Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
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Mantanmoreland and Bassettcat

What now for Naked Short Selling, Gary Weiss, Overstock.com & Patrick M. Byrne?

Since we will now presumabley have no base against which to compare ip addresses (in the case of slips by socks) and that the individual who abuses these multiple accounts will doubtless continue to attempt to manipulate these articles, and will try harder to remain undetected, what can we do to protect them from editing by this person - short of deleting them as not sufficiently notable, and as a vandal/puppetmaster magnet, which was rejected when I proposed this earlier? I suggest that the articles be protected so only admins can edit it, and the talkpages be semi-protected to disallow manipulation by ip/newbies who may also be the same individual. I do not see any of these articles as sufficiently common knowledge subjects that would attract passing ip/new editors. LessHeard vanU (talk) 19:25, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Add Securities fraud to the list as well. The greatest challenge is that editors knowledgeable enough in the subject matter to really root out any subtle POV have shown little interest in editing the articles involved; I can't entirely blame them, as there is such scrutiny and they would have reason to believe there might be difficulties. I've done what I could with Securities fraud given my limited knowledge of this subject; and User:John Nevard, a regular editor on Naked short selling, has identified a preferred version for that article. That probably isn't sufficient though; I'd love to find a few editors with expertise in this area to really clean up the financial articles. The biographies are in better shape, I think. Risker (talk) 20:01, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Not being intimately familiar with this situation, I think the general approach for sock-infested articles is to semi-protect. Make the COI-nik work a little to auto-confirm his sockpuppets before he uses them; more than that is not necessary or productive, and is likely to shut out legitimate editors. To make it perfectly clear: do you really want to prevent me from editing these articles since I'm not an admin? (Not that I really care to edit them anyway, but I'm just asking about the principle.) Shalom (Hello • Peace) 21:42, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Shalom. More eyes and hands are a better solution. Why not ask members of the Finance, Companies and Business and Economics wikiprojects if they would help out? None of these projects is very active, but there are dozens of editors there with an interest or knowledge (or both) in the general area. Better to intensify our openness than radically restrict it. At least, we should try that first. Noroton (talk) 22:00, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I did solicit the assistance of Business and Economics shortly after the Arbitration Committee decision[1], and received only one response to my request[2], although other editors may have responded directly on the articles. I would be happy to continue to keep an eye on the articles, even semi-protect them and/or provide visible administrative support for neutral editors, but perhaps others might have more success than did I in recruiting editors with subject matter expertise. Active recruitment is probably needed, so anyone who knows an editor who's capable of doing a good job should go out and ask them personally to pitch in. It's an area of the encyclopedia where I've never really wandered, so I have no real familiarity with who's got the editing chops for this kind of assignment. Risker (talk) 04:56, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Hey folks. Some will say that any comment from me must be self-interested and biased, and hence must be ignored. I suggest, however, that such is precisely the knee-jerk thinking that let this problem persist so long, and so egregiously. When one discovers that one holds a belief in error, it is not enough simply to root out that error: one must retrace the thinking that led one to hold that error, and consider the possibility that other beliefs one holds are similarly misguided. After taking so long to get you good people to open your minds to a truth that could not be synthesized within your paradigm, now that you are there, please, please consider the following claims without reflexively responding with the obvious "oh you must be biased" stuff. You have to rethink everything you believe about this situation.

1) I concede that the perfidy of MM/GW is extreme: most people, when caught, understand that they are caught. Few can just stand in and refuse to own their acts so steadfastly, so brazenly, as MM/GW did here. It is hard for normal people to imagine such a person, so the length it took it took this community to get the joke is understandable. No blood no foul. But now that you get it, you should go back and reconsider some things you think you know. For example, I promise: Judd Bagley, Wordbomb, is the good guy. He saw what was going on, and tried to unmask MM. He thought this unmasking was for the benefit of the Wikipedia community. He may have violated some rules you have (remember, he was new to them all), but in retrospect, now that everyone clearly understands what MM was doing, does anyone really not get that Judd was trying to stop a guy who was manipulating everything that Wikipedia is about? If you see MM now in a new light, should you not see Wordbomb in a new light as well?

2) Some answer, "But what about Wordbomb's smear campaign?" To us, that is just more Bizarro World. MM hijacked pages on Naked Short Selling, twisting the facts so they read like something out of People's Daily. That coincided with a smear campaign against me and the company for which I work, so as to undercut our efforts to get the mainstream press interested in this financial scandal. Judd/Wordbomb tried to expose what MM was doing: in MM's Bizarro World that was translated into "Wordbomb is running a smear campaign".

3) Each time I try to get involved it's rejected with a claim along the lines of, "Byrne's just mad that the article about him is unflattering." Come on. That is not what this is about. There is a cover-up of a financial crime going on, Wikipedia has been used in that cover-up, and we're trying to break through a cover-up.

4) I did take a crack at editing the Naked Short Selling article, which in the eyes of any serious observer is laughably slanted, thanks to MM. Because I knew that some would claim that I was biased, I kept my edits substantively neutral. The content of the article as it stood ended with a section that was supposed to have claims from each side represented. However, the anti-NSS points were kept to a minimum, and were so badly written that they appeared to mean the opposite of what had actually been said. The pro-NSS claims were allowed to be far more numerous, and they were repeated over and over throughout the article. That was ridiculous. So I reorganized the article, keeping all the material that was there, but cut and pasted so that the start was simply factual, then had a section explicitly stating all the pro-NSS points, and another for all the anti-NSS claims. The point of view that opposed my own was completely retained, and simply brought together as one set of explicit statements. That was clearly intolerable for MM, because it created the possibility of the anti-NSS side then having a section where its own points could be stated. Thus my version was reverted and reverted. I challenge anyone to look at the version that I wrote and name anything missing in it from the current MM-approved version. It's all there. I just cleaned it up so that the MM claims no longer permeate the article, but have their own discrete location. I really do think that it would be a good place to start fixing the current article.

5) If you don't do that, you should consider just canning all the articles in question, and starting over, only with tightly-controlled involvement of well-known Wikipedia players. These events were not a random accident, or just a result of one guy, MM, having a fetish for this subject. There are reasons that he went to such elaborate lengths to corrupt them. Those reasons have not gone away. If you try again from scratch, there are people who have an interest in seeing those articles corrupted again.

6) Lastly, once again I request that you ask yourself, Cui bono? Who benefited? Did MM do this because he is just a nut? Why would it be important for someone to go to fanatical lengths to hijack a page concerning a financial crime? Now that you have as a community realized what MM was up to, you must ask yourselves, why? Otherwise, their disinformation campaign will find a new avenue of attack. (If you want to know how all of this fits into the bigger picture, I suggest you read Mark Mitchell's article on the front page of DeepCapture.com.) PatrickByrne (talk) 04:15, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

The financial dispute does not interest me and is frankly out of my depth. As a Wikipedian I care about keeping the site honest--I'm a geek who volunteers for an encyclopedia. I'm asking a couple of uninvolved people who have good editing records, some knowledge of the topic, and zero prior involvement to give these articles a look. It's the best and fairest I can do in this very odd situation. Regards, Durova^Charge! 04:49, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

While Mr. Byrne see's something behind MM's disruption, I see all too many folks attempting pov pushing and article control on articles that don't have such a potential repucussion to others. So, I'm not neccessarily buying that point. However, the fear shown by so many of us for so long over this issue is hopefully over. Off Topic but, would mr.byrne be able to get wordbomb to distance himself from his attempts at outside damage of the project? (this may have happened already, I don't check those places, and only look in at the 'Board of outer darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth' very rarely). --Rocksanddirt (talk) 07:05, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I would consider your sweet reason more plausible were it not for the fact that all of WordBomb's well-documented odious activities and blatant harassment and stalking were conducted at your direction, as your employee, in your interests, on your payroll, from overstock.com IP addresses, over two years. Nothing Gary Weiss is claimed to have done comes anywhere near that. Wikipedia is not a battleground for your commercial interests. Go away. - David Gerard (talk) 13:44, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

WordBomb maintains that he acted alone at the start and was only later hired by Byrne. Do you have a citation to support your contrary assertion about the timing of his employment? --Random832 (contribs) 14:05, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I have no idea when he started, and can't seriously consider it makes any difference to his well-documented (in Reliable Sources, no less) activities since. Don't be bloody dense - David Gerard (talk) 14:12, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry David, but odious behaviour on the part of one party does not excuse odious behaviour on the part of another party. We're supposed to be grownups here, not grade schoolers, and we're supposed to be writing a factually non-biased encyclopedia - at least that's what it said on the flyer. Every knowledgeable person I have spoken to has indicated that the financial articles edited by Mantanmoreland are subtly but clearly slanted. Comparing the level of nastiness of these two "problem" editors (both now site-banned) is not getting us the result we need, which is non-biased, factual articles on these subjects. You've been here a long time and know a lot of editors; perhaps you could help out in identifying and asking some people with knowledge in this field to review the articles and clean them up. Your assistance in improving the encyclopedia would be really appreciated. Risker (talk) 14:18, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm certainly not claiming Mantanmoreland has acted wonderfully - but Patrick Byrne is the still-ongoing funding behind one of the sides (his paid meatpuppet WordBomb), weighing in as if to help - he isn't here to help Wikipedia, in any way whatsoever, but in an attempt to continue the battle; encouraging him in any way at all doesn't help the project. I expect Overstock is attempting a fresh press push on the matter and is seeking quotes to mine - David Gerard (talk) 14:27, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't be surprised if you are correct, David. All the more reason for us to get our house back into order and get these articles into decent shape. Will you help to find editors knowledgeable in this subject matter, and encourage them to participate in the cleanup of these articles? Risker (talk) 15:05, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

David, the evils of Patrick Byrne is not the topic under discussion. How about commenting on the content, not the contributor - what should Wikipedia do concerning the articles LHvU lists? Neıl 龱 14:30, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

:::I'm glad to see DG here. DG, have you apologized yet for your wrongful block of Piperdown? If not, why not? What do you really know about the issue? The Wikipedia world wonders. Cla68 (talk) 14:34, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry about that DG, this remark was uncalled for and inappropriate. Cla68 (talk) 00:57, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Cla68 - considering your conduct is currently at Arbitration, you may wish to consider this unhelpful off-topic interjection. I will simply say, it did not at all inspire me to gain the impression, "this is someone who wants to reduce distraction, close down disputes, let problems get resolved, sort out misunderstandings, cut down emotive drama spirals, encourage calm thought, get more light than heat, and not escalate problems". This is exactly the kind of concern being expressed by others about your judgement and conduct, at RFAR. I figure its best to point this out, since a live example is often helpful.

Please, think again, change conflict-style, seek advice from others you trust who don't seem to have these issues, or something. It would be helpful and genuinely beneficial. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 15:47, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Please do not change the subject, FT2. Cla68 is 100% correct when he says that Piperdown is owed an apology. DG made a bad block and it is high time he owned up to it. --Dragon695 (talk) 00:24, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Cla68, I'm going to ask you the same thing that I've just asked David Gerard. You too have been here a long time, and you may well have contact with some editors knowledgeable enough to bring these articles back to where they should be. Will you help in identifying such editors and encouraging them to participate in cleaning up the articles? That is what we're trying to focus on in this thread. Thanks. Risker (talk) 14:42, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I will. Cla68 (talk) 14:47, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Good call. Risker, if you need it, I'd be willing to help on the cleanup too. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 15:47, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Patrick -- being candid here, and diverting to discuss WordBomb briefly since you raise him, this was an off-wiki dispute of zero interest to us. It was mostly due to WordBomb's own activities against editors and administrators who tried to deal with the dispute - and not Mantanmoreland - that the Mantanmoreland Arbitration case was handled as it was, which confused a lot of people. WordBomb's catalog of improper actions over time shows a history of reliable testimony from a wide range of users, indicating threats, coercion, intimidation, and the like by email. Crude hacking. And of course, sock puppetry. One webforum disabled images specifically to prevent his abuses. See my comments at the time. None of this was okay, and that means both were at fault, not just one.

None of this off-wiki dispute matters to us. The Wikipedia community just doesn't care about the Overstock dramas or those people involved. And I have no illusions: your presence here and the same Overstock issue are not entirely unconnected; WordBomb (I gather) has acted as your employee or the like, in these matters. In this context, the hollowness of the following quote is very unpleasant:

Patrick Byrne: - "I promise:... Wordbomb is the good guy... He may have violated some rules... trying to stop a guy who was manipulating everything..."

No, Patrick. That isn't okay, or even representative of the case. Your "promise" means little to me. You introduced WordBomb, your apparent employee, into this thread, and so David Gerard gave you the brief summary. The detailed one is, what Mantanmoreland did pales into insignificance compared to WordBomb's actions. Do not introduce on the back of a discussion of banned user X, an attempt to whitewash equally banned and far worse user Y who seems to be your employee, I gather. We need none of that. "He may have broken some rules"... That alone has to qualify for most understated statement of this thread.

We are an encyclopedia here, not a battlefield for gamesters. Two gamesters and a number of each of their sockpuppets have been removed. Administrators will likely remove others as we notice them. My apologies for being blunt, but I'm not minded to smokescreen on this one. Thank you.

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 15:31, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

• Spot-on; well said. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 15:50, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

FT2, I'll just say the problem with much of this evaluation is that it fails to consider where Wikipedia acted hostilely toward WordBomb, how early it did this, and the extent it has done this. Clearly at some WordBomb went into "battleground" mode, but he wasn't the first, and the fact is at least the main person he was allegedly stalking seemed as interested in personal campaigns and PR wars on his blog as WordBomb was. Anything recent has to be seen in the context of the Wikipedia campaign that has also been carried out against him. This isn't to say WordBomb's actions have been better than anyone else's, but that when someone is in active battle with Wikipedia, it's worth being a little circumspect at some point about whether there aren't grievances on either side, and about how we judge them. It's also one reason why Wikipedia should work harder to avoid these types of battles, even with people that are seen as unreasonable, the primary issue where I think Wikipedia should realize it has slipped up here. Mackan79 (talk) 16:48, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Mackan, the stuff that went on bears no resemblance to what you're describing. It went far beyond any of the kind of things your comment suggests you have in mind. Although these are valid considerations in some disputes, on the stuff I see on arb records, these kinds of reasons carry no weight at all. They were far beyond any kind of act which these comments or mitigations might apply to. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 17:24, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

While I agree that wb's actions have been more egregiously odious than mm's, I submit that we (as en.wikipedia) pushed his unbalance button and set him on a course of awful activity that will very likely never allow him to return as a productive member of the community. Could we have known that he was easily unbalanced and prone to counterproductive and hurtful behavior? no, but we could have acted with a bit more explaination and good faith on day one and perhaps have avoided all this. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 17:42, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Er, he was never a productive member of the community. He behaved inappropriately from the word go. He went after SlimVirgin because she dared act on his initial unacceptable behaviour. Wikipedia is not so desperate for contributors - David Gerard (talk) 18:43, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

SlimVirgin deserves no defending, lest we forget what she and her "wikistalking" crusade did to GraceNotes RFA last year. Her bee-in-the-bonnet approach to so-called harassment has been an utter disaster this project, produce not one single improvement, and caused plenty of drama. Please do not represent her as some sort of hero and reflect on your support for her highly questionable actions. --Dragon695 (talk) 00:35, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

People, please, not another repeat of the same old primal scream. I know, I know -- it's important that other editors know the backround and we must answer the incorrect statements someone else made. I'd like to propose a simple rule: If anyone in the future ever makes a critical comment on WordBomb, Mantanmoreland, Patrick Byrne or about any actions anyone made in this case, here or elsewhere, at least provide a diff to something, preferably to a statement with its own diffs, as Mackan79 just did. Educate, don't excoriate. And if we don't have anything further to say about helping these articles stay unbiased, it might be helpful to close this discussion soon. This is the opera's final act and the fat lady is clearing her throat. Noroton (talk) 18:51, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

• I have WP:BOLDly gone and protected the named articles, plus Securities fraud per User:Risker's request above and at my talkpage, for 3 months and semi-protected the related talkpages per my initial suggestion and the couple of positive responses to my comments (before it degenerated into the same usual round of partisan comments regarding a banned user who was - and whisper it LOUDLY - fundamentally correct in their original complaining postings regarding an editor who was abusing alternate accounts when editing these articles). The afore mentioned "debate" also provided another rationale for the protection of the articles; we need uninvolved admins and editors to review the content of these articles sooner rather than later, and create the NPOV articles the subjects deserve. Per Risker's comments, if there are other articles that need protection to allow a consensus to form for the NPOV editing of the subject please note them here. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:28, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

• This seems like a thoroughly excellent idea for sanity's sake - David Gerard (talk) 20:37, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

• I support protecting these articles, given their troubled history and the quite significant possibility that MM will continue sockpuppeting (and will continue improving at it) in order to manipulate the articles. It is best that a consensus is worked out regarding all changes before they are implemented. I'd also suggest an especially strict application of the civility policy for the associated talk pages. Everyking (talk) 07:15, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, David Gerard, I see precisely the same old "Argument from Stern Authority" that corrupted the discourse so badly that it took your community about a year to see something that is blindly obvious to everyone now. I would have thought that having on your hands three articles whose history more or less indicts this project (including one on me) would have taught you a little humility. Instead, you repeat tired claims in the hope it makes them sound true. The fact is, Judd followed the rules in trying to expose MM, and SlimVirgin posed as a neutral arbiter but betrayed that role. Your founder, Jimbo Wales, interceded and asked the entire community to take his word that he had checked into it, and MM was not a sock-puppet. Judd/WordBomb got crafty, indeed, but in the end proved that SlimVirgin was wrong and Jimbo's word was false. Bombast all you please, but the fact remains: Judd proved that your system itself was in the wrong, but had to step outside your system to prove it. Was he right to do so? I think yes: The fact that Wikipedia still holds as a constitutional principle that WordBomb is wrong, but prevents precisely one person from engaging in that debate (WordBomb himself), tells me not only that he was right before, but also, that the deeper significances of l'affaire du MM has still not sunk in. Until you permit a free debate on this subject, you may as well be lecturing me sternly about the unanimity of popular support for Kim Jong-il in North Korea. Besides that, most of your claims about Judd are just flat falsehoods, which everyone would understand if Judd was actually permitted to defend himself in the discussion rooms of "The Encyclopedia that Anyone Can Edit!" And lastly, No, I will not intercede with the press and Judd. Partly that is because Judd is his own boss these days. Partly because they are calling him these days, trying to get their heads around this story, and he has waited for that for a long time. But mostly it's because it appears that Dave Gerard's kind of nonsense still corrupts the discourse here, so Wikipedia will never address some fundamental truths about itself, so someone else is going to have to write it for them. I regret that - I am not a vengeful guy - I don't give a toss about the page on me. I see many here are honest and straight, and seem to want to do what is right. But I still see other playground bullies toss their weight around here, and as a result this community let a cover-up persist. You have taken care of the MM problem, but you do not yet see that this all happened because you jettisoned basic procedural fairness, and until this community reclaims it I am not inclined to request that Judd not answer the phone. As far as I can tell, the free press is the only thing that got this community acting with any decency so far. Respectfully PatrickByrne (talk) 10:00, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Mr. Byrne, it's a bit more complicated than that. I nearly did a serious sockpuppet investigation on MM/SH last September, but distaste at Mr. Bagley's investigative methods was a major reason why I held back. So it wasn't until January when the two account histories got parsed in a serious manner that persuaded most of the Wikipedians who followed the issue. Yes, this site's system could be set up better--yesterday I blogged about lessons learned from this case--yet it's Wikipedia's own internal mechanisms that succeeded in bringing MM's siteban. It shouldn't have taken this long or gotten so bitter; this was not well done on any side. Durova^Charge! 11:53, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

PatrickByrne, you're promoting drama, more drama won't help Judd or help you accomplish any other goals, and it diverts attention from the constructive task of setting these articles right for the long term. This isn't the place. With respect, please stop.Noroton (talk) 17:18, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

• On the matter this discussion is ostensibly supposed to be about: Protecting the pages for three months has two negative effects: (1) Mantanmoreland has time to develop another sock at the same time that (2) no one is likely to get interested and involved with an article they can't edit for three months. If MM returns, or if other POV-pushers show up, we are less likely to have a healthy number of editors who are up to speed on naked short selling, etc. and who can spot POV pushing. If we can instead somehow recruit interested, knowledgeable editors, the problem is likely to be solved in the long term. And "long term" has been a very important element of this dispute. If the articles are going to be protected for three months, then at least do some more recruiting of editors near the end of that period, when it counts. Noroton (talk) 17:18, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
  • In the MM ARBCOM case I said: ... Also, suggest that the committee invites amicus briefs from recognized experts in the articles concerned - this could aid both the case itself and also help to benchmark the articles – luke (talk) 05:22, 4 March 2008 (UTC). Unfortunately the Committee weren't listening, nor were they listening when Lar asked: "the committee failed to achieve a consensus on whether sock puppetry occurred" ??? Surely that's a jest! How much more corroboration did you want? Is that actually the case that the committee failed this way?? Then things are possibly worse than I feared. Please put a finding in that states it plainly so it can be voted on, I'd like to see who on the committee actually thinks there wasn't sockpuppetry. ++Lar: t/c 12:59, 29 February 2008 (UTC) and 19 people agreed with the request. The Arbcom case was a lost opportunity to settle the issues surrounding these articles without the latest dramatic developments, and the arbiters failure is a standing reproach to all then on the committee.--luke (talk) 19:33, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Fine idea to solicit expert opinions. Problem is, Wikipedia has a bad name in academia right now because the professors encounter us mostly via nineteen-year-old plagiarists. We need to do better outreach and reach the point where that plan becomes more viable. Durova^Charge! 20:31, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
      • If that was in reply to my comment, I'm only suggesting recruiting Wikipedians -- in fact, just repeating Risker's previous call for volunteers, only trying it at a couple more WikiProject venues. Asking outsiders to come in and learn Wikipedia ways is unlikely to work, especially in the short term, especially in this case. Noroton (talk) 22:55, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
        • It's a good bet that experts don't care to be thoughtlessly reverted. Whether they be wikipedians or martians they'll naturally hope for their contribution to be valued. -- luke (talk) 01:26, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
  • (reply to Noroton) Thanks for reading! I had hoped the 3 month period would have shocked enough editors to start discussing that... and how the articles should be tackled. I am all for a shorter period, since it is my suggestion that improvements to the article space should be discussed on the various talkpages and neutral admins enact the consensus. Once a NPOV consensus version of an article exists then the full protection can be reduced to a semi (just to stop drive by partisan vandalism by ip's and throwaway accounts) and all edits judged to whether it improves the article while remaining NPOV. I would still semiprotect the talkpages for the same reasons as for the article page. I would hope, with a consensual NPOV page in place, that even the most sophisticated sock couldn't slant the page as it would be reverted as would any editor introducing bias (and the type of bias would raise the suspicion of those watching the articles). I believe that Risker and a couple of others were hoping to see if they could recruit some uninvolved editors to review the articles, and hope that this is the start of some decent work on the subject(s). Cheers. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:29, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
    • OK, that sounds pretty good. It'll all depend on recruiting those editors. I recommend thick amounts of flattery verging on the fulsome and liberal sprinkling of barnstars once the initial work is done. Noroton (talk) 21:06, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

• • (reply to Noroton) I agree we should dispense with the drama, but ask merely that in thinking through the strategy for what to do about these pages, we do not flush the drama down the memory hole: it existed, there is a reason it existed, and we should remember that those dynamics may persist in trying to disrupt any new formalization of these pages. I also agree with Noroton that freezing these pages for three months is a bad idea: such a decision would merely further the agenda of MM, once again. I suggest, however, that there are great big chunks of the current page on Naked Short Selling about which all sides would agree. One possible approach would be to strip the article down to those pieces, and start there. I have made my own effort in that regard, cutting the current article from 3,500 words to 2,100 words. I took out anything that either side would side was a distortion (MM would say that I took out hard facts, I would say that those facts were either carefully parsed, or misleadingly stated, or were not facts at all: for example, the repeated citing of SEC statements from 2005, which have been contradicted by very recent statements). In any case, rather than both sides fighting about whether I cut was or was not neutral, I propose that the reader look at what is left. I do not think there is a sentence in this new version that either side would feel was misleading or inaccurate. If we can get consensus there, then we have a starting point from which to rebuild. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:PatrickByrne/Sandbox/Naked_shorting_stripped_down PatrickByrne (talk) 21:31, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
    • What I parsed out of that page protection was that 3 months appeared provisional--in order to discourage antics--until one or more people who understand the subject (preferably with honorable edit histories and no involvement in this mess) evaluate the content and draft useful improvements. Durova^Charge! 21:38, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Yes - but then most long term time limits (including or especially indefinite) are absolute maximums against which good editing can "earn" reductions. As I said, I hoped the term might have provoked discussion regarding tackling dealing with the subject since my initial post was only a suggestion. I am glad that it appears to have been tentively adopted as a solution, but I am more than open to futher comment, fine tuning, or abandonment in favour of a better method. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:01, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Durova - Peace. I understand. There is a drawback to what you propose: the universe of people who understand this stuff is tiny. The intersection of that set and the set of people who edit Wikipedia is more tiny still. The intersection of people who understand this mess, edit Wikipedia, and are not somehow involved in it in the real world, is the null set. I can recommend people to come help (economists and lawyers) but because I recommend them, some will say they must be on my side. So.... How about a combination of two approaches? First, start with the pared down article that I have presented, that has no single line to which anyone, from either side, could object. Then everyone who wants to be involved could submit papers and recent articles on this subject, for a neutral team of Wikipedians to read, and gradually use in fleshing out this article. (There is another alternative: look at my other sandbox article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:PatrickByrne/Sandbox/Naked_shorting : every line that is in the MM-approved version of the NSS article, appears here to. However, I simply structured it so that all the tendentious stuff from both sides was explicitly culled out of the main article, and deposited in the end.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by PatrickByrne (talk • contribs) 23:35, 31 May 2008 (UTC) PatrickByrne (talk) 00:14, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
      • Actually, anyone who examines the difference between the two articles will realize that said POV-fork is based off a version of the Wikipedia-approved article that is dated at best. John Nevard (talk) 04:46, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
      • Actually, I stand by my statement that this stripped-down sandbox version of the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:PatrickByrne/Sandbox/Naked_shorting_stripped_down (which was based off the article as it stood yesterday morning) retains the basic facts concerning this issue (what it is, what the regulatory history has been, etc.), about which none disagree, and excises those sections which one side or the other would say are biased. An administrator really ought to consider just swapping this for the article as it stands, and then standing guard to make sure only legitimate accretions are made. Anyone disagreeing with this should feel free to tell me what section of the trimmed down article offends them, and we'll remove it. Let us just trim it and trim it until there is no line in it that causes heartburn, and then talk about what gets added. PatrickByrne (talk) 22:10, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

User:Prima Facist

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Someone (possibly Majorly (talk · contribs), who seems to hold a grudge against me) has created an account "Prima Facist" and used it to support RfAs that I have opposed. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that, but in this case the combination of the choice of username, signature, and contribution history ([3]) makes it clear that this is nothing more than a bad-faith attempt to parody and ridicule me, rather than a good-faith attempt to help Wikipedia. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 14:22, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I've notified Prima Fascist about this thread. Gwynand | Talk•Contribs 14:25, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

And I've notified Majorly, who may be interested as well... Fram (talk) 14:31, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks...I was just getting ready to do so myself (I'm on dialup, and my connection died right after I posted the above) when I saw your posts. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 14:32, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I am not Majorly, but I am an alternate account of a different Wikipedian, having been using ym primary account for ~3 years. I admit that the initial intention of this account was merely to "cancel" Kurts votes in RfA, because I percieve the statements he gives in opposes are personal attacks. This changed after the first edit I made, when I decided that maybe I could do some actual work from this account as well, lest something like this happened (alas, too late it seems). I had that signature for one edit and then decided it would be a bad idea and that it would be too close to a personal attack and would be quite hypocritical and so I changed it to what it is currently.

Once I get a chance to escape the pressures of every day life, studentism and such, I shall be doing a lot more substantial work on articles (which, I'm sure you'll agree, takes a lot more time than simply voting in an RfA or two) and I'm sure you'll see that this account is quite serious about wanting to improve the encyclopedia (even if its inital intentions were not so). Prima Facist 14:52, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

• I suggest that an admin removes Huggle from the user - a disruptive sock puppet should not be accessing such tools. EJF (talk) 14:42, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

• I don't see any disruption yet. Martinp23 14:46, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I can't use huggle anyway, not being an autoconfirmed user (yet) Prima Facist 14:52, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, I should probably point out that I was one of the earliest users of huggle and have made thousands of edits on my other account. Prima Facist 15:52, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I suggest that if and when the sockpuppet policy is breached, a post is made here and action is taken. Until then, nothing is being done wrong, I feel (though do enlighten me if I'm indeed incorrect). Martinp23 14:46, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Exactly, Martin. I will not be using this account to double-vote or do anything else in breach of the sockpuppet policy. Prima Facist 14:52, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Prima Facist/Aha! is, interesting... Carcharoth (talk) 14:50, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

But there is still nothing that requires administrator action. Nor has there been any violation. seicer | talk | contribs 14:52, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Interesting it may be, but no-one has yet voiced any opinions on the page... Prima Facist 14:58, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't know if I missed something, but Prima, are you admitting to having another account? Gwynand | Talk•Contribs 15:03, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Prima Facist 15:06, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Have you ever participated in the same RFA with both of your accounts? · AndonicO ^Engage. 15:27, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

No. And as stated above, I never will. I have been here for 3 years, I'm aware of sockpuppetry and am not partaking in such. Prima Facist 15:29, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Of course. · AndonicO ^Engage. 15:35, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, so it does like this the sockpuppet policy is being violated, per WP:Sockpuppet#Avoiding_scrutiny. Or do I misinterpret that? Gwynand | Talk•Contribs 15:26, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Not unles you assume the account is going to be used disruptively. It would be better for the accounts to be linked in some way, but I don't think the policy requires it Fritzpoll (talk) 15:32, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Gwen Gale seems to think so. Prima Facist 15:35, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

(e/c)Well, creating a new account in order to make certain types of opposes in an RfA could certainly be considered disruptive. This means we can't review a certain users voting history in an RfA, when said user wants to vote for a certain reason... they just log into another account. Also, I just don't see how this account is anything but trying to avoid scrutiny for the other account. Gwynand | Talk•Contribs 15:35, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure. The user says they aren't going to use the other account for the same things, and there is not reason to disbelieve them. If the two accounts do demonstrate similar editing patterns, however, I'm sure this would be picked up in time - especially since the RfAs this user contributes to are likely to be watched carefully for patterns of support/oppose by other accounts. Fritzpoll (talk) 15:40, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

But Fritz, I do doubt that Prima Fascist will ever be abusive as sock in regards to double-voting or messing with consensus. I'm not suggesting that is the problem, but rather this account was created in order to avoid scrutiny over certain types of votes in RfAs. It looks quite clear to me in policy linked above that this isn't allowed. Gwynand | Talk•Contribs 15:49, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

My proposal, in the spirit of WP:AGF, would be to ban Prima Facist from participating in any RfAs for at least six months (to avoid the account becoming a point-driven SPA sock), tell him not to use the "Go Clots!" sig anymore (which he/she already agreed to), and move on, with the understanding that there will be zero tolerance for any disruption coming from this account. --Jaysweet (talk) 15:41, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

The "Go Clots" signature went after one use, when I decided it was a bad idea. My other account does not vote in RfAs of users I don't know anyway and I have promised, several times to not sockpuppet by dual voting. If I wanted to do that, I'd be a lot more discrete about it (This is not a self-invocation of WP:BEANS, incidentally). Prima Facist 15:48, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

But Prima, the actions you are taking in this account are being done because you didn't want to do it in your main account, correct? Gwynand | Talk•Contribs 15:54, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't creating an account that directly mocks a user who himself creates drama... thereby leading to the creation of additional drama, an act of disruption? Hiberniantears (talk) 15:43, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I think disruption would rather much end the sweeping assumption of good faith needed to get by the poilcy against undisclosed multiple accounts. Gwen Gale (talk) 15:50, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

As a general rule, we should encourage people to give their honest opinions without having to hide behind some special purpose account. Honesty helps people work together better (as long as they're mature enough to handle it.) Friday (talk) 15:56, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, I thought my proposal to simply ban PF from RfAs and let him go was very generous, and the fact that Prima Facist is intent on using this account for RfAs is not encouraging. PF, could you please explain precisely why you want a WP:SPA for RfA participation? --Jaysweet (talk) 15:58, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't want it purely for RfA participation. I intend on using this account for a substantial amount of article work independent from my other account. Prima Facist 16:41, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I have basically the same issue. PF has admitted to creating the account for the porpuse of SPA socking. Isn't that, in itself, enough to PermBan the username? I appreciate his candor in revealing his intentions and have no reason to doubt his sincerity but the fact remains that he did create the account to oppose Kurt Weber in RfA's - that's a banning offense, no? Padillah (talk) 16:03, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree, using an SPA to vote in an RfA would tend to skirt most of the need for responsibility, accountability and trust. Gwen Gale (talk) 16:06, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Starting with the username and there on out, the sole purpose of this account appear to be to launch a personal attack against Kmweber. Unless someone can present some compelling reason why socking to engage in personal attacks is acceptable, seems like an automatic indef block. WilyD 16:09, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Blocks aren't punishment; I just wanted it to stop. If he says he'll stop, give him the benefit of the doubt. That said, I think it would be appropriate to know his true identity, so we have a starting point should he try to circumvent this by creating another SPA to do it again. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 16:14, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting punishment. The guy (or lady) already has another account - let them use that. WilyD 16:29, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I have another account. I also edit anonymously sometimes. I will never double-vote so there should be no problem... Prima Facist 16:41, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

There is a difference between admitting that an undeclared sockpuppet who does nothing wrong is unlikely to be recognized, and supporting the sockpuppet account once it is recognized. The general intent was wrong, because one is responsible for ones votes at AfD, and it is only fair for someone to know where any opposition comes from. The specific intent was to engage is a possibly dubious voting pattern without having the regular WP identity be compromised by it. I think we should give amnesty to the sockpuppeter in appreciation of the honesty of his confession, but block any admitted undeclared sockpuppet account. PF, would you consider making it easier for us and agree to this? DGG (talk) 16:10, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I am in favor of amnesty if PF stays away from RfAs for a set period of time. Otherwise, it is too hard to police whether the account is still being used for its original nefarious purpose. Another possibility would be if PF provided an excellent reason for using the account for RfA participation, but I don't see that happening. If he wants to participate in RfAs, he can do it using his established account, or he can rack up a few months of solid contributions on this account to prove the account is no longer operating with the sole intention of undermining Kurt Weber. --Jaysweet (talk) 16:18, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I posted a trout on Prima Facists talkpage asking him to retire. I strongly believe the account should be indefblocked as disruptive, pointy, and most importantly, as a really really really stupid idea. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 16:19, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

The name is having a go at KurtWeber's use of "prima facie" in his replies on RfAs. It is sort of having a go at that and almost saying KW's a fascist. The account should at least be renamed, IMHO. Sticky Parkin 16:23, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Oooo, that was not clear, at least not to me.

Yeah, I would say a soft-block and if whoever PF is wants to create a different account, so be it. I see no legitimate reason for him/her to continue using this account. --Jaysweet (talk) 16:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Article work seperate from my main account (which I have stated in several places is my plan for this account). Prima Facist 16:48, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I think one of these two options are probably the best: either PF is indefblocked, and he/she goes back to his main account, or PF is renamed and agrees not to participate in RFAs. · AndonicO ^Engage. 16:50, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, to those who say I will sok on RfAs and double vote: There are several users who know the identity of my main account. If they are happy with it, I am prepared to list them here and they can "monitor" my voting if it will make people happier. Prima Facist 16:50, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

You are missing the point. I don't care if you double-vote. The concern is that you are socking so that you can participate in RfAs without accountability. You have not explained why. If you really want to separate your article work from your main account, that is fine -- the Prima Facist account can remain (albeit perhaps with a different username), it can work on articles separate from your main account, and it is banned from RfAs. What is the problem? --Jaysweet (talk) 16:57, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm more than prepared to be accountable (on this account) for my voting (from this account). I really have little interest in RfAs save for editors I know personally (for which I will vote from my main account). I have an issue with Kurt's personal attack way of opposing people and I will vote solely to counter that. It is a given that he will oppose every self-nom, yes? What, then, is wrong with me supporting every self-nom? Prima Facist 17:14, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

How would you feel if someone created an SPA to only vote to oppose self-noms? Kurt's opposition is at least logical. Yours is pointy. Indeed, your actions are genuine WP:POINT, whereas Kurt's (despite some people thinking them WP:POINTy) are not. In some ways, you are teaching people what the real meaning of WP:POINT is, and that could be good in some ways, especially if it helps you to understand WP:POINT a bit better. Carcharoth (talk) 17:22, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Prima facist has been indef blocked by Gwen Gale. Out of fairness to Prima Facist who can no longer post here, closing the thread.Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 17:24, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

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

CheckUser?

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

---

This may be a little moot now that Prima Facist (talk · contribs) has been indefinitely blocked, however, there may be a very good faith admin behind this, and it would shocken me for an admin to go and get away with, quite frankly, gross misconduct in sockpuppetry. I strongly believe a CheckUser should take place so that we can find out who it is. If it is an admin, then they maybe should be desynsopped. Does anyone else think a CheckUser should take place so we can find out the culprit? D.M.N. (talk) 19:53, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

• The account is not an admin, is in good standing, and is an otherwise unremarkable, non-controversial and productive editor. Thatcher 19:58, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
  • OK, the person's not an admin. But surely this (what the good standing editor is done) is disruption, isn't it? The fact that only a small group actually know who the other account is needs to be addressed, I think we all deserve to know just who is behind the "Prima Facist" account. And in my view, the good-faith editor should be blocked for a short time for sockpuppetry and evidently creating disruption. I think the rest of us deserve to know who it is. D.M.N. (talk) 20:19, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Please also reveal his home phone number, employer and SSN, so that we may harass him more. Thanks! LegitAltAccount (talk) 20:33, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
      • So "bad hand" accounts are to be tolerated now? And no-one ever asked for anything but an account name; that's not personal information or private at all according to the long-standing official interpretation of the privacy policy. --Random832 (contribs) 20:36, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Agreed. We've had too much abuse of bad hand accounts in the past. The main account needs to be revealed and sanctioned. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 20:40, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
        • We won't be able to burn him without his personal identification. LegitAltAccount (talk) 20:41, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

If there's no reason to believe the user is going to operate other bad hand accounts in the future, and this really is an isolated offense, I think forgive-and-forget should apply. Remember, blocks are preventative, not punitive. PF was blocked because he made it known the account would be used for bad faith RfA contributions. If Thatcher strongly believes that the user in question is not going to use their account for malicious wrongdoings and not going to open another bad hand account, what is the point of blocking them? Heh, after all, unless you are going to hard block their IP (assuming it's even static), the user could just create another good hand account.

It's appropriate that somebody did a CU, and I imagine the user in question is on a sort of Double Secret Probation right now. But unless there is reason to suspect future disruption, what is the purpose of publicly disclosing the account? --Jaysweet (talk) 20:45, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

That aside, who is "LegitAltAccount", which was just created to troll in this thread? Is this the same person? --Random832 (contribs) 21:12, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, geez, I didn't even notice the username. We need a CU here If that is the same person, then it's not an isolated incident and we have a serious problem. --Jaysweet (talk) 21:15, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Please. Although this IP nettle cracked me up I'm starting to wonder if the soft block is enough. Gwen Gale (talk) 21:20, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Yep, I think we definitely need a CheckUser here now that a third account has popped up. I'm confused at the message on his userpage. D.M.N. (talk) 21:22, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

The name of the editor's master account can be quickly found by looking at the IP's contributions – is a CheckUser really necessary? EJF (talk) 21:30, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think it is. Besides, I can't tell anything about the master account from looking at the last 5 to 6 edits (unless I've misread something). D.M.N. (talk) 21:38, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

It's obvious Prima Facist, be already know that. The question now is, what is the good hand account? Because, sadly, that needs blocked too (very sad to see a good faith editor go down because they are obsessed with making a WP:POINT, which is why I advocated leniency earlier, but at this point I don't think that's any longer an option) --Jaysweet (talk) 21:49, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem with this guy is that he still thinks he did nothing wrong. After 3 years here, he should not only know better, he should know that he's lucky he didn't get banished for it. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 21:56, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I've raised it to a hard block. Gwen Gale (talk) 22:01, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

And I'm drafting up a request for checkuser now. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 22:19, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Checkuser request filed at Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Prima_Facist. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 22:24, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Is a hard block really necessary? --Conti|✉ 22:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

• Don't bother. LegitAltAccount is not Prima Facist. I can't identify a main account, and he may in fact just be an IP editor who registered that name for trolling purposes. But he is on a different continent than Prima Facist. I am also not vouching for the future behavior of Prima Facist's other account, I was simply verifying that he is not an admin and has a clean record. Thatcher 22:26, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Astral has shown up asking for the hard block on PF to be lowered to soft. Gwen Gale (talk) 22:48, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I have softened the block. Martinp23 22:57, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Right, I feel I need to say something here. WTF? LegitAltAccount was nothing to do with me. I have no idea who the fuck it was (Although my suspicions say it was Kurt trying to cause trouble). Raising the block to a hard block based on that and my comment on Gwen's talk page was, IMO, completely out of line on Gwen's part. If you read the rest of the conversation aside from the diff Gwen posted, you'll see that she blanked an edit I made and then protected the page. When I asked her simply to revert that edit she did so but also unprotected the page, against my original request (which was a simple locking). Using the admin tools to be heavy handed with someone you've disagreed with is completely out of line. There was a good reason I wasn't forthcoming in revealing I was behind Prima Facist. I knew that the two accounts could be linked quite easily, given a little research, expecially after I posted from my IP. Even after Thatcher gave his staement above, the block stayed in place. Gwen should be desysoped for this level of abuse, she was way out of line. All that said, I'm done with enwiki now. There is so much bullshit and drama here and a lto of the admins need to learn what is and isn't appropriate behaviour for them. For once, I agree with Kurt, ironically enough, when he as said that admins need to remember that they are servants, not masters.

I was quite prepared to carry on and try and do something productive for this project, but I refuse to do so as long as Gwen has admin tools. Goodbye Astral (talk) 23:05, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

'There is so much bullshit and drama here...' Ah, for a rolling-eye smiley... HalfShadow 23:17, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I know, ironic, right? Recently we've had the whole fiasco over NYB, the drama about the_undertow and LaraLove and all sorts of other shit. If I had any faith left in the community, I'd start a RfC about Gwen's conduct, but I don't think it would get me anywhere. My thanks are extended to MArtinp23, Thatcher and Conti, who appear to have been the only voices of reason here. Until next time, Astral (talk) 23:22, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Weren't you leaving? Or was that drama, too? HalfShadow 23:29, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Kettle, meet the pot. One user alone is not a master either. Plus, for the record, the checkuser results have come back. Although you aren't LegitAltAccount, the results speak for themselves. Would you care to explain? Nwwaew (Talk Page)

(Contribs) (E-mail me) 23:28, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

(ec)I freely admit to being Prima Facist. It's not hard to work out why I did it. Astral (talk) 23:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Was that a dig there? Leaving is not an immediate thing. I have stuff to sort out over the next few days, editors to thank, pages to be tidied up, etc. When I leave, I will do what I did with Prima Facist; remove the email address and type gibberish for the password so I can't login or retrieve the password again. Astral (talk) 23:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

The disheartening parts are that (1) a user on here for 3 years thinks sockpuppetry of this nature is no big deal; and (2) there's an admin who also thinks it's no big deal. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 23:32, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I never said it was no big deal. I intended to use the account as a true alternate, but never got the chance... Astral (talk) 23:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Your own words indicate that you intended to use it to counter the votes of another user while keeping your normal ID distanced from that. As a 3-year veteran, you should know that's a bad thing to be doing. FYI, I don't much care for admin self-nominations either. But when I happen to get involved in those discussions, I don't hide behind a different user ID. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 23:40, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh my! Have you actually read anything I've said? I said it was intended as an alternate account and that I would also use it to vote on some RfAs, due to believing that what Kurt does is a personal attack and also unfair but having a policy of not voting on RfAs of editors I don't know using this account. Astral (talk) 23:44, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

You're right, I had it switched around. Either way, what you did is wrong. Why the need for a second account? Why hide? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 23:47, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

(ec)As I stated, it was going to be a legitimate alternate account because sometimes I like to escape the pressures of an account where a lot of people know me. I also decided to use it to "fight" an issue I feel strongly about. It was a bad choice of username, really (although I thought it vaguely amusing at the time). Had I done it under any other username, no-one would've noticed... Astral (talk) 23:51, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

What "pressures"? Editing here is voluntary. Any pressure is self-imposed. And if you feel strongly about an issue, such as an RFA, you should be a stand-up guy and say what you think - under ONE account. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 00:05, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Unlikely. We'd be suspicious of your behavior. And if you believe what Kurt does is a personal attack, why not start an RFC against him? Why not use the legit channels already set up? Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 23:54, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

How would you know? If I had a good history of solid edits, I could easily "negate" Kurt's RfA votes without giving a reason for my vote and no-one woul ever know. (Please remember, I'm talking about *had* I done this, not "if I do this now"). As for RfC, it's been done. People have complained about Kurt often enough and nothing has been done. Astral (talk) 23:57, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps it's because she knows that Kurt has a right to make the contributions he does as has been validated numerous times on ANI/RFC/Arbcom. Creating disruptive accounts, has never been tolerated. I have ZERO problem with the block and would have no problem with sanctions against Astral as well?Balloonman (talk) 00:03, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

That's not what I said. I was asking how you'd find the account. I know for a fact there are at least two other editors who only vote in RfAs to cancel Kurt's votes. I defy you to tell me who they are. Astral (talk) 00:13, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Assuming it's true that he's already being outvoted 2-1 by others countering his votes, you didn't even need to be voting in those RFA's. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 00:20, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

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

Things seem to have got somewhat out of hand here. People need a break over it. I'm archiving the above section and expect it to remain as such for the next 9 hours at least, to give everyone a change to have a nice cup of tea and a sit down. Anyone who ignores my doing this will be "in trouble" (don't ask me how! just AGF for now). Why am I doing this? Because I'd rather see people listening to eachother than posting blind comments - and I don't want to see this project lose another good contributor. If I have to, I'll delete the section from this page until a fair time period has passed. Thanks, Martinp23 00:24, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. --Conti|✉ 00:25, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Seconded. Thanks Martin. Remind me to buy you a pint if we ever meet IRL. Astral (talk) 00:27, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, thank you, Martinp23. Personally, I think ANI has been having a bad week all round. A previously unsuspected effect of global warming, perhaps? Deor (talk) 01:54, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Are you saying global warming is responsible for people ignoring the sock puppetry rule? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 02:07, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

No, I'm simply saying that there are several threads currently on this board in which a number of normally rational admins seem to have lost all sense of perspective. And that's all I have to say. Deor (talk) 02:40, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

The rules are important and must be supported by all admins. As an ordinary editor and an observer here for awhile, I expect users to make excuses for their behavior. And I expect admins to do their jobs. Mostly, they do. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 02:55, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me like the user in question admits to violating the Wikipedia:Sock puppetry rules. And it seems to me like violating those rules should be considered important by every admin in this discussion. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 01:15, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Admins are volunteers, just like everyone else - it isn't a job. Neıl 龱 09:31, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

For sure. But they do have a responsibility that goes along with that volunteering. And I don't think it's fair to characterize my calm and reasoned questions as "drama". Here's an example of "drama" (with apologies to the user whose page I borrowed it from): [4] Now, compare that with the comments in the above section. For real drama, you need lots of capital letters and exclamation points. There's hardly any of that here. :) Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 14:29, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Wait a minute...Martinp23 not only refuses to condemn, actively condones and defends a clearly unacceptable act, and then when someone calls him out on it he takes that person to task and threatens anyone else who might point it out? Something's seriously not right here. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 15:06, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Martin's comments on my talk page indicate he was just playing with our heads a bit. I recommnend we just leave this be for now, as the sockpuppeteer has indicated he is done with wikipedia in any case. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 15:12, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

? Martinp23 17:02, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

That's terrible logic Baseball Bugs. You don't "leave it be" when someone robs another, just because they say they won't do it again. Some sort of action needs to take place for this atrocity. Monobi (talk) 19:56, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

"Atrocity"???? Dude. It's a WEB SITE. Somebody made up a character to tweak somebody on a WEB SITE. Against policy? Yup. Dumb? Probably, yeah. An ATROCITY? Sure. Whatever. Overdramatize much? (/disgusted rant)Gladys J Cortez 21:24, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that's a tad overstating things. The sockpuppeteer claims that both his accounts, Astral and Prima Fascist, are done. At one point he was advised that if he was to do "legal" sockpuppetry, he should do it in a quiet way. My guess is that if he comes back, under a different ID, he will stay low-key. If not, he'll be spotted. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 01:20, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I have been unblocked, so I have to come here to say a few things.

First off, I think the checkuser was completely uncalled for and I'm upset at how it came about but ho-hum, that's all water under the bridge now so no moint worrying about it.

Secondly, I'd like to publicly apologise to Gwen for some of the things I said; specifically that I wouldn't re-edit until she had been desysopped.

See you around, Prima Facist 02:23, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Harvey Korman

Resolved

 – protected by User:Masem

Man just died. People are posting cause of death as heart attack during sex and "complications from stupid head disease". Please lock this biography. Edits are being made in very poor taste.

User:CorticoSpinal

Background of User:CorticoSpinal:

• 2008-03-09: blocked for 1 week for disruptive editing. (Disclaimer: this contained personal attacks on me.)
• 2008-03-20: warned about 3RR
• 2008-03-20: block reinstated indefinitely for repeated abuse of editing privileges
• 2008-04-09: unblocked on condition of behaving civilly and constructively
• 2008-04-09: renamed user from EBDCM to CorticoSpinal
• 2008-04-17: warned against personal attacks
• 2008-05-08: blocked for a short time for violating WP:3RR
• 2008-05-18: warned about tone and posture of comments
• 2008-05-19: warned again about combativeness
• 2008-05-27: warned for defamatory content
• 2008-05-28: Wikiquette alert for personal attack, resolved by another warning

User:CorticoSpinal continues to engage in personal attacks. Here are three examples from the past two days:

• 2008-05-29: "Filll, Mr. 'AGF' and 'I'm evidence-based' (yet refuses to consider the evidence presented that is contrary to his belief system --true denier?--) comes in and completely proves my point to a 'T' with nonsense arguments and absolutely no clue of what the evidence says."[5] (This refers to user Filll; the references to WP:AGF and to Evidence-based are ironic; a "true denier" is the opposite of a true believer.)
• 2008-05-29: "You seem to dispute all the details Eubulides. DigitalC has also said you have been pedantic. I would use tendentious, but that's just me."[6]
• 2008-05-30: "I really don't think you understand NPOV, QG.... you have not learned any lessons whatsoever with your time editing at Chiropractic"[7] ("QG" refers to user QuackGuru.)

This behavior causes considerable unnecessary work for other editors and hinders attempts to gain consensus on Chiropractic, a controversial article. (Disclaimer: I am one of the editors being attacked. Also, these attacks are in the context of a content dispute: User:CorticoSpinal strongly supports chiropractic and the editors being attacked do not.)

Eubulides (talk) 11:26, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

• 2008-03-09 Disclaimer: This was in complete frustration to the ongoing civil POV push of Ernst and failing to listen to concerns violating WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT repeatedly.
• 2008-03-20 These were never specified despite repeated attempts to ask what I had done wrong. It's all on Archive 2 if anybody wants to look)
• 2008-05-08 I actually didn't violate 3RR here, I accidentally broke my voluntary limit of 1RR and went to 2RR. CorticoSpinal (talk) 14:29, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
• 2008-05-19 Rebuttal and context [8]
• 2008-05-27 Character assasination attempt by ScienceApologist which he removed voluntarily when scrutinzed.
• 2008-05-28 More attempts by ScienceApologist to get me blocked/banned because of my arguments which threaten the existing de-facto status quo (chiro is fringe)

Now, suddenly as there is a RfC for Chiropractic (is it fringe) Eubulides decides to take action immediately after I ask for a similar investigation into the work of QuackGuru. Coincidental? Likely not. Let us deal with the RfC Chiropractic first. If it declared fringe, I will voluntarily cease to edit Chiropractic, perhaps permanently. Thoughts? CorticoSpinal (talk) 07:23, May 30, 2008 (UTC)

Just to bring a little balance here, I do think it is important to notice that there seems to be a POV dispute occurring on the Chiropractic page which has attracted several editors that don't usually edit there. Their target appears to be CorticoSpinal, for whatever reason. Personally, I think CorticoSpinal may have a legitimate gripe, as does Eubilides. The rest don't really seem to have a reason other than to suppress his POV. It is important that you know that I am a chiropractor. -- Dēmatt (chat) 13:13, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

There is certainly a lot of disagreement on Chiropractic, but CorticoSpinal seems to react extremely negatively to anybody who disagrees with them. He seems to see a broad group of editors disagreeing with him as an organized war "SA and then anti-chiro skeptic alliance (ACSA) can randomly drop by here and bomb the article and try to railroad changes..."[9] and consistently fails to assume good faith "My opinion of this is that it's another classic example of stonewalling by dogmatic skeptics"[10]. This is really quite extreme poisoning of the well, which makes achieving consensus on this article currently impossible. Jefffire (talk) 13:45, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

This attempt by Eubulides to discredit me is part of a long string of overt and covert attacks on my character and contributions. I had brought Eubulides' underhanded tactics ANI previously In fact, if anything it is Eubulides' actions at chiropractic that truly deserve special attention. These include a 4 month civil-POV push of Edzard Ernst studies under the guise the research represents the majority "mainstream" health care as a deliberate attempt to subvert the majority of research which demonstrates chiropractic care and SMT is just as if not more effective than conventional medical care for back and neck pain while being MORE safe and MORE cost-effective. All the while I have been the recipient of continuous, non-stop attacks from anti-chiropractic editors. I asked admin MastCell here to help rectify the situation and nothing was done (as usual). unfortunately the attacks did not cease (clarified position, it was not to rebuke admin MastCell but rather to demonstrate I took active steps of trying to amicably resolve the non-stop character assasination by anti-chiropractic editors).

Eubulides has regularly misrepresented my views. I have counted no less than 21 separate incidents where Eubulides has twisted by comments, misrepresented my views in order to subvert my argument(s). Diffs can be provided upon request. Eubulides has been accused of cherry picking the evidene by several editors, a mining of papers of sorts, to distort the majority viewpoint of the scientific literature. Eubulides has been warned about WP:IDHT no less than a dozen times, with no change in behaviour. Eubulides has been asked to respect consensus regarding the validity of 'effectiveness' of the chiropractic 'profession' and failed to do so. Eubulides was warned for edit warring (in a covert manner too) at Chiropractic a few weeks ago. Eubulides has continuously used a string of logical fallacies in his argumentation, which when pointed out to him, went nowhere (besides disagreeing). Eubulides has acted as a judge, jury and executioner on all the research unilaterally deciding what research goes in, where and what tone and weight it is to carry. He meets all the criteria of a civil POV pusher. This is about science and research. I am a chiropractor. Eubulides is a medical doctor. These facts should be known as well. Diffs can be provided for all the aforementioned. I don't mind having 2 concurrent ANIs, one for myself and one for Eubulides. (Note: I have brought my concerns regarding Eubulides' civil POV push to an uninvolved admin who was going to look into the case). Looks like that time has come. Cheers. CorticoSpinal (talk) 14:23, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

arbitrary section break on User:CorticoSpinal 1

Statement by QuackGuru:

The indef-block was reinstated.

The unblock request was denied twice. See here and here.

To make a long story short, AGK unblocked CorticSpinal after it was declined by two admins. With the unblock, AGK explained it was conditionally. See below for more details.

To that end, I am conditionally unblocking you, with the following understanding:

1. You will contribute civilly, and in a manner that is both constructive, and free of personal attacks and hostilities.
2. You will bear in mind, that Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopedia, and that things work a hundred times better if you make an effort to both empathise, and get along, with your fellow editors.
3. You will make article-writing your primary focus, and refrain from getting involved in heated talk-page discussions in the immediate aftermath of your unblock. I attach this condition to facilitate an "easy re-integration" on your part, with the community, and I particularly trust that you will follow this.

I am more than open to reinstating a full block as before, if you fail to contribute in a positive manner. This is a final chance; don't blow it, please.

The conditional unblock was handled by AGK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/EBDCM In the past, there was a possible ip sock.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/99.229.74.64 Recently, there was another ip with similar editing patterns as CorticoSpinal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RRArchive72#User:CorticoSpinal_reported_by_User:Arthur_Rubin_.28Result:_1_week.29 There were at least four reverts.

CorticoSpinal wrote in part: Please do not attempt to confuse readers seeing you are confused. CorticoSpinal claims there are anti-chiropractor[11] editors.

There is evidence that User:CorticoSpinal has violated the terms of his conditional unblock. Therefore, a reinstatement of his indef-block is warranted. QuackGuru 17:33, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

As the 3RR reporter in question, I found 4 reverts and the closing admin found 6. CS's claim that there were only 2 (still violating the 1RR parole) is disingenuous. I didn't look into the conditions of the conditional unblock. (The question of whether his reverts were to a "consensus" version are irrelevant to 3RR and his previous and subsequent edit warring.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:40, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

As for User:QuackGuru, I find his editing style and comments such that the fact that his article edits are usually well-thought-out is well-concealed. It might be better for him not to edit in such a manner. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:50, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

This comment by CorticoSpinal was in poor taste. CorticoSpinal has exhausted the patience of the community. QuackGuru 18:18, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I am one that believes in seeing things in context, so you need to see the whole picture as POV warriors do there best to gang up on CorticoSpinal. Personally, I think he did a pretty good job fending them off. And QuackGuru has had a few warnings himself, those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, but this isn't about you. -- Dēmatt (chat) 18:54, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I feel that 3RR incident was dealt with, is stale, and I think this ANI should be focusing on other behaviour, such as civility. DigitalC (talk) 06:59, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

This is very unfortunate. I hope that we can all work this out in some consensual collegial manner. So it is forbidden to disagree? What policy does that violate? I am disgusted, frankly. I mean no disrespect to any who believe that Chiropractic is a mainstream medical practice. I certainly agree that some peer-reviewed publications in the last few years have shown that for some small handful of ailments chiropractic is as beneficial as any other treatment. However, I am not convinced that the current article strikes the appropriate balance and tone. I apologize to anyone who disagrees with me and I certainly do not mean to offend anyone with this suggestion. There is so much rancor involved with warring parties that it makes me really wonder about the Wikipedia model...--Filll (talk | wpc) 18:24, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree, I hate to admit it, but I enjoy the discussion. Maybe the chiropractic page is not the place to do it though. Somewhere where none of us have to worry about being blocked or banned. -- Dēmatt (chat) 18:54, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

You might enjoy the discussion, but frankly I think on these controversial articles the "discussion" just gets too dangerous. This is just a website after all; is it worth the threats and worse? Mark my words; sooner or later one of us is going to be killed for disagreeing with one of these zealots. This is very unhealthy and I think suggests a bad failure of the Wikipedia model.--Filll (talk | wpc) 19:00, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

You make a good point; not everyone has the right temperment for this type of discussion, and there are certainly some unstable personalities on wikipedia. But I am confused as to why you threw that fuel on the fire if you were concerned about that. Surely you aren't worried about CS killing anyone? -- Dēmatt (chat) 19:07, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

No, of course I do not claim CS or Eubilides or anyone in particular is going to kill someone. However, I have watched these controversial articles in alternative medicine and in racial topics and conspiracy theories and religious areas and political areas and so on for well over a year. I have seen how heated these things become on Wikipedia and on the websites that monitor Wikipedia, like Wikipedia review. I have heard horrendous accounts of frequent death threats and stalking and harassment over Wikipedia. As I realize how nasty and ugly things have become over what is just a website, I am increasingly dismayed. I have heard other people make this prediction that eventually tragedy will strike, and after having watched things proceeding in a very negative way, I have to say I agree. This is all much much too serious and much much too unpleasant over what is just a hobby, a volunteer persuit. Are these stupid conflicts worth it? I mean, really. This is nuts.--Filll (talk | wpc) 19:17, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

You are a good hearted editor. I am not sure it is worth it. -- Dēmatt (chat) 19:52, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

In regard CS's comment "Eubulides has been asked to respect consensus regarding the validity of 'effectiveness' of the chiropractic 'profession' and failed to do so.", I see only a partial consensus, and Eubulides has respected (most of) that. Of course, CS considers me an anti-chiropractic editor, so, of course, he'll disregard that. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:38, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, Eubilides does not own that article any more than CorticoSpinal does, so we have to make sure all POVs are represented fairly and accurately. I think that is the whole issue abotu whether Chiropractic is WP:FRINGE because that would determine whether CS could use his peer reviewed information as well as Eubilides uses his. -- Dēmatt (chat) 18:54, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

To address AR, I have given you props for warning Eubulides that he may have accidentally gone over 3RR. I tend to dismiss extremist positions/editors, and I would not classify you as such. We just disagree on Chiropractic, just like we might disagree on politics. Nothing personal. To Dematt, " I think that is the whole issue abotu whether Chiropractic is WP:FRINGE because that would determine whether CS could use his peer reviewed information as well as Eubilides uses his." I could not have said it any better than that myself. I will declare here publically, if the evidence suggests chiropractic medicineis moreso fringe health care, than mainstream health care, I will voluntarily retire indefinitely from Wikipedia. There would be no point to continue editing when the opinion of dogmatic anti-chiropractic editors stating it is fringe nullifies and outweighs the evidencewhich suggests its moreso part of mainstream health care if not completely within it. CorticoSpinal (talk) 19:14, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Dematt, where in heaven's name do you get the idea that all POV's have to be "represented fairly and accurately?????" Actually, WP:NPOV does not say that. We do not give undue weight to fringe theories. The vast preponderance of reliable sources say that Chiropractic is not very useful medically, and there is nothing in NPOV that states the article needs to give weight to the fringe theories.OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 21:47, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

This is part of the problem. There is a giant civil POV push to discount the evidence that IS out there, and just state that "the vast preponderance of RS say that Chiropractic is not very useful". That is NOT what the evidence states! DigitalC (talk) 01:59, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Orangemarlin, If Chiropractic were just Palmer's 19th century subluxation theory that invokes Innate Intelligence, I would agree that would be fringe, because it is even in chiropractic circles (as I am sure that is what the proponderance of the literature agrees to). On those articles we need to use the principles in WP:FRINGE. But chiropractic(the profession) is more than that. We are talking about chiropractic physicians using spinal manipulation, massage, ice, heat, exercises, and whatever else they use short of medications and surgery for the treatment of musculoskeletal conditions. IOWs chiropractic care. These things are things that are used in physical therapists offices everyday now. There is mainstream research that compares and contrasts all different types of physical therapy (that all musculoskeletal therapists use - including chiropractors). So why should they be treated any less mainstream than they would be on the Physical therapy article? Some researchers disagree what works best. All I am saying is that NPOV requires that we present those two verifiable and reliable sources neutrally and without bias, letting the reader make up their own mind. Correct me if NPOV would not ask that I do that.

Now, to take this further into what CS is saying is... if one of those research opinions presented by one researcher is in opposition to a more recent task force of 16 researchers of different disciplines sponsored by the World Health Organization, does this mean that the first research can be left out of the article. He believes it's a question of weight and he is asking the community to give it some serious thought. I'm thinking that he has a good point and it appears that no-one is listening to him. No wonder he gets upset. It has nothing to do with some preconceived beliefs that chiropractic is WP:FRINGE. That seems to be all that anybody wants to say? -- Dēmatt (chat) 00:19, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

There's a difference between a fringe profession and a fringe element within a profession. That's the point here. Also, the evidence suggests contrary, chiropractic care, manual therapy and SMT is effective, safe and cost-effective, relative to standard medical care for back and neck pain and other similar musculoskeletal disorders. That's the claim being made. There's evidence to support this claim. The only thing preventing from it being stated this way (or close to it) is the disputed research of Edzard Ernst. CorticoSpinal (talk) 22:33, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Addendum: Fill wrote " I mean no disrespect to any who believe that Chiropractic is a mainstream medical practice. That claim has not been made. The claim is that chiropractic is moreso part of mainstream health care". The difference is important to note. One should also note that the current context is one of a dichotomy, i.e. there's only 2 choices, mainstream or fringe. In reality, the third option is presenting itself Integrative medicine where DCs are the backbone (no pun intended) of such a model that fuses the best practices of "alternative medicine" and "conventional/mainstream medicine". I work in such a setting. That's why, in part, I'm here. To present chiropractic care circa 2008 and not some outdated model. Sure, chiropractic has warts and these need to be presented (remember I'm the one who said chiropractic needs a criticisms section) but the fringe aspects of chiropractic care (ie manipulation for non-musculoskeletal disorders) is being used by less than 10% of chiropractors. It's a weight issue. The skeptics continuously straw man the minority view within chiropractic and present it as the majority view which then, in turn is used to call the whole profession fringe with the subsequent stigma and editing rules WP:PARITY that comes along with such a designation. Bottom line: chiropractic medicine has the evidence(research) to stand on its own 2 feet, chiropractic medicine for all intents and purposes has been incorporated into mainstream health care and chiropractic should not be treated like Flat Earth, Creationism and Homeopathy nor should nonsensical comparisons to alien abductions be made. Chiropractors should be not portraued as anti-science (as assumed by default by the fringe branding by anti-chiropractic editors) and shouldn't be treated like 2nd classes citizens from a 3rd world country here at Wikipedia. CorticoSpinal (talk) 19:26, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

CS, I appreciate what you are saying, and I want you to know that each of these editors that are here have made edits that would be considered pro-chiropractic edits when they understood the issue and the sources. Arthur has defended the Chiropractic article for years from wackos and kooks. You and FIlll would be on the same side on the Homeopathy page. I would venture that each of them would support your edits, because they, too, think that voodoo does not belong on wikipedia. Chiropractic needs to be presented to show all POVs, including the voodoo fringe (which you are not a part of), so that readers will not be sucked in by those type practitioners (and, yes, MDs use some voodoo, too - so that is not the point). The question is the weight. Eubilides, I submit to you that CS is right, you are not allowing the 'reform' view to be fully explained before blending it with the straight view. They will need to remain separate. I have given you guys time to see if you could blend the two, but it isn't working. That's my 2 cents, though I am not sure this is the place to say it. Basically, I am here to say there are more issues on this article than the diffs that show CS's "high points". -- Dēmatt (chat) 19:52, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

arbitrary section break on User:CorticoSpinal 2

I agree that there are serious disputes about content. But this ANI is not about content. It is about behavior. Although the behavior of attacking other editors is wrong, CorticoSpinal continues to engage in it despite repeated warnings. Here are two other recent quotes illustrating the behavior in question:

• 2008-05-28: "You should not play so coy. You've been doing this for 4 months now, Eubulides. Except, over time your civil POV push for Ernst representing the mainstream opinion has been exposed as a farce.… That is so underhanded…. Shame on you."[12]
• 2008-05-30: "The opinion of one man can subvert and circumvent international scientific consensus at Chiropractic. This is the push Eubulides has been making over the last 4 months, the push I've been resisting for 4 months and we're now seeing it crystallize. In Canada, we'd say this issue is the "TSN Turning Point". Eubulides assessment of the TaskForce has been demonstrated to be false. He has tendentiously pursued this point for months."[13]

This kind of personal attack needs to stop. But it isn't stopping, despite a block in the past, despite repeated warnings, and despite this ANI report. That last comment was made about 3 hours ago. Eubulides (talk) 21:35, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I gave up editing the article because of the personal attacks from CS, who has been repeatedly blocked. He is pushing a POV that is inappropriate and unsupported. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 21:49, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

• I have been editing the article over the last few months, and I have not seen any meaningful participation from Orangemarlin. His edits that I have noticed were drive-by reverts (often to a version of someone on 1RR parole - suggesting possible meatpuppetry), and he has stated that he refuses to participate on the talk page, or look at the talk page to see what the consensus is. I have also witnessed several personal attacks towards CS from OM. While this ANI is not about OM, I think it is important to take this into context. DigitalC (talk) 01:59, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
• Are you for real, OM? Luckiliy Wikipedia keeps a track of these types of things. [14] Look at the diffs provided for the reality of the situation. I am pushing for a scientific inquiry into whether or not chiropractic is fringe. I have provided evidence it is moreso mainstream than fringe. I have been attacked, harrassed, baited, bitten, stalked by anti-chiropractic editors. So, please forgive my occasional bursts of curtness, but you guys always have me on edge. Eubulides, I am making a claim that there has been a civil POV push of Ernsts' flawed research on SMT and chiropractic care, primarily by you. It's not an attack. It's a statement that I have backed up and that is currently being investigated. If I am proven incorrect, I'll happily retract the claim. Until then, it's just that: a claim. If the involved editors would care to look at these threads [15] and [16] you will see that there is strong evidence which supports my claims (and none that refutes it). This is about evidence and content. That drives the behaviour. If I've gone batshiat crazy it's because there's been a civil POV push happening at chiropractic for 4 months and it's been treated like a fringe subject (Flat Earth, alien abductions) rather than a part of mainstream health care. Chiropractic shares far more in common with a specialization like Dentistry than it does with Homeopathy. We should treat it accordinly. It's about professional respect. CorticoSpinal (talk) 22:28, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Addendum: In short this is about WP:IDONTLIKEIT. The anti-chiro brigade doesn't like the fact that I am debunking long held stereotypes and myths via scientific literature. Yet I am called anti-scientific continuously by the same editor time and time again. This happened at Raul654's very own talk page in front of numerous admins who just sat there while OM was feeding me personal attacks left and right. Diffs can be provided upon request. Would someone please look impartially at the content and context? Otherwise we're left with a cherry picking of diffs from the editor who opened the case with no proper context. Another way to look at it is this: find me 1 diff of alledged incivility to any editor outside the chiroskeptic brigade (Mccready, QuackGuru, Eubulides, Orangemarlin, Jefffire, ScienceApologist and (limited AR and Filll). These guys come into my specialization Chiropractic and mess around, call me names, prevent me from editing, censor my talk page comments, move my comments around so they lose all context and meaning, harass, bait, bite, attack, accuse me of being "anti-science" a "POV warrior" who "cannot collaborate". I've been blocked for far less than other editors, probably because of sympathetic admins to the chiroskeptics who think I'm a fringe practitioner promoting a fringe view. Incorrect. I play fine with others. Look who's showing up to bury me here! I'm like Nostradamus, I can predict who will come for the execution. Luckily I have documented this and let select impartial admins be aware of my concerns. And they're coming to fruition. CorticoSpinal (talk) 22:52, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Addendum to the addendum: I have been on edge quite a bit lately, but that's primarily because things have realllllly heated up and crystalized at chiropractic. I'm always on the defensive against one of aforementioned editors. Though I really try to be civil and patient and understanding, sometimes I let a barb slip. And I'm truly sorry for that. I have shown tremendous restraint over all, but do acknowledge that occasionally I let one fly. I have requested a few times now to be mentored, yet I don't know how and where to initiate that process. I truly feel as though I am a net-contributor to the project (create far more than I delete; whose expertise in physical medicine should be an asset to the project and who always brings indexed, peer-reviewed research. I don't cite quackwatch and layman pages. I bring quality research from PubMed (at a minimum!). I feel I bring in a unique blend of both mainstream health care and integrative health care (the very best practices and evidence of "CAM"). This is valuable here. Wikipedia can be on the leading edge and support and develop me/smooth the edges as a scientific chiropractor, or wikipedia can support the measures of the anti-chiropractic bandwagon to act without impugnity, attack me in every single which way until I crack, retaliate and then lobby to ANI to block me. CorticoSpinal (talk) 23:12, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

This editor adds almost nothing to the discussion at Talk:Chiropractic, acts primarily as a single purpose account and is so confrontational that discussion normally completely degenerates whenever he begins to add material. I suggest banning him for a time from Chiropractic and its associated talk pages as well as all related pages. Give him a chance to edit other articles on Wikipedia to see if he can be of use elsewhere. Otherwise, it's pretty clear that this editor is simply disruptive enough to be shown the door. ScienceApologist (talk) 05:46, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

This is a nonsensical statement. You've contributed nothing to Chiropractic, except drive-by reversions, statements of false consensus and attempts to vote stack a dubious RfC with opinions rather than evidence. I have invested hours of research and editing bringing up the scientific content miles above where it was. Just because you view chiropractic as fringe, and I'm challenging that opinion with reliable, undisputed evidence, your trying to have me muzzled and spayed. Hopefully the admins can see through this hollow request. On the other hand, one could easily suggest that your recent behaviour at Chirorpractic could very be your 9th life (look at your block list, and you've probably set a record for ANI appearances. If it weren't for some sympathetic admins who share your POV on FRINGE you'd be a goner, no doubt) and you've done nothing but wiki-stalk me the last 7 days. Quite simply SA: Do you have any evidence that disputes the evidence I presented that chiropractic is mainstream health care and not fringe? Because you're treating me like a fringe POV pusher rather than a health professional. That's hardly good faith and I could easily provide diffs that show how you've been warned about harassing me. It's time to face the facts that your opinion on chiropractic (fringe) is not supported by undisputed scientific evidence as well as governmental and health agencies worldwide and reputable lay sources such as the New York Times. You are merely stating your opinion that chiropractic, the profession, is fringe. And you call yourself ScienceApologist? Ironic, you really should apologize for misrepresenting yourself, for it is you, SA that does not follow the science. Over and out. CorticoSpinal (talk) 07:30, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I think this last statement by CS just about proves my case. Is it really worth it to have a user who engages in snarkiness to the point of personal invectives in a section of AN/I devoted to dealing with that very issue? All I know is that if I was behaving the way CS is behaving, I'd have been slapped with a week-long block by now. ScienceApologist (talk) 08:55, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Looked at the evidence after 2008-05-18 - only 3 out of the 8 bits of evidence have any worth including the final relating to "QG" - bad! 2 things: 1/ take the content issues through Article RFC or mediation, and 2/ I strongly recommend an RFC on user conduct to be filed, particularly if there is any new evidence concerning his conduct. Other than that, there is currently insufficient evidence to warrant use of admin tools here. Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:47, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

FYI, the article has had a number of content RfC recently. As for new evidence about his conduct, how about the "chiroskeptic brigade" comments he makes above? Jefffire (talk) 15:22, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

It's understandable that he's upset, and in the grand scheme of things, though it might not be considered acceptable to some, it still wouldn't warrant use of admin tools (which is essentially what this noticeboard is for). Instead, you or those categorised in that way could politely request him here to retract that title if it's offensive - it's a step in the right direction to wanting to truely resolve a dispute.

I recommend an RFC on user conduct be filed if it's really out of hand, or even with whatever evidence from the past and recent past you have - but as you may know, the conduct of all those involved may be looked at in the process - particularly if he adduces evidence in the form of diffs. In any case, I'd be happy to look through it. If there are problems with conduct, third party input will be given stating what the problems are and suggestions on how to fix the problem (and it mostly ends there). If it doesn't, then we can go from there. It may seem long or perhaps annoying, but the results often speak for themselves, sooner or later. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:14, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

The whole point of this section is about a continual series of violations of his unblocking, regardless of any possible worthiness as an editor. Other user's conduct is not the issue. We are way past the point of any user RfC, since we are dealing with a violation of conditions for unblocking an indef block, after many previous warnings and blocks. The personal attacks not only have to stop, they have existed continually and it's been getting worse. The fact that they have existed is proof of a serious violation of the agreements for unblocking, and thus the indef ban needs to be reinstated. It's too bad, but when an editor with such good potential can't stop the attacks, it's time to part (yet again). -- Fyslee / talk 16:19, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

An example of what we have to put up with from this user:

• "What this discussion proves that zombie editors and anti-chiropractic skeptics are obstructing anybody who disagrees with them. The zombie editing practices of the anti-chiropractic axis of Jefffire-OrangeMarlin-ScienceApologist with sleeper cell of Filll and Arthur Rubin will be exposed. You don't have all the wikipedia admins in your back pocket. What a fucking joke this place is." CorticoSpinal [17]

-- Fyslee / talk 16:41, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

You have given no valid reasons or insufficient evidence to demonstrate that it is impossible or too difficult to attempt to resolve this through other steps of dispute resolution such as RFC on user conduct. This is the only way that there is an active demonstration of actually wanting and trying to resolve the dispute, rather than removing someone you disagree with (in content) for other reasons. So, don't bypass earlier steps of dispute resolution because of impatience - it will not result in a ban being reinstated/enforced from users outside of the dispute (or the community). Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:54, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

The indef-block was reinstated and the unblock request was denied twice. See here and here. AGK unblocked CorticSpinal after it was declined by two admins. Was this a valid unblock after it was declined twice?[18][19] Was there any consensus to unblock after the repeated declines.[20][21] QuackGuru 17:16, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

[EC] Reply to Ncmvocalist. We have already been there. It didn't work and he was blocked and finally indef blocked. He was unblocked based on conditions, and has been on probation ever since. He has violated those conditions. In such a situation, we don't start all over again. That wouldn't make sense and would violate all normal procedures here and in the justice system (if that were the case). It's a case of simple logic....if you (generic) break a promise and violate your probation, your indef block gets reinstated. A refusal to reinstate the block under such conditions would place the involved admin at jeopardy for ignoring community wishes and consensus. There is no alternative but to reinstate the indef block. -- Fyslee / talk 17:22, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

User:CorticoSpinal's comment was unindented by me for readability--Enric Naval (talk) 15:34, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

There is no community wish, other than the skeptics to block and we're seeing why that might be. Sour grapes, Fyslee. You defend QuackGuru yet try to bury me? That's rather odd since you pushed for him to get investigated one week ago for truly disruptive conduct. We get it, you don't like me. Fine. ^{[outing and personal attack removed]}

What we're talking about is editing practices and how it drives behaviour. Considering I've been branded as fringe as opposed to a health professional (because the skeptics personally view chiropractic as fringe despite the evidence presented that it is moreso mainstream and thusly should be edited under that banner) and have been subjected to the kind of scrutiny and attacks that likely few editors would ever have to endure. I'm simply trying to keep the chiropractic article stabilized, but other editors who have commented here to bury me have no intent to actually contribute, but rather to supress any real progress made and to disrupt and destabilize the article.

The edit histories of these 3 users are as follows > > OrangeMarlin (OM)

• 27/5 revert
• 11/5 revert
• 17/4 revert
• 17/4 revert
• 08/4 revert
• 07/4 revert
• 07/4 revert
• 21/3 revert
• 20/3 revert
• 20/3 revert
• 20/3 revert

> > ScienceApologist (SA)

• 27/5 removes sourced statement on 4th RR
• 27/5 revert
• 27/5 revert
• 27/5 revert
• 25/5 revert
• 24/5 restores source seemingly removed by his own previous revert
• 24/5 revert
• 23/5 restores source seemingly removed by his own previous revert
• 23/5 reverts 8 days of editing by CS and Levine
• 15/5 revert
• 14/5 revert

> > Filll

• 27/5 revert
• 15/5 revert
• 14/5 revert

> This is not just the recent stuff, this isn't their total edits at Chiropratic It is hard to resist the conclusion that these editors are not actively involved in editing the article... at all. It appears that they are gang edit warring to avoid 3rr and trying to stir the pot. Their discussions on the talk page are are more along the lines of stonewalling and disruption since, as can be seen from their edit histories, they have nothing to add to the article in any way. You can see why, at times, I get exasperated with an ongoing civil POV push or Ernst and chiropractic is fringe. Find me one editor or diff outside the usual suspects here that I have been less than friendly terms. Good luck. CorticoSpinal (talk) 17:36, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Section break

Let me make some things very clear.

1. Wikipedia is not a justice system.
2. A community ban only exists where there is consensus for it, i.e. no admin is willing to unblock the editor in question. The community as a whole (outside of those involved) see it is the only way to avoid damage to the encyclopedia.
3. The conditions of the unblock do not constitute indefinite probation.
4. There currently is no consensus for another ban or block, and will continue not to be, in the absence other forms of dispute resolution being attempted, unless the user engages in severe or much more repeated violations of policy. In any case...
5. filing an RFC is not starting again - it is an active attempt to resolve the dispute by way of third party input. It also ensures that you aren't filing this with an intent to remove a contributor while evading a sanction/block for your own misconduct, if you have engaged in misconduct.
6. Failing to resolve the dispute in this way (in conjunction with mediation/article RFC), is when you come back and ask for conduct to be looked at
7. Failing that, or after the RFC, you can try arbitration.

In no case will all parties conduct not be looked into. Ncmvocalist (talk) 18:01, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

CorticoSpinal blocked

Per my detailed rationale at User talk:CorticoSpinal#Blocked, and pending my current concerns that allowing CorticoSpinal to continue editing is actively hampering the smooth operation of Wikipedia and its articles, I have blocked CorticoSpinal indefinitely.

This action is further to a follow-up review of my unblock earlier in the year, at which time I made it clear that if CorticoSpinal resumed the behaviour he had been originally indefinitely blocked for, he would be re-blocked. Clearly, he has found himself unable to adhere to the standards of behaviour expected; if he becomes willing to reform, and is able to demonstrate such a willingness to one or more administrators, then I am willing to lift my block.

This action is separate to the discussion here; notification is only cross-posted here, for the purposes of well-informed ban discussion. At the moment, I do not consider my action to be representative of a consensus to ban, but only a run-of-the-mill, counter-disruption measure.

Anthøny 18:32, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

There is evidence that CorticoSpinal outed an editor today. CorticoSpinal has previously outed the same Wikipedian before. I provided Anthøny with the evidence. Outing an editor is indef-blockworthy. QuackGuru 18:53, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

You seem to be saying your comment in such a way that you are still arguing for action to be taken. It has been... Anthøny 19:00, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

The editor publicly associates his real name with his wiki nickname, as can be confirmed with a simple search. To repeat what he himself has made publicly clear is hardly "outing" by any rationale measure. Vassyana (talk) 23:06, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Incivility and deletion of sources by User:Mrg3105

User:Mrg3105 persists in edit-warring and refuses to even consider a remotely flexible approach to discussion. Frequently noted by Admins for his incivility and uncompromising attitude ([22], [23]), the User insists on pushing his POV in the Belgrade Offensive article based solely on his reported "years of experience" and total intellectual superiority over other concerned editors. This is true to such an extent, that he has violated WP:3RR [24] in removing sources that contradict him (sources like Britannica and the US Library of Congress) [25] simply because he personally, based again on his "years of experience", does not consider them valid or "true". Instead, he insists on constantly replacing these refs with a quote (from a book he apparently owns) that does not at all address the issue (see [26]), calling it "one hell of a lot better". Frankly, I do not know anymore if any source whatsoever that contradicts him would be acceptable to this person. User:Woody is an Admin familiar with this matter, but I'd appreciate a general response from the community, thanks. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 13:00, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't see the 3RR violation on Belgrade_Offensive. Note that Mrg3105 (talk · contribs) has initiated an rfc for the disputed page, so appears to be attempting dialog. I have notified the editor of this discussion. Toddst1 (talk) 14:31, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes he proposed the RfC, probably to spite me because I said I would do it (just above on the talkpage). Perhaps he perceived it as a "victory" of some sort if he beat me to it. In any case, dialog has been attempted in the past, to great extent and with little result. The reason for this is that the User simply refuses to accept sources which contradict him, constantly commenting on the intelligence of those who suggest that he should. Without turning this into a content discussion, I will cite a few, more obvious, examples of the User's attitude toward sources:

The point of contention in the first example is the depiction of the operation in question as one conducted by a "joint force" of two independent Armies. The source I brought forth, namely the US Library of Congress, states, citing "information from Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1919-1945, Arlington, Virginia, 1976", that:
"...Soviet troops crossed the border on October 1, and a joint Partisan-Soviet force liberated Belgrade on October 20."
Upon the addition of this source, my intelligence was criticized by the User, who later removed it and used the following citation to prove that the Armies were not cooperating, but that the Red Army was in total control:
"The Russians had no interest in the German occupation forces in Greece and appear to have had very little interest in those retiring northwards through Yugoslavia...Stalin was content to leave to Tito and the Bulgarians the clearing of Yugoslav territory from the enemy"

The next example, is the use of the English language adjective "Soviet" to describe units of the Red Army. Out of some strange POV, User:Mrg3105 reverted the use of the word and demanded I use the adjective "Red Army" as "Soviet" is in his own personal view, incorrect. He insisted that I use, for example, "Red Army 57th Army" and not "Soviet 57th Army". The dictionary source I provided (dictionary.com) was, of course, "wrong" in his view, and he threatened with revert-war if I did not stop using that adjective. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 14:57, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

My alleged incivility is only related to my insistence for use of quality sources in articles. The so called deleted sources were substandard, and User:DIREKTOR refused to produce others. I replaced them with a reputable source,and a direct quote from it that substantially opposes the POV DIREKTOR holds on the subject. It could be I am wrong, but I am so far unable to find a sources that directly supports the POV DIREKTOR holds, and neither does he apparently.

In any case, an RfChist has been requested.

The 3RR has not been in effect because only two reversion were made by myself, DIREKTOR already being limited to one revert per day for previous edit-warring.

User:Woody is in fact mediating in an unrelated dispute between myself and User:Buckshot06 which I hope can be resolved amicably, eventually.--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 14:38, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I can only suggest that the specifics of the article dispute be resolved during the RfC on the article talk page.--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 15:11, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I would like to support User:Direktor's request. Mrg3015 has a history of foul, abusive language, edit warring, and general incivility. I raised concerns about his behaviour on this board before, as what I usually get when he disagrees with me is some variation on the following (original is at Talk:Strategic operations of the Red Army in World War II#Kharkov operations):

Want to be sure I understand your intent here Mrg. You've change all the battles of Kharkov to their numeric numbering. Here you have a number of redlinks with different names, but referring to the same operations. You've been the primary editor on this page, so I wanted to ask you what you'd think of me inserting links to those operations - since all four of them do have articles. Buckshot06(prof) 10:55, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

How about this. YOU go and buy Keitel's fucking book in Irving's fucking translation and then YOU write the fucking articles based on that and see how same they look ok. You are so big on talk, but will not spend the money on the books, but the books have nothing. They are written for a perspective of a very senior officer in Berlin. SO, the articles you refer to are NOT same as those on this list. They are the German POV base on a single source, and I will tag them as such when I find the template. Then they will sit there for another year as stubs until someone tries to improve them using Glantz's Kharkov 1942 book. THIS entire sorry issue with these three articles is the sort of bullshit that drives people away from Wikipedia. Enjoy. I have taken all three off my watch list. All yours now, or whoever.--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 11:14, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually Buckshot06 does not usually get this sort of response. The extremity of my response was due to long discussion that went on about the viability of basing the titles of three articles on a single source which is unreliable, unsupported by other sources and produced by a discredited author David Irving. The use of expletives were directed at the said book by Wilhelm Keitel and David Irving who had been proven wrong and bias by two courts of law. The article Buckshot06 refers to is titled Strategic operations of the Red Army in World War II, and therefore lists operations not because they are same, but because they are those conducted by the Red Army and named accordingly. Wilhelm Keitel could not have know their names during the war, and displays this ignorance in his book, which is written from a Nazi point of view (written during the war). I on the other hand use English translations of the operations as found in the books by David Glantz, a recognised authority on the subject. Why should I abandon works of Mr. Glantz to make an exception for three operations as interpreted by David Irving on Buckshot06's insistence? In any case, I would propose that the case/s be moved to the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard for arbitration. --mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 22:36, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

No editors should ever get receive abusive responses like that, especially from long-established editors like yourself. It is important that you recognise that this discussion is not about the validity of your sources - it is about your increasingly uncivil and agressive behaviour. Disagreements over sources can, and should, be handled respectfully on the relevant talk pages and, if necessary, noticeboards. Instead you routinely resort to personal abuse and edit wars and are all to often unwilling to accept the consensus of knowledgeable and experienced editors. This is a long running and worsening pattern of behaviour and it is not acceptable. Nick Dowling (talk) 00:00, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Well Nick, I can express my opinion about books if I want to in any way I want to, particularly those written by confirmed nazis and criminals. I did not hurl personal abuse at Buckshot06, unlike he did.

I have certainly seen other "knowledgeable and experienced editors" express themselves in same terms about sources, administrators even.

Not sure where you came in on this, but all my "behaviour" has been about sources.

Do you know why Nick? Because I edit in the "danger zone". I have the temerity to want to document the history of the Eastern Front during the Second World War, and not the Australian Navy. For that I have to deal with other editors who base their edits on selective use of whatever sources they can get off the Internet. How's that for frustration-builder? If I did that, I can convince you Japan won the war in the Pacific, and all within the Wikipedia policies and guidelines. I bet you will come up with a few expletives faced with this.

Now that I'm aware of the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard, I will take it there. No "knowledgeable and experienced editor" has ever suggested I do so until 19 May, and I missed it then, however better late then never (was too late by then anyway). Certainly Buckshot06 never made the suggestion. Doesn't say much about his willingness to mediate. All I have seen is him vengefully oppose everything I do, and that was after months of stalking me in his self-appointed task of teaching me English. Are you sure you have all the history on this Nick?

Consensus is not accepted, but agreed on. Its not like voting where 20 editors say no, and its done with (though I had seen that staged by Eurocopter). You have a degree in politics, so no doubt aware of vote stacking. In Wikipedia the community decided that not only do they need to say no, but also give a half-reasonable reason for it. It is preferable that the reasons given are backed up by some reference to accepted practice, sources, etc. What has Buckshot06 offered? He simply insisted I use an accepted name for an article although its source-of-origin it was based on, actually failed to describe the events depicted in the article.

I talked to Buckshot06 in the article talk, in my talk, in his talk pages. You think that outburst was a result of one reply to his one question? There are a dozen articles-worth of exchange between us on the subject, and same with DIREKTOR. However, I am here to edit not to engage in talkfests. Not only that, but I do quality edits. Almost no online links. No stubs; I have improved several stubs to start that were not even my own. I am guilty of one thing - insistence on quality.

So, I said to Buckshot06, if he thinks that the source he wants to use for the article is so great, he can write the article. Have you read the articles...before I expanded them? If you had, you would know why I said what I said. Has Buckshot worked on the articles since? Well, he replaced the name I suggested, derived from Russian sources, in the intro of one, and replaced Wilhelm Keitel, the actual source of the German single source name with "German historians". Is Buckshot06 unaware that David Irving, who purports to be a historian, is in fact British?

I also advised DIREKTOR that I am unable to, at this time, provide a source and he can do the research himself. He is instead asking me a question I had answered weeks ago. Who took command in the field when Red Army and Yugoslav partisans cooperated? Red Army off course. No Red Army lieutenant would take orders from an officer of any other Army, never mind a partisan one. SMERSH ensured that. To even suggest that a Yugoslav officer fresh out of the woods could take over command of units using combined arms (infantry, artillery, armour and aircraft), and do so in Russian, is just not something any military historian would seriously contemplate. And yet, I AM ASKED FOR A SOURCE. Can you suggest where I can get a source to support what is blatantly obvious?

In any case, neither decided to take my advice.

BTW, I did not see you stepping in and saying "take it to the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard". Where you just enjoying the "show" from the sidelines?

Here is the funny thing, you probably knew about the issues related to Eastern European editing like the Digwuren case. So did Buckshot06. No one from the Project ever warned me, ever came in on the discussions and said, take it to the noticeboards, tried to mediate, naddah, zilch, 0, nothing, no support from the vaunted "knowledgeable and experienced editors" like yourself, until I am driven to destruction in frustration from having to deal with people who base entire articles on a single word. My "increasingly uncivil and aggressive behaviour" only says one thing about me, that I am not a "saint". Are you Nick? If there was proper coordination on the project, and if coordinators and other "knowledgeable and experienced editors" actually were willing to intervene and say something, you may have had something to talk about, but neither you, not anyone else did (at least not until 19 May), except to threaten me with a block, and one of the present coordinators was in on the "fun" in an earlier dispute, so don't tell me about "knowledgeable and experienced editors".

I think you are entirely bias to offer comments here due to your close relationship with Buckshot06 in editing who seems to be just spiteful from issues that have accumulated over time. They are his issues, not mine. All I want is that when people edit, they use reliable sources that are in context and relevant. Full stop. I seem to remember Wikipedia policy to this effect. --mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 14:06, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Forcing through changes

There is an ongoing discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (names and titles)#Simplifying titles: Removing "prince" from royals with substantive titles. Half of the ongoing discussion was cut of by User:Charles to try and force a change in the naming conventions. I was wondering is this sort of behaviour acceptable, the discussion is clearly still ongoing and Charles is still engaged in it. He suddenly archived half the discussion and then announced a consensus and said that a "new" discussion was taking place to change the conventions back! Is it possible to remove the archive (polltop, pollbottom) template as the discussion is still ongoing, I tried earlier but was reverted. - dwc lr (talk) 17:28, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

It is (the substitution stops short right at the start of the discussion). Just clarify why you're removing the archival template. As to Charles, he claims that the proposed item was already being used; I would confirm that it is before removing the archive template. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v E pluribus unum)} 17:49, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

When I and others first contributed the discussion was open there was no archive template, but our objections to the change were completely disregarded. Though he is and was contributing to the discussion he suddenly archived half of the discussion (if you the look at the time stamps when he archived it there is whole load of discussion he completely missed out to effectively try and force a change). Then he announced that actually every thing under his Archive template is simply a "new" discussion. It's clearly the same discussion which is still ongoing so I'm asking if the Archive template can be removed as the discussion is still ongoing and was open when many contributed before half of it was shut to force a change. - dwc lr (talk) 18:19, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

DWC LR is telling a half-truth. Chronology of events: The change was proposed because the convention is problematic for a number of royals (Swedish princes, etc). It sat for almost two weeks with one person opposed and two people supporting. Then two more supported which brought it to 4 to 1. For WT:NC(NT), which is slow anyway, that is a very good outcome. It then went like this (these are all my local times): At 14:40, there was an 80% majority favouring changing the conventions. At 14:43, I changed the convention. The discussion was therefore closed even if I had forgotten the templates. I even made a move to the effect of the new conventions at 14:44. It was only later that someone objected, but too late at that, and soon enough DWC LR followed in (very unsurprising). Another editor who voiced his opinion in time, but didn't like the outcome, decided to revert the naming conventions although a new discussion would be needed to gain another consensus. A third party, uninvolved in the actual changes to the convention (but who had voted in time), amended the conventions to reflect both sides. I put in the archive box to separate the conversation which introduced the change to the conventions. Whether or not the dissenters agree or disagree, consensus was gained and the conventions were changed. Further arguments are very, very Anglocentric and have little or no evidence to back them up. This being pointed out, certain editors still want to remove the archive box. They are welcome to form a new discussion though. Charles 22:13, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

And at what time did you close half the discussion, hours after people expressed opinions but these were not taken into account. It's not because they opposed your proposal is it? What this is a case of is showing no respect for other editors and behaving like a Nazi dictator by only using half a discussion to try and force a change because the other half are opposed to a change. Disgusting. - dwc lr (talk) 22:52, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm saving this diff. I would suggest you keep your mouth shut from now on before you throw around comparisons to Nazism. Talk about disgusting. My German relations LEFT Germany and my living German relations at the time FOUGHT FOR CANADA. Nazism indeed. Don't you dare ever make such a comparison again. Charles 22:57, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations. - dwc lr (talk) 23:11, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

• Charles's statements are completely misleading and I have again removed the archive template. Charles inserted this template only when the consensus began to go against him. His conduct is unworthy of such a long-standing contributor. Deb (talk) 23:13, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Please state exactly which statements are misleading before you smear my name. Charles 23:14, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Charles you are correct when he says at 14:40 (19:40 my time) there was a 80% majority favouring changing the conventions. However you fail to mention when you actually ended the discussion there was clear no consensus. However these comments though clearly posted in an open an ongoing discussion were completely overlooked and not even taken into consideration. - dwc lr (talk) 23:38, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

• An admin seriously needs to intervene in this, Charles is basically wikilawyering, ignoring consensus, editing disruptively and being generally incivil. MickMacNee (talk) 23:15, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

It's funny how users point out the faults of those who disagree with them and totally ignore the actions of those who don't. Charles 23:19, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

It's your actions I that do have a problem with, not others, I have no problem saying that. Other peoples actions have no bearing on whether an admin needs to intervene based on your behaviour or not. MickMacNee (talk) 23:26, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

You should have a problem with others. Pick and choose, pick and choose. Charles 23:47, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned you are conducting yourself like a dictator by picking and choosing where to cut off an ongoing discussion to force through a change and showing no respect for the other editors (excluding myself). - dwc lr (talk) 23:31, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Several editors seem more interested in discussing the behaviour of other editors than in the actual content of the convention. Charles changed the convention after 12 days when there was a consensus (4 to 1). After he made the change other editors spoke out against it, and a revert battle ensued. Then Charles put an archive template on the early part of the discussion - perhaps not the best thing to do, but it did show that there was a consensus at the time he changed the convention. There clearly isn't a consensus now, and I have edited the convention to state that. But several editors just want to continue throwing rocks at each other. None of them are innocent in this, although calling somebody a Nazi goes way way over the line. Noel S McFerran (talk) 23:48, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I accused him of acting like a fascist dictator earlier in the discussion. Should I just keep my mouth shut from now on? - dwc lr (talk) 00:47, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

The answer is YES if you intend to write in an uncivil manner. You are NEVER allowed to be uncivil on Wikipedia - even when you think others have been uncivil to you (e.g. by deleting your comments on their talk page and using the edit summary "Flushing the toilet"). If you want to be uncivil, there are probably better places to spend your time. Noel S McFerran (talk) 01:00, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

A gracious sorry I let things get out of hand; let's try to work together better might go a long way. Ideally with him; if not then with other observers. Incidentally the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, employs Mike Godwin as its counsel, who coined Godwin's law. Small world, ain't it? Durova^Charge! 02:30, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes perhaps things got out of hand. And no Mcferran, I don't want to be uncivil I want to improve Wikipedia. - dwc lr (talk) 15:39, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Howabout we do the consensus discussion thingy, all over again. That way, nobody can be accused of any wrongdoing. GoodDay (talk) 15:05, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I think Mcferran is trying that, or at least to try and get the discussion back on track. - dwc lr (talk) 15:39, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Edit War/Continual Ayers/Rezko/Wright Debate

This notice is about the Barack Obama Article. Various editors have been continually trying to push more of the Bill ayers, Wright, and Rezco controversies into the main page. A variety, though small handful of editors have been trying to keep the article as concise and clear as possible without going too far into the election debate issues by instead including blue links to the controversies themselves. However, a variety of editors, too many to name, have continually been pushing to expand various sections to include non-Barack information that pertains to the controversies.

At least one to two of the editors who are pushing for more info on the controversies have themselves stated that they are against Obama and are trying to show the "dark underside" of Obama.

Currently there is an edit war between the two sides over a massive rewrite to include a lot more information on the controversies. I am asking for a couple admins to step in and help iron out the situation and hopefully put this circular debate to rest. Brothejr (talk) 17:56, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

While the fact that some editors state they support, etc.----whereas others state they don't support, etc.----the subject of the political bio seems unremarkable; that said, it's absolutely true that BOTH camps should try and overcome these biases in their editing. — Justmeherenow (   ) 04:16, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

There is some disruptive edit warring and there is also a content debate on what information to add to the article concerning how much we should say about various controversial associates/friends of Obama. Some of us on the "inclusionist" side think there's a WP:OWN problem here, and we hope to post requests for more comment at Village Pump and other boards, then we hope to come to some consensus with a larger population of editors more amenable to compromise. Personally warning the warriors would be helpful, and hopefully we can still edit the article this week. We really need both administrator and editor eyes on articles that are this important. Noroton (talk) 19:50, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I would like to offer some background to assist interested administrators. It is important to note that most of the content warring concerns perceived WP:BLP violations, as well as edits resulting in undue weight. The "inclusionist" faction described above wish to expand the existing text to include tangential or controversial details about individuals with whom Barack Obama has been associated with in order to "inform" readers of "all the facts". Since the BLP is written in summary style (with several sub-articles and related articles), the inclusion of these details is seen by many editors has violating WP:WEIGHT. An example of the problem is the desire by some to include details about Bill Ayers' association with the Weather Underground, complete with inflammatory descriptions like "unrepentant terrorist bomber". In keeping with WP:SS, such details already exist in the linked-to sub article Bill Ayers election controversy and the BLP Bill Ayers. I hope you find this background information useful, and I thank you for your interest. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:23, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps a compromise: saying "Unrepentant terrorist bomber" is maybe too much, but mention that "Obama's associate is controversial for having been in the Weather Underground" seems OK, even desirable. — Justmeherenow (   ) 04:16, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Admins, please note that there was never any complaint or action from any of these complaining editors, when negative details about Obama's political rivals sat undisturbed in this article for months. After all, those details about other people made Obama look good. But the moment negative details about Obama's close friends and political allies began to appear, suddenly these complaining editors started finding something wrong with including details about other people, because they make Obama look bad. The article is a complete whitewash by editors who obviously want Obama to be the Democratic nominee, and the next president of the United States. It reads as though it was written by Obama's campaign manager. They put Wikipedia policy through contortions and gymnastics to justify what they're doing, which is WP:OWNing the article. They make false accusations of racism and sockpuppetry. I agree that admin attention is needed, but they're telling only half of the truth here and distorting it, much like what they're doing with the article itself. Kossack4Truth (talk) 02:48, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

If I were the only person who noticed all of these negative details about Obama's associates, I wouldn't even be asking to include them. But federal prosecutors have noticed the negative details, all of the mainstream news media have noticed these negative details, and there has been substantial controversy about these negative details that has profoundly altered the landscape of the presidential campaign. Before this controversy, Obama won Super Tuesday, then won 11 primaries in a row. After this controversy started, Obama lost four out of six primaries, some of them by 2-to-1 margins. Notable commentary from mainstream news sources finds this remarkable.

Readers of this article deserve to know why these people are controversial, and why the news media have found them to be controversial. They deserve the whole truth, not the half-truths that Scjessey and Brothejr and their friends are peddling. It is not a violation of WP:BLP or any other policy to include facts reported by mainstream news sources with fact-checking departments. But it is a violation of WP:NPOV to systematically delete any criticism of Obama, or any material that might make him look bad, when there are multiple, solid gold reliable sources. Kossack4Truth (talk) 03:00, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

The subject of the article in question is -- wait for it -- Barack Obama, not his associates. If you want to do the work of the US Department of Justice -- I can't imagine any other reason for that odd bit of name-dropping -- perhaps you ought to sign up for the Federal Bar and the US Civil Service. In the meantime, I don't think that an online encyclopedia's article on a particular subject is the proper venue for a proxy propaganda war through means of loosely connected subjects. Besides, the links to the loosely connected subjects are still there -- or are you trying to force people to read those? --Calton | Talk 03:10, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Associates of Obama shouldn't be given undue weight, it's true. Nonetheless, Kossack's talk about the Feds is in buttressment of the Rezco controversy's notability; while Carlton's defense----via attacking Kossack through speculating about Kossack's psychological needs/whatever to play at Kossack's being a Fed----is but a distraction. — Justmeherenow (   ) 04:56, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

For both talk page discussions AND rules' breakage investigations, it's quite helpful to specify, Who? What? Where? How? When? I suggest we respectfully hand back this complaint (essentially: "People we can't mention specifically, there's so many of them, for ganging up together to edit the article differently than we would (after its being discussed on the talkpage). Please sanction them.") and ask it be resubmitted. — Justmeherenow (   ) 03:51, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

As an aside, Bill Ayers was a preschool teacher for 20 years after he left the Weathermen... And yet that isn;t mentioned at all. I only bring this up to show the rediculousness of continuing the American political debate in the article in question. The information about Ayers is relevent in his article, but in Obama's article? Obama sits on dozens of boards on dozens of organizations, and yet we don't give any weight in the article to those probably hundreds of associates; the push here seems to be solely to include those associates whose behavior at any point in their life could cast Obama in a negative light; as such, mentioning them and their activities (it should be noted in Ayers case, activities 40 years ago) is exactly what WP:UNDUE is about; the inclusion of these associations is about hand-picking people and facts that will cast the subject in a negative light. Sourced or not, its undue weight, and should not be part of the article. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 05:14, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

It's not Wikipedians job to figure out what deserves to be notable, only to observe what is notable, as decided by the respective campaigns and the media (who've decided that candidate-for-executive-office Obama's possible sympathies with Ayers are fair game to inquire about.) (And, yes. Ayers should most rightly be termed something like "education activist Bill Ayers (a former..."[blah blah], as Jayron32 mentions.) — Justmeherenow (   ) 05:43, 1 June 2008 (UTC) If Wikipedians THEMSELVES came to the conclusion that e/g info about Wright SHOULDN'T be notable, the article could end up reading something along these lines: "Obama's pastor Jeremiah Wright became controversial and in May Obama resigned from his congregation." But would this be properly encyclopedic? — Justmeherenow (   ) 05:54, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I have no intention of giving undue weight to Obama's associates. But Scjessey, Brothejr and the other Obama fanboys (by the way, I voted for Obama myself in the primaries) want their shady activities to have no weight at all. Not even one mention. It was hypocritical of them to allow negative material about Obama's political rivals to sit untouched in the article for months, and then claim that negative details about other people are "irrelevant" and "inappropriate" when added for Obama's political allies. This article needs an extremely brief explanation of why all of the national news media find Obama's associations with Rezko, Wright and Ayers to be controversial.

The Obama fanboys are diligently seeking to banish this material to satellite articles, and it has been proven that virtually no one reads such articles. Anyone seeking to find out information about Barack Obama deserves to find everything, the good and the bad, in summary form in the Barack Obama article.

Also, the false accusations of racism and sockpuppetry are clear violations of WP:CIV and WP:NPA and must be stopped. They poison the atmosphere of collaborative editing. Editors should make a greater effort to assume good faith.

Here we have a presumptive presidential nominee (Barack Obama) closely associating for many years with an unrepentant bomb-tossing terrorist (William Ayers), a bigoted, America-hating preacher (Jeremiah Wright) and a crooked political fundraiser (Tony Rezko). Now imagine a hypothetical case: that another presumptive presidential nominee (John McCain) had associated this closely for so many years with an unrepentant bomb-tossing terrorist (Timothy McVeigh), a bigoted, America-hating preacher (Fred Phelps) and a crooked political fundraiser (Jack Abramoff). Does anyone believe that the national news media wouldn't have pounced, and that we wouldn't see negative details about McVeigh, Phelps and Abramoff in McCain's Wikipedia bio, because the national news media were discussing them? Kossack4Truth (talk) 10:45, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

One thing to add here, we've been noticing that while there have been different editors trying to push this issue, when they do edit the article, they all seem to be writing the same thing (I.E. the wording is exactly the same). Plus when one gets close to the WP:3RR that one stops and another jumps in to revert saving the other. These are just observations. Plus it seems as if the editors who are pushing to include all this information have reverted to their same edits again, ignoring any comments from the Admins. Brothejr (talk) 12:23, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

When your reverts gets reverted the restored text does tend to look similar. Very clever of you to notice. Andyvphil (talk) 14:39, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

If ANYTHING requires action here, it is the words and actions of Brothejr, who persists in personal attacks and name calling against other editors with whom he does not agree. Here, he's trying to allude without saying that all opposing editors are sock puppet accounts - if you look at the Obama discussion, he does the same thing. As well, he, and other editors like scjessey, who demand that we seek consensus, delete all edits that they don't agree with without consideration and absolutely refuse to see any point of view other than their ownFovean Author (talk) 15:45, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Here Brothejr has again accused me of sockpuppetry. LotLE did the same thing at WP:3RR. It is a personal attack. This falsely accuses me of committing a WP policy violation that would result in me being banned. Admins should consider 24-hour blocks of Scjessey and Brothejr for edit warring, personal attacks and mischaracterizations, with full explanations on their respective User Talk pages. Kossack4Truth (talk) 15:40, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I am going to abstain from responding to Kossack4Truth's comments due to the fact he has called anyone who has disagreed with him a lier/whitewasher/Obama supporter/Etc, however various people have raised suspicions about him due to his types of edits and also how he works with other editors. (I.E. he never seems to break the 3RR rule before someone else jumps in to continue on his reverts, or someone else reverts until they get close to the 3RR rule and then Kossack4Truth jumps in to continue the reverts. I forgot which rule/guide this covers, but it seems as they engage in a revert war to push people out who are trying to keep the article NPOV, so they can continue their reverts.)

I would also like to point out that currently, various editors including Kossack4Truth, have been completely rewriting the Obama article to completely cover ever controversy ever related to the man with in depth detail. I could list all the various wiki rules and guidelines that this breaks, but you get my point. The users who are pushing these edits have already shown they will ignore any admin comments on the situation and I feel something more needs to be done to bring this article back to a Feature Article status. Brothejr (talk) 22:53, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Possible legal issue on LoJack

I see this on the Editor Requests page, and this probably needs admins. Take a look at this diff and this EAR request. Summitrt (talk · contribs) says he's a legal representative of LoJack, who want the information on their frequency that is sourced to FCC.gov removed for legal reasons. rootology (T) 18:06, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Please note that the individual is also leaving messages to me in the article text. I have already reverted twice. I am refraining from another pointless revert until someone with more authority on Wikipedia can help resolve this conflict. CosineKitty (talk) 18:19, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

If the user is an employee of LoJack and is requesting the info be removed for legal reasons, it should be dealt with by OTRS. I left a message on his talk page stating this as well. Mr.Z-man 18:23, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I reverted the info back[27], since it was published on the web by reliable source FCC. User was already told on his talk page how to make a formal request --Enric Naval (talk) 18:35, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

It's not much of a secret. The LoJack frequency is in the Code of Federal Regulations, at 47 CFR 90.20.[28]. It's on the FCC web site in the main spectrum allocation table.[29] The allocation is for "Stolen Vehicle Recovery Systems" (SVRS). Google can find either of those references easily.

I can see LoJack's problem. Newer systems tend to use cellular data networks, which have so much traffic and so many emitters that stolen vehicle transmissions don't stand out. LoJack, an older system with its own infrastructure, including receivers in police cars, is one of the few users of the SVRS spectrum allocation. Lojack is worried, rightly, that chop shops will start looking for transmissions on the SVRS frequency.

Realistically, the cat is out of the bag. Anybody with access to Google can find this info in five minutes. Still, there's an argument for taking it out of Wikipedia on the grounds that most crooks are too dumb to read through FCC filings, but might figure out from the Wikipedia entry what to look for. --John Nagle (talk) 18:59, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

The dumb criminals wouldn't know how to build a receiver to monitor for those frequencies, would they? The risk seems to come more from smart people in the car-thief and chop-shop community who would build and distribute LoJack detectors, jammers, and the like, and these people would be more likely to be able to find the relevant information without needing us as a source. *Dan T.* (talk) 19:03, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Someone removed that section again. If it's public knowledge, there is no legal issue, and the whole thing is a bluff of some kind. Is there any reason not to put it back in the article? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 20:00, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, actually this is public information. Some random redlinked account removing information and claiming to be acting upon a legal request carries no weight at all. Durova^Charge! 20:24, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I reverted it, and if the redlink reverts it back again, he'll probably be hitting 3RR, and he'll get turned in for it. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 20:27, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I concur that since the knowledge is public information and is available to anyone who wishes to view it, that there is no legal recourse that the company can use to remove the text. Warn, block if necessary. seicer | talk | contribs 22:21, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I put this up on Requests for Protection since its beginning to head into edit warville. rootology (T) 02:56, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

And it has been protected, although the user opposed to posting that info has already basically given up on trying to censor the info. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 04:57, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I protected it without knowing of the discussion here, responding to the RFPP request. The history of the article showed a LOT of insanse back-and-forth reverts and edit warring, so I thought a protection was warented. I have no objection to unprotecting if the parties involved clearly agree to seek dispute resolution WP:DR over the issue, but we should not allow the edit war to continue. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 05:06, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

The discussion on the article's talk page is also important. The opponents are trying to apply some sort of moral standard to wikipedia, i.e. that they should censor based on what someone might do. They made a strange comparison between this and alleging that wikipedia tells how to make "crack" (a potent cocaine derivative). I pointed out that wikipedia neither originates information nor censors information. Wikipedia is about gathering public, verifiable information. Having said all that, the week's worth of protection is probably good. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 05:10, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Another editor found a good link to explain why this complaint need not be honored by wikipedia editors. Wikipedia:Perennial_proposals#Legal_issues If there are legal issues, they can be taken up with the wikipedia legal authorities. But until such time, there is no valid reason for exclusion. It's public information, and wikipedia does not censor information. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 21:09, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Now he thinks that by going to Jimbo Wales, he can override the wikipedia rules. [30] Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 22:49, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

While I have no particular opinion on this particular content dispute, I did want to say a few words about ethics. Some people in this thread appear to be putting forward the argument that since Wikipedia is not censored, then if there is no legal reason not to include public information, it should be included. Well, that is only true if we drop the full context of the ethical nature of what we are doing here, which is not compiling a huge data dump of all verifiable information, but rather writing an encyclopedia. There are many many valid reasons why some information is excluded from Wikipedia, and among them is and should be questions related to human dignity, ethics, harm to others, etc. It is not censorship to exercise mature and responsible editorial judgment. Let me say that again for emphasis: it is not censorship to exercise mature and responsible editorial judgment.

The most important and common case where this comes up is in questions related to the Biographies of Living Persons who are of marginal notability. We can and do, on a daily basis, delete information about such people even if it is verifiable, for the simple reason that it is morally right to do so: we can not responsibly write a full biography of a person who is well known for only a single negative event, and so we refrain from doing so, even though this means that we are excluding verifiable publicly known information. To be more specific: a good encyclopedia is not a tabloid newspaper, but should strive for neutrality above all else, and in some cases, neutrality is impossible because the information available is so limited.

Similarly, we can envision situations - other than strictly legal situations - where the right thing to do would be to exclude information that we as a community might thoughtfully judge to be both useless and dangerous. I have no opinion about the validity of the argument that having the frequency available in Wikipedia might lead hobbyists to get into dangerous situations. I did a google search on "LoJack frequency" and it is pretty much very widely available, and the sorts of hobbyists who would know what to do with the information will have access to it anyway I suppose.

So my point is not about this particular case: the facts here are complex and a valid discussion can be had about it amongst people who are better qualified than I am to think about it. My point is about the overall structure of the argument. You can't simply dismiss concerns about ethics by saying "Wikipedia is not censored" and "Talk to the legal department". We are better than that.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:04, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

New user mass-editing templates

Resolved

 – Problematic edits have ceased. Anthøny 19:10, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

User:MadeForMe has created a new account, and a few minutes later he has edited +200 TV templates in half an hour, and is still going, see his contributions. He's mass-replacing a list of other local TV stations on the same region with a list of TV stations on the whole USA like here, including templates that haven't been edited for months, and he hasn't posted on any wikiproject or talk page or village pump page before doing so. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:18, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

user has been warned, and I have posted at WP:TV wikiproject --Enric Naval (talk) 18:22, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I have also notified Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Television Stations of the discussion here. dhett ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:59, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Wikipedia says be bold, but common sense is also a guideline. This was waaay too bold and is going to upset a lot of people. The links to the different network templates for each state is there for a reason, and has been there by consensus; deleting them without prior discussion is a very bad idea. Linking each state's template for each particular network has merit, but replacing the existing template links does not. I recommend a revert until consensus is reached. dhett ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:59, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

The problematic contributions from MadeForMe (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) have ceased; tagging as resolved, under the assumption the matter is no longer current, further to the recent warnings. Anthøny 19:10, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Do all the edits need to be rollbacked? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 20:13, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Maaaaybe I would wait first for input from those two wikiprojects, altought I'm very tempted to mass-revert them tomorrow if nobody has still answered, normal undo with an explanation will probably do, since for most pages he made only one edit. And then I would nom all his new templates for TfD, with warning on the wiiprojects so they can comment on whether we should keep them for something --Enric Naval (talk) 21:08, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm rollbacking those changes. I tried to use a tool that adds a sumary to the rollbacks, but I couldn't get it to work. I'll use rollback anyways because a) the changes are not good b) there seems to be consensus that there is no consensus to make the changes c) doing 300 undos by hand is not my idea of a funny saturday night, even if I'm bored at home. --Enric Naval (talk) 23:28, 31 May 2008 (UTC) Disregard that, I got the tool to work (FYI, the tool is User:Mr.Z-man/rollbackSummary) --Enric Naval (talk) 23:30, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Reporting User:Jammy0002

Jammy0002 (talk · contribs)

Hello,

I'd like to report the above users relating to comments here and here. I feel that they are completely inappropriate. I was being bold in revamping the project and expanding the scope, as it was tiny, and various users commented. In fact lots quit. I then proceeded to make tha changes, having lots of old pages deleted as they were not needed. Electrical went and re-created the newsletter, and I discussed with him that it was inappropriate for Wikipedia as it was, as it had things such as cheatcodes, unsourced news about a game, and a list of participants, a lot of which were no longer involved.

Thank you,

BG7even 19:57, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh and I apologise if this is the wrong place: please direct me if this is the case. BG7even 19:58, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi One your supposed to alert me of a ANI report on me. Second, What did i say? Third, You don`t run the project it would be violation of WP:OWN. Forth of all You Said on Jammy`s Talk "I have been the only member who has done anything for the project with the exception of a few "founding fathers"." wel I joined after you and I have made majority of my contributions to the project. Sincerely, ElectricalExperiment 20:08, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

And about the newspaper you didn't discus, you told me. Sincerely, ElectricalExperiment 20:12, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

"Majority of Contributions" - what does that mean? When did I say that I owned it? I aplogise for adding you on here, I have reviewed the posts and it was wrong. BG7even 20:13, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Majority of my Contributions, You delared ownership here. Sincerely, ElectricalExperiment 20:19, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

In a rather depressing trend I've noticed nowadays, there's been a lack of actual discussion between these users outside of edit summaries. Second, the comments regarding "seniority" are utterly wrong as it is overly-bureaucratic. However, a list where users add themselves at the bottom is a lot more usual from what I see. But I agree with the point about not having 26 level-4 headings. In short:

1. WP:BOLD is policy and WP:BRD has been followed somewhat here (without much discussion, or discussion that turned into a dictatorship/taking-over debate).
2. The Wikiproject seems fairly inactive, but one does not need a Wikiproject to work.
3. An apology and more discussion would seem the way forward from here.

I would ask all the parties, including Bluegoblin7 (BG7even), however, to stop imposing their views upon each other by reverts, and work things out using discussion, following the spirit of dispute resolution. x42bn6 Talk Mess 20:23, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I never declared ownership - lead editor and ownership are completely different. Your going on about seniority, which as x42bn6 has said is overly beauracratic - presicely the reason for doing it alphabetically. Can we revert to that version for now, and then discuss. BG7even 15:43, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

What you said there does imply ownership. You should have asked the members whether they'd be interested in a revamp of the project but being bold is good too; however, you encountered resistance which is why you should start discussing. As for the list, I think that the non-alphabetical list is just fine, as I don't believe it implies seniority - it does denote the order of which users joined if people add themselves to the bottom but everyone is allowed to add their name anywhere they want, and there's no seniority for being at the top of the list. You come across as someone who jumped straight into the Wikiproject and attempted to do lots of major things - a good thing but not everyone's cup of tea and if it is a really big change, then consensus-seeking becomes vital. Bureaucracy refers to seniority and ranks - consider everyone equal within the Wikiproject unless it warrants some sort of leader or project coordinator. x42bn6 Talk Mess 16:26, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

reset Which is (sort of) what i've been saying. I did say what I was going to do, and everyone seemed fine with it, except the scope issues, which I did discuss and we have agreed to cover anything to do with the Sim. Electrical was the one who bought up seniority, by saying the one at the top is the most senior (see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sims/members2) and I was saying no. It appears that this is going to remain like this, so I have re-organised with an alphabetical one - no arguments there about seniority. Another option would be to use bullets rather than numbers, but that would I feel still lead some members to believe that they are more important than another. Also, the use of {{user}} makes it look more organised, and also allows for easy links to talk pages, without having to fish through customised signatures for links that sometimes aren't even there! I also don't see why everyone is making a fuss over a project page and members list - it would be time much better spent if they were actually editing! BG7even 16:59, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Alright, consider it thus: There is no need for seniority in such a small Wikiproject, although coordination could be a good idea if the project gets larger (say WP:CHICAGO). As a result, there is no problem with a numbered or bulleted list. There is a genuine concern that having so many level-4 headings is a waste of space especially considering the project has so few members. There's no need for additional "fairness" if there was no implication of seniority in the first place. The above users have genuine concerns about how you have seemingly attempted to take over the project while you have genuine concerns about the fact that the project is dead and wish to revamp it. To me, all this points to lots of apologies and more discussion, and pointers to WP:OWN and WP:DR. x42bn6 Talk Mess 17:17, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Where in this have I broken WP:OWN may I ask? The project, as you said, was dead, so I tried to revamp it. I admit that 26 level four headings was stupid, I changed it initially to just those we were using, and then to using the ; sign. I have since reverted to headings, however it is now in a table - see Wikipedia:WikiProject Sims/members2. Thank you, BG7even 17:32, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[31], Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sims/Archive 2#VOTE gives the implication of ownership. Enthusiasm is good but please avoid being dismissive to others' comments. x42bn6 Talk Mess 22:08, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

User:Hegumen again

Resolved.

Just a day or so ago Hegumen was warned not to call people names like tatars (in the special pejorative connotation) and curse them (See [32]). Today he put this on a userpage.--Laveol ^T 21:16, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

48 hour block by User:Future Perfect at Sunrise, and listed at ARBMAC. We're done. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:43, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

only fair to mention he self-reverted it 2 minutes after he placed it, and before the above message was placed, with the user summary, "watch yourself". In view of that, I think the block was perhaps not neededDGG (talk) 22:59, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps a block reduction? The comment stays in the history, after all, and a (short) block may be sufficient to give the editor pause before he hits the "Save" button next time. LessHeard vanU (talk) 23:29, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I was fully aware he had self-reverted. But I can hardly interpret that as anything other than a conscious attempt to game the system. The insult was made and cannot be unmade that easily. If you walk up to someone and tell them "you f..ing idiot!" and then the next moment "oh, I didn't say that", does that mean you really didn't say it? Of course not. An apology would have been the minimum requirement to show he honestly meant to take it back. Fut.Perf. ☼ 05:38, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

This edit summary after his block says enough, really. I'm pretty sure he's not going to apologize.--Atlan (talk) 11:41, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

As you can tell I'm was evading my ban. The sock puppet my insult was directed to was deserving of it. I have nothing against the Bulgarians as a people. I do, however, have a problem with those who use the chauvinist sentiments of the 19th century to demean their neighbors. I took a page out of their book, if I'm a "West Bulgarian" he's a "Tatar". I do apologize for the disruption I've caused. --124.182.46.34 (talk) 18:07, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

thecubanchef.com and askcuban.com blacklisted?

Why were these sites blacklisted? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.0.84.224 (talk) 00:55, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

These sites were spammed repeatedly. I recommend you take a look at Wikipedia's spam guidelines for more information on why links shouldn't just be added into external links sections without contributing to the article. --Rory096 01:30, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Massive redirect deletions

MZMcBride (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) is using a bot (based on his log to delete thousands of redirected talk pages. While some may be valid, he also deleted a whole raft of template documentation talk pages (an example would be Template talk:PD-self/doc). Users are instructed to redirect those doc talk pages in Wikipedia:Template documentation#How to create a documentation subpage. Based on his responses to complaints on his talk page, it seems he doesn't understand why these massive robotic deletions are a problem. I'm not sure how we go about cleaning up this big mess. Kelly ^hi! 01:45, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Here we go again with the pointless redirect cleanup. It doesn't need doing- there is no appreciable benefit to Wikipedia from these being deleted. Do we need a redirect from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera/Archive24 to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera/Archive 24, not really. Does it do any harm, no. Is it of some use, well maybe if someone mistypes the url... No one would bother doing these unnecessary deletions manually so the only time it happens is if someone takes it upon themselves to run a script to do it. Drama ensues, Wikipedia gets no better. I'm rather tired of asking MZMcBride to stop doing this sort of thing to be honest. WjBscribe 01:55, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

He also deleted talk pages that redirect to centralised discussions, on the spurious grounds that "they were all orphaned". This is incorrect - all talk pages automatically link to their articles, and if those articles exist, a talk page is never an orphan. Removing these links - especially in cases where discussion relating to the page is continuing on the redirect target is not only wrong but also disruptive to the point of vandalism. "Wikipedia gets no better", as you say - in fact, it gets considerably worse. Grutness...wha? 02:10, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I also notified MZMcBride about a deletion I questioned. S/he quickly restored it but I agree with the above, there was no need for these deletions in the first place since the deletion sorting list was at the same location as its talk page. I suggest a centralized discussion at the Village Pump or somewhere else to get some conensus on what, if anything, needs to be done about so-called orphan talk pages before another such run since it has apparently happened before. Also suggest a better check on whether or not something is truly orphaned since there's something clearly wrong with that check. _{TravellingCari}^{the Busy Bee} 02:19, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I've undeleted a bunch of /doc redirects. There are still a lot more that need undeleting, tho. Why the heck would anyone want to delete useful redirects? --Conti|✉ 02:28, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Simple, they think the redirects are useless or a script they are using thinks the redirects are useless. FunPika 02:31, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposed remedy: This issue can be quickly closed if he agrees to not delete or blank more than a few non-vandal/non-broken/non-looping/not-otherwise-explicitly-harmful redirects per day without discussing them on Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion for a period of time. I would suggest a limit of 10 per day for at least a month. For comparison, non-admins have a limit of zero deletions per day for the duration of their non-adminship. During this time he can think about whether his judgment on deleting redirects is causing problems, and if it is, either change his personal criteria or simply avoid deleting redirects. This isn't arbcom, so any such agreement would have to be voluntary on his part. However, repeats of this kind of incident may lead to formal sanctions. Personally, I'd hate to see someone who has this much time to give to the project be completely desysoped because of a mistake in one area. On a related matter: It goes without saying that bots should get approval first. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 02:32, 1 June 2008 (UTC) PS: The robotic deletes that haven't been re-created already should be quickly undone and screened by a human for re-deleting. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 02:42, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Several users have complained about this on this talk page in the last 24 hours. He's clearly in the minority here and if he doesn't cease doing this, stronger measures may be needed. To his credit, he seems to be starting to realize this. I hope so. — Rlevse • Talk • 02:46, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused as to the purpose of these deletions. Even assuming that the bot being used was 100% accurate, what's the point? Given this it goes without saying that if there is less than 100% accuracy, the bot shouldn't be running. Christopher Parham (talk) 02:48, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

If the bot was working 100% correctly and it was designed in accordance with WP:SPEEDY and approved in accordance with WP:BOT, nobody would notice. Well, nobody except those who are mad because properly-speedy'd redirects got deleted. In general, no article or other page on Wikipedia should be summarily deleted - by a bot or human administrator - unless it fits the criteria in WP:SPEEDY. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 03:07, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Not sure this is true: it's certainly possible to make edits with automated tools that while plausibly useful, are disruptive due to a combination of number and triviality. See e.g. the rejection of bots that make minor MOS changes and the warning to AWB users not to confirm edits that make only this type of change. This sort of thing just clogs watchlists and the deletion log for no reason. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:20, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Deletions didn't use to clog up the watchlists, as they didn't appear there, but now they do, this sort of objections to mass deletions are becoming more common, as I predicted. It is good in a way, though I do have some sympathy with those who shovel away in the bowels of Wikipedia with deletion scripts having a bright light shone on them. Most of the deletions are fine, but these ones were not. Carcharoth (talk) 03:24, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I find deletions in watchlists extremely useful. Even if a bot properly deleted 10,000 articles but improperly deleted one I cared about, I might miss it if it didn't show up in my watchlist. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 03:54, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree. What I am saying is that those using deletion scripts might be struggling to adjust to the new situation where they are under greater scrutiny. Not an excuse, more something to be said in mitigation. Carcharoth (talk) 03:58, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

• I think (and I hope MZMcBride will correct me if I am wrong) that his philosophy is to make a judgment call and then undelete if he makes a mistake. This was rather a silly error though, and one that would have been picked up if he had checked with other people. He should do: (1) Ask; (2) Objection; (3) Abandon deletion. Instead, the process is: (1) Delete (after consideration or programming a script); (2) Objection; (3) Undelete. He doesn't often get it wrong, to be fair, but that may be, as I've noticed before, more to do with the pages being deleted being stuff no-one cares about or notices (the recent addition of deletions and other log actions to watchlists may explain why people are noticing these things more). In this case, deletions like that of Template talk:Nowraplinks/doc are clearly wrong. There are two common ways to reach Template talk:Nowraplinks/doc. The first is by clicking the talk page link at the top of Template:Nowraplinks. The second is by clicking the talk page link at the top of Template:Nowraplinks/doc (the same is true for any set of pages sharing a talk page, be they subpages or not. I'm more concerned that there seem to be at least seven threads on his talk page about this. He raises some interesting (if debatable) points here and here. The point is that these things should be debated openly on a project talk page, not batted around user talk pages with limited input, and certainly not as part of a debate triggered by deletions. The debate should have taken place before the deletions. My concerns here are mainly with MZMcBride's bypassing of community discussions in favour of his own judgment (an example I remember is here from April: "I see no reason to stop simply because there's a fuss on AN/I."), as seen in his ideas that it is OK to delete and then undelete if there are objections, rather than discuss first before deleting. There is a time and a place for that approach, and in my opinion he takes it too far. Carcharoth (talk) 03:21, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
• Was MZMcBride's bot ever approved? I do not want to see another User:Marudubshinki, who as as an admin ran unauthorized bots using the sysop tools that generated many complaints, and he refused to stop so an arbcom case desysopped him. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 03:31, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
  • User:Betacommand also comes to mind. I can't find any approval for the bot. Kelly ^hi! 03:33, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
    • It is a script, not a bot, hence no approval needed. As I said, most of the stuff is fine. If he would discuss more beforehand, I would have no problems with most of his work. Carcharoth (talk) 03:44, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
      • Hmm - the edit rate on the "script" is sometimes over 20 deletions per minute, based on a quick review of the log. Seems too fast for each action to be approved, but I could be wrong. Kelly ^hi! 03:51, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Massive redirect deletions - arbitrary break 1

For those who weren't here at the time, the longest of the previous discussions was here. That was mainly East718, but at the time it was noted that MzMcBride was also doing a more limited set of deletions (he was using different criteria, mainly he was deleting redirects with no incoming links, whereas East718's deletions were not fully orphaned). There was also a terminology confusion, which Grutness has pointed out here (perpetuating the confusing usage, while also raising an important point that redlinked talk page tabs lead to inappropriate recreations of separate talk pages where a centralised one may be needed). Anyway, I covered the terminology confusion here. Forgive me for reposting this, but I think these redirects for centralised talk page discussions are another variant! :-)

• (1) "Orphaned" talk pages (CSD#G8) are talk pages where the corresponding page does not exist or was deleted. This is an imprecise use of the phrase "orphaned".
• (2) Broken redirects are redirects pointing at deleted or never-created titles. Sometimes these are called "orphaned" redirects. As for type (1), this is an imprecise use of the phrase "orphaned". User:RedirectCleanupBot deals with these providing they have no edit history beyond creation (see type C).
• (3) True orphaned pages are pages not linked to from anywhere else (ie. "what links here" shows nothing). This usually refers to articles not linked from other articles, but can refer to other namespace pages as well. These links from somewhere else are also called backlinks. Redirects can be orphaned in this sense (looking backwards at what connects to it) as well as in the other sense (looking forward at what it connects to, though this is more commonly called a "broken redirect").
  • (3a) Sometimes orphan status can be delimited by namespace. Thus it is possible for a page to be orphaned with respect to several namespaces, but still be linked from other namespaces. This is relevant here because some namespaces (in this case Wikipedia and User namespaces) are densely populated with links from article lists, such as the various bot-generated watchlists, wikiproject article lists, user lists, and the WP 1.0 assessment lists.

Also, redirects can be created in several ways and have a varied history.

• (A) Redirects can be created from scratch. These generally never have a talk page, and the edit history usually only shows creation, but in theory a talk page could be created for such redirects.
• (B) Redirects are created by the pagemove function. If the page has a talk page and the talk page is also moved, a redirect is created for the talk page as well. The edit history will only show creation of the redirect at the time of the page move.
• (C) Redirects can also be created by blanking a page and inserting the redirect markup. This is known as "redirecting" and is also a step seen in merging. This can also work the other way round, with a redirect being turned into a normal page, usually when undoing a merge, creating a disambiguation page following a page move, or just creating new content where previously only a redirect existed. These redirects are easily distinguished from others because they have an edit history that is more than just the creation of the redirect. When talk pages exist for these type of redirects, they are sometimes left alone, and sometimes redirected or merged to the talk page of the redirect destination.
• (D) Redirects of talk pages are also sometimes created for the purposes of centralising discussion for a set of pages. This could be a set of subpages where people clicking on the talk page tab get sent to the centralised discussion page (eg. the "doc" subpages of template pages, as described at Wikipedia:Template documentation), or they can be centralising discussion for a set of related pages (eg. the talk pages for the [[WP:REFDESK|reference desks). These redirects are normally created from scratch (type A), though if there was existing discussion at different locations before the centralising, then the redirects will be created by inserting the redirect markup (type C).

Hopefully that makes redirect and orphan terminology clearer! Carcharoth (talk) 03:50, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Among some of the talk page redirect deletions that triggered my watchlist directly tonight were a large amount of talk page archive redirects. Talk page archives themselves almost never have a project page attached to them, let alone a redirect. This needs to stop. -- Ned Scott 03:52, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I think what should be made clear to those running deletion scripts is that deletions appear in watchlists, so they are coming under greater scrutiny than before, so they need to improve their standards. Carcharoth (talk) 03:56, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I came here to report MZMcBride's latest talk page deletion spree. But I see many of you beat me to it.

MZMcBride has done similar deletions several times during the last years. He has also been deleting /doc talk page redirects both now and before. (Note that such /doc talk page redirects are recommended at Wikipedia:Template documentation#How to create a documentation subpage.) I have discussed his deletions with him several times before and if he has answered it has been to the effect that he thinks that talk pages should never be redirected and that he thinks such redirected talk pages should be deleted on sight.

And yes, it seems MZMcBride was running a bot or a script. That bot could not possibly be an approved one and breaches policy in several ways. Since as far as I remember bots may not do tasks that need admin tools (such as deleting pages), they must be ran from special non-admin accounts marked as bot accounts, they may only do 10 edits per minute, and they should be formally approved before they run. Since I have discussed this with MZMcBride before I think his bot did exactly what he was intending. If it was "just a script" doesn't matter, bots are built from scripts so the difference is only academic, there is no reason that a script should be allowed to break the bot rules like doing more than 10 edits per minute.

I disagree with MZMcBride's deletions. Something needs to be done about this since this is a repeat behaviour and I don't think he will stop voluntarily.

--David Göthberg (talk) 04:00, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Can a script be used to undo these deletions? -- Ned Scott 04:01, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I know East718 has said he has an undeletion script. Which reminds me of a Betacommand image deletion issue that probably never got tidied up. The deletion of PNG and SVG images, IIRC. East offered to do undeletions, but the second stage (removing the deletion tags) never got sorted out. This is another point - reversability is rarely built in, at least not with the same amount of convenience. Invariably the undeletion is slower or requires discussion, and if the deleting admin doesn't take responsibility, then often discussion dies out, people mutter a bit, nothing gets done, and the admin responsible doesn't get properly warned or sanctioned. Then the behaviour repeats again. Breaking that sort of low-level cycle of behaviour can be very difficult unless someone keeps pointing out the previous stuff, and someone actually guides the discussion towards an actionable conclusion. Carcharoth (talk) 04:10, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Massive redirect deletions - arbitrary break 2

See Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#When is a script a bot.3F for suggestions on how to keep this from happening in the future. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Davidwr (talk • contribs) 04:19, 1 June 2008

Geez... what is all the fuss about? I for one do agree with deleting orphaned talkpage redirects. Redirects should not have talkpages; plain and simple. Though on this occasion, MZ made a mistake by not checking if the attached non-talk page was indeed a redirect itself. If that check is added, the script would work fine. — Edokter • Talk • 15:51, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

What about the deletions of template documentation talkpages? Kelly ^hi! 15:56, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Part of the purpose of that discussion is to establish what the difference is between a script and a bot (and whether there is a difference at all in cases like this). The fact that he can run a bot without approval by calling it a "script" is a tremendous loophole in bot approval. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 19:24, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Edokter: You have misunderstood what this is about. Go and look again. MZMcBride is deleting redirected talk pages of existing templates and their /doc pages. And he has been doing so for months or is it years now? And lots and lots of people have begged him to stop for a long time now, but he refuses to understand and just claims "I do no harm since I am an admin". Two examples of many: Diff1, diff2.

--David Göthberg (talk) 20:41, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I have been doing some thinking and have come to some conclusions: MZMcBride has been deleting redirected talk pages of existing templates and their /doc pages for months or perhaps years now. I have checked the logs and I see that lots and lots of experienced editors considers this to be disruptive edits and have asked him to stop for a long time now, but he refuses to understand. (I myself have discussed this with him several times during the last year or more.)

Even if an editor doesn't understand why his edits are considered disruptive, if lots of people tell him they are disruptive and ask him to stop he should stop. Failure to stop is vandalism and should be handled as such, no matter if the editor happens to be an admin. Even admins should obey consensus.

I am going to put a final vandalism warning notice on MZMcBride's talk page. If I see him deleting any more talk page redirects of existing pages I would like to block him for repeat vandalism. I hope other admins will agree with me on this? (And do the same if they see him vandalise more talk pages.) Since I am not experienced in blocking people I appreciate any advice on the proper length of such a block. And how long should the follow up blocks be if he continues?

--David Göthberg (talk) 21:44, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely not. Blocking for running an unapproved bot or not respecting consensus is one thing, blocking him for vandalism - meaning he is intending to harm the project - is absolutely unacceptable, and like that pointless warning template you put on his talk page, only going to multiply the drama. Disruption is not the same as vandalism. Mr.Z-man 23:37, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

The first block should be for the typical 24 hours. If there needs to be a second block, how long it should be will be the least of our problems. I also agree with Mr.Z-man that "disruption" would be a better term than "vandalism". rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 23:41, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Legal threat

Resolved

I don't have much experience with this sort of thing, but I've seen action taken before for this sort of threat. Bringing to the administrator community's attention. Tan | 39 04:07, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Indeffed. Thanks for raising it here. --John (talk) 04:11, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Also, the non-notable content has been deleted.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 04:11, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Mass "courtesy" blanking

An eye needs to be kept on Wiki11790 (talk · contribs), who is mass blanking, citing WP:BLP. He's been reverted twice and told twice it's not appropriate. Ty 04:30, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

He has not edited in 1/2 an hour or so. If he starts up again, he should probably be blocked, but right now, it appears he has backed off. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:35, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Or gone to bed. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 04:37, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Either way, he hasn't edited since his most recent warning, and blocking immediately after a warning is sorta unfair. Lets see where he goes before blocking. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:53, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Just a note: He's a newbie. Honey goes a lot farther than vinegar when getting people to change their behavior. I'd hate to run him off just because he got off to a bad start. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 05:03, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

If he's genuinely new around here, he's a fast learner. You do make an important point, though. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 06:09, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

User Blaxthos reported me for 3RR with no reason or notification.

Intially I was upset, but the more I think about it the more upset I am. User Blaxthos reported me in violation of the 3RR on the Gretchen Carlson article with no notifcation. I would not have known at all if not for the admin that notified me. I find it particularly upseting because I had removed vague critical matierial from a BLP which was not only vague but had either no references 1 references which did not even mention Carlson or were blogs twice.2 3 no references again 4 and again 5 The anonymous editor was warned by me after the 5th revert. The report was filed by Blaxthos shortly after. The Anoyn was not reported even though they did the same thing that Blaxthos accused me of doing. Futhermore per WP:BLP contentious material can be removed without the 3RR applying WP:GRAPEVINE. The result of the report was no violation. What is most anoyning is that Blaxthos is a veteran editor, yet has had a problem with me personally in the past, and I believe it is this past history which lead to the report. Blaxthos has never commented on the talk pages of Carlson talk history nor made any edits edit history so I can only conclude that he is monitoring my edits here. I suggest that he be warned regarding this kind of behaviour. Arzel (talk) 04:34, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

No reason? After watching Arzel edit war for several days, I submitted a the 3RR Report as evidence of Arzel edit warring, the opposing edits came from multiple sources (hence no 3RR report); I registered this account in 2004; I've not once broken 3RR for any reason, and I don't believe these circumstances mitigated Arzel's responsibility in this case. I respectfully disagreed with the admin's response; I won't waste anyone's time making a content argument here. I fail to see how I've done anything warranting discussion here. /Blaxthos ( t / c ) 11:54, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

So you sat ildly back watching two anoynomous users (who I believe would end up being the same user) add uncited information that says that Carlson has been criticized and you did nothing? Hmm, seems to me that your goal of getting me blocked or reported was more important than following WP policies. You won't waste anyone's time making a argument here, but you will waste their time by making an unwarrented report on me? At least you admit that you are watching my actions and edits, maybe I will have to do the same to you. Arzel (talk) 14:29, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

1. WP:ANI is not the forum for content disputes.
2. Not withstanding #1, citations were present, but there may have been some concern as to their reliability; the content itself (referencing the allegations of bias evidenced by FNC generally and the subject of the article specifically) does not, in my opinion, rise to the level of "libelous material" requiring edit warring under the guise of WP:BLP.
3. When faced with the prospect of intentionally violating a policy, it is always best to seek a second opinion. There are plenty of other ways you could have handled the problem: WP:RFPP, WP:AN3, WP:ANI, WP:EA, etc.. This was not a situation where edit warring for days was necessary.
4. I fail to see any "policy" that I have "failed to follow." When you make those sorts of accusations towards me, please specifically justify them with explanations and diffs.
5. I don't believe the 3RR replort was unjustified, as you continued in edit warring for several days.
6. If you feel it necessary to investigate my behavior and report violations, I strongly encourage you to do so. It's of no consequence to me, as I've never been the subject of any sort of sanction, admonishment, or block. I think that the "maybe I will have to do the same to you" attitude is immature and unproductive, but if it makes you feel better then I am all for it...
7. I don't really understand what you're asking for here... I am not the one who violated any rule or policy; if you don't like the fact that your behavior has been reported, then it's probably wise to avoid engaging in the behavior that gets you into trouble. You didn't end up getting warned or blocked, so I really fail to see why you're trying to bring this up on ANI. Best thing to do is to learn and move on...

Hopefully this will be the last of this thread, though I'm welcome to have some of the WP:ANI guys weigh in... /Blaxthos ( t / c ) 22:05, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Grawp

Grawp, User:124.188.195.245. Attacked Ran (film). Phlegm Rooster (talk) 05:22, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Either him or a copycat. Might be worth running a CheckUser to see if any sleeper socks turn up. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 05:41, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Wait a second. The IP moved the page to "HAGGER?" without getting stopped at all by the titleblacklist. Why? GlobeGores (talk page | user page) 05:55, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

He didn't move it, just redirected it there. Kelly ^hi! 05:59, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

And only autoconfirmed users can move pages anyway. Anyway, he's been blocked for 48 hours. Hut 8.5 08:05, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Massive tennis page moves

User:Tennis expert moved a bunch of bio articles about various tennis players from titles with diacritics to titles without. He cites some sort of consensus which I assume refers to this localized discussion Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Tennis#Naming_of_tennis_biographies. Diacritics or no diacritics is a Wikipedia-wide issue and individual projects should not carve exceptions for itself. Thus I bring it to the wider audience for comments. Renata (talk) 06:20, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

This isn't really the place for that. This page is here to report incidents that require the intervention of an administrator using tools that are only available to administrators. Comment withdrawn. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 06:33, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

See this, this, and the items linked therein. Tennis expert (talk) 06:41, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

The moves should be reversed - this seems to be one side of a very lengthy argument (several months) attempting to get its way by blunt force, and the move is neither required nor suggested by policy or style guides. Orderinchaos 08:34, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Need help here - a massive number of articles have been moved per this supposed "consensus" - 68 in a very short period of time. Tennis expert (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) appears to have been working in concert with Redux (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) on this one - the latter moved 20 on 20th May, some of those have already been moved back. Orderinchaos 08:54, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not working in "concert" with anyone, i.e., there is no conspiracy. Redux began the discussion. Several editors, including myself, agreed with his proposal. He closed the discussion and said the renaming and edits should be implemented. And various people have followed through. It's as simple as that. Tennis expert (talk) 09:01, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I apologise for my previous belief that you were aware of previous discussions on this matter. It still shouldn't have been done, but I was incorrect to jump to a conclusion on that. Orderinchaos 09:46, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

When doing things that might appear suspicious or vandalism to other users, always take care to link on the edit summary to the discussion where the changes obtained consensus. It avoids lots of problems --Enric Naval (talk) 15:49, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Edit War on God

Thou shalt not edit war.

Ooops, I mean User:Jimbo Wales. There has been an edit war with several users over the placement of two letters on the userpage of him. Here is a list of diffs.

[33][34][35][36][37][38]

It appears to me that no users violated WP:3RR, but ::still.<3 Tinkleheimer TALK!! 07:59, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Erm...and I guess a personal attack from an IP on Talk Page. [39] Should s/he be warned for it or blocked as s/he got a warning on the 29th? <3 Tinkleheimer TALK!! 08:04, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

User:Wannabe Wiki was blocked for 12 hours for violating 3RR in that edit war a few days ago. Hut 8.5 08:08, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

This is ridiculous. It is his user page and that thread on his talk page is trolling no matter how you look at it. This is a waste of time. EconomicsGuy (talk) 08:09, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

It's not trolling Wannabe Wiki (talk) 08:12, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I have informed all users who participated in the edit "conflict" (in a different light) today, thus far. <3 Tinkleheimer TALK!! 08:40, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Jimmy_Wales&curid=8202363&diff=216367233&oldid=216231994 QuackGuru 09:19, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Whether Jimmy Wales is founder or co-founder of Wikipedia doesn't mean anyone (not pointing fingers) can edit war on a userpage. Bidgee (talk) 09:26, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

The presumed facts of Wales and the founding of wikipedia are covered in the article called Jimmy Wales. Messing with someone's user page is against the rules. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 12:24, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Even if the page is misleading?:) Sticky Parkin 12:29, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

If you think he's being misleading on his user page, then you could raise that issue on his talk page. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 12:31, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

And not by vulgar personal attacks, i.e. not the way User:Wannabe Wiki did it, which undermines whatever credibility he might have. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 13:36, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

The point has been raised on numerous occasions on his talk page. seicer | talk | contribs 14:43, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

(ec)It's nothing I personally would be interested in getting involved with, I'm just saying. Haven't people frequently inquired about it on his talk page? I thought they would have. I agree that Wannabe Wiki is out of line with the reinsertion if he is reverted repeatedly though; but on the other hand that means the userpage claim problems need to be resolved here or somewhere else, because an adequate resolution can not be created by editors on their own. Is this appropriate content for a userpage, or could it be considered advertising, self-promotion or WP:SOAP, given that the information given is disputable. Maybe a compromise in wording could be decided upon? Nothing can be decided on the talk page as it seems those who ask are being frequently reverted. Sticky Parkin 14:47, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Wales removed the discussion from his talk page. So the next step would be to initiate some kind of formal process within wikipedia rules. Wannabe is free to try to do so, if this is so important to him. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 15:38, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

What would you suggest? Usually if someone thinks the content of a userpage is inappropriate, isn't that dealt with here, on AN/I? I know you think Wannabe should do it if he cares so much about it, but it's not really about Wannabe is it, I don't think he's the only one who's done this or commented about the userpage on the talk page. What I mean is, we could decide upon a solution to this now so we don't have to hear it all over again quite so often in future.:) No-one is going to make an RfC about Wales or anything lol but we could discuss the page content and how to deal with it. Sticky Parkin 16:34, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

There's a fair amount of latitude on user pages. The usual complaint about userpage content is when someone is using it to make personal attacks or otherwise inflammatory comments. In fact, it is the user Wannabe who has made the inflammatory comments, so Wales is within his rights to delete anything Wannabe does on his user page. And the actual article on Wales sets the record straight, and presumably Wales has not tried to to edit war against it. So, I don't see where there's an actionable issue here. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 16:42, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

It's also worth pointing out that Wannabe started this a couple of days ago, with increasingly flaming comments each time he was reverted by other editors. He also smashed the 3-revert rule in the process. Wales himself didn't do anything except to remove the vulgar comments from his talk page. Wannabe needs to try to get some sort of consensus that Wales' page should be changed. So far, he doesn't have that. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 16:49, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I know, but he's not the only one that has an opinion that the userpage isn't ok. That's all I'm saying.:) I honestly don't know how people could think it was ok unless they're like me and think it's a bit out of line but really just aren't that bothered about it.:) On the other hand- no doubt Wannabe will be rightfully blocked if he hasn't cooled it a bit. Sticky Parkin 21:36, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

No, which is why consensus could be built, one way or the other, and then a change could theoretically be imposed. And if Wales himself reverts it, I would leave it be, as it's really not very important. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 21:57, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Does Jimbo run over to your user-page and mess with your stuff saying it's "misleading"? I think not. Hell, my userpage used to say my name was Captain Jack Harkness.--Koji†Dude ^(C) 23:59, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Looks like an obvious case of vandalism, and defionitely not a case of 3RR, all those trolling adding the co- claim should be summarily blocked, that is the obvious and only solution. Thanks, SqueakBox 00:15, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

User:DemolitionMan

DemolitionMan (talk · contribs) is the subject of an editing restriction, placed in March and reviewed in early May. Since the May review, he has accused me of racism (again), taken a huff and removed all my comments from his talk page, including more accusations of racism, and has now decided to stalk me and assist the banned User:DavidYork71 in his trolling/sockpuppetry campaign on Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, which I was attempting to revert. He was warned about his stalking yesterday by User:Jayron32, but has decided to continue regardless. Can somebody please hit him with a cluehammer? Leithp 11:36, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

DemolitionMan is clearly a single purpose account and a POV warrior with a history of chronic incivility and personal attacks. Why we need a user like this? May I suggest a permanent community imposed ban on this user. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 11:41, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I have indef blocked on the basis of their violation of WP:NPOV and questionable interpretation of WP:V, as well as their edit warring and incivility with other users who attempt to edit according to those policies. As I have previously commented on DM's topic ban and attempted to resolve some of the issues in my capacity as an administrator I invite review of my actions here. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:33, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd say that the block was made in right mesaure, this initial thread by Leithp sums it up nicely. Good block. Rudget (Help?) 12:37, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I also endorse the block. Seems appropriate to me. Coldmachine^Talk 12:44, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

The user appears to be operating from a specific agenda, and may even be well-intentioned, i.e. may think he's being a courageous warrior. The wrong kind of warrior for wikipedia, though. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 12:47, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I support the block. We do not need a user like this. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 12:49, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Support block. I told him that his actions were inappropriate, and warned him not to repeat it. He repeated it anyways. He was told of the consequences, and felt that he was willing to accept those consequences. He showed that by continuing the disruption. This is fully justified, based on both his long history of disruption and on the imediate refusal to stop being disruptive. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 16:51, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Block/protection needed at Help Desk

Odd helop mangoon (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) needs a block - it's the Avril Lavinge vandal back again, this time attacking the Help Desk. If someone wouldn't mind protecting Wikipedia:HDPATROL as well, there shouldn't be any reason for it to be edited except by Help Desk volunteers. Thanks - I'd do it myself, but I'd rather not log into my admin account since this is an insecure connection. Hersfold non-admin^(t/a/c) 13:19, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I've blocked and semi-protected. The only issue is that a few of these vandals are sleeper accounts that have reached the 4 + 10 standards for autoconfirm status. I can't full protect since a lot of the help page patrol aren't administrators. I wonder though, is Wikipedia:HDPATROL even necessary? Metros (talk) 13:29, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Aye, semi protection is probably best - any sleepers can be blocked and checkusered if needed. I'm not really sure if that template is entirely needed either, though, but that's something to bring up on the Help Desk's talk page. Hersfold non-admin^(t/a/c) 15:09, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Personal Attack on User:Wildhartlivie from User:Nyannrunning

I am reposting this incident because it was removed by MiszoBot II with no action or response given for it and I am sufficiently unhappy about it that I honestly feel some action needs to be taken by administrators because of it.

User:Nyannrunning (talk) posted a personal attack diff against me at 02:00, 30 May 2008, on the Jim Morrison talk page. I have never edited this page, nor participated in any discussion about the page. The attack grossly misrepresents any stance I have taken on Wikipedia regarding content, sources or references and makes no sense whatsoever, especially considering the subject of the content, removed by editor User:Faithlessthewonderboy, that Nyrannrunning had added to the article (specifically material from a book alleging that Morrison had a gay relationship when in college).

Later, when I logged on, I found this note left on my talk page by anonymous IP 69.234.176.245, which appeared to be an attempt to bait me into responding. Later, this bizarre note was left after the person who posted the original AN/I report, User:IP4240207xx, and I had exchanged discussion regarding the attack. At that point I investigated some editing history and discovered definite confirmation by User:Nyannrunning that he/she is the same person as 69.234.176.245 on the Richard Calvin Cox page at this diff, on a page that had no edits since December 16, 2008, the IP is in the middle of a series of edits by User:Nyannrunning. No changes have been made on the page since.

A sock puppet case has been opened regarding User:Nyannrunning, two other usernames that evidence indicates are related, as well as the anonymous IP 69.234.176.245, at Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Nyannrunning (2nd). Hopefully, the sock puppet case will resolve ongoing problems with this editor, but in the meanwhile, this unprovoked and offensive attack remains. User:Nyannrunning has had no action taken as a result of this attack, and I feel, given the gross rudeness and incivility of the attack, that at least a short block be given. This is unacceptable behavior. Thank you. Wildhartlivie (talk) 13:35, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I see that you have included the attack by Nyannrunning in the SSP report. I would be reluctant to block prior to any conclusions being reached in the sock case. I suggest that you issue a warning on the editors talkpage. Further infractions may justify a block independantly, and such a notice may influence the sanction imposed by any admin following the resolution of the sock case. LessHeard vanU (talk) 14:05, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I templated the user with a level 2 NPA notice. Bstone (talk) 14:20, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Avril Lavigne vandal

User:JenJenAndAway at Template:Now (transcluded at Jimbo's user page). --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 14:31, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

This particular one blocked, but I don't have time to look into what templates may need protection levels changed and which should stay as is and just be dealt with via RBI. --barneca (talk) 14:37, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

That was the only template vandalized by that account. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 14:39, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

User:Onesimplequestion at Template:Userpageinfo as well. Also, for a bit last week there was Avril stuff here similar to those two templates. Should we CU? §hep • ¡Talk to me! 15:08, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm filing a report now. (see Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/IP check#Avril Vandals) Hersfold non-admin^(t/a/c) 15:11, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Not sure what to do with this, do I add it myself? Anyways User:AvrilUrge can be added to the list of known accounts. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 15:19, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

 Done --Rodhullandemu 15:22, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I've full-protected those two templates - they're both used a lot and don't need to be edited regularly. Hut 8.5 15:23, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Might be a copycat vandal. The original seemed pretty genuine when he said he was leaving. Ziggy Sawdust 15:34, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Another Avril vandal N Fillion's biggest fan (talk · contribs) - Various page moves Anonymous101 (talk) 20:11, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I am being impersonated

Resolved.

Someone has posted as me (but it was very emphatically not me): [40]. How could this have happened? This post was on part of Wikipedia where I do not have an account--did someone make a second acct with my username, or has my acct been compromised? -PetraSchelm (talk) 15:28, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

They might be using an isomer of your username: for example using capital i to replace lowercase L or using Cyrillic letters. They have a unified login now, might want to try that out. 15:44, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

That link you gave is on Simple Wikipedia. If you didn't create an account there, someone else is allowed to create one with your name and use it all they want. —Wknight94 (talk) 15:38, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, but they put a userpage redirect from Simple to my userpage on en Wikipedia...-PetraSchelm (talk) 15:47, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

It is possible the person just has the same name, but if you are really concerned about impersonation you need to bring it to the attention of the admins at Simple Wikipedia. They have different administrators and handle things their own way. _{1 != 2} 15:40, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

The passwords don't match--I just tried to log in to simple Wikipedia using my en password. I deleted the userpage redirect from simple to en. I was alerted to this because a bureaucrat on the Simple Wikipedia sent me an email asking me a question about something "PetraSchelm" posted on Simple Wikipedia, which made no sense to me, since I didn't post anything there...do I need to protect the username PetraSchelm on meta, wikiquote, Wiktionary + whatever else now? -PetraSchelm (talk) 15:45, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

If you don't want anyone else taking them, then yes. Otherwise, you could add a line to your user page explaining the situation. —Wknight94 (talk) 15:47, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Go to Special:MergeAccount and see what other accounts exist with your username. The crat on Simple can rename the impersonator so that you get the name instead. EconomicsGuy (talk) 15:49, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

(ec)That's always a problem when you use the name of a real person and there would be problems if you ever needed accounts on several wikis. However, if somebody else has taken that account name on another Wiki, as far as I can see, you can't usurp that account. --Rodhullandemu 15:50, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

It's not my real name--it's the name of a deceased member of the Baader Meinhof. But using it is one thing--putting a redirect to my en.Wiki userpage from the simple Wiki userpage is direct impersonation. (And they are definitely posting as if they were me--talking about Squeakbox, etc.) -PetraSchelm (talk) 15:57, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I've now blocked the user and renamed them. I suggest that you create your global account ASAP to prevent it happening again - if it's someone that hates you from a dispute, it's likely to happen again. Archer7 (talk) 16:23, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Archer. -PetraSchelm (talk) 16:27, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Anoyn User_talk:91.110.139.152 removing AfD notification from article.

Resolved

 – Blocked for disruption

Anoyn User:91.110.139.152 has repetedly removed the AfD notification from the Gavin Paul Carter article, and is doing so continuly right now. Propose immediate block for a period of time. His initial response to his first warning would seem to indicate a COI. Arzel (talk) 17:05, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

• And I closed the AfD. Didn't seem any point in prolonging it. Black Kite 20:21, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

User talk:Singthesorrow1

User talk:Singthesorrow1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) keeps adding information and claiming that it's from Census 2006 which is incorrect since the official site says other wise which can be viewed here. The user also told me not to undo their edits [41]. The article in question is Gunnedah, New South Wales. Bidgee (talk) 17:28, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Someone block MascotGuy

Resolved

 – blocked

Latest incarnation is User:Boney Guy. His latest edits are more self-referential--he keeps editing pages about himself and his banned status.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 17:31, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

The very first edit alone is rather convincing. — Rlevse • Talk • 17:38, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Steven M. Greer

This article is being edited by a series of single-purpose accounts with identical agendas and editing histories, trying to give Greer a false appearance of legitimacy and make his claims of having ways to violate the laws of physics seem valid.

The accounts concerned are: User:Schouten tjeerd, User:Dancingeyes, and User:I-netfreedOm. I-netfreedOm has been attacking me for reverting their edits, as well as claiming that I am a vandal for preserving anonymity by editing by DHCP, and has been blocked once before. Please stop this. 131.215.220.163 (talk) 18:36, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I posted a link to this thread at Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard, which I think is a better place for it. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 20:35, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Troll

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Kingtut_579 -PetraSchelm (talk) 20:57, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

• Resolved--blocked by R. Baley. -PetraSchelm (talk) 20:59, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

nb. I blocked 72.64.100.150 (talk · contribs) 24 hours for posting the same content at User:R Baley - I presumed it to be a throwaway account. If it returns... LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:56, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I have also left a note on Alison's tp; as soon as pages were semi'd another longterm account contributions was used to make the same type of edit (appeared to be a good hand account until then). I would like anyone with checkuser to look into these accounts and see if there are any others related (fyi both of these accounts could be related to the whole grawp haggar thing, see [42]. R. Baley (talk) 22:28, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Re poll re bot creating towns and villages stubs

There's a notice at the top of my watchlist with a link to this poll: FritzpollBot creating up to two million new articles, but at the bottom of that poll page is a very recent motion by Fritzpoll to resume discussion in a few days. Perhaps that part of the watchlist notice should be removed for now? ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 22:17, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Complex IP vandalism

Hi. An editor in Arkansas takes exception to . . . well, to not being a WP:DICK. During the school year from an IP address registered to the University of Arkansas, and over winter and now summer breaks from a series of proximate IP addresses, the editor has continued to undo a series of redirects and to remove maintenance tags. Several of these IPs have been individually blocked, but I thought I’d mention it here to see if a range block would be appropriate or if there’s anything to do other than have a beer sitting nearby when this fellow acts up again. The editor's talk-page comments make clear he/she has no intention of abiding by consensus or contributing anything useful to Wikipedia. A few of the popular targets -- Simon Tam, Eden McCain, Planet Express -- have received temporary semi-protection, although my most recent request for two of them to be semi-protected again was denied.

School IPs:

• 130.184.82.235 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 130.184.105.128 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 130.184.105.164 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 130.184.211.62 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 130.184.211.102 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 130.184.250.29 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

More recent (home for break?) IPs:

• 70.178.120.203 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 70.178.56.123 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 70.178.157.166 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Statements of non-good faith: here and here

So. There it is. --EEMIV (talk) 22:41, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Theft of Wikipedia content to populate fraudulent web sites for pupose of link farming or similar

Someone has registered a number of web sites whose domain names include the character string "-pedia". Content from Wikipedia, related or not to the domain name, is stolen and somehow copied to web pages under that domain name. At the bottom of many pages are a list of randomly-generated links. The links are generated using a PHP script found here: http://www.mutib.com/randomlink/link.php. The links generated reveal the inventory of fraudulent web sites. The aforementioned link failed once and left an error message--that's how I found out about the link.

Some of the pages have banner ads at the top. Surprise, surprise...the ones I've seen look like they would take one to a porn site.

I hope an administrator finds this and can take action against it.

Kelly Carter (user kellydcarter) kellydcarter@yahoo.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kellydcarter (talk • contribs) 22:47, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposal: create millions of improperly sourced article with MICROSOFT spam by bot

While I love the idea of using a bot to create articles on real places with proper sourcing, the test cases created so far by User talk:Fritzpoll have improper sourcing and include a spam link to Microsoft. This is unacceptable. I tried noting it on an example and was reverted, so I am saying so here. What would Microsoft pay for 4 million articles that say

*[http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/mapcenter/map.aspx Search for ______ in the MSN Encarta atlas]

WAS 4.250 (talk) 23:46, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah... I thought we had a non-vendor-specific map/geoinfo link for geographical places, that goes to a page full of options from Google to M$ to free projects? *Dan T.* (talk) 23:50, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Notified Friztpoll xenocidic ( talk ¿ listen ) 23:52, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that needs to not be there. The NGA reference is somewhat unhelpful too, because it requires the reader to do their own search. Black Kite 23:58, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

(ec)I was just thinking the same thing about this generic spammy link. Plus, I can't find our example town, Aju, Burma, in Encarta. WODUP 00:01, 2 June 2008 (UTC)