or otherwise. User:Smatprt appears to refuse to accept wiki rulings on both of those venues, and that in turn is a behavioural problem.Nishidani (talk) 20:12, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

This may require outside assistance. Dispute resolution will only work if both parties agree to work together. Since Smatprt has variously said "you are a POV warrior", "I am not going to engage with you" and "you have basically turned into a vandal in my eyes" and suggested ARBCOM I don't see how this can be resolved without outside intervention. Exxolon (talk) 21:00, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I would tend to disagree with some of the outside commentors who have posted so far. I have never been involved with Shakespeare related articles, but from looking over the history of the page and especially of the last two days, I think it would be beneficial to the encyclopedia if Smatprt were topic banned. So, proposal: Smatprt is topic-banned from editing pages relating to William Shakespeare, broadly construed. NW (Talk) 21:36, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

• Strong support. Good grief, is Smatprt, an SPA and devotee of fringe theories, still edit warring on the Shakespeare articles? I gave up attempting to edit them years ago because of him/her. A topic ban would indeed be beneficial to the encyclopedia. Bishonen | talk 22:02, 8 October 2010 (UTC).

An SPA? Hardly - I have edited hundreds of articles here. Check my history. I do remember User:Bishonen though - he was among a small group of editors that wanted the SAQ banned from wikipedia completely. Good grief is right. Smatprt (talk) 00:12, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Did I? Very likely, if I understand what you mean by "banning" an article. Mind you, if your "list-article"[56] Shakespeare authorship doubters had existed then, I would have started with that. It's if possible even more slanted than Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship and Shakespeare authorship question. Bishonen | talk 01:22, 9 October 2010 (UTC).

This is a behavior problem: Smatprt cannot act this way to protect his version of the article. Sources must be discussed to see which ones have the greatest authority, and if two expert sources disagree, the article must reflect this by including both. Smatprt must stand down from his unsupportable sense of WP:OWNership of the article, and begin interacting with editors. Binksternet (talk) 22:24, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I would agree with using both references in cases like this. The problem is that Nishidani keeps replacing long-standing sources (that he dislikes) with those that he prefers. No talk, no consensus building, just deletions. I will live up to this suggestion by Binksternet, but will he? Smatprt (talk) 00:30, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

No, please don't personalize this. I don't replace references I dislike. I replace, everywhere I can, sources from fringe websites, or advocacy orgs with books having an academic imprint, or which are issued by major publishing houses, in line with policy, even if the matter to be sourced is something I might personally dislike. Your edits removed two such improvements to superior sourcing.Nishidani (talk) 14:31, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

• Topic ban per recommendation. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 22:34, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

• Support topic ban. I've been involved in this dispute in a very minor way, and I believe that Smatprt's obsession with giving undue weight to a fringe theory of Shakespearian authorship is damaging the encyclopedia—it certainly makes editing the Shakespeare articles less enjoyable. His decision that he's going to blanket revert Nishidani's edits as vandalism are an obvious concern. If the topic ban doesn't go through, this probably should go to arbcom, but that's not going to make anyone happy, especially not Smatprt. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:43, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, in a way, ArbCom might be the best place - ultimately it needs to be decided if Nishidani and Tom are to be allowed to continue all these deletions (sections in over 25 articles at latest count). That is what the current mediation is all about, but depending on how this goes, that mediation may be stifled before it is even given a chance, which would be unfortunate. Every other SAQ editor has been chased off this encyclopedia. I am the only one left. Maybe that's the way it should be? Who knows? But it would be nice if some uninvolved editors weighed in here, because as of now, it appears that most of these "topic bans" are coming from Nishidani's long-standing co-editors or those who have a history with me personally. Smatprt (talk) 00:54, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually I am a 'SAQ editor', and your recent behaviour effectively drove me off one of the pages related to SAQ. By 'SAQ editor' you clearly understand:'editors who subscribe to any one of the fringe theories being described on the SAQ page', which constitutes an improper construal of what that phrase means. Peter Farey pops in there to make suggestions. He's a well-known Marlovian, and has no complaints I know of about my behaviour nor Tom's. Indeed, we've worked together quite amicably, since he fully understands the problem with sourcing to web sites, and accepted my use of academic references as substitutes for ideas he had previously documented by linking to challengeable web pages. The 'other' editors you refer implicitly to, mainly show up in cases like this to lend support, but appear not to care to actively edit these texts, for what reasons I do not know. Nishidani (talk) 14:41, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

ArbCom might actually not be the best place from your point of view, Smatprt, considering this principle of theirs: "It is unacceptable for an editor to continually accuse others of egregious misbehavior in an attempt to besmirch their reputation."[57] Attacks without evidence are particularly uncivil, so please give diffs for your claims about these long-standing "co-editors". I've never "co-edited" with Nishidani. Have you, KillerChihuahua? You, NuclearWarfare? Akhilleus? Bishonen | talk 01:46, 9 October 2010 (UTC).

Ah, but you have reverted smatprt before.[58] Granted, it was three years ago, but it's not completely illogical that he might think of you as being on the same "team". --GentlemanGhost (talk) 02:01, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Here are a few from Akhilleus: [[59]] and [[60]].Smatprt (talk) 05:02, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

And Bishonen, have you honestly forgotten this exchange of ours? [[61]] (among others). my point was that you and several others here are not uninvolved. Smatprt (talk) 05:27, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Indeed I had; after a few years, I do tend to forget most such sour, suspicious bad-faith assumptions as yours at that link. Good job too, since encountering them is not exactly the fun part of editing. But I'm glad you remembered it, because it's quite interesting in this context, and if we're lucky, people will click on it even though it's old. Don't you have any example of my involvement that's not three years old? Bishonen | talk 11:27, 9 October 2010 (UTC).

Response from SMATPRT.

• Yes, this is a content dispute. And I do categorically deny that I have banned Nishidani or any editor from any page. I could easily argue that Nishidani has done the same thing to me on numerous occasions. Here is an example [[62]], where in the subject line Nishidani says "You can't discuss this on Francis Meres' page" Is he allowed to issue such instructions?
• But it goes much deeper than that. Nishidani is currently involved in a mediation [[63]] that goes to the real heart of the problem. He has participated in a systematic deletion campaign of any mention of the SAQ except in the one or two articles that he has allowed its mention. He has a history of tag-teaming with user:TomReedy to avoid 3RR, knowing that I am his only obstacle.

• I believe this is also retaliation for this topic ban request [[64]] which lays out for all concerned editors the many abuses and tactics he has employed during this argument.
• An earlier report on his many abuses is here [[65]].
• The wikiquette report I filed on him after being advised at the administrators noticeboard is here [[66]].

If anyone deserves a topic ban it is Nishidani. Having said that, I do regret my statements today. After reading this history and the above noticeboards, I would hope that any reasonable person would understand the situation and not jump to conclusions.Smatprt (talk) 00:02, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

• I would hope that no reasonable person would assume that amount of bad faith, out in the open, here on ANI, as to ascribe "tag-teaming" and "retaliation" to a respectable user. You should pull in your horns, Smatprt, before somebody suggests an ANI ban for you. Bishonen | talk 01:24, 9 October 2010 (UTC).

How is your threat helping to calm the situation, Bishonen? --GentlemanGhost (talk) 01:35, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

How is your cheap jibe helpful here, GentlemanGhost? Bishonen | talk 11:31, 9 October 2010 (UTC).

I'm not sure how Nishidani can claim that this is anything but a content dispute. His partisanship in this is obvious. I find it interesting that he is pushing for a topic ban rather than letting the currently active mediation run its course or taking it to ArbCom. That's putting the cart before the horse as far as I am concerned. And, conveniently, if he gets smatprt banned from the topic, it allows him to have de facto say about what goes into the article. Smatprt's behavior has been bad, to be sure, but I've seen worse offenders handled with kid gloves. Is there a compelling reason why we must rush to judgment here, other than a general desire not to deal with the issue or a dislike of smatprt? Like Nishidani, I also don't agree with the Oxfordian point of view, but I haven't turned it into a religious war. I trust that the admins will act appropriately and not out of proportion. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 01:33, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Insisting on proper sourcing is not partisan. Insisting that editors work to finish pages, rather that hog them without improving them, and resenting intrusions by people who like to complete pages, is not partisan. It is taking one's task here as goal-orientated, not a pastime to tickle with one's personal belief-system online. It is a matter of method. Secondly, where did I 'push for a topic ban'? I asked for input on how to classify Smatprt's behaviour. What you find 'interesting' happens to be your distortion of my words. Independent reviewers of my evidence (a drop in the ocean of what's going on) called for a topic ban. Not reading what editors actually say or write and responding to it, but, rather imagining what they might be saying and getting upset, is, precisely, one of the issues at stake.Nishidani (talk) 12:09, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose topic ban. Agree with GentlemanGhost. Softlavender (talk) 02:05, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

• Support topic ban - This has been going on long enough, let's stop it before we back here in the same place six months, or a year or whatever from now. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:51, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

• Support topic ban but for both Smatprt and Nishidani, to let them cool off.

Smatprt appears to have a history of being involved in issues that get taken to a noticeboard, and warnings about civility, copyright problems, and general complaint messages from other editors, and has been blocked several times before. I suggest he is not wholly innocent in the current issue. His apparent action that suggests he's he's going to blanket revert Nishidani's edits as vandalism would be a statement of intent to vandalize the article through disruptive editing which is not the way to resolve disputes, and could get him blocked again. Nishidani appears to have a history of being involved with heated arguments, cases of possible lack of civility, and a block log with several entries. From the confusing use of Nishidani's talk page, as a sandbox for article drafts, it not easy to determine his general conversational behaviour.

Of other Shakespeare article editors' (not named here), contributions to the talk pages appear to encourage or inflame disputes by referring to their involvement in disputes as: guns were drawn on the left and knives on the right, AN/I and RS discussions were referenced, topic bans were threatened, and an SPI revealed a sock puppet. It was kind of exciting, and comments such as I believe Marlow wrote all Shakespears plays - for example, (but not stated by the plaintiffs or respondents in this ANI) - which may lead even the most mild mannered editors into believing they too can disregard the rules with impunity. Disscussions, even heated ones, are supposed to be about improving articles, and not discussing heated academic issues in support of personal opinion, originial research, or other editors.--Kudpung (talk) 04:00, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

This would leave me bewildered had I not a long memory for the odd things that can occur here. I 'cool off'? I have 'a history of being involved with heated arguments, cases of possible lack of civility, and a block log with several entries'? I had just two minor suspensions for 8 hours and 24 hours in the first months of editing wikipedia, as a result of restoring WP:RS elided by tagteaming editors one of whom was definitely banned later. And one perma-ban for 8 non-consectuive reverts over 50 days. That, I beg to differ, is actually a surprisingly good record over four years of working in conflict-ridden zones where the required articles are not being written because of POV warring. Nothing else, and only because I volunteered to work on pages that better editors, more experienced wikipedians, and several administrators are on record as keeping clear of because they are famously subject to vexatious warring. If you can actually produce any evidence that, out there in the wiki community generally, editors regard me as difficult, impolite, unamenable to extensive talk page analysis, or a congenital edit warrior etc., by all means do so. The only trouble I have gotten into throughout these four years is due to my persistence in asking editors to use academic or quality press sources, to write controversial pages, and adopt internationally accepted terminology to describe the topology of areas where an ethnic conflict contaminates usage with partisan language. Vague impressions from a quick glance at my record are not enough to say I am on a par with the editor attempting to keep me off what he appears to consider his page. When Smatprt was bullied by a pseudo-newbie, RewlandUmmer, with a strong odour of being a self-recycled perma-banned edit warrior, I hastened to defend him this August when some doubts were raised about his behaviour. I stepped in here and here to give him advice, and on the ANI noticeboard. Smatprt’s intuition proved correct. Our exchanges were civil, indeed friendly. Out of the blue, unfortunately, this disappeared today. From pleasantry to blanket deletion of anything I edit on a page he wishes to monopolize. You appear to have been persuaded by the specious list of ostensible instances of bad behaviour cited above by Smart which breaks down to being no such thing, as I noted here. Indeed his complaint was ignored by all those who commented. As I will show below, if time allows, this is the second time Smatprt has acted to keep me from editing a page dealing with a subject he has a strong personal faith commitment to.Nishidani (talk) 07:42, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I think there is a content dispute here that can be resolved, although all parties should back up a step, take a deep breath and try once more to work together in good faith to come to an understanding. I suggest that instead of trying to rewrite the page all at once, Nishidani place numbered comments on the talk page. Then Smatprt should respond to each proposed change with his reasons why he agrees or disagrees with each one, or propose a better alternative or compromise, and the other editors who work on these authorship pages can weigh in. Hopefully a consensus can be reached on each item, or at least the majority of them, and then if there are a few particularly contentious items left, the parties can seek further comments from a wider group of commentators. -- Ssilvers (talk) 04:33, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I.e., after several years with no substantial progress made on these pages, and many complaints of obstructionism, the solution is for me, the most recent editor, to bow my head, submit to Smatprt's effective control of jurisdiction and provide him with suggestions on the talk page, which he may approve of, or disagree with. I see you do not apply the same logic to his editing, i.e., prior approval before on-page editing. Nishidani (talk) 14:31, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Strongly support banning Smartpt from the Shakespeare topic area, broadly construed. What I'm seeing is several year's worth of editors trying to work with this Smartpt person within this very narrow topic area, being met with little but extreme antagonism, personal attacks, bullying, and tendentious editing. Tarc (talk) 12:28, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Support topic banning of Smatprt. Edits over the last few days and the history of this dispute at Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard (check archives) convince me that this is the best way forward. I do not think that any of the other issues raised here require action at this level, though I could be convinced otherwise. The editors involved are well-familiar with our several dispute resolution mechanisms for resolving content disputes, which should be sufficient now. To the best of my recollection, I have never edited with Smatprt or Nishidani except incidentally, though I have skimmed most of the above-referenced FT/N threads. - 2/0 (cont.) 13:53, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Comment from smatprt: Several editors here have made reference to prior complaints about my editing practices. I just want to advise everyone that (by far) the great majority of complaints originated from a banned editor operating over a dozen sockpuppets who waged a personal vendetta against me and several other users. Here are links to the 2 cases and the archive:[[67]], [[68]] and [[69]]. I am in no way saying that I have not been controversial. The minority view articles I have edited make me an easy target and I have fought back with gusto, I admit. But the campaign by the banned editor has left a lasting record that is easy to misinterpret.Smatprt (talk) 17:57, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Additional comment by smatprt: Several comments here raise an issue of me "bullying" and making personal attacks, yet no diffs are provided. I have raised the similiar issue of Nishidani's behaviour towards me. Diffs were requested so here are just a handful:

• [[70]] – “unlike some others, I don't suffer from ADS"

• [[71]] “I'm presuming you are not an adolescent struggling in remedial classes in English, while you edit with furor here.”

• [[72]] - accused of “faking” evidence

• [[73] – “Are you just acting DUMB?...a reflection that English is not your mother tongue."

• [[74]] "Don't be so faux clunk-headed."

• [[75]] "Oxfordian harping all about repetition.” “is what happens when textual evidence is decanted through incompetent interpreters"

• [[76]] "There's edit-warring and edit-whoring, and you practice both."

This abuse by Nishidani been goin on non-stop for almost a year now. I admit my recent talk page edits where I indicated that I would not engage with himm further and regarded him as a vandal, etc. were over the top. But frankly, I feel I have been bullied, harrassed, insulted and whenever I appealed for help to the appropriate noticeboard I recieved none. I admit it - After months of abuse, after months of being told how terrible an editor I am, and after being told to stay off the main pages and restrict myself to certain articles, I felt like I had enough and lashed out. I was wrong to do so, but we all have a breaking point. I reached mine. Regardless of the outcome here, I am self-imposing a wiki-break of one week. As recommended above, I need to step back, breathe, and reaccess my own actions here. Smatprt (talk) 17:22, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

'has been going on non-stop for almost a year now.'

Your diffs are ancient history (I admit, it's a deplorable rhetoric of exasperation, like shaking an uncomprehending chap by the shoulders), and not appropriate to this specific issue. We have had no interactions of substance for six months, and that is why now you are forced to dig up the past in order to buttress the idea that you've been harassed mercilessly.

I began editing the now defunct Shakespeare Authorship Question page in February, and suffered a month of extreme exasperation at the extraordinary number of quite trivial arguments your refusal to apply policy generated. All of these diffs date to early-mid March. Science Apologist at that point asked us to merge several highly repetitive articles and forks, and do so by creating a sandbox page ex nihilo to rewrite the disputed text (it's been in trouble for several years). Tom created [A sandbox draft] to do this on 16 March 2010. Despite efforts to start afresh the same problems got quick drafting bogged down. On your own initiative therefore you created a second sandbox article asking Tom and I to go away from you. We did, without protest. Since that date our contacts have been extremely intermittent. I came to your defence in August against the Baconian who attacked you. Tom and I over the last 6 months did over 1200 consecutive edits and built the completely new proposal page for the Shakespeare Authorship Question. It is formatted according to GA principles, consecutive in its logic, adhering to NPOV, covering all major aspects of the debate, and sourced strictly to reliable academic books. The result is Talk:Shakespeare authorship question/sandbox draft2. In the meantime, after our split, you made 60 edits to the first sandbox page, without substantive changes, and created a third sandbox page, the monstrously merged TalkShakespeare Authorship Page, sandbox 3, which cost 25 edits. I did 850 odd edits alone, then Tom did 370 odd. Please note that he disagreed substantially with my version in his rewriting, and I had no objection to that. In other words, where no conflict situation was present, Tom Reedy and myself worked rapidly and completely rewrote a troubled page according to policy requirements, but you, essentially, stopped working on it.

So, we fulfilled our remit, and await for the community to choose between the 3 versions you created or held hostage as though they were your terrain, and our one version. I started to glance at the Oxfordian theory page, realizing it would not be amenable to the merge proposed and, despite 6 months in which we had virtually no interaction, you instantly reverted everything I did there, without even troubling to look at it. So it is rather late in the day to scavenge through the archives for telling evidence against me for a supposed year long enmity . For 6 months I have honoured the tacit agreement to just edit, without commenting on you. You, apparently, refuse to accept my presence on that page, notwithstanding the long ceasefire. This is not a content war, it is about whether wikipedia has a right to a polished, GA-level page on the subject so dear to you, or whether several pages will lie about, with few substantive edits, and endless argument, in a state of distress, woeful sourcing, inaccurate paraphrase of references, and confused order.

The point is, therefore, that it is now twice where you either fork articles to get fellow wikipedians off your terrain, or simply blanket their edits if they intrude on a page dealing with Oxfordian 'theory'. The second action came without any provocation from me, which suggests fatigue, if not enmity. I haven't asked for a ban, as rumoured. I asked that the conditions, given this behavioural problem, be created to allow readers of wikipedia a finished article or two, on these subjects, something that alone or with others you haven't been able to achieve for four years, despite the evident passion for both the subject matter and Shakespeare (which is commendable).Nishidani (talk) 19:14, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

First off, Nishidani's summary of events above is not at all accurate, and even misleading. But to the point. I don't need to go back 10 months - lets just go back a few weeks then - Here are two more recent links [[77]] and [[78]].

In the first Nishidani says "Smatprt is a poor editor, whose inability to understand both Shakespearean scholarship and wikipedia practices, invaqriably leads his interlocutors to waste huge amounts of time on multiple pages, to nudge him towards some awareness of the confused state of the edits he does propose." and in the second he says "My impression is that Smatprt cannot work, when given the opportunity to do so, in a fre unrestricted and unchallenged environment, but only becomes hyperactive when he works a page where he has several people disagreeing with him. He proved hyperactive when editing with Tom and myself, and otiose when challenged to work on his own." Nishidani also wrote "I dislike working in a conflictual environment, and I think Tom does as well. By the statistics, that is the only environment where Smatprt is willing to operate." And now he has the guts to say "For 6 months I have honoured the tacit agreement to just edit, without commenting on you". Without commenting on me??? my god, he has never stopped, which these diffs prove beyond doubt. His constant attempts to mislead the community like this is simply astounding.

The straw that broke my back were these statements by Nishidani "So I return to my original request. That he goes and fixes, untroubled, the fringe theory pages which are a mess, to show that he can produce work up to the minimal standards of quality wikipedia is seeking, before engaging with other pages, with the usual conflictual results." and " I'm quite willing to deal with any proposal, as long as he can show, in good faith, that he can produce at least one page, unhampered by editors who think his pet belief system nonsense, on de Vere, the Oxfordian theory, Oxfordian chronology or the Shakespeare Authorship Question that would pass as a fair achievement by a high school student in his final year." (Nice touch)

So in the last week or so, I started working on the Oxfordian article and the bio on De Vere. And in Nishidani jumped, switching out refs to those he prefers, accusing me of various wikicrimes, telling me I "can't discuss this", and adding in some of the most partisan and POV statements I have ever seen. Nishidani proposed I go work "untroubled" and "unhampered" by him, and then he immediately broke his own proposal! And then he comes here with one misleading story after another. Amazing. And that, as they say, is the rest of the story. Smatprt (talk) 21:54, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I oppose banning Smatprt, or the topic, and i propose banning Nishidani and Tom Reedy instead. I was a regular on articles related to the Shakespeare authorship question for a time, but found the two them so mean-spirited, uncooperative and bullying that I decided it was a waste of time. The way they treat people who disagree with them is shocking, IMO. I'm surprised to see they are still getting way with this sort of thing. It's certainly not in the best interest of Wikipedia. Schoenbaum (talk) 21:58, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

IP spam

The IP, 87.114.85.253 has been going around seemingly seeking out all the Northern Irish Unionist lsupporting users and all leaving the following message on their talk page under the title, RIRA:

You may be interested in the obstructive reverts by pro IRA sympathisers at RIRA -- It appears that it is an attempt by O Fenian to censor information relating to convicted terrorists and in particular, the self-confessed former second in command of the RIRA. O Fenian's motives are somewhat obvious since he has consistently edited articles in favour of Republican terrorists. I have no doubt that his conduct is contrary to Wikipedia policy on naming such terrorists given that several reliable sources have been given.

Now allthough I have had my disputes with O Fenian on the site many times, I have had 0 input into the page he is referring me to. The reason I'm complaining is because Mabuska has told me I'm not the only one he's sent this to and apparently he's sent this to 5 others (his contributions suggest more) So can something be done about this? The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 20:55, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, blocking the IP for block evasion by a de facto banned user, which has already been done. I can't see anything else to do here.  Sandstein  21:31, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I have been following the various ip's around and noting the fact of the posts being by a sock, and commenting that concerns with other editors should only be broached per WP policies and guidelines - although I do assume that all those who received the initial post would not do otherwise - in those instances where there had been no other postings. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:05, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Kosovo/Serbia terminology, possible edit warring

An IP editor, currently using 217.209.156.162, has been systematically changing articles to identify Kosovo as a province of Serbia. This is, of course, a sensitive issue, and the IP appears to be reopening a settled dispute (or at least one where a ceasefire has been in place). I don't know enough about the history of the underlying dispute to be confident that I'll clean things up properly, and I'm not familiar enough with the ArbComm directives to go mucking around unilaterally. Could someone familiar with the issues take a look at this before it gets worse? Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 22:26, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Notices have been dropped on the page of the user. We do need to keep an eye on this as it is one of those hyper-contentious areas. JodyB _talk 23:27, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

To Hullaballoo and JodyB. I am not claiming to be an expert on many things. But on this subject I am more or less an expert due to the fact I have worked with it since spring 1999. Kosovo is according to the vast majority of the IC (International community), ie UN, OSCE, EU, IOC and 122 of the worlds 192 countries, a Serbian province today. What it will be in a year or in 50 years, no one knows. As today as we speak, Kosovo is not even close to be an own country. Like I said, this could be changed. BUT, I thought that Wikipedia should reflect as close as we could come to the truth RIGHT NOW. Am I wrong ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.209.156.162 (talk) 13:56, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Unauthorized bot: Δ again

Resolved

 – Not a bot; just very fast Rodhullandemu 23:27, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

• Δ (talk · contribs)

It is once again obvious that Δ is running a bot on his main account. Is this legit? Magog the Ogre (talk) 23:18, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

• Goddammit, Im not using bots, rather just tabs with find and replace. Please come to my talk page before starting the drama. ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 23:20, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Oh man you're quick, before I even put up {{subst:ANI-notice}}. I apologize. Don't ever drink and edit Wikipedia at the same time. Magog the Ogre (talk) 23:21, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I make it a point to keep an eye on the wiki, If my username is given in an edit summary I know about it within 5 seconds (if im at the computer). My recent find/replace was in regard to MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist#ip_address_URLs where I pointed out that IP based URLs break, I noticed that 209.85.173.132 has quite a few links, (finding archiveurls and naming bare links have been one of my recent tasks) and that 209.85.173.132 is actually google.com but if you try and click any of the ip based urls they are dead. That was caused by the servers changing IP addresses (a very normal phenomenon) and that if you replace the IP with google.com the links start to work again, so thats what I started to do. ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 23:32, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry... did you just say don't? Damn, I've been getting that sdrawckab all this time. → ROUX ₪ 23:24, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

That would explain... er, never mind. :-) --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 23:51, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I like to think Wikipedia editing operates on the Ballmer Curve. --Golbez (talk) 00:17, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Meat, Libel, four AfDs, and assorted weirdness at David Bruce McMahan

We have a strange situation brewing and I believe that we will need an admin to come in immediately and sort it all out.

Issue One: Blog accusing Wikipedia of deleting articles for money

An IP posted a link to this article today at the talk for David Bruce McMahan. I responded that the process was all done legitimately to my knowledge. It was done at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bruce McMahan (3rd nomination).

Considering that this is an issue of libel against Wikipedia, this might need intervention by the office staff. Or we can ignore the blogger, who appears to be a hack, and move on. More likely option is the first one, with all the chaos that entails.

Issue Two: Meatpuppetry or other Odd Beheavior

Someone with more experiance than I should look at the edit histories of user:SirBruce and the IP 69.140.102.40. SirBruce has not been seen since 9 Feb 2010 and then posted in the talk page warning another user not to remove sources. The other user (Melaen) seems above question and seems to have taken the correct actions, but SirBruce's appearance raises questions. This is compounded by the edit history of the IP which has been absent for over a month before posting the link to the voice and making accusations against Wikipedia.

Finally, the article creator Wikidpedia appeared today for the first time since 2007 to create this article. In 2007 he created several other articles that were deleted. The timing of all these users is suspicious. The admin User:Cirt blocked the account for 48 hours for disruptive editing, but I think this is someone's dormant sock, as there is no other explination as to why the account would suddenly come in and create an article like this.

Issue Three: The curious history of Bruce McMahan and David Bruce McMahan

There have been four AfDs for this article. Three without the David, one with it. I upgraded the fourth to a CSD G3 on account of it being deleted before. That being said, the first and second AfDs resulted in Keeps, and the third was a Delete. The sources seemed not to have changed, but the consensus shifted. In full disclosure I voted delete on the newest AfD, but was unaware of the other three except for the notification of the deletion history at the AfD. I wanted to bring this up in light of the posting from the Voice, and because the people that hang out here will know the best course of action in all three incidents.

I will not be participating in the discussion of these issues unless I am asked to do so. Please inform me at my talk page if I am needed. Sven Manguard _Talk 01:58, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Note

The page in question has just been deleted. Apparently this is not a problem for Admins, so I don't advise restoring it, as it can only cause more problems. All three issues are still valid though. Sven Manguard _Talk 02:12, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Relevant link to final AFD before speedy: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/David Bruce McMahan. Falcon8765 ^(TALK) 02:13, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Comments

So this guy gets his page deleted because he's not "notable" even though he's had plenty of articles written on him and lawsuits against him. What would make him notable in the eyes of Wikipedia? A reference on Family Guy? Does Peter need to go "Bruce McMahan? That's like that one time I slept with Meg!"?

Just because the content of the article is poor, doesn't mean the entire page should be deleted. This person is clearly notable based on the wide coverage this has received in addition to his role as CEO of a firm that has received coverage, philanthropy that has received coverage, etc. Most of the criticism leveled is hung up on the negative nature of the original article -- clearly, the article's content was unacceptable. But, that means a stub should be created, sources listed, and appropriate tags citing need for improvement, perhaps even created with protection given the obvious controversy, and so forth. In other words, deleting articles due to controversy is ridiculous. There are hundreds of thousands of articles with far less reliable (and far fewer) sources that we don't go around randomly deleting. We need to be honest with ourselves and admit that we are deleting the article repeatedly due to, 1) the article content being bad (even in poor taste), and 2) controversial. However, neither of this actually justify the actions taken. It means that it's just going to be a huge pain in the ass for an admin to maintain and a writer to create. Strom (talk) 05:14, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I have deleted this wretched and unacceptable article, along with its talkpage. They should not be restored. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:14, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Agree with this comment by Newyorkbrad (talk · contribs), above. -- Cirt (talk) 02:21, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

This is all well and good, and I stand by the delete, but issues one and two are still important. Should issue 1 be taken to the office and issue 2 to the sockbusters? If so, can someone else do it, I'm not sure how to report things to the office staff or how to report possible meats without knowing who the leader is. Sven Manguard _Talk 02:27, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I went ahead and salted the article on the reason that some extensive discussion will be necessary before considering recreation. –MuZemike 02:33, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Just a random policy question from a new-ish user. I know salting prevents recreating articles, but do the discussion pages also get salted? If so it didn't get done in either case... Just curious, Sven Manguard _Talk 02:42, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

• Can someone explain this to me? NYB's deletion summary indicates that there are multiple AfDs that have deleted this, but I'm only seeing one (proceeded by 2 keeps where consensus was strongly on the keep side). Further I'm not having problems finding sources on this person. There is all the "odd" stuff like [79] and [80], but there are also things like [81], [82] and [83]on his world-record setting car and for his foundation work [84], [85]. Help? Hobit (talk) 03:00, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

• • 3rd AFD, 2nd AFD, 1st AFD. As far as this last deletion was concerned, after looking at the deleted copy, I do have to agree with NYB. It was entirely negative in tone and would have likely fallen under WP:CSD#G10 as an attack page; it just happened to have been deleted a bunch of times before that. –MuZemike 03:09, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
    • The 2nd and 1st were keeps. So if we do want this recreated we get a userspace version and DrV it? If so, I'd like to request the version deleted by the 3rd AfD be userfied to me. I'll dig back and find what was keepable about 1 and 2 and use that as a starting point. Hobit (talk) 03:21, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
      • I didn't see any of those articles, but I'm guessing that the most recent version was a gross violation of our BLP policies, and as such it shouldn't be userfied either - i.e., it should stay invisible to the public. If the result of the second AFD was "keep", then maybe that one could be userfied - if its content is not potentially libelous. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:33, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
        • Fine with me I suppose, but given that it wasn't deleted for being libelous, I assume that the 3rd should be fine too. I'll take either (assuming I get the history). Hobit (talk) 03:35, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

This is clearly a page that should exist. David Bruce McMahan aka D. Bruce McMahan aka David B. McMahan has had several feature stories written about him in newspapers and magazines, including cover articles in New Times Broward-Palm Beach and Village Voice. He was the subject of multiple lawsuits and has tried to censor journalists and now Wikipedia from reporting on him. He is also a successful businessman and philanthropist who has multiple projects named after him.

The content of the article on Wikipedia was at one time up to standards, but got gutted. The article should be improved and not deleted. There is more than enough information, including direct source legal papers, to fill an appropriate article on him. The page just needs time to stay up instead of being deleted so it can be improved.

http://www.villagevoice.com/2006-09-26/news/daddy-s-girl/

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2010/10/memo_to_bruce_m.php

http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/Issues/2006-09-28/news/feature.html

--66.246.94.130 (talk) 03:27, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I really hate to do this, as the comment I am about to make flies in the face of many of my core policies, but it has to be said: I'm been to South Florida. I've had the distinct misfortune of reading the New Times. It is unreliable, and has such tremendously low journalistic standards that it is on par with trash tabloids. I would never use it as a source in anything. I'd sooner use the National Inquirer. The New Times is NOT a suitable source, ever, period. As for the other sources, anything with blog in the name is genertally viewed with skepticism. A few blogs are editor reviewed and have high standards. The NPR blogs come to mind. Most blogs are not editor reviewed and therefore are not good sources. Also considering this article my view of the voice as reliable isn't that high.

You need better sources. If the man is notable, they will exist. Sven Manguard _Talk 03:53, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

@66.246.94.130: Your edit here is higly inappropriate. Avoid attacking the closing admin, it never helps an argument. Sven Manguard _Talk 03:59, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

<ec>Two things. #1, as I listed above, there are plenty of other sources, so if the New Times is really that bad, we can cope. The discussion about the New Times can happen at WP:RSN. #2 Sven, do you have any WP:COI issues with McMahan? Given your relatively short history here (though lots of edits in that time) I figured it would be worth asking just to be sure. I assume you are a returning editor going for a WP:CLEANSTART, but the COI think also seems possible. Hobit (talk) 04:01, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Nope, no COI. I have the unfortunate habit of unknowingly stepping into existing conflicts, (see the above ANI that I posted in) but this is more of a "I saw something wrong and went after it" sort of thing. As to my knowledge, I have been editing Wikipedia since 2006. I only got an account recently because I spent three months abroad and away from Wikipedia, and came back to a new review system, a dramatic increase in semi-protections, and an overall less condusive atmosphere towards IP editing. Before getting the account, I never used automated tools or participated in ANI or AFD, although I did launch one SOCK investigation from my iPhone. Hence my large general knowledge and low specific knowledge. Also I seem to bite off more than I can chew and have terrible spelling, but again, no COI. If you want to give me guideance on anything, please feel free to do so. Sven Manguard _Talk 04:35, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

The "blogger who appears to be a hack" that Sven speaks of in his "Issue 1" above is Tony Ortega, Editor in Chief of The Village Voice, as it says at the end of the Ortega/VV blog that Sven linked to. Sven, since you referred to Ortega as a "hack", he appears to have now returned the favor by referring to you in an update to his column as a "minion" (see immediately preceding link, "Update" section). I'd very respectfully suggest that it might help keep drama to a minimum, now that you've made your opinion known, if you were to follow through on the intention you stated when you initiated this thread, and perhaps not continue to participate in this discussion. You're free to do as you think best, of course, and perhaps it'll be necessary for you to comment further, at least briefly. But it would be unfortunate if you (or any individual editor here) were to in any way "become the story". This thread shouldn't be about your opinion of Ortega, or his opinion of you: It needs to remain focused on whether we are to have a McMahan article on Wikipedia.  – OhioStandard (talk) 18:59, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Just a quick note: Tony Ortega did not claim, nor imply, that Wikipedia deleted the article "for money". If he did say or imply that, please do let me know, because that's absolutely false and libelous. But I think what he said was also false, and it is worth me saying so plainly. His claim appears to be that McMahan's money allowed him to intimidate Wikipedia into deleting the article through legal threats. That's absolutely false. There is no prohibition on creating the article from either the Foundation or me. Whether or not there should be an article about this topic is entirely up to the community in accordance with the usual procedures. I don't recommend having a brawl about it, and of course Newyorkbrad's wise comments should be very thoughtfully considered. For me personally, a big test for this article, and a challenge perhaps difficult to meet, is WP:BLP1E. Beyond that, the article would need to be thoughtful and respectful of human dignity and would have to work really hard to draw conservative conclusions rather than following a single source as if it is the gospel truth.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:23, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

National Cristina Foundation

As long as this is being discussed, someone should have a look at this edit. I reverted, but perhaps the IP who made it should be dealt with and a revdelete imposed. Also, please examine the link to the Village Voice story recently inserted. Admins should watchlist. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 17:17, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I've revision deleted that edit, and a similar edit to the talkpage. I gave the IP a final warning, as the edits were from several hours ago. They have, however, already had one block for a similar (deleted) edit. If someone else feels a block here is warranted they'll get no objection from me. I haven't looked at the Village Voice link yet. TFOWR 17:27, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Please take a look at the talk page history. The libelous edit summary is still live. IMO the talk page should be deleted entirely. Also please look at the link to the Voice story in the article. Perhaps that should be revdeleted, too. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 17:33, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Edit summaries have been deleted as well, now - thanks for catching that. I'm still catching up with the Village Voice link/ref. TFOWR 17:37, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

It's a link to the same Voice story mentioned in the first post of this thread containing the accusations against McMahan. It's not relevant to the Cristina Foundation. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 17:41, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, and I've revrted it and semi-protected the article. I have not revision-deleted the Village Voice ref, however. (I may yet, and have no objection to anyone else doing so). TFOWR 17:44, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Further to this issue, some time after TWOFRs post an IP posted a link on the articles Talk Page to a YouTube video alledgedly about "Bruce McMahaon's dark past". I have deleted the link and related comments - 220.101 talk^\Contribs 19:43, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

99ers Massive Copyright Violations

Resolved

 – Thanks for bringing this to our attention. Diannaa's advice is correct. Sven Manguard _Talk 07:33, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I know this is not the correct place to report this, but am unsure how to properly report copyright violations.

The article 99ers has what I believe is massive amounts of cut and paste sections which appear to violation WP:COPYPASTE. I brought my concern up on the talk page, but the primary editor believes me and another editor to be biased against "99ers" and I don't feel like wading into a battle.

From the very first paragraph the following is cut and pasted.

Senate Democrats spent Thursday night hammering away at Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) for single-handedly holding up action in the upper chamber – but he blurted out a message to one of them on the Senate floor: "Tough s—t." In an unusual display in the normally sleepy chamber, Bunning – without the support of GOP leadership – has blocked efforts to quickly approve a series of extensions to measures that would otherwise expire Sunday, including unemployment insurance and the Cobra program that allows people who lose their health benefits to continue getting coverage.

From the actual article

Senate Democrats spent Thursday night hammering away at Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) for single-handedly holding up action in the upper chamber – but he blurted out a message to one of them on the Senate floor: “Tough s—t.” In an unusual display in the normally sleepy chamber, Bunning – without the support of GOP leadership – has blocked efforts to quickly approve a series of extensions to measures that would otherwise expire Sunday, including unemployment insurance and the Cobra program that allows people who lose their health benefits to continue getting coverage.

That is only one of what I count to be at least 12 instances. Assistance on this issue would be appreciated. Arzel (talk) 03:26, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

The place to go is WP:Copyright problems#Instructions. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 04:13, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Nair

a big group of anonymous editors gang up to remove the reference to polyandry among Nairs in the article. There are multiple peer reviewed articles as i have mentioned here. all these anonymous users and WP:SPAs just use the argument that they just dont like it.

Pichaiyan Nadar (talk · contribs · count), Bhattathirippadu (talk · contribs · count), Robynhood.Pandey (talk · contribs · count), Pulayan Punchapadam (talk · contribs · count), 86.155.192.27 (talk · contribs · count), S R K MENON (talk · contribs · count), Thankappan Pillai (talk · contribs · count), 59.92.206.28 (talk · contribs · count) and Suresh.Varma.123 (talk · contribs · count) are the users. --CarTick 04:04, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

First of all, User CarTick is targeting the Nair article in bad faith for the past several months (from the opinion of several other users). Despite repeat requests by other users, CarTick has so far failed to give the reason to include his points and the noticeability of it. (See Talk:Nair#section_break). The users who have voiced against CarTick includes a lot of established users, in addition to a few anonymous ones. And above all, as clear from the talk page that CarTick's additions were rejected not because other users "don't like them", but because they were inaccurate and irrelevant to the particular article. Polyandry is not relevant to the Nair article and there is no need to hyper inflate it just to insult the members of Nair community.

And if CarTick thinks any one is using multiple accounts, then admins can check them. But I'd like to remind everyone that this particular user is accused of bias by at least 3 or 4 well established users. Also one should look in to CarTick's links with 122.178.xxx.xxx, who has issued multiple death threats to CarTick's opponents and is active in pages where CarTick is active. I smell something fishy. Suresh.Varma.123 (talk) 04:22, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Nair#References. well, i have atleast 5 peer reviewed references. i can provide several more if u want. --CarTick 04:27, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Did you even read the discussions in the talk page? The issue is about noticeability and relevance in that particular article. Not about references. Anyway I don't think a solution can be reached by talking with you. Let the admins decide. Suresh.Varma.123 (talk) 04:32, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

one wonders why polyandry among Nairs is not relevant in Nairs page? well, this is not a place to argue. i guess it is a clear case of WP:Idontlikeit and hope some responsible eyes will watch the article. 04:38, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

It is not relevant because - (1) It was practiced by a very small minority, so can't add in to the article saying everyone practiced it (2) It fell out of use hundreds of years ago (3) Evidence supporting it is disputed (4) Currently most of the people doesn't even remember it and is not relevant now (5) It was not limited to any particular caste - so it is not something which is unique to Nairs (6) You are accused of bias (7) Most well known researchers who worked on Nairs like CJ Fuller and Thurston doesn't even mention it once in their books (8) You are taking bits and pieces from some unknown journals and using it out of context to malign a particular community. Suresh.Varma.123 (talk) 04:49, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

The system of marriage practised by Nairs was not polyandry. If any author used the term to depict the Nair custom, it was for want of a suitable term describing a system in which the females had great freedom- unknown at the time- for rejecting a suitor. The custom was distinct from those of polyandrous tribes like Tibetans and Todas. Also, bahubhartrutvam or the practice of taking many husbands was prevalent among Ezhavas/ Thiyyas , another prominent caste inthe region, reported by John Buchanan nd other western authors. However the user Car Tick, who 's insisting on a link to Polyandry in the website on Nairs, is careful not to target the Ezhava/Thiyya Wiki website, suggesting that that his intentions are not just the improvement of Wikipedia as an authentic source of information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.129.153.176 (talk) 08:07, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I am having doubts about some of the anon-IPs and SPAs listed by Cartick, two or three of them look like cloned copies. But also, from the evidence given by Suresh.Varma.123, it seems that at least one established user who had a dispute with Cartick received death threats like this one. Perhaps some of the users are unwilling to use their real identities for security reasons. 203.131.222.1 (talk) 15:56, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

It is best if User:CarTick opens a report at WP:Sockpuppet investigations about the editors he lists at the beginning of this thread. In my view, the constant undoing on the subject of polyandry by new editors raises concerns about offsite canvassing. Should this continue, I suggest that an admin ought to fully protect Nair and then wait for evidence of a talk page consensus before allowing further change in the mention of polyandry. In my personal opinion, the article on Polyandry in India gives about the right level of prominence for this topic. Nairs are mentioned there, but are not the center of attention. The degree to which Nair ought to link to articles which discuss polyandry is a valid question that could be discussed in an RfC at Talk:Nair. If 'polyandry' is not the right way to describe the former customs, as an IP argues above, this could be worked out (with sources) on the talk page. EdJohnston (talk) 17:09, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. sockpuppet investigations may not help in case of off-site canvassing. i just want to state my intentions clear one more time. I dont care what kind of final text which needs to be added. There are plethora of sources (peer-reviewed) which call it polyandry. I minimally insisted on adding atleast a link. I guess a compromise would be to include all the viewpoints. "polyandry" among Nairs is as notable as Nairs being notable for their bravery and participation in military. But unfortunately, while the article elaborates in detail about one story and leaves the other out. the SPAs and anonymous editors are hellbent on keeping the info out. i dont think i will be able reach a consensus with a group of guys who dont know and care what wikipedia is all about. I will consider an RFC if i still want to pursue this issue any further. --CarTick 17:36, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Leave your arrogance at home Cartick. If you are accusing of editors like me of "don't knowing and caring what Wikipedia is all about", then give proof. I urge the admins to take a look at this guy's frequent insults on other editors. Suresh.Varma.123 (talk) 18:18, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

referring to your previous message posted at 04:49, 9 October 2010 on this page,

"(4) Currently most of the people doesn't even remember it and is not relevant now (5) It was not limited to any particular caste - so it is not something which is unique to Nairs"

These are some of the reasons you think why the info shouldnt be added. i will let others decide. --CarTick 18:29, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

(←) I think everyone should keep in mind that dispute resolution is not intended to resolve content disputes; it's only meant for behavioral issues and such. ANI is not going to take a stance on this. I would recommend an WP:RFC on the issue if everyone can keep WP:CIVIL in mind at all times. Failing that, mediation might work. As for the sockpuppetry allegations, they should be handled separately by WP:SPI. --NYKevin @822, i.e. 18:43, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Brett Salisbury proposed topic ban

proposed topic ban of editor 65.160.210.32 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), formerly used other accounts mentioned in this sockpuppet investigation (uncommenced). users contributions meet WP:SPA and WP:COI, it has become a consuming task trying to keep this editors poorly sourced, promotional and POV additions out of wikipedia. have had lengthy discourse with editor in this deletion discussion and multiple instances on my talk page. attempts to elaborate wiki policy to the editor seem to have little effect, user has thus far not so much as signed a single comment (not a violation itself, just an example of their approach to understanding policy related to their activities, or rather their lack of interest in doing so). editor has been encouraged to participate in discussion on articles talk page by myself and other editors yet continues to make questionable additions often without so much as an edit summary. it would be nice to see this user branch out into other areas to shake the impression that they are only here for promotional purposes, althought they have made it clear through their comments that they are only interested in this particular topic:

• "We are through contributing and only want to see the just in something." [86] indicating intentions to discontinue activity on wikipedia once their wishes for the brett salisbury article are fulfilled.
• "I would ask that you be friends with us as we will not stop until this thing is done right." [87] requesting my cooperation coupled with further indication of WP:SPA.

so at the very least i believe a topic ban would be an effective measure in the interest of preserving wikipedia's integrity from WP:COI type promotional activities. WookieInHeat (talk) 05:14, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

responses to this action from IP and another involved editor at my talk page. WookieInHeat (talk) 07:06, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

• • • After I reverted a pair of external links to Vogue, I got a message from the user, who indicated in the plural that they intended on leaving. If they don't make any more edits I think this becomes a dead issue. I think they got chased off, they seemed... sad. That being said, knowing you, I doubt you did anything wrong, my interactions with you in the past give me no reason to believe you are anything but a good contributor. Sven Manguard _Talk 07:21, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

yes the user regularly switches between seeming submissive and cooperative then being quite forceful and assertive. i realize there is a catalog of text to go through in regards to my conversations with the user (it was painful enough writing them all let alone reading them), but if my word is worth anything, its in there. the user has said they are leaving before and then continued to edit, but who knows, i will update if anything further happens. WookieInHeat (talk) 07:40, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

vague legal threats directed at me in this edit: We can make a liable suit against her and I will do it. ... Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.160.210.32 (talk)
i'm male just for the record. WookieInHeat (talk) 15:03, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I think actually a block may be in order as the user frequently resorts to personal attacks [88][89] and has not made any attempt at improving despite repeated polite attempts at giving them a clue. This user has been a major net negative to the article that he/she/they created and likely has a COI. The user also keeps saying that he/she/they is done but then returns (note this[90] recent edit). The IP has switched a few times over the past few weeks, see their prior warnings [91] as well. Sailsbystars (talk) 19:02, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Add removal of evidence of misrepresenting websites [92] to the list of problematic editing. Sailsbystars (talk) 20:34, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Problem editor

Resolved

• Suarneduj (talk · contribs)

This editor has made a number of problematic edits to wikipedia. Their username is illegal on wikipedia because it spells "Juden Raus" backwards: the edits reflect the same racist/antisemitic problems inherent in the username. The user was warned by SarekOfVulcan after their first edit, which was antisemitic. [93] Other problematic edits include [94][95][96] Mathsci (talk) 05:16, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Might be this banned editor: User:Mikemikev ClovisPt (talk) 05:31, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Plainly violates Wikipedia policy on user names. The edits have also been unsourced and singularly combative and unhelpful. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 05:42, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Added him/her/it to AIV and Username concern lists. He will more than likely get perma-banned from one of these. Sven Manguard _Talk 06:15, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Blocked indef for clearly unacceptable username ("Juden Raus" means "Out with the Jews", a Nazi slogan).  Sandstein  06:41, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

So by that block, you executed a "ROUS Raus"? :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:02, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

@Bugs: I'm sure you didn't mean it in any hateful way, but that comment was in no way funny. Next time you see the words "Nazi slogan" in a block justification, it would be a very good idea not to make a clever play on words in said slogan. There's a reason I didn't even use the words when I submitted the block description. People can say what they want about words, but words have power, and hateful words do cause people hurt. Sven Manguard _Talk 07:17, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, if ya have to explain it... but here goes: I took the German Raus to be cognate of the English "roust", meaning to forcibly remove. If that's nowhere close to what Raus means, then I apologize and you can zap this little digression. And a ROUS is a "Rodent Of Unusual Size", which I figure is a reasonable synonym for a creature that lives under a bridge. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:48, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

To clarify, "Raus" is an abbreviation of "Daraus", literally meaning "out of (it|that)". In context, it does indeed mean something like forcibly remove. I don't honestly see how it could be offensive to say "ROUS Raus", though if you need to explain what ROUS means, it's not exactly an effective joke. The part which made "Juden raus" offensive was err, the fact that it referred to Jews, surely? GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 09:22, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

That was my theory, anyway. Like maybe a German translation of a famous line in MacBeth might say, "Fleck Verdammt Raus!" Or for something more mundane, like trying to get rid of the Fuller Brush Man, "Verkhaufer Verdammt Raus!" (Feel free to correct my highly fractured German.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:42, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Good eye, Mathsci. We should have caught that when he made his first edit on September 25. —Soap— 10:00, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry Bugs, I tend to be sensitive about all things Holocaust. I should have stayed quite about the wordplay, I can see he doesn't mean to offend. Sven Manguard _Talk 19:52, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

And I sorry for anything that seemed offensive. I share that sensitivity, except that ridicule of the Nazis figures into it sometimes (or "Nasties" as John Lennon put it). And sometimes my comments are so obscure that even I don't understand them. :( ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:27, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

And if that sounded obscure, today is the 70th anniversary of Lennon's birth, which came during the Battle of Britain, of which he later said in his punny way, "...when the Nasties were booming us." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:31, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Hounding and weird behavior

User:Beyond My Ken and I had a content dispute a week ago. Since then, he has followed me on here and Commons, jumping into every conversation since then, telling people I am a liar and so on. He is just harassing me, bringing up the content dispute time and time again still. When I had a question about Commons policy, I went to an admin that was active on Commons who directed me to another admin who might be more help. Beyond My Ken followed me to each admins page and harassed me there. He is being uncivil, and often comments on recent edits I have made, showing he is clearly following every move I make. Can an admin step in here, maybe block him for a bit so he can cool down and get off this content dispute? See here, here and here. He talks bout changing my behavior and me misbehaving and needing to correct me, it is weird. Like he wants to be my mother. Please, someone stop this? [tk] XANDERLIPTAK 06:55, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

This is like deja vu. It's like deja vu. Weren't you and a different editor put on ice for 24 about a week ago... connected with the other editor saying you were a liar? I don't know the truth of that matter... but if two different people called me a liar within a week's time, I might want to look into my own behavior before shlepping a complaint to ANI. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:00, 9 October 2010 (UTC)\

Yeah, there were two other editors involved in a content dispute. One got blocked for calling me a liar, this one decided to just follow me around and harass me. Thanks for your help, though. The admins seem to set the bar real low, so I guess I can't be disappointed. [tk] XANDERLIPTAK 07:35, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

You neglected to mention that you were also blocked for your behavior as well.

@Bugs: Xanderliptak seems to have a number of problems: he doesn't hear what is being told him and he fairly consistently misrepresents the tenor, tone and content of discussions which can be easily viewed by whoever wants to. There may be WP:COMPETENCE problems as well, since he doesn't seem to understand basic Wikipedia policies and accepted behavior. My own opinion is that his behavior has become disruptive, but I may be too close to the problem -- others can decide. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:46, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

What is wrong with you? I neglected to mention to him that I was blocked? His opening statement was, "Weren't you and a different editor put on ice for 24 about a week ago". Are you not paying attention to what is going on or are you just telling lies to help distract and win petty arguments? You want to argue competence? You argue about a subject you admitted having no knowledge in. What kind of competence was that? To say you don't know something but you want to argue about what you fell should be right without having any facts to back you up. You ignored the books I gave you, the quotes, the photos all on a gut feeling all those sources were wrong. Fine, follow me around, and get your rocks off from it, I don't care anymore. You did the same thing here that you do everywhere else, you tell them don't look here, but read this argument there, and then everyone comments on an argument that is already past and over and I can't get anyone to focus on the what is still relevant. [tk] XANDERLIPTAK 08:20, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

• If you have a problem with someone's behaviour on Commons, it needs to be dealt with on Commons. Enwiki admins have no jurisdiction there. I would counsel you, Xanderliptak, as I have already done, to ensure that any allegations you are making about the behaviour of others are supported by diffs which you provide. Admins, and ArbCom, look dimly upon unsupported allegations. I am giving you this advice for your own good so that you can avoid being blocked. Beyond that I will not be commenting on this issue unless an admin asks me to on my talkpage. → ROUX ₪ 07:04, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
• I have not followed the dispute, but following my bad habit of noticeboard lurking, it has been impossible to not notice the drama. I endorse Beyond My Ken's comments, and recommend that Xanderliptak spend more time listening (ignore Beyond My Ken if you like, but listen to at least some of the other editors who have commented here and at Commons). Johnuniq (talk) 07:36, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

This is not about a dispute, this is about someone following me around and interjecting in every conversation I have, even though he has no reason to do so but to harass me. He is upset about a content dispute a week ago and tells me he wants to change my behavior. You are not allowed to harass and hound people, and not to mention is just sounds creepy when someone starts talking to me like I am a child and they are my mother. [tk] XANDERLIPTAK 07:40, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Xanderliptak has indeed raised the issue on Commons, in the same thread where 7 people have told him that he can't change the upload license retroactively, and no one has agreed with him, and yet he refuses to admit that this is a consensus. He got a quicky two-hour attention-getting block for overturning an admin's reversion of his changes, and he's likely to be blocked again, since he went over overturned the same admin again. He's forum shopping among admins here, trying to get someone to tell him what he wants to hear, but each time he opens a new discussion, he badly misrepresents what's happened over there, and he objects to my corrections. I think that sums it up. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:44, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Dude, this isn't about Commons, it is about how you follow me around and harass me. You went there and now I can't get an answer form anyone because you threw yourself into the argument and just keep throwing things in and distract everyone. The question was about moral rights and CC licensing, not about you or your petty dispute form last week. Get over it and leave me alone already. [tk] XANDERLIPTAK 07:50, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Again, it's not about what you say it's about, simply because you say it. The folks here can look at the evidence and decide for themselves. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:52, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I assumed that the links Xanderliptak had provided above were for the entire talk page discussion, but I see now that they are simply diffs, which don't give context. Here is the discussion on admin Xeno's talk page, and this is the discussion on admin Moonriddengirl's talk page. The Administrator's noticebaord discussion I've already linked above, but this Commons deletion discussion is also useful to show the general problem with Xanderliptak's behavior.

I don't really have anything more to say, so I plan not to respond here unless someone asks me to. Thanks. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:18, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

So do I get no help with this? Basically I am told I deserve to be hounded and harassed? Why, because I made one smart ass comment about an editor for talking shit about me for a few days? [tk] XANDERLIPTAK 08:00, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Oh, nobody said that that - it's just you're trying to raise issues on another Wikimedia project, and tryign to get action based on them. You provided no proof of harassment - Beyond my Ken has been around and commenting for on the exact same Wikipedia pages that you say he suddenly arrived at. I have dozens of editor talkpages watchlisted. If he's actually harassing you, we can discuss an interaction ban, but at this point, merely posting in the same places is merely coincidence right now. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 09:33, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

So it is just coincidence he winds up at every talk page I am? That he interjects when he does not know what the conversation is about to point out a week old disagreement, that isn't harassment? That he makes comments on my recent edits means he isn't hounding me, just suddenly developed the same interests as me? We have only crossed on one page in the nearly two years I have been editing (a year or so registered), and now in this last week we have crossed on over three dozen pages across Wikipedia and Commons, and that is just a alignment of fate and the stars? How many coincidences before it becomes hounding? [tk] XANDERLIPTAK 18:17, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Anyone interested in this matter should read the links that Beyond My Ken posted farther up the section here, and what's going on with all this should become fairly clear. Xander is at odds with a lot of different users now, and of course they are all at fault, and he's doing nothing wrong. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:15, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

And while I can't read BMK's third link due to its tiny font, it's clear from the other two entries that Xander is very close to putting himself on ice permanently: violations of the rules at commons, personal attacks against other users, forum shopping, competency, you name it. If BMK is indeed "following him around", it's probably because of the "Hanlon's razor" aspect to the user's approach. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:23, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Personal attacks

WikiFlier (talk · contribs)

I and this editor are currently having a content dispute. First, he added irrelevant Chinese character into the article Ngo Dinh Diem and all of his edits got reverted by DHN (talk · contribs), YellowMonkey (talk · contribs) and me. During this dispute, he tried to convict three of us by using irrelevant Chinese source and when we (DHN, YellowMonkey and me) appeared to be not convicted, he keep attacking us personally as following:

1. He called DHN "an extremely sensitive California Vietnamese" for his reverting
2. He called me and YellowMonkey "vandalism",
3. He especially directed the attack on me because of my unprofessional-ism in both English and Chinese by calling me "illiterate in Chinese and English", and try to embarrass me by quote my reply out-of-context in the top of the discussing section.

All supporting evidences of my report could be found in Talk:Ngo_Dinh_Diem#Chinese_Characters_for_Diem.27s_Name. Please help me, his attacks make me feel very unhappy. And sorry for my bad English skills.--AM ^(talk) 09:10, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Hello?--AM ^(talk) 13:57, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Hello. I'm looking. S.G.^(GH) _ping! 14:43, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I have told the user to belt up with the personal comments. To me it seems that the user is making a fair shake at arguing using policy, but has derailed now after getting frustrated. If it continues in the face of my warning then we can deal with it under WP:CIVIL or something. S.G.^(GH) _ping! 14:53, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Please do whatever is necessary. I only hope that he could stop embarrassing/attacking me like that. I know that my comment, which is written in a non perfect English, could make him feel unhappy but using them to attack me is hard to ignore.--AM ^(talk) 16:09, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

You don't have to ignore it, just collect yourself calmly if you see it in the future and report him here so a neutral party can intervene clinically. S.G.^(GH) _ping! 17:27, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Review of NLT Block

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

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

Additional discussion: Orangemike's talkpage

• First, please note this is not a review of the admins or their actions. This is a review as to whether or not an editor is permitted to protect himself from unwanted off-wiki contact.

• User:Ronsax is apparently a real-life musician, who has been editing an article about himself. He has apparently received e-mails and phone calls from another editor (which has been admitted by the editor who sent the e-mails). According to Ronsax, the e-mails took a more threatening/offensive turn, and he forwarded them to the police for his safety. He was blocked under WP:NLT, and has had his unblock declined.

• Personally, I do not believe that this is a violation of WP:NLT. We have in the past blocked editors for calling and/or threatening to call someone's place of work. I do not see any calls for litigation. I do not see that it was in any way an attempt to inhibit editing, or send a chill: it appeared to be a request to "leave me alone". (Agreeably, if it was an attempt to say "leave my page alone" it would be different).

• IMHO, we have the block in the wrong place - someone has admitted to possibly inappropriate off-wiki contact. We can never know the nature of the contact, but that User:Ronsax saw it as inappropriate.

• Some discussion about moving forward would be beneficial. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 09:46, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree completely. An editor should not be blocked for forwarding threats (via email) to the relevant authorities. --Stickee (talk) 09:58, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Likewise agreed. This is common sense. -- ۩ Mask 10:29, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Indeed; let's not be a WP:DOLT about this. This is an off-wiki situation which needs to be dealt with off-wiki; I see no reason why a user should be blocked for rightly reporting off-wiki harrassment to the relevant authorities. WP:NLT doesn't remove our right to protect ourselves off-wiki, as far as I'm aware? GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 10:40, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree as well. He has been consistent in his comments:

• "After the second harassing email I found out how I could get the email trail to the police so that they have a copy of exactly what was said. I haven't filed any formal complaints but I've been asked to report to them each time I hear from Leah outside Wikipedia." (comment which prompted block by Orangemike)
• "I haven't filed any formal complaints with the police concerning User:Leahtwosaints and I am not threatening legal action. I contacted the police because I received two harassing emails from her. I made them aware of her emails and sent them copies. No formal complaint was made." (first unblock request declined by UltraexactZZ)
• "My decision to share the emails with the authorities was a matter of self protection and it did not have anything at all to do with editing the article. It was about improper emailed messages sent to me outside of Wikipedia. I welcome anyone's input on the article and I would NEVER say or do anything to discourage it. I will not, for any reason, be taking any legal action against User:Leahtwosaints." (second unblock request declined by Sandstein)
• "The matter is indeed settled on my end. The police merely have a copy of the email thread as it occurred as a precaution against tampering with it.... Even after I became aware of these false accusations I didn't threaten any legal action. It was when she began sending the volatile emails that I knew I had to do something to protect and defend myself... If she's capable of spreading falsehoods on a public forum she might try to alter the emails. Based on her behavior I was taking no chances...Speaking for myself; this matter is settled. You have my word there will be no legal action on my part." (third unblock request - on hold due to this discussion)

AGF and unblock. Ncmvocalist (talk) 10:46, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Hm. Evidently editors have the right to contact the police about perceived harrassment by other editors, but the question here is whether they should continue to edit Wikipedia while the police investigate. The purpose of NLT is to prevent the continuation of such offwiki conflicts onwiki as long as legal action is either threatened or undertaken, and I think that for the purposes of NLT filing a police complaint is equivalent to filing a lawsuit. If consensus here is to unblock Ronsax, I suggest that both Ronsax and Leahtwosaints be interaction-banned with respect to each other, and also article-banned from Ron Holloway (talk page excepted). This would stop them from continuing their dispute, which now involves the authorities, onwiki. Leahtwosaints has already agreed not to interact with Ronsax or his article, and Ronsax shouldn't edit the article about himself anyway per WP:COI.  Sandstein  11:17, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

An interaction ban certainly seems reasonable (and in both parties' best interests). It seems somewhat unfair that filing a police report for off-wiki harrassment should be blockable under WP:NLT however; picture this: person A disagrees with person B's edits. Person A phones person B and makes death threats, which person B reports to the police. Person B is blocked indefinitely until a police investigation is complete, which may well take weeks or longer. Person A therefore eliminates the opposition. I'm not suggesting that's what happened here, but I think we need to consider the actual purpose of WP:NLT here when considering whether taking off-wiki action against an off-wiki action should be blockable under NLT. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 11:53, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Interaction ban seems reasonable. I seem to recall in the case of a certain admin and one of our serial pests, that reporting RL harassment to the cops did not require a block of the admin (interaction ban was irrelevant here as the pest had been blocked, banned and nuked, and was still coming back as more socks than Sock ShopElen of the Roads (talk) 11:57, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Copied from Ronsax's talkpage at his request by Elen of the Roads (talk) 12:41, 9 October 2010 (UTC) Thank you so much for being so perceptive and discerning, BWilkins. It is much appreciated. There is one thing I would like to reiterate; there IS no police investigation. The police don't expect there will ever be a need for an investigation. Neither do I. I would like to request that this discussion be moved to the ANI. Thank you. Ronsax (talk) 11:57, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

• I declined the first unblock request, properly I think, because this is one big honking legal issue that needed resolution one way or the other before unblocking could happen. If the interaction ban is agreed to, the cause of the issue is removed and I think the block can be lifted. The COI issue is secondary, but with a few editors helping at the article, I believe we can address the subject's concerns about the article in a neutral fashion. Perhaps we can get the subject editing other articles, since he seems to enjoy (at least initially) the editing process - but his edits are almost exclusively to his own article (something like 84% of his 2100 edits over three years). UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 12:55, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I generally agree here and think the interaction ban is appropriate. If this happened in a physical workplace the business would not suspend the person making the police call. Given Ronsax's comments above I think we move ahead with the unblock and interaction ban which must be explained clearly to both. JodyB _talk 13:59, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I too agree that an interaction ban is a wise idea in the circumstances, and the terms will need to be properly explained to both parties. Also, although a lot of things seemed fairly clear by the third unblock request, if not earlier, I think Bwilkins has (probably without realising it) demonstrated an ideal way of handling an incident with the same sort of circumstances. That is, holding off the unblock request in this case allows the chance for more effective clarification/resolution emerging before a blocked user reaches the maximum number of unblock requests where a predictable claim will be made that he's abusing his privileges when that's not really what is happening. On a related note, I don't think it's particularly helpful to say that filing a police complaint is the equivalent of litigation after an user has repeatedly emphasised, even in the so-called perceived legal threat, that no police complaint has been filed as such (see quotes above). Yes, we put in NLT or perceived LT to err on the side of caution, and I can understand how that was initially being applied here, but I'd echo (and re-echo) what GiftigerWunsch very effectively points out at 11:53, 9 October 2010 (UTC). Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:42, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

• I'm agreed that if the "legal threat" is a formal complaint of criminal behavior, against another Wikipedia editor, for conduct unrelated to the actual development of a Wikipedia article, it's not a "legal threat" within the NLT guideline. NLT is about editors threatening civil suits against each other for encyclopedia-development work--e.g., libel. Let's draw the line carefully here: if the complaint is criminal, then the editor making it cannot, himself, file suit: in every jurisdiction that I'm familiar with, a relevant prosecutor must be convinced that the charges have merit and file charges on behalf of the state. That takes the "threatening" (or "victimized" if you prefer) editor out of the actual decision loop. Jclemens (talk) 17:25, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I was the first to have received emails from User:Ronsax that were of the same tone as the ones in which I merely responded in kind. I've been editing and coaching Ron on the article about him: Ron Holloway for two years now with good faith. After he found the article was a matter of discussion:[97] from Admins. (User:Orangemike), for example, his contact with me escalated as he was afraid his article would be substantially changed or a rewrite would be necessary. I kept coaching him and attempted to speed up the progress in cleaning up the most glaring problems there. However, as the discussion continued at the Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard, I was forced to agree with the others that there were definite problems with WP:COI, WP:AUTO, WP:OWN, etc. Ronsax felt my "loyalty" to him (for lack of a better word) had changed and sent emails saying my "tone" had changed and that since he had been criticized for his editing (ie, my coaching) he felt "it was time to criticize [you]" me, which he did by email. I responded, not with agressive language or foul words, saying it was small thanks for putting in so much time trying to help him outside Wikipedia. English is not my first language. Sure it bothered me. After, I apologized to him on the talk page here if I had hurt his feelings, and I felt the issue was over when I discovered (while still editing his article) that he called the police! Imagine my surprise. I'd be fine with any member of the community looking at the sent email. Go ahead, unblock him, please. As User:Sandstein requested, I do not intend to have any contact inside or outside Wikipedia with User:Ronsax aka Ron Holloway. He only edits his own article, so it should be simple. I have nothing to hide, having done nothing to violate Wikipedia's WP:AGF, and nothing to violate the law in any sense of the word outside Wikipedia. He lives 15 minutes from my home. If I had in any way harassed him by responding in kind to his email, I'm certain he would have taken it to another level. I've been editing the Wikipedia in several languages for over 3 years! Other than this situation, I haven't ever had problems here that involved me. Question: rules here require that the people involved are notified of input. Will another person notify User:Ronsax so I can maintain my promised distance from him? --Leahtwosaints (talk) 18:48, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

• Comment: Ronsax was already notified of this thread earlier today (and has since replied) GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 18:53, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

@Jclemens - yes, for goodness sake, reporting someone to the police for a potential criminal offence is not the same as threatening to sue. The chilling effect here is Wikipedia editors concerned that they cannot report a RL stalker to the authorities because they will be blocked from editing (think Grawp here). Elen of the Roads (talk) 19:47, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Just take into consideration that the chilling effect works both ways. If the instant case is not considered a NLT case, threats like "I'll report your harrassment to the police!" would seem to be allowed, while "I'll sue you for harrassment!" would not. Where's the difference? Both sorts of threats (let alone the corresponding actions) exert a strong chilling effect. And we're not able to determine whether involving the police was justified in this case. As we know, much that goes on on-or offwiki is rather quickly called "harrassment" by some, even if it would not qualify as criminal conduct or as violations of Wikipedia policy. And we don't know (and are not competent to decide) whether the communications at issue here do qualify as illegal harrassment. In such cases, the standard approach of NLT to block whoever brings the law or the authorities into an onwiki dispute would seem to be appropriate. This does not rule out blocking the other party as well if there is any evidence of disruptive onwiki conduct on their part. And evidently, if the user being reported to the police is an already banned long time abuser, matters look quite differently. That however is not the case here.  Sandstein  20:07, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid I must disagree. There is a bright line between actually placing a call to police concerning personal safety and threatening litigation in civil court. If I understand this particular case he only reported what he had already done not issued a threat. Of course any legal process is serious filing a false or frivolous criminal complaint generally carries greater consequences than a frivilous lawsuit or threat of such. Judgment is important in these cases but for guidance I would treat the two as vastly different. JodyB _talk 20:21, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I have my own opinion on the issue of whether or not this counts as a "legal threat", but I will not express it here because it is irrelevant. The editor in question has made it quite clear that, whether it was a "legal threat" or not, it is no longer active, and so, since the user's block was made on the basis of "making legal threats", the block should be lifted immediately. Discussion on an interaction ban can then continue, and include Ronsax if he wants to take part. I see in the discussion above a range of opinions, including "should never have been blocked" and "should now be unblocked" but not, unless I have missed something, "should now remain blocked". I am therefore tempted to just go ahead and unblock, but I will hold back for the moment to see if anyone has a late objection. JamesBWatson (talk) 21:12, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

User:Cailil

 Checkuser attention requested. - Checkuser reviewed, see comments below.

• Joker264 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• RichSatan (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/RichSatan

Above links were added by Jehochman ^Talk 15:04, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I would just like to point out that Cailil's attitude towards the users on this discussion page is hardly acceptable - threatening to block users whom are doing nothing wrong but voicing their concerns. It hardly seem's fair.

This is the discussion page in question: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Warhammer_40,000

Please review this Admin. Thanks. Joker264 (talk) 12:53, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

You're a joker, right? Cailil only edit to that page was in July when he reminded editors not to use the talk paqe as a forum; no mention of a block. And why have you done this[98], marking it minor and without an edit summary. Jon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.133.117.88 (talk) 13:06, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

• I am confused by this and belive it must be related to another issue as the IP above points out I merely reminded users not to breach WP:FORUM. That talk page is part of category:Games Workshop. I have been the subject of a long running hounding by the Sockpuppeter User:RichSatan and his sock-puppets due to my removal of original research for Games Workshop in late 2007. Detailed here: [99][100][101]. Also there have been a series of IPs from the Eclipse Dynamic ADSL range whom I susect of either being RichSatan or meat-puppets of that user.
  It is less than 4 months since this was last brought here with regard to one of those IPs claiming to be a new user (diff above).
  Apologies to Joker if it seems I am jumping to conclusions but this is a rather bizzare issue to bring up on ANi - more especially since I was correct to give that warning - wikipedia is not a forum we don't discuss subject on talk pages just sources-Cailil ^talk 14:20, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

• I've blocked Joker264 provisionally for 48 hours. Before that block expires I'd like to have a checkuser see if this account is technically related to the one Cailil mentions above. Joker264's contribution history is consistent with the account being a sleeper sock. For instance, look at the first few edits by the account, such as [102], and you'll see signs that this is a recycled user. Checkuser might be able to help, but if the evidence is stale, we may have to make a determination on behavioral evidence. As it is, User talk:Joker264 has a smattering or warnings for violations such as WP:NPA. The 48 provisional block is only for the account's own behavior. Any sanction for socking should be additional. Jehochman ^Talk 14:25, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
  • It's worth noting that that account was previously considered for a checkuser here but as far as I can see one was not performed due to behavioural differences. I am open to correction vis-a-vis relation to RichSatan as I really am confused by why this would be brought here at all - it's teh only thing I think of--Cailil ^talk 14:35, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
    • Either it's an unrelated user attempting to harass you, and they've been warned before,(consider this your only warning), or it's a sock puppet attempting to harass you. If it's merely harassment, my block deals with that problem. If it's socking, Checkuser help is needed. The user may have a stash of sleeper accounts, and Checkuser might be able to identify them. Jehochman ^Talk 14:55, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
      • Just as an FYI, an itty-bitty red flag isn't the best way to grab a CU's attention; opening an SPI case or making a request for a quick check here when appropriate would be best. I'm not sure what I'm expected to compare to, anyway; User:RichSatan hasn't edited for over two years, and checkuser data goes stale after three months. We do not connect accounts to IP addresses, either. I do agree that the first several edits of this user are more than a bit odd, but without more evidence to directly link this user to a previous socker I have no grounds on which to conduct a check. For that, I would ask that a full SPI case be opened, so that in the event the problem continues, we have an easily accessible record of past checks. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 18:42, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
        • Thank you! (Whenever I put up my tiny flag, I seem to get a fast response! Why don't we set up a system of flagging things, and have the flag put the page in a category, like Category: Discussions needing checkuser attention. This could work just like CAT:UNB.) History of the suspected socker is at Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/RichSatan, but yeah, I know it's stale. As for the behavior, this will never be definitive, which is why I'm not openning an SPI at this time. Seems like the best resolution is that the new account can either edit properly, and we'll leave it alone, or it can edit badly, and we'll block it on the merits of it's current behavior. Jehochman ^Talk 19:24, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

User:Fetx2002

I'm a little concerned about this user. I've just undone a couple of moves of articles Football in North Korea and South Korea national baseball team which had been moved to titles that didn't seem consistent with normal article title practice. Looking back through their contributions they seem to have done a LOT of template moves to new titles (modifications of the titles of countries mainly) that may be correct or incorrect but which I'm not qualified to judge, some other article moves which may well be correct, but they haven't changed the article text to match the new title leaving inconsistencies (e.g. Anyang Korea Ginseng Corporation Pro Basketball Team was moved to Anyang KGC Pro Basketball Club but all references in the article still say "Anyang Korea Ginseng Corporation Pro Basketball Team").

Normally this would be a case for discussing with the user of course, however a search of their contribution history shows they have NEVER responded to any talk page postings or posted on ANY talk page ever so I don't think discussion will work without some more "official" backup so to speak. We also have a language issue - they appear to speak korean natively and their english is "intermediate" according to their userpage. Do we have an admin fluent in Korean who can take a look at their contribs and engage with this user?

If there's a better forum for this kind of thing, by all means point me at it. Exxolon (talk) 15:51, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

The best I can suggest is User:Kwj2772, who is an admin on Commons, but not here. Alternatively, you can trawl through Category:User ko-N for someone active and willing to interpret.--Chaser (talk) 17:18, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

User:Sexymisterr

Resolved

Requesting a block for User:Sexymisterr (contribs) - they have repeatedly ignored warnings not to remove a maintenance template, and again did so after a final warning. See the HNK Hadjuk Split history. Greenman (talk) 16:56, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

User informed - as you should have done. a_man_alone (talk) 17:01, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

 Done. A 24-hour block. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 17:08, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

WP:AIV in the future? S.G.^(GH) _ping! 17:26, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Fergal Crawley

Resolved

 – deleted again and salted JodyB _talk 18:59, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Could an admin have a look at this article it appears from the comment on my page that this article is getting created by a 12 yr old and seems to be a form of harassment, it was previously deleted but has been re created and the article also contains the email and phone number of Crawley. Mo ainm~Talk 18:50, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

• I deleted the related image as well, and indeffed the user who kept inserting it because they've never done anything constructive. Black Kite (t) (c) 19:29, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Sock account?

This showed up on my watchlist... Anyone know about this? Grandmasterka 20:03, 9 October 2010 (UTC) User notified of thread. Grandmasterka 20:05, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, User:Dingbat2007 is banned, and Hacker has been blocked as a sock though the SPI itself seemed inconclusive. S.G.^(GH) _ping! 20:07, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Is Zimmbotkiller in need of a blocking? I'd do it myself but I don't know the background of this. Grandmasterka 20:10, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Range block requested: 79.116.206–209.xxx

The IP-hopping editor at 79.116.206.xxx to 79.116.209.xxx continues in his incivility and edit warring. The latest incident is here where he wishes death upon opposing editors: "Both external links and this images are here to stay because are showing important realisations of Coanda, and ofcourse are allowed, despite the fact that some beings driven by a weird bias may have a heart attack"

The Romanian IP range person has been edit warring at Jet engine, Aviation history, Henri Coandă, Coandă-1910 and other aviation articles which touch upon Romanian aviation figures. I would appreciate a range block long enough to bring this editor to the point of adopting a user name, so that he is answerable to his incivility and his edit warring. Thank you. Binksternet (talk) 21:28, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Note that this subject came up a few days ago, with no action taken: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive642#Abusive_interactions_from_IP-hopping_editor_79.116.xxx. I hope this time the violation will be seen to be egregious enough for a range block. Binksternet (talk) 21:33, 9 October 2010 (UTC)