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User:Likebox and tendentious re-insertion of original research

Unresolved

 – Could an uninvolved admin look through and close this discussion? — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:42, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I apologize for the length of this post; the incident has been on and off for several years, so a thorough description is necessarily somewhat long. Brief summary: this is essentially a case of "I didn't hear that" regarding WP:OR. Discussion has been attempted several times to no avail, and so I am requesting an uninvolved administrator to review the situation.

User:Likebox (talk · contribs) has, in several incidents since 2007, inserted what he calls "modern proofs" into the articles Halting problem and Gödel's incompleteness theorems. These were removed because they give original interpretations of the material that cannot be sourced to the literature on the subject. Likebox acknowledges that his motivation is that he feels that the literature should have been written in a different way:

• [1] "There is nothing wrong with the proofs, except that they are different than the usual textbook presentations."
• [2]: "I agree that textbooks do not often mention quines in this context, but I feel that this is a pedagogical mistake."
• [3]: "The modern "literature" is textbooks, which are written by a different process than research papers, and are not generally very well written."

These arguments are parallel to the arguments he made in 2007, such as [4] "Wikipedia is a place where certain questions need to be resolved. What constitutes a valid recursion theory proof is one of those questions. ... Textbook proofs are reworked by secondary authors, and they are, as a rule, the worst proofs in the literature."

Numerous attempts have been made to resolve this via discussion. Some of the older discussions are at:

• Talk:Gödel's incompleteness theorems/Archive 3 (November 2007, starting with the section "modern proof")
• Talk:Halting problem/Archive3#Formal statement redux (November 2007)
• Talk:Halting problem/Archive3#What Is A Rigorous Proof? (November 2007)
• Talk:Halting problem/Archive3#Likebox edits (March 2008).

Likebox acknowledges that, when he inserted this material before, it did not gain consensus [5]. He now says he is making the edits to make a point, to press his case for a proposed guideline [6] .

When Likebox inserted the material again this month, the matter was raised at

• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Mathematics#Halting_problem_and_Likebox
• Wikipedia:NORB#Halting_problem_and_Gödel's_incompleteness_theorems

Several editors in these two discussion pointed out that the novel proofs should not be added [7], [8], [9], [10] (not counting those who said this the last time it was added), and consensus is against including the material that Likebox has added. Nevertheless, Likebox reverted his edits again today [11]. Likebox has said he plans to continue doing this [12].

Because the consensus against adding this material that developed both in past discussions and in the more recent discussions has failed to convince Likebox to stop adding this material, I would like to ask some uninvolved administrator to review the situation. Likebox appears to be a productive editor apart from these two pages, so perhaps a topic ban would resolve the continued disruption he brings to those pages. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:44, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

What is exactly the problem with including a novel derivation that is more accessible (apart from it violating the usual wiki rules)? Novel derivations, albeit usually quite simple derivations, are given in many wiki physics and math articles. Count Iblis (talk) 01:41, 19 October 2009 (UTC

The issue here is not that Likebox is expanding or rewriting proofs from the literature in his own words. The problem is that Likebox is simply ignoring the literature, and rewriting everything the way he wishes the literature was written, As I said, this has already been discussed at great length, which is why I am bringing this here, since Likebox has apparently ignored numerous explanations of WP:NOR over a period of years. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:50, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Ok, but what Likebox is not doing is modifying the standard proof that is in the article, he is adding a new section for a "modern proof". At least that is what I see here. The way this is written suggests that this actually is the modern proof, while in fact it is Likebox's proof. To me that would be the main problem with the text and not any OR policies (I've violated OR on similar grounds in many articles).

If it were up to me, I could live with a rewritten version of Likebox's text such that it is immediately clear that it is an alternative proof that can only to be found here. Count Iblis (talk) 02:33, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Right: the text suggests it is the modern proof, while it is really simply Likebox's original interpretation of how the theorem "should" be proved. But if this alternative proof can only be found on Wikipedia, then it violates WP:V and WP:NOR. This has been explained to Likebox by numerous people, which is why I opened a thread here. Simply pointing out that the proof is not permitted because of WP policies has not discouraged Likebox from adding it over and over. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:38, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Um, Iblis? That would make it a textbook case of WP:OR. JoshuaZ (talk) 02:57, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

CMB, I think Likebox would argue that the whole point of the proof is to make Gödel's theorem verifiable from first principles to interested Wikipedia readers. The proof itself is then not the main subject, it is merely an argument that shows why Gödel's teorem is true. That's also how I have defended including original derivations in other wiki articles. But you can make the proof itself to be the subject of the article that then has to be verifiable itself from citations to the literature.

I agree that a consensus needs to exist among the editors before this can be done. An alternative could be that Likebox creates a Fork of the article. He can then write up his proof there, but then in such a way that it is clear that the article is an accessible self contained proof that is not similar to what can be found in the literature.

JoshuaZ, In practice we do allow original derivations in wikipedia even though, strictly speaking, this violates OR. I raised the problem a few times on the OR talk page and I was always told that I could invoke IAR. The OR policy was not going to change any time soon to legalize what was going on on a small number of pages. Count Iblis (talk) 03:18, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Even if we were to allow OR in this case there's nothing resembling either a consensus to do so. Indeed, all the regular math editors who have weighed in don't want this included. As such an individual who has not weighed in let me add that I agree. Indeed his presentation if anything obfuscates what is going on in Godel's theorem. The primary issue that we should be discussing in this thread is what to do with this user not whether the content should be included. JoshuaZ (talk) 03:22, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

We could tell Likebox to put his proof for the moment on a subdirectory of his talkpage so that he can work on it to make it acceptable from a purely mathematical perspective (disregarding OR). That would solve the immediate problem. The OR issue can be dealt with later. Count Iblis (talk) 03:36, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) Count Iblis, 1) Wikipedia, including Wikipedia user space, is not a venue for developing original proofs of anything (some synthesis from published proofs is necessarily accepted, but that's not what we're talking about here). If Likebox wants to publish new proofs, that's what journals and textbook publishers are for. 2) As CBM says, Likebox's attempts to insert his own research into those articles has been going on for years, so a compromise involving writing them in userspace doesn't sound likely to hold up. 3) The basic problem with Likebox's "proofs" is that they are bogus (see the RFC response from 2007, particularly Hans Adler's remarks) in terms of both content gaps and presentation.

See also the declined arbitration request involving Likebox (and yourself) just a couple weeks ago [13] where User:OMCV, a knowledgeable chemistry editor, proposed a long term block against Likebox. Likebox is highly intelligent and is fairly small fry compared with Wikipedia's worst problem editors, but he disrupts several specialized areas whose editors really have better things to do than deal with him. Some kind of editing restriction definitely seems to be in order. 66.127.54.181 (talk) 06:43, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

The "declined arbitration request involving Likebox (and [OMCV]) just a couple weeks ago [14]" was declined because an amicable resolution was achieved. Likebox's derivations are useful and no different from hundreds or thousands of proofs elsewhere in Wikipedia. --Michael C. Price ^talk 08:40, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Michael, if Likebox and OMCV have worked out their differences, that is great, though I'd be more assured if OMCV said so directly. Likebox's derivations are not the same as "hundreds or thousands of proofs elsewhere in Wikipedia"--can you identify a single other proof in Wikipedia that so radically departs from published proofs of the same fact, in both substance and style, and has been rejected repeatedly by consensus of knowledgeable editors, but has still stayed in WP? It's true that math editors often (sensibly) go along with it when a math article says something that isn't in a textbook, as long as what is said is correct and is generally fits the standard approaches. That doesn't even slightly describe Likebox's "proof", whose basic motivation (that the textbook proofs are no good) is fundamentally wrong, in addition to the proof itself being mathematically wrong, and whose presentation in the article was just plain ugly, and was found by consensus to not be appropriate for the article. The proofs of the incompleteness theorem found in logic textbooks are perfectly good, and they are studied and understood without undue trauma by many thousands of undergraduate math and philosophy students every semester. Their only problem is that Likebox doesn't like them. 66.127.54.181 (talk) 18:55, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

<-- As an involved administrator I wish to make a point. This is not an isolated incident. Likebox has been doing the same type of thing in a totally unrelated article called History wars. Another article where he has expressed a strong opinion on the, and rather than attempt to compromise over the issue and work through the edits he would like to add sentence by sentence, he has resorted to re-adding the text every so often with comments on the talk page such as

• "This means we need to have a big change, and go on from there. I have made an attempt at a big change. I will do so periodically until it sticks. Likebox (talk) 17:15, 23 June 2009 (UTC)" (see Talk:History wars/Archive_2#Large Changes/Incremental Changes, Talk:History_wars/Archive 3#Large Changes, Incremental Changes,)
• "Listen, those sources don't google, and I'm not about to go do research. But I know the general picture, because I read references to this in popular books many times over. This statement is designed to comply with undue weight. I am not adressing my comments to you, because it is not possible to convince people like you of anything, you must be suppressed by force of numbers Likebox (talk) 14:26, 12 July 2009 (UTC)"[15]
• "Again, there is no point in talking to people like you. You must be put down by force of numbers.Likebox (talk) 14:28, 12 July 2009 (UTC)"

No only has he made these threats but he carries them out by periodically making large changes to the article: e.g., and by insisting that large amounts of material that he has written to the talk page is not archived but each time is copied back to the start of the talk page, [16], he is disrupting the usual development of new conversations on the talk page.

These two disputes on articles about very different subjects are not about content, but are about how Likebox fails to handle consensus building and is disrupting the project. -- PBS (talk) 13:15, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

User:Rossnixon also behaves in a similar way on the Global Warming page and perhaps also on other wiki pages. But he is not editing there very frequently, so it is not really a problem. No one is arguing that he should be banned. He is not behaving like Scibaby, neither is Likebox. Count Iblis (talk) 14:59, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually Likebox seems to be a very nice guy and generally seems to have very reasonable opinions. (Which doesn't mean that I always agree with him about everything. I don't.) He just seems to be a bit too stubborn when he realises that he is pushing against a consensus. But he is open about this and I haven't seen him use any dirty tricks. Hans Adler 16:22, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Wiki-nagging

Since some people are talking about my edits, let me try to explain. There are three accusations above about my nagging:

1. Godel's incompleteness theorems/Halting problem
2. History Wars
3. Quantum mysticism

3 was resolved by a fork, and everyone seems to be OK with it for now. OMCV has said "I can live with this text" on the forked quantum mind/body problem page. So that's done with. No more nagging.

2 is a big issue. Wikipedia needs to be mindful of racially offensive historiography. On U.S. history pages, this is dealt with reasonably well. On Australian history pages, there are cases where a Eurocentric point of view is presented without counterbalance. This means that I periodically nag the editors on that pages, leaving behind a trail of sources. I only do it when they archive the discussion, because the issues are not resolved. The nagging is just to alert any interested editor that if they wish to contest this historiography, they will find at least one supporter.

1 is the main issue, and it has come up before. Why do I keep nagging here? One reason is that I can't be sure what consensus will be once people understand the proofs. This is the third time I've put it up. The first time, it stayed for months. The second time, it was deleted, but at least people understood it is correct. This time, the issues have been clarified to the point where I know everyone's position.

I don't like this consensus, not because the text I wrote is so great, but because I am pretty sure that if Wikipedia can't give a simple proof of Godel's theorem, it's going to be a problem for other logic articles. There are a ton of proofs in the literature that are more obscure today than they should be, because the language has not been properly modernized. The method of injury/priority is by now over 50 years old, and still is obscure enough that people are discouraged from using it.

The only editor who pretty much fully understands the text and strongly opposes it is CBM. His position is that text on Wikipedia should follow the consensus of textbooks. Needless to say, I think this is an absolutely terrible idea. Other editors have opposed the proof for other understandable reasons.

I do agree that there might be a some issues with the proof as written. The reason I wrote it in exactly this language is mainly because I have been "talking" this proof to people for many years, and it has ossified in my mind, but also so as to prove the Rosser version of the incompleteness theorem easily, which I don't know how to do easily in other ways. As Michael Price has said, the real issue here is that the proofs in the literature are never self-contained. They always refer you to some other theorem, and some other theorem, and this is a disservice to someone who wants to learn the proof quickly.

In these cases, the policy of WP:ESCA suggests that text that only fills in intermediate steps in a proof is OK, so long as the statement of the theorem is OK, the main idea is sourced, and the intermediate steps are verifiable from first principles. This is true of the proofs I am suggesting. I could place them somewhere else, but there is no guarantee that they will stay up. Also, I am hoping that someone who likes the proof can speak up. There used to be supporters in the past, who have drifted away (also opponents).

I believe that this issue will be resolved one day, when a clear proof of the theorem is up. Until then, I nag a little bit, very infrequently, to keep the issue alive.Likebox (talk) 21:53, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Likebox, your statement "I can't be sure what consensus will be once people understand the proofs" presupposes that people don't understand the proofs now. That is bogus: 1) if your proofs are so hard to understand, what business do you have claiming them to be better than the textbook proofs that people do understand? 2) Your notion that people other than CBM don't understand your proof is wrong. I'm sure Hans Adler understands it. I understood it (the 2007 version, I haven't bothered looking at more recent ones). I'm sure plenty of other editors involved in that article understood it too, and found it unsuitable for the article. If your proof is so great, why don't you send it to (say) American Mathematical Monthly, and if they publish it, Wikipedia can cite it? The issue here is not that you have bestowed on us a new and wonderfully clear proof foolishly rejected by Wikipedia's hidebound bureaucracy clinging to stupid rules. Wikipedia's more active math editors are smarter than hell and they are quite capable of ignoring rules with the best of them, when that's the right thing to do. This is not one of those times. There are other online encyclopedias like SEP, which don't have Wikipedia's policies against original research, because they rely on recognized expert referees to make content judgements similar to how a journal does. I don't think SEP would accept your proof, so I don't think Wikipedia should accept it either. If you submit it there and they accept it, then we can revisit the issue. Otherwise, stop beating the dead horse. 66.127.54.181 (talk) 00:44, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

The issue of "experts" is a red herring. This is mathematics, and it is trivial to check when a proof is correct. Correctness is not the issue anymore, it is originality.

I apologize for interspersing comments: while I agree that most of the mathematically minded editors (including Trovatore and Hans Adler) did understand the proof very quickly (Trovatore noted an error in the original version of the Rosser proof within a few minutes, which I quickly fixed), there were also several very loud voices that did not understand the proof, and the debate with them drowned out any reasonable discussion for a long time. All these people are gone, and the people that remain understand that the proof is accurate.

While the proof is very easy, this is exactly why many non-mathematical people thought it must be wrong. It's too simple to be correct. The reason I started editing the page is when I saw a comment on the talk page from years ago that said "The lay person will never understand Godel's incompleteness theorem". And I thought to myself "Why not?". I expected that a simple proof would make people angry, precisely because it sidesteps a lot of notation and terminology that people who write about the theorem would like to pretend are necessary.

The question of originality is difficult to address. I know that this proof of Godel's theorem by itself is not original. The Rosser proof is borderline for Wikipedia, but it is not original either for a journal. You can go on, however, to prove a few new theorems in the same style, and if enough of these are found, the result might be suitable for a journal.Likebox (talk) 18:45, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Your post above is mostly wrong:

1. Your proof of the incompleteness theorem is in fact not correct, in that CBM explained that it has a large gap.[17] While it doesn't actually prove something that's false, a famous description that comes to mind is that it's not even wrong. That is, your "proof" is not a proof.
2. Checking when a proof is correct is certainly not trivial (as your own inability to do so shows), except possibly for the case when the proof is completely formalized and can be checked by computer. Quite a lot of undergraduate math education (e.g. introductory real analysis) is mostly geared towards teaching how to write and check proofs, and at this point I don't have the impression that you are so hot at it. See Thurston[18] p. 8 for more discussion of the cultural acclimation process necessary to understand what an acceptable unformalized proof is. That acclimation is what Hans Adler was describing in his RFC response, I think, and it does not seem to me that you have absorbed it enough, thus the resistance you get. ( Remember also that Gauss famously gave the first "rigorous" proof of the fundamental theorem of algebra in 1799, only to have a gap discovered in it ~150 years later. Checking proofs is also (part of) why math journals have those referees that you sneer at. A lot of the early development of mathematical logic was precisely an attempt to pin down exactly how to check a proof. Don't trivialize that which is not trivial.)
3. As an aside, formally proving the incompleteness theorem is in fact rather complicated: see [19]. You will see the formalization cited spent considerable effort addressing the issues CBM described and which you simply handwaved.
4. Showing non-OR-ness on the other hand is trivial: just cite a textbook or published article giving a similar proof to yours, and establish notability for it by the usual means. That you haven't given such citations is a strong sign that your proof is OR.
5. Even if your proof was completely fleshed out and checked, the amount of space you want to devote to it in the article is ridiculous. If it were published in a journal, I'd support adding a sentence to the article like "Likebox has given an alternative proof using Turing machines" with a citation, but anything more than that would be undue weight since the proof is so unorthodox. Of course that would change if textbooks and journals started switching to your style of proof in large numbers, but not until then.
6. I am glad that you acknowledge that mathematically-oriented editors other than CBM also understood your "proof". I just looked at the current version of Talk:Gödel's_incompleteness_theorems and not a single one of those editors supported inclusion. Trovatore, Zero Sharp, Arthur Rubin, and Paul August all spoke against inclusion. Hans Adler didn't weigh in, so I assume his view didn't change since last time. While a few editors like Count Iblis liked your proof, none of them as far as I can tell have shown any familiarity with the existing logic literature including the usual published proofs. With no disrespect intended to those editors (we all have our own areas of interest), the notion of deciding what to include in Wikipedia based on such uninformed judgement is squarely in WP:RANDY territory and is precisely what the NOR policy is designed to prevent. We are trying to write an encyclopedia whose contents are acceptable by professional standards, so while I can understand a case for inclusion if someone like CBM thinks it's ok, it's completely different if only some less informed editors (anyone unlikely to be given the responsibility of refereeing such a proof for a journal) think it's ok.
7. Also, your continued harping on the proposed ESCA guideline to shoehorn your bogus OR into Wikipedia is shaping up to be a strong argument against accepting that guideline. If the proposed guideline supports including your OR when informed consensus says it's bogus, the proposed guideline is no good and should be rejected.
8. Finally even if your proof is correct and backed by citations, there is more to the suitability of a given proof than mere correctness. It was a big deal when Erdős and Selberg found arithmetic proofs of the prime number theorem when there was already an existing proof, because the old proof used complex analysis which while correct was considered mathematically unsatisfying. It's of course a subjective matter, but your own proof's excursion into Turing machines for something that can be done directly with arithmetic could be seen as similarly unsatisfying. I am confident that the logicians who wrote the existing textbooks that you don't like, knew perfectly well what Turing machines are and could have written machine-based proofs if they felt like it. They used the approach they did because they found it more tasteful or appropriate. It is not persuasive seeing you attempt to substitute your own judgement for theirs. You are trying to override not only the NOR policy, but the neutrality policy as well, in wanting to present a fringe-ish proof in place of a mainstream one. That, I think, is what CBM is getting at by staying to stay with the consensus of published sources. You cannot be the arbiter of what the best of the available correct presentations is, never mind that you want to use an incorrect one.

You are one of the reasons why I lost interest in editing the incompleteness theorem article a couple years ago. CBM has a fact-based writing style where he rarely expresses personal opinion about anything, and I can't speak for him, but that he finally brought this issue to ANI after all these years makes me theorize that he is quite fed up. So, I continue to support his call for an editing restriction against you. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 02:09, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

(deindent) Hey, Mr. anon. you are totally wrong.

1. CBM's "explanation" is totally unfounded. The gap"he pretends to find is the exact embedding of a computer into arithmetic, meaning, how do you take statements like "R halts" and turn them into statements about integers. This "gap" is not a gap at all, but a painfully obvious statement which is easy to prove. It is precisely because this is much easier to prove than anything about logic that I chose the presentation that I did. CBM is resistant to doing things in any way but the textbook way. That's legitimate. But even he doesn't pretend that there is any inaccuracy in the proof anymore.
2. Perhaps it's not trivial for you, but I don't find it difficult at all, and neither do any of the editors at Godel's theorems. They have checked the proof, and all of them agree that it is correct, with the exception of Arthur Rubin, who might or might not. N.B. Gauss's proof does not have a gap in it. His proof is that the winding number of the map z->z^n + lower order is n at infinity, and winding number is additive under bisection of a region. This proof was correct, and has stayed correct until the present day, ignorant opinions nonewithstanding.
3. Proving Godel's theorem is easy--- provided you do it exactly the way I showed.
4. Blah blah OR blah blah. No proof of Godel could be considered OR today. Period. It's too well understood.
5. The amount of space is just right, since it is a complete, self-contained, easy-to-understand proof of the theorem. That is important on a page called "Godel's incompleteness theorems".
6. Yeah, yeah, but all of them now agree that it is correct. Other editors in the past have criticized it 'because they thought it was incorrect. Many of the editors who like this method are just keeping quiet. With time, consensus will become "include", because that is true. It's just a question of when.
7. Yeah. It's not obvious. ESCA takes a little while to appreciate.
8. Dude, all the current textbooks use Turing machines to prove the incompleteness theorems. You should not edit the page if you don't understand this elementary fact. It is good that you were driven away.

In fact, one of the nice things about rephrasing proofs in different ways is that it lets you see if you really understand the theorem. If you truly understand the proof, then it doesn't matter how you phrase it. In this case, the proof I am giving is just a minor restatement of the usual proof in textbooks, but making it self-contained, and not shying away from using explicit computer programs.Likebox (talk) 05:20, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Likebox (re item 2), Stephen Smale, one of the foremost mathematicians of the past century, wrote:

I wish to point out what an immense gap Gauss's proof contained. It is a subtle point even today that a real algebraic plane curve cannot enter a disk without leaving. In fact even though Gauss redid this proof 50 years later, the gap remained. It was not until 1920 that Gauss's proof was completed.

(Citation: Smale 1981 here). Of course the gap is very famous and many others have written about it too, as you are apparently well aware. That you would consider someone like Smale to be "ignorant" and yourself to be a better evaluator of proofs shows the boundlessness of your arrogance and incompetence. As far as I'm concerned, it establishes that you have zero credibility about anything. So I've had enough, and will not bother replying to the rest of your similarly erroneous crap. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 10:03, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Smale is talking about the Jordan curve theorem, which states that a closed continuous curve in the plane has an inside and an outside. This theorem can be proved using the winding number of a continous curve, much as Gauss proved the fundamental theorem of algebra. To say that Gauss did not prove the Jordan curve theorem in his winding number argument is disingenuous. It is applying standards of what 20th century mathematicians find interesting to 19th century work.

In the 20th century, the Jordan curve theorem became a subject of intense study, because it was related to the formal axiomatization of topology. The proof of the Jordan curve theorem for differentiable curves is not difficult, and can be done using mathematics available to Gauss. In fact, this proof is just the winding number of Gauss. A point is on the inside of a differentiable curve if the winding number of the vector from the point to the curve is equal to 1 (or -1). The point is outside if the winding number is 0. The definition of the winding number, the proof that it is additive, and the division lemmas were well within the standard mathematics of Gauss's day.

But the proof of the Jordan curve theorem for continuous curves without assuming differentiability, is more subtle, because continuous curves can be complicated. They can have positive lebesgue measure in the plane for instance. To prove the theorem for continuous curves requires a good axiomatization of topology, which allows the winding number to be made into a homology or a fundamental group. These advances required the late 19th century axiomatization of limits and calculus, which were unavailable to Gauss.

When Smale says that Gauss had a gap in his proof, what he means is that the Jordan curve theorem, and the notion of winding number, were not properly understood in the broadest possible context until the early 20th century. But it is uncharitable at best to call this a gap in Gauss's proof. Gauss was only dealing with the winding number of a highly differentiable object, and he could have defined this winding number by an explicit integral. It is not right, in my opinion, to blame a mathematician for not focusing on the broadest possible statement of a lemma used in his proof, especially since Gauss's proof was a stimulant for the development of topology in general over the next hundred years.Likebox (talk) 22:14, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Like box you wrote: "On Australian history pages, there are cases where a Eurocentric point of view is presented without counterbalance. This means that I periodically nag the editors on that pages, leaving behind a trail of sources." In this ANI we are discussing a page called "History wars" which is about a debate taking place in Australia. As you threatened you would on the talk page you periodically revert the article content to a version of the text you wrote. Such threats and the actions are considered on Wikipedia to be disruptive, particularly when you have consistently refuse requests to go through you additions sentence and address the issues raised in those discussions. You have been asked on numerous occasions to produce sources eg:

If you have sources that you can cite showing that comparative genocide scholars have been using Tasmania as a defining example of a genocide "ever since" the 1940s, i.e. they were saying it in the 1950s, the 1960s and all the way through to the present day, let's see them. Not just vague phrases like "repeated in several sources" but give us verifiable citations, otherwise, how about you just admit you can't support your preferred wording with appropriate sources and we go on from there. Webley442 (talk) 13:24, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Listen, those sources don't google, and I'm not about to go do research. But I know the general picture, because I read references to this in popular books many times over. This statement is designed to comply with undue weight. I am not adressing my comments to you, because it is not possible to convince people like you of anything, you must be suppressed by force of numbers.Likebox (talk) 14:26, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

— Talk:History wars/Archive 3#Genocide debate

But instead of doing so you threaten and revet to unsources versions. It seems to me from reading what 66.127.54.181 has written that your behaviour over several unrelated articles is similar. Wikipedia is not the place to publish original research, and in doing so after it has been pointed out to you that you must produce sources to back up all your controversial claims precisely (i.e. with no synthesise), you are sill inserting disputed text into articles. -- PBS (talk) 09:07, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

To PBS: You are talking nonsense. It is absolutely true that everywhere outside of Australia, the Black War has been a defining example of genocide all through the 1950s, the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s, the 1990s and today. The source I gave you "The Last of the Tasmanians" should have settled the issue as far as the inaccuracies in Windschuttle. This is just the latest source, in addition to Lemkin's notes, the detailed analysis of Lemkin's notes by another scholar, Rashidi's book, the countless web pages, the academic articles by Madley, the academic articles by Ryan, and the textbook on Genocide by Tatz. All these sources, and on the other side is Windschuttle, and a couple of right-wing Australian revisionists, most of whom don't contest what happened.

I urge anyone here to look over the page, the discussion, and the archived discussion. It is painfully obvious that there is no proper coverage of the majority of sources on the Black War, and there will not be so long as several editors gang up on whoever inserts it.Likebox (talk) 18:33, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Likebox I note (and I hope others have) that you do not deny that you have repeatedly edited in your large changes to the article history wars after making threats (more than once) on the article's talk page that: "I have made an attempt at a big change. I will do so periodically until it sticks." without any support on the talk page for the edits.

I did not raise the issue of edits to the history wars to open up another forum to discuss the rights or wrongs of the sources. I did it to highlight a pattern in your failure to act within the acceptable methods of consensus building in the Wikipedia project, which appears to span several different subjects and involve several different groups of editors. -- PBS (talk) 11:53, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Ok. You are (and have been) consistently editing against consensus in a number of articles. As Hans Adler quite generously and correctly points out, you are doing it 'in the light' and not resorting to (for example) sockpuppetry/meatpuppetry to push your agenda. That is, doubtless, to your credit. Nonetheless, you have by your own admission continued to edit against consensus and what's more pledged to continue to do so. Despite how much you would like to portray yourself as the Innocent Victim of the Big Bad Wikiocracy, (and, as an added bonus, portray those people who disagree with you as idiots who Just Don't Understand You. The very arrogance!) you are quite simply being disruptive. Period. Therefore, it's time (long past time) for sanction, an edit restriction, something. You've managed to exhaust even Carl's legendary patience. Enough is enough. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.145.148.154 (talk) 00:00, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I have invited User:OMCV to comment here.[20] 69.228.171.150 (talk) 04:10, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Its true that I reached text "I could live with" when trying to edit with Likebox but the process took far to long. It was a little more than two months for something that should not have taken more than two days. Honestly I think it was the threat of arbitration that ultimately pushed him into a reasonable frame of mind in line with WP policy. The text we disputed currently exists as a compromise, a compromise which I believe still contains implied OR that Likebox has "owned". Its a compromise because it isn't worth fighting over. I mostly definitely found Likebox's editing style/comments disruptive and exhausting. I made my case against Likebox's activities on quantum mysticism and it was declined in the given context. If anyone wants to review my concerns when exploring or establishing an editing pattern or history they only need to look here. I offer this comment because it was requested and my interaction with Likebox have been discussed in a few places. With that said, I do not wish to participate in the discussion further. I plan to do my best to avoid Likebox now and in the future.--OMCV (talk) 05:04, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

"Editing against consensus" means that I have brought the issue of Godel's theorem up once every year and a half, to see if consensus changed, and made an argument on history wars every time they tucked away the previous talk page discussion into premature archive. That's not particularly inflammatory.

OMCV and I have no more dispute.Likebox (talk) 05:20, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

It's still editing against consensus if you add it, even once, after it's reverted. Shall we reach an agreement that you are subject ot 1RR every 2 years in regard the material you continue to add against consensus, or as to "testing the consenus". — Arthur Rubin (talk) 06:34, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

It's editing against past consensus with a goal of changing this consensus in the future. I only persist in doing this when consensus is absolutely ridiculous, and must change if this project is not going to become a joke. I shall not reach any agreement with you on anything.Likebox (talk) 22:18, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Proposed editing restriction

When I started this thread, I was not aware that there were similar issues on other pages. Now it appears that the same sort of problem has happened on other topics. Given the number of editors who have commented here that Likebox should pursue a different method, perhaps an editing restriction would be enough to resolve this thread. I would suggest the following:

If Likebox adds material to an article that is later removed with a claim that the material is inappropriate, Likebox is prohibited from adding that material again until clear consensus in favor of the material is established on the talk page of the article.

This would still permit Likebox to edit normally and discuss things on talk pages, but it would address the primary difficulty, which is that Likebox continues to insert the same material long after it is clear there is no consensus for it. Moreover, the proposed restriction still allows consensus to change. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:50, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

It is a pity. I would be in favour of an article on for instance the computer program approach to Gödel's proof. But sticking in 8k of own's idea of better pedagogy is just not right. One needs to stay reasonably close to what is actually done in published sources. He should go an write wikibooks or wikiversity if he wants to do that. And by the way I believe writing a long spiel obscures the points if any in an argument. Dmcq (talk)

I think this 0RR restriction should be limited to articles on philosophy and to articles on mathematical logic. I don't think it is necessary for articles on ordinary physics topics, like e.g. quantum field theory, special/general relativity etc.. On those type of pages, someone like Likebox repeatedly reverting the page would be ok., because from time to time cranks appear who add (subtle) nonsense and for outsiders it is not clear to see what the consensus really is (the pages are not always frequently edited). I think Likebox' professional working experience lies more in this theoretical physics direction. Perhaps the disputes we've seen with likebox is the typical case of the "arrogant theoretical physicist" trying to lecture philosophers and mathematicians (just joking). Count Iblis (talk) 15:10, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Likebox's tendentiousness on talk pages is disruptive in its own right and I'd be happy if the restriction included it somehow, but whatever. DMCQ: Wikibooks doesn't want bogus OR either. If Likebox wants to publish his proof, he should write a journal article about it, I'm serious. (I think his present version needs patching up though). Count Iblis: I'm not involved in any physics articles but I see Likebox's antagonism of OMCV as an alarming thing, and the restriction should try to prevent recurrences of that.

Note: it looks like I inadvertently posted to this thread under two different IP addresses (my ISP connection must have reset yesterday without my noticing it), which I hope didn't cause confusion. 66.127.54.181 and this current address are both me. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 21:37, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

What is this nonsense? There are two pages in question, both of which are shoddy. One page, History Wars presents a racially biased version of Australian history, the other page Godel's incompleteness theorems does not present a proof.

To Dmcq: The 8k discussion is just the latest expansion of a very short text. The short text is found on User:Likebox/Gödel modern proof. If you like it, write a short version. The reason I keep expanding it is because people keep deleting the short versions with silly comments.Likebox (talk) 22:22, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree, this proposal does not go far enough. Moreover, it seems to me that it's the kind of behavior we should expect from any editor and as such doesn't really amount to much of a restriction, per se. I'd also like to point out that Likebox's comportment in this very discussion has shown him to be argumentative, abusive ("It's good that you were driven away" [21] -- really?), incivil, and most importantly unrepentant. This as well as his repeated 'pledges' (read: threats) to continue 'nagging' (read: disruptive and tendentious editing) does not bode well for the future. I think we're letting ourselves in for a world of eternal hurt if stronger steps aren't taken to curtail this churlish behavior. But, perhaps that's a discussion for a different venue than ANI (I confess, I don't know what the recourse there is).71.139.6.70 (talk) 04:04, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with the way Likebox discusses the topic. The only thing is that Likebox should perhaps voluntarily stick to 1 RR on pages where he is arguing against more than one or two stablished editors. Things go wrong the moment others stop discussing the topic and start a discussion about the way Likebox is editing. Then Likebox can write something about that too and very soon one of the parties will say something that is perceive to be incivil. If Likebox would voluntarily stick to 1 RR then the others are less likely to be annoyed. The others can then more easily agree to discuss the topic of the article wit Likebox and not Likebox himself. Count Iblis (talk) 14:38, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry Count. Shoehorning unsourced OR based on his belief that he can explain Godel's theorem better than Godel (or than any textbook covering the subject), or his belief that "I'm not about to go do research. But I know the general picture, because I read references to this in popular books" (see long quote higher up) is adequate for shoehorning his POV into history articles, or his general incivility is not "nothing wrong". Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:47, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I realize I said I would stay out of this but I understand the exacerbation that 71.139.6.70 is expressing all too well. I felt that way when I was searching for support or arbitration when dealing with Likebox. I also disagree with Count Iblis on a number of issues. Likebox's problem behaviors as an editor require no provocation and make it difficult (perhaps intentionally) to discuss content, if you don't think this is true please review Quantum Mysticism's talk page and my talk page in detail. Based on discussion on this page, my experience, and a number of Likebox's own claims he plays the long game. I think any voluntary reforms will be disregarded once those who would hold him accountable have moved on (as I would like to do now). Considering all of this, I think Carl's suggestion is interesting, in the end we only want Likebox to display the "kind of behavior we should expect from any editor". The suggested restrictions should come with clearly defined and progressive sanctions. With reasonable sanctions that can be feasibly enforced Carl's proposal would be a significant restriction on Likebox's problem behaviors, which is all we really want to target. A clause concerning civility should also be added and I think it would cover the major issues. This would be much better than my original request for a long term block.--OMCV (talk) 15:12, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

(deindent) Or perhaps, instead of focusing on the supposed "problem behaviors", you might want to focus on the pages themselves? These "problem behaviors" are caused by persistent attempts to fix problem pages.

For "History Wars", These problems were noted by several people. Unlike the paragraphs quoted out of context above, if you look at the text I proposed for History Wars (preserved on the talk page), I presented material culled from about a dozen new sources that were each removed systematically by PBS and Webley. This coordinated editing has prevented material about the Black War from being presented on Wikipedia, and I urge other editors to go there, read the sources, and check for themselves.

History is different than mathematics. History must stick to sources very closely, and adhere to undue-weight religiously. Mathematics is verifiable from first principles, and can be checked by individuals without external references. This difference is the essential reason for proposing WP:ESCA. Editing on a subject which can be verified from first principles is very different than editing an article on the Punic Wars.

Regarding OMCV, he has bad feelings, because we disagreed on edits he was making. These edits were factually incorrect, were opposed by several editors, and improved as he learned more about the subject. The final text we settled on was written almost entirely by him, after he had gained enough familiarity to write accurately. This process took a long time, but produced a reasonable text.

The job I am doing here by poking at problem pages makes enemies. It is important to challenge stuff in this way, and it is important for Wikipedia editors to avoid intimidating other editors from challenging material.Likebox (talk) 19:38, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

These comments epitomizes our conflict. The disputed text was blatant OR; I took the time to review the relevant reference to verify that it was OR. After two months the text was reworked to the point that it fairly represented the materiality in the reference (no longer OR). Even if the language in the text is no longer inventive it is still severally out of place so Likebox can argue a thesis that isn't found in any WP:RS. It would be better if the text was just removed and I am not attached to any of the alternatives I offered they can go for all I care.--OMCV (talk) 01:06, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I feel I should substantiate this statement with a quote to demonstrate how Likebox can misrepresent a situation and misunderstand policy. As background the material in question was philosophy of the mind subject matter (where am I). Likebox doesn't seem to have read the source in years [22] and I doubt that Count Iblis and Michael Price have ever read the source.

Stop Being A Pest - I understand you want to delete the material, but deletion has a higher threshhold than inclusion. If you were adding text with new information, you would be taken seriously. You have two 3rd opinions now that support inclusion: Count Iblis and Michael Price. I know that these editors understand quantum mechanics. You balance these against two off-the-cuff comments (including yours, I might add) by outsiders that say "Hey, this looks like synth to me". Since I write in an idiosynchratic way, everything I have ever edited ends up looking like OR or synth to people who don't know the field.Likebox (talk) 18:08, 16 September 2009 (UT)

As it is with the History Wars article. The quote above is not taken out of context it is a discussion about sources to verify the change to the first sentence of the text that Likebox wishes to introduce. Despite repeated requests to provide sources to justify the change, he has not done so, and he ignores the provided reliable sources that disprove his changes to the first sentence, (we have never been able to progress to the second sentence). This seems to me to make the dispute over the "History wars" article to be also OR, specifically WP:SYN, and to date he does not seem to understand that. Instead he thinks he is justified in repeatedly inserting the text into the article and on placing it near the top of the talk page again when the talk page has been archived. I think that he should be restricted from putting the same text or near similar text, into any of the articles under discussion, restricted from block copying text from the archives onto the talk pages, and from initiating discussions on the same subjects. If however another editor, without his solicitation, brings up the subject on the talk page or edits in text to the article with which he agrees (again without solicitation), he should be free to support that editor in the usual Wikipedia consensus editing way. -- PBS (talk) 13:39, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

BTW, it would be no problem for me to stick to 1RR. Perhaps that would satisfy everyone.Likebox (talk) 20:15, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Editing on a subject which can be verified from first principles is very different than editing an article on the Punic Wars. No it is not any different. Every blithering crank injecting their pet FLT proof (or these days, P=NP proof, or in your case, incompleteness theorem proof) claims that it is verifiable from first principles and dealing with them is endlessly time consuming, as you are demonstrating. That is why we don't go by verifiability from first principles--we go by verifiability from sources. If you don't like this, the right place to debate it is WT:OR, not in math articles or their talk pages or here. I would not expect a favorable reception there though. If by 1RR you mean one reversion per 24 hours, that's completely useless, since you have been at this for years. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 22:35, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

And the fact that you cannot distinguish a crank proof from a correct proof is a sign that perhaps editing technical pages is not the best use of your time. The way to differentiate the two is to look at the proof and see if it is proving what it is saying.

The way to establish OR for proofs is to understand the proof method, and check if the ideas in the proof appear in the literature. The wrong way of doing this is to do it like "Punic Wars", by looking for a direct source for each factual statement. The factual statements generated in the course of a proof follow by logic, and are specific to the context. If you lift them from sources and put them into an article, it is nearly certain that they will become wrong statements in the new context. Only the general path is in the sources. This is what the guideline ESCA is trying to explain.

This is not to say that a bogus proof, or even a novel proof, is OK for Wikipedia. But the incompleteness theorem is 80 years old. The method of proof I was using is over 60 years old. The only innovation was using "print your own code" for "fixed point", and updating the computer from a Turing machine to a modern RAM machine. These are trivial modifications, which are only put in for pedagogical clarity and self-containedness.Likebox (talk) 00:09, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

It is not a matter of "distinguish[ing] a crank proof from a correct proof" it is a matter of distinguishing between a sourced proof and an unsourced proof and a sourced method and an unsourced method of proving something (see WP:OR and WP:SYN).

It is a pity that with the "History wars" article you are not willing to "looking for a direct source for each factual statement", if you did then you would not try to repeatedly to put text into the article for which you have not provided any direct source despite being repeatedly asked to do so. Legitimate requests that you dismiss with statements like the one I quoted above. -- PBS (talk) 13:39, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Anon, while you are welcome to participate in the debate on about WP:ESCA on its talk page, you should not vote on the proposed policies based only on the polemics of the debate here. If you take the time to read WP:ESCA, you'll see that it asks editors to be extra careful, not less careful, when editing articles. Constructive criticism is welcome. Count Iblis (talk) 00:38, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

From afar this debate appears to be one of those where WP simply does not work. This failure is inherent in a "democratic" encyclopaedia where anyone can contribute, whether they know the subject or know how to think or know how to evaluate sources. In such an environment, even supposing Likebox to be 100% right and everyone else out to lunch, Likebox cannot succeed. In this particular debate he is fortunate that a degree of civility prevails, which allows the discussion a veneer of true analysis. However, the bottom line is that Likebox cannot succeed when outnumbered, and will reach stalemate with only one opposing editor that digs in. The application of WP:ESCA will not assist in this case. The best compromise, assuming that the opposition will accept it, is for Likebox to write his own page on his alternative proof and link the the two treatments. Assuming the precepts are sourced and the result is sourced, as seems to be the case, this new article is exempt from claims of WP:SYN and WP:OR according to WP:ESCA. Likebox's argument may have deficiencies, for example, hypothetically, as being too restrictive, and on the new page views of the vocal majority to that effect can be introduced. For example, it can be said that the orthodox proof differs in respects (i) - (n), or that Likebox's argument is confined to special cases like this and that. However, readers will have access to the simpler argument and adequate indication that there exist some doubters, justifiably or not. The reader is put on notice that this is that kind of WP situation where the dust won't settle. I do not think any other compromise is out there that can mend this matter. Brews ohare (talk) 15:55, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

An editing restriction to make it easier for one faction to deal with the other is simply censorship disguised, and is not a procedure that I'd feel was desirable as a general practice. Perhaps not in this case, but in many, the majority is simply wrong, and it is far too easy to label the opposition as a nuisance or worse and try to eliminate the opposition by fiat. That does not serve WP but only the annoyed parties. Brews ohare (talk)

Very interesting. How do you feel about a single (and single-minded) editor hijacking discussion over the period of years, consuming the time of editors who know better (and have better things to do, probably) to defend against degradation of article content and dilution of quality of the encyclopedia? I suppose that doesn't bother you very much? 67.101.114.82 (talk) 18:50, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

A proposed policy such as WP:ESCA, mostly likely destined to become an essay, has no presidency over the policiy WP:OR. Furthermore there are three separate groups here voicing their concern over Likebox's behaviors which I will try to summarize:

1. The content Likebox adds has a strong tendency towards OR especially SYNTH.
2. A propensity to edit war and display WP:OWN.
3. Disregard for the concerns of other editors and making little effort to reach consensus.
4. Uncooperative use of rhetoric and selective understanding to avoid the substance of the debate.
5. Civility and tone issues which Likebox has called arguing forcefully.

Likebox appears to mostly be a damaging element to Wikipedia lately. If he can't be reformed with sanctions he should be blocked. Personally I don't think Likebox even means to create OR. I think he simply has a strong tendency toward correlating and equivocating ideas and concepts to the point that it obliterates contradictions and inconsistent data in his own mind. His name even suggests these tendencies. Armed with his "internally" consistent world view he sets about editing, campaign style, towards the truth no one else understands.--OMCV (talk) 17:37, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

the truth no one else understands? OMCV, that is OTT and not true. More likely, if you don't understand what Likebox is saying it is a deficiency on your own part. For example, Likebox was roundly criticised for "introducing" the connection between superconductivity and the Higgs mechanism, which was dismissed as absolute garbage by some. Folks (including me) got it eventually, and it is now sourced. He was right and everybody else was wrong. Criticise his prolix writing style if you like, but he adds helpful insights to articles.--Michael C. Price ^talk 09:07, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Reply to OMCV: WP:ESCA is a reasoned discussion, admittedly not a guideline. But the answer to dispute is to talk about compromise. You already are leaving the arena of discussion and entering the arena of debate (i.e. scoring points, not clearing things up) with terms like "internally consistent world view" and "equivocating concepts". What do you think of the separate page notion? It is an olive branch that could resolve this argument without seeking sanctions that simply irritate even the "winners" and provide no sense of accomplishment and no service to WP readers. The new page would be available for pointed commentary as to its deficiencies and allow a reshaping of this discussion as a discussion of the alternative view, rather than a defense of the present page. Brews ohare (talk) 17:59, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

The "Separate page notion" is called a "POV fork" and is a non-solution. Moreover, you've made it abundantly clear that you _have not_ read much of the discussion (even "from afar"). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.1.184.172 (talk) 18:14, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Reply to 74.1.184.172: The proposed new page is not a POV fork if it contains different material, viz an alternative simpler proof. Your statement that it is "abundantly clear" is not helpful in suggesting specific objections, but appears instead argumentative. I'd like to point out that if Likebox is placed in the position of defending his page, that is a harder task than sniping at the existing page, and a bit of role reversal is involved that could change the dynamics of the discussion. For one thing, those opposed can relax a bit as their particular views are not under debate, but those of Likebox. Also, specific objections to Likebox arguments should be aired, and the result should lead to clarifications of Likebox's arguments, for example, a tightening of logic or a flag that certain eventualities are ignored, or certain assumptions have been made that should be explicit, etc. etc. When all is said and done, the final Likebox page either has something to say, or has become some clone of the original page that can be summarized on the main page or deleted. Brews ohare (talk) 18:25, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Please review POV_fork and then explain here -- with specific examples -- why giving a separate page to Likebox's idiosyncratic, non-cited, synthetic OR on a subject that is already covered in an existing article and which consensus was against inclusion of same is not a POV fork. Moreover, this ANI was brought about (Carl, please correct me if I'm misrepresenting your intent) to address Likebox' _behavior_, to wit, tendentious re-insertion of material against consensus over a period spanning years. Likebox was given ample opportunity to 'defend' (or if you prefer a less 'argumentative' term 'explain' or 'support') his proposed additions on the talk page(s) of the respective article. Consensus there was against the insertion. And he persisted, and has pleged to persist. That's disruptive editing. 65.46.253.42 (talk) 18:42, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

It was suggested that if Likebox has a simpler proof or one more accessible to the non-expert, the proposed Likebox page is not a POV fork. You can see things like this with special relativity, for example, where several different levels of treatment are separately presented. The same with quantum mechanics. The issue becomes whether the proposed Likebox page serves a purpose. Before that judgment can be made, the page has to exist.

Many of the disruptive issues that annoy you may evaporate if the new page construction becomes the focus instead of the existing page. Experiment would tell. What is there to lose? Construction of a new page would be collaborative; dogged insistence on some editing restrictions potentially limits WP treatment of the topic and promotes an approach that becomes generally used, in many such disputes, instead of cooperation. Brews ohare (talk) 19:00, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

• Brews ohare was recently topic banned from physics. Does this discussion relate to physics? Why is one editor who was sanctioned for tendentious editing commenting repeatedly on a discussion about tendentious editing? To me this looks like disruption or very poor judgment. Jehochman ^Talk 19:07, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Jehochman: who can possibly have had more experience with tendentious editors than I?? Brews ohare (talk) 19:24, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

since Likebox has agreed to stick to 1 RR, this topic should be closed (it should have been a few days ago when he agreed with this). If you stick to 1 RR, then that leads to a far better climate on the talk pages. Consensus is far more important, so it doesn't pay to have polarized discussions.

I agree with the points that Brews is making here, not sure why Jehochman would object to his participation here. Brews (a physics professor) was, i.m.o., wrongly banned from all physics topics, even discussing physics on his own talk page was declared to be illegal. The problem with Brews was perceived to be that he dominated discussions on a talk page too much to get his way. I.m.o. that didn't have anything to do with the physics nature of the particular topic, it just happened to be the case that Brews was only active on physics pages.

Now, when people get annoyed about me dominating some topic, the typical comment I'll hear is: "Count Iblis, why don't you stick to physics?" So, i.m.o. that is something we should be able to say to Brews in such cases, but unfortunately, the topic ban makes that impossible. We can't blame Brews for sticking to his topic ban and participating in other areas of Wikipedia. Count Iblis (talk) 20:04, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

• CBM, what you are asking for sounds like the standard revert limitation. Take a look at Wikipedia:Editing restrictions for sample wording. If something is adopted, it would be best to use standard wording. Jehochman ^Talk 21:49, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Alternate proposal

I think we need a general probation like the one D. Tombe got, rather than something like 1RR. Proposal (adapted from WP:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Speed_of_light/Proposed_decision#David_Tombe_restricted):

Likebox (talk · contribs) is placed under a general probation indefinitely. Any uninvolved administrator may, on his or her own discretion, impose sanctions if, despite being warned, Likebox repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any normal editorial process or any expected standards of behavior and decorum.

This could be in addition to Carl's proposal. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 02:04, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think so, because Likebox could then fall prey to wikilawyering cranks on physics pages. Note that in the arbitration page in which Davd and Brews received restrictions, many other involved editors misbehaved to some extent. E.g. Martin's incivility was noted in the discussions, but in the end he was excused because he was dealing with a difficult crank. Count Iblis (talk) 02:33, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Likebox would do well to stay away from controversial material for an extended period. If a crank does emerge on Likebox's watch he could enlist you, myself, or likely any of the editor here to remedy the situation. Indefinite probation seems very reasonable to me.--OMCV (talk) 03:26, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Apparently the trend here is to gag Likebox, and proposals differ mainly in how to accomplish this aim. I'd suggest that is a very limited response to dealing with another editor, and will tend to alter the atmosphere for editing for everyone. All of us will end up battling a losing battle sooner or later, not because we're wrong, not because we have a WP:POV or whatever, but because the other editors that happen to be participating see us as a problem. Maybe they're all Engineers, or all novelists, or all nuts. Can't we come up with a cooperative solution? Isn't a test page presenting Likebox's proof a better way to go? It isn't irreversible: it's a test, for Pete's sake. Brews ohare (talk) 03:22, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

What you are unable or unwilling to see is that Likebox, by his

behavior is doing EXACTLY THAT - altering the environment for other editors, to put it mildly. And you are apparently also unable or unwilling to see that what you are proposing, temporary or not *is* a POV fork. Period. Mental gymnastics, indeed. You ask "Can't we come up with a cooperative solution?" Clearly, in the years that his mess has dragged on, we cannot. Hence, the need for sanctions. I don't think anyone is proposing an outright block, but are we to allow *one* editor to continue acting in this way and forcing god-knows-how-many other editors to devote time and energy -- time and energy better spent improving the encyclopedia -- constantly un-doing the damage he is causing and engaging in the same endless debates. 166.205.134.29 (talk) 04:42, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

This page isn't directly concerned with Gödel's incompleteness theorems. For example, I don't believe I have ever edited there nor do I plan to edit there. The issue is an editor run amok and what to do about it. Despite this I will offer my opinion regrading your question, Brews ohare, since you have asked it more than once. A POV fork sounds like a horrible idea and I have to wonder at the mental gymnastics you must be preforming to convince yourself that you are not suggesting a POV fork. That is what happened to Quantum mysticism with Likebox creating Quantum mind/body problem to provide a home for his owned text. The point of this encyclopedia is not to provide Likebox or anyone else a blog or substitute for a peer-reviewed journal. There must be a compelling reason to split up information and satiating the ego of single editor who want to publish their synth is not a compelling reason.--OMCV (talk) 04:04, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Brews ohare you wrote "Can't we come up with a cooperative solution? ". The problem is that on the history wars article, Likebox is repeatedly inserting information that he thinks is correct but he will not produce reliable sources to back up that information, and refuses to acknowledge that he is wrong even when reliable sources are produced that contradicts his point of view. How would you suggest dealing with Likebox when he writes things like this to the talk page

This page is full of crackpot history written by Webley, supported by PBS. I do not intend to cite a SINGLE SOURCE for this statement, because it is too obvious to cite. I will unilaterally assert it, again and again, until somebody fixes the problem.

— Talk:History wars/Archive 3#Crackpot History

What would you suggest is the cooperative solution for someone who makes such statements, and then repeatedly carries our the threat? --PBS (talk) 12:30, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

PBS: You've got me; I've got no answer to that. Brews ohare (talk) 23:59, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Having just looked at the recent brouhaha at Talk:Gödel's incompleteness theorems I'm just astounded at the other editors' (particularly CBM's) willingness to endlessly engage Likebox. I've come to believe that Likebox should be banned from Gödel's incompleteness theorems and its talk page independently of any other restrictions. Likebox has basically turned the talk page into a black hole. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 03:26, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Anonymous 69.228.171.150, If you ever see anybody endlessly discussing something on a talk page, but nobody ever discussing it back, then that's the time to be getting worried. But so long as there are at least two people involved in the discussion, then I really can't see what the big problem is. David Tombe (talk) 11:00, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes there are problems. See for example these three sections in the history wars archive (I've used them because the quote above comes from there and it highlights the problems:

• Talk:History wars/Archive 3#Rewriting
• Talk:History wars/Archive 3#Crackpot History
• Talk:History wars/Archive 3#Why Tasmania is important

Look at the dates of the postings. Instead of following through the "Rewriting" thread to reach a consensus, Likebox starts two new sections that express his POV and adds personal attacks against other contributors to the page. He never goes back to the Rewriting thread, so that a consensus can be fully agreed. With this type of tactic, it is very difficult for a consensus to be achieved on small changes to the [article] page. This tactic of flooding the [talk] page with his points of view, particularly when the page is archived, and there is a blank canvas of a talk page, makes it difficult to keep the talk page conversations focused for discussion about proposals for incremental changes to the page (something as a tactic he has stated several times that he is against). -- PBS (talk) 18:02, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Outside perspective; a general overview of this massive amount of text I can't believe I just read the entirity of, I've come to think that a lot of the debate is about making the debate far more complicated than it is. Ignore where the replacement data is coming from, ignore previous conversations and troubles in other articles, ignore large edit warring discussions. Walk this all way way back to some of the most firm policies of Wikipedia. Assumptions: Consensus exists, but consensus can change.

• 1) Are the new theroms inserted verifiable from peer-reviewed sources in any way even nearing the level of detail found in existing sources?
• 2) Is there consensus on the changes among editors?

From every word I've read in this discussion, Likebox's edits have absolutely no sources of the same type and quality as the existing theorems do, making verifiability difficult if not impossible. #1 is already false and we could end here, but let's continue anyway. Even if there were reliable published research and text on the ideas proposed, one would still need consensus amongst editors (and preferably experts) to make an edit properly. Again, from everything I've read, there is an overwhelming consensus on the pre-existing data. If you have no sources and no consensus, what you basing an edit off of? The only direction from here brings you from logic down to conflicted interests.

What does a situation look like to an uninvolved party? Repeated edits that deliberately seek to avoid those Wikipedia guidelines would be vandalism, self-promotion or original research. In this case? Depending on your opinion and knowledge of the topic it might look like any of the three. Sources, and consensus. It can be that simple. Even with sources, new consensus must be formed. Repeated attempted disruption of consensus is not acceptable in scientific discussions. Period. Why are these very basic guidelines being ignored? Opinion: Repeated nearly-baseless edits against consensus are disruptive, and Wikipedia does not list or discuss unproven and unpublished alternatives. If it did, I could come in and claim I had a "modern" perspective of things, too, and you'd have to believe me. Or, because I love using this opinion as a summation for things, I might ponder WP:GARAGE before sticking my head out. Just because someone has new interpretations of existing scientific theory (that you and your friends may or may not have created in your parent's garage) doesn't mean it should be on Wikipedia. Go get some press and a record deal, like any local band would need to before randomly appearing on stage one night in place of U2. Datheisen (talk) 10:07, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

PBS, I have checked out the links that you supplied above. I have absolutely no knowledge about Tasmania's natives. I did a google search and found material that conflicts with what Likebox says [23], but which nevertheless writes defensively against Likebox's assertions. So reading between the lines, as far as the Tasmania issue is concerned, it would seem that Likebox holds a strong opinion which is already a recognized opinion, but which is refuted by at least one source, and going by what Datheisen says above, it is probably refuted by alot more than just one source. I have no intention of getting drawn into this controversy. It is obviously one of those horrendous political controversies involving 'history revision'. I can now agree with you that you might have a problem as regards main article space, and how to portray the correct balance of opinions, but I will keep well out of it. What worried me when I read anonymous 69.228.171.150's edit yesterday was that you might have been trying to nail Likebox purely for talk page discussion. The issue here obviously extends beyond mere talk page discussion. David Tombe (talk) 10:42, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

David I was responding to your comment on anonymous 69.228.171.150's comment. I have added a "[article]" and "[talk]" to my previous comment to make it a little clearer as to why there may be a problem even when more than two people are involved in a talk page discussion. As to the rights and wrongs of the situation the WP:V introductory sentence sums it up "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth ..." and Likebox's statement "I do not intend to cite a SINGLE SOURCE for this statement, because it is too obvious to cite." and actions are clearly a violation of WP:V because repeated insertions text without adequate citations into the article is disruptive ([WP:PROVEIT]]), whether or not he has truth on his side. I don't think he does have truth on his side, but this not a discussion about the rights and wrongs of the number of angels dancing upon a pin head, it is a discussion about how an editor's behaviour of which not ending threads on a talk page where they have been forced into a corner and starting new sections to hide that is a tactic that many POV warriors use on talk pages and part of the problem with Likebox's behaviour with the history wars article. -- PBS (talk) 11:12, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

PBS, Yes, I can see now that the issue is more than merely talk page discussion. David Tombe (talk) 11:51, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Results

There appears to be a consensus that Likebox has engaged in tendentious editing, point of view pushing, addition of original research to Wikipedia, and talk page disruption. I am therefore placing Likebox under probation.

If User:Likebox makes any edits deemed to be tendentious, point of view pushing, addition of original research, or disruptive by an uninvolved administrator, Likebox may be blocked for up to one week. After three incidents the block length may increase to one year.

The idea behind this restriction is that it is a formal, final warning. Further problems will result in escalating blocks. Hopefully Likebox will take this warning seriously and change their editing style for the better. If no administrator objects, I will log this restriction at Wikipedia:Editing restrictions. Jehochman ^Talk 12:48, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, but after reading over the above situation I think this is a reasonable result. The jist of the matter is that Likebox is trying to add OR and until there is a fundamental shift in the way we interpret policy, Likebox shouldn't assume that a new consensus exists for the way that OR is handled. ThemFromSpace 13:13, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) While I completely agree with the decision, sometimes I wish you would do this in a bit less of a King Jehochman's Proclamation manner. Prescribing multiple exact block lengths is perhaps too much; some admin judgment should remain. One week to start, escalates up from there. That's about all that needs to be prescribed. Tan | 39 13:17, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

We have adjusted the sanction per your request. We thank you. Jehochman ^Talk 15:41, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Explicitely mentioning OR can be a problem. When Likebox, OMCV and I were discussing this some time ago and I mentioned some articles where I had done what OMCV disapproves of, OMCV visited one of these articles, Relations between specific heats, and behaved in a provocative way there. He suggesting that the page could go to AFD unless citations were given. But his action had no support there. So, you can easily imagine OMCV acting as an "OR-police" and following Likebox to many of his uncontroversial contributions to physics articles and causing problems there.

If a new dispute about OR should arise then a block is only warranted if it is again dispute between Likebox and the regular editors of the article who have contributed significantly to the article. Count Iblis (talk) 14:47, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I concur with Count Iblis. I also think the ruling should be explicit that Likebox should be warned first, before any block is implemented. --Michael C. Price ^talk 14:56, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Likebox is being warned by the probation notice. Administrators have the option to issue warnings or blocks as they see fit. There is no requirement to block for debatable infractions. Jehochman ^Talk 15:41, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Legal threat; also SPA and COI

Resolved

 – SPA now indefblocked and in rampant socking stage; apply WP:RBI.  Sandstein  20:58, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Republic of Ireland postal addresses has, for some time now, had problems with an SPA editor, User:Garydubh, inserting COI material about a GPS/GIS system that his company, GPS Ireland Consultants Ltd, is marketing. This system isn't official and has nothing to do with the official post code system being introduced. On 20th October, a new editor, User:Secretary-whbtc, reintroduced the material about the "independent postcode". I removed it again. After I re-removed it a second time and posted to the talk page, I received this legal threat both on the article talk page and on my own talk page. The disputed material was also subeseqently reintroduced by another SPA, User:Ww2censorbastun (User:Garydubh has also been in dispute with User:Ww2censor in the past, who also tried to keep the COI material off the page). Can an admin take a look at this, please? Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 11:10, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I have blocked User:Garydubh for making a legal threat. For the other accounts, I would suggest filing a report at WP:SPI. TNXMan 11:52, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Another legal threat, this time from an anon IP, on my userpage here, and on Talk:Republic of Ireland postal addresses. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 23:45, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Bastun - there is no "another legal threat" at that link - you have caused 2 people to be indefinitely blocked - you have a responsibility now to revisit your reasons for starting this and be sure that there is justification...83.70.108.125 (talk) 09:41, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Those are obviously the same person or a group of buddies. Block'em all. GoodDay (talk) 23:51, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Blocked, but not by me. TNXMan 01:01, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

• Just to note that there have been a number of unhelpful e-mails in this matter, presumably from the blocked editor(s), at WP:OTRS ticket 2009102310050555, to which I've now stopped replying.  Sandstein  19:38, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Sandstein, Pierre Gres - you have e-mails which you received as you are answering a wikipedia support e-mail address posted on wikipedia relating to this issue. You chose to do nothing and decided to use them as an excuse to exacerbate this situation. There was nothing "unhelpful" in those e-mails except your comment which indicated your refusal to do anything - very unhelpful!!! Furthermore, when you were sent private e-mails which categorically show that there is no link or relationship between me and Secretary - you have also chosen to do nothing about them - also very unhelpful. The purpose of those in support is to help not exacerbate surely.... should someone with so much adverse comment here be involved in any situation where there is a dispute like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrator_review/Sandstein 83.70.108.125 (talk) 09:41, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

The OTRS e-mails, as any volunteer can check, consists of requests to intervene in the content dispute and requests for unblock. In reply, I have advised the sender of the e-mails that content disputes and unblock requests are not mediated through OTRS, but only through the on-wiki dispute resolution and block appeals procedure. If the blocked editor(s) feel that there is anything in these e-mails that is relevant to their block, they may post them on-wiki or forward them to the unblock-en-l mailing list as advised in the unblock instructions.  Sandstein  09:50, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

• I have blocked Secretary-whbtc as a likely meatpuppet of Garydubh. Before this current dispute, this user hadn't edited since January. And now he shows up. Quack ... Blueboy96 19:45, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Blueboy - please check this again - you are incorrect and Sandstein has private e-mails which prove you are incorrect - you have a repsonsibility to check this out fully and Pierre Gres (Sandstein) has a responsibility to advise you what the e-mails he was sent show 83.70.108.125 (talk) 09:41, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

[[::: There are a few accusations above:]] 1. "A GPS/GIS system .....this system isn't official and has nothing to do with the official postcode system being introduced" - The introduction of a postcode in Ireland is the subject of an open Government Tender Competition for which GPS Ireland is perfectly eligible to enter with its system - Bastun is not in a position to judge what is suitable or unsuitable or "official" or not - that is the perogative of the Irish Government. 2. That the writer of "Independent Post Code" had COI - Secreatary has himself written on the discussion page clearly indicating that he has no COI - Sandstein has information which clearly shows that he is not related in any way to anyone associated to the Independent System.

3. Garydubh in dispute with www2censor - Garydubh has not edited this article since April 2008 and has not been involved in discussion on this article since Jan 2009. Bastun's unjustified treatment of Secretary has brought him back to discussion - but he is not an "editor" - discussion and editing are two differnt things.

4. Legal Threat - long since removed and a statement of regret made.

5. COI - not the case and Peirre Gres has absolute proof if he or anyone else chooses to use it.

6. SPA - Secetary is not an SPA - is comment on the discussion page shows that he has edited other articles. Garydubh cannot be accused of being an SPA as he has not edited any article since April 2008 and has not been involved in discussion on any article since Jan 2009 - until Bastun decided to allege COI of an independent editor entering comment on an independent system for which his arguments for removal do not stand up. 83.70.108.125 (talk) 10:09, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I've re-blocked that IP for continued block evasion by Garydubh (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Garydubh has been given ample advice what to do to request unblock, and it does not include evading a block by changing IP addresses. No opinion about the merits of the original meatpuppetry / NLT block, though the confrontative WP:SPA attitude does not bode well for this editor's future on Wikipedia.  Sandstein  10:21, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I've also blocked as socks two new accounts who have been attempting to alter the discussion above, Bolev (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and Gurbut (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Marking this as resolved.  Sandstein  20:58, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Verbal, Floydian and Colloidal Silver

I am having trouble with an editor that is consistently making accusations against me, and turning a talk page into a soapbox rather than discussing the article in question. This is further amplified by the fact that they are now taking it upon themselves to close discussions of mine rather than addressing them.[24] This user is not contributing anything or discussing anything, just making fly-by-edits and accusing me of verbal abuse (which though I will not admit verbal abuse, I will admit I am becoming extremely frustrated with this editor).

I will start with my post that has been used against me in place of answering the discussion:

"Removing the rest of the about 11 sources that claim an antibacterial effect is the biggest fucking piece of point of view pushing I've seen on this website."

You will note that though I accuse Verbal of POV pushing (the "biggest fucking piece of it"), I do not make any personal attacks on the user, I am merely using emotional adjectives.

Verbal has on occasions twisted my words, accusing me repeatedly of verbally abusing editors,[25] and of owning the page,[26] to which he has yet to provide a diff for at my request.[27] (In fact, his response to this request was to threaten me again with being blocked.[28]

I was not aware that consensus was formed by linking to the hive mind, but I have seen little to no discussion, and no answers to the points I have brought up. After the editor in question reverted back and forth with me he quickly reported me for 3RR (Which though I admit I reverted 3 times, I was restoring to a version that had actually been discussed and had consensus (Essentially any version prior to October 20th) I have made attempts to be civil,[29][30] often getting a response that shows the editor didn't even read my message[31], or more accusations and what I would interpret as benevolent threat[32]

I have only insisted on the changes being discussed rather than forced. The editors who have made the changes have not once addressed my questions and arguments, and now the page is locked on their version, effectively meaning that they have no reason at all to discuss this. I find this horribly biased towards those editors and feel that the pre-dispute revision should be locked to actually encourage those editors to work towards a consensus.

I ask that no actions be taken without discussion by multiple editors, as fringe theory problems tend to be jumped on without a close inspection into the root of the problems. I have not notified Verbal yet. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 00:11, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

You can write a bit about alternative medicine applications of colloidal silver in this article, but you have to understrand that an article like this will be written from a firm scientific point of view. If there is a peer reviewed article suggesting that some treatment may work, then you could write about that in detail in an article about alternative medicine, but not in this article as that would give too much weight to a fringe issue.

Insisting to include such edits in this article will always cause trouble. Then, when that happens it is fruitless to investigate who reverted who first, who insulted who first etc.. Count Iblis (talk) 23:53, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Thats the thing though. I'm insisting on keeping the status quo (at least until some consensus is formed amongst the editors who have been long term contributors to the article and its talk page) - It is not my edits that are controversial, its the edits of half a dozen fly-by-editors who didn't discuss anything, and now Verbal insisting on them staying without any sort of discussion. Rather than respond to me, he has made accusations, beat around the bush for a while, and now pulls out WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT against me, which is ridiculous, considering I was never given a response in the first place. When i ask what point I'm not getting, I'm told to stop or risk being blocked, by Verbal (They say this, they don't threaten to block me themselves). - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 00:16, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Article is also being discussed at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#Colloidal Silver.- Sinneed 01:15, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, but its gone stale, as with the discussion elsewhere that I have attempted to spur. All of it dubious, the editors who made the changes will never discuss them, only revert back to them. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 02:35, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Ask for protection. If you have fly-by editors who don't discuss and who just revert, protection works to force them onto the talk page. After that, they'll either learn to act appropriately or find themselves blocked. I've gotten other articles to work similarly. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 02:38, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Floydian, you could also stop uncritically promoting fringe theories. People might take you more seriously then. Just a thought. Skinwalker (talk) 03:10, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Do you have proof for this declaration or are you just blindly categorizing me? - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 16:20, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Since when has it become acceptable to not notify the subject of an ANI thread? (I have just done so.) In any case, Floydian is in the wrong here -- edit warring to insert fringe views into an article against the consensus of other editors, and being uncivil in discussion. We should not be supporting the principle that disputes can be won by simply refusing to ever accept defeat. It is very disturbing when admins function as enablers of disruption -- this is not what content-neutrality is supposed to be. Looie496 (talk) 03:14, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm only trying to show things as the sources show. Right now I am trying to get the controversial changes discussed before they are implemented. I'm still waiting for someone to explain why I am being uncivil to ask for editors to discuss such edits. Yes, I broke 3RR, I have admitted to that, and I admit to it being a mistake, but nobody has assumed good faith on my part because they've instead assumed that I "uncritically promote fringe theories". I've repeatedly asserted that I'm also representing its historical usage. I do not believe colloidal silver does work internally as it is promoted to (apparently it cures cancer, who knew?), but I do believe that if no studies have been done, then the article should say that no studies have been done. I've once represented homeopathy in trying to get an article represented as a source, but still discussed it on the talk page first without ever placing it on the article.

I did not notify the author because I was in a rush at the time. I apologize for that, but I have generally notified people I am bringing up on ANI. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 04:05, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

If you look at the sequence of events, you will see that Floydian was involved in a cooperative discussion of trying to solve one of the ongoing causes of problems in the article in this section: Talk:Colloidal_silver#proposal to end the constant reverting caused by the conflicting interpretation of "colloidal silver". It was during this discussion that Verbal made 3 reverts on the article with absolutely no discussion of those reverts: [33][34][35]. Verbal's first post on the talk page was here, AFTER Floydian called him on the reverting. Verbal's next post was after Master of Puppets posted to stop edit warring. Verbal's post was to deny any culpability in the edit war, and to complain about the disruptive contributing editors, mainly Floydian. If you look at Verbal's total contributions to this article, they are all reverts., [36]. The 2 reverts on October 22 are almost exactly 24 hours after Verbals 2 reverts on the 21. After Master of Puppet's post about discussing changes, Verbal made a couple of posts commenting about his "reverts", but most of his posts on the talk page are complaints about Floydian and threats about how Floydian will be blocked. I would call Verbal's behavior disruptive, and certainly not conducive to trying to reach any kind of consensus. stmrlbs|talk 05:19, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

• Recommend Floydian take a long wikibreak from this article. He's very riled up, making wild accusations, running afoul of 3RR, and generally behaving like someone on their way to a block or ban. ScienceApologist (talk) 06:08, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Stmrlbs and Floydian have a problem in that their version of events is misleading, and their preferred version of the article has several policy issues and is opposed by consensus. I have asked Floydian to stop his disruptive behaviour and abusive, off topic, comments. Master of Puppets has warned Floydian that if he continues with this behaviour he will be blocked. We tried to unprotect the article, by Floydian insisted on his preferred version being restored against consensus. Any discussion is quickly hijacked and taken off topic by verbal attacks and insults (telling others they are behaving like "scum" and should "fucking" do what he wants, for example.) He also twice broke 3RR in attempting to force his preferred version, against multiple editors. The actions of these two editors, their general behaviour, and misleading comments as evidenced by this ANI report do probably deserve attention and possible admin action. In reply to the complaints that I have not entered discussion, I have been involved on the talk page discussing edits, and at the NPOVN post. I have acted properly, as have all editors on the "other side", despite extreme provocation, baiting, and disruptive behaviour from Floydian. Verbal chat 09:52, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
    • Just a note that I address all of these accusations already in my first post. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 16:11, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
      • I'm afraid you misrepresent those in your first post. You were warned by an admin that further abuse, including a personal attack aimed at me and one at SA, or editwarring would lead to your being blocked - after you had already broken 3RR. Verbal chat 16:23, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
        • Provide a diff of my personal attack at you, pointing out where I make the attack on you. I have provided diffs for every accusation I've made, I do not see you providing any proof. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 17:22, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
• The revert behaviour across the article is unacceptable by both Verbal and Floydian and I'm inclined to propose a revert limitation on both; this would also act as a warning for all other editors who have involved themselves less aggressively. Ncmvocalist (talk) 10:30, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Care to point out which policy my behaviour broke? I can see quite clearly which policies Floydian broke, but only 2 attempts to restore a policy and consensus supported version do not seem out of line to me. I have followed correct WP:DR procedure, and reported the matter to AN3 before it became a problem, however Floydian's continued warring led to the page being locked. Verbal chat 15:07, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
    • • • • See my forthcoming comment below. Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:21, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

A side note: It was locked after a 2R "war" between Mangoe and Strmlbs, not as the result of my behavior. I stopped reverting after the warnings - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 18:00, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

• • • • WP:CONSENSUS and WP:DISPUTE - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 16:11, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
        • No, I haven't broken either of those. Sorry. Verbal chat 16:21, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
          • Thats for this discussion to decide. WP:CONSENSUS#Consensus-building has it written pretty clearly:

            "Someone makes a change to a page (any page other than a talk page), then everyone who reads the page has an opportunity to leave it as it is, or change it. When two or more editors cannot reach an agreement by editing, consensus is sought on talk pages."

            Seems pretty clear to me. You did not seek consensus, you simply reverted edits made by Eublides being bold. Just because I hit 3 first does not mean that you did not edit war. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 17:17, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

  • I would happily self nominate myself to be banned from editing the article itself, to take it a step further. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 16:11, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Before handing out any penalties please remember this mess came about because of a blatantly provocative edit by Eubulides(on 08:02, 21 October 2009) who seems to have 'hit and run'. Without warning he removed the single most important piece of information about colloidal silver in the whole article. (i.e. that in-vitro studies demonstrate an antibacterial effect.) He called this info 'relatively unimportant' and said he was 'boldly' removing it. Clearly Eubulides knew he was lobbing a hand grenade into the article. (Is that some kind vandalism?). Admittedly there may be a fair case to be made for examining the context in which that particular info is placed, but it should never have been deleted outright. I share Floydians outrage about this.DHawker (talk) 13:39, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Those studies are not based on colloidal silver or its alt med use, which is where they were placed. Please tell us why they should be in the article on colloidal silver. Verbal chat 15:07, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

I ask that we do not get back into discussing the content of the article here. There are plenty of venues for that, most of which nobody has taken the more than opportune time to discuss upon. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 16:11, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Of course I invite all editors here to join in on the talk page of the article, which is where I would hope he would have replied. Sorry for not being specific. Verbal chat 16:25, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

I have replied to everything at Talk:Colloidal silver. Not one of the editors who made a fly by edit discussed the changes that were made. Yes, you discuss on the talk page, no you haven't discussed the changes that are controversial, only new changes that have come up since this issue. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 17:17, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

• Bold suggestion: Topic Ban Floydian This issue (Colloidal silver) had already been discussed at the fringe theories noticeboards in September. When I noticed that, I sent out a test balloon there diff, which was shoot down almost immediately by Floydian, who called my source "clearly biased based on the wording" and went on to state that argyria, i.e. someones skin turning gray, "is cosmetic, and harmless". diff. Just a friendly reminder, Floydian. This case is from the 1950s, and during that time people were usually classified as white and black, and black people faced some obstacles (well, that's an understatements, but we don't need to get into the details of historic racial segregation in the U.S. here). And the person, whose homepage I had quoted, explicitly says somewhere that the skin discolouration caused by argyria can't be covered with make-up, so it is not a cosmetic issue. But more importantly, Floydian completely missed that the homepage I quoted in turn quotes 17 academic works and articles on the issue; the statement: "Colloidal silver (CSP) is not a new alternative remedy. It is an old, discarded traditional one that homeopaths and other people calling themselves "alternative health-care practitioners" have pulled out of the garbage pail of useless and dangerous drugs and therapies, things mainstream medicine threw away decades ago." appears well sourced. So, if you want to call this statement biased, then this appears to be another case of the usual medical bias against alternative medicine, or, more to the point: This "biased" view is the mainstream view, and the other view is the fringe theory view. Fortunately, we have a guideline for such a case: Wikipedia:Fringe theories, but unfortunately Floydian doesn't accept this, and is now apparently trying the use of confrontational tactics to promote a fringe theory. As far as I see it, we have three options: 1) Let him have his way, and have another bad article. I certainly would find this unacceptable, but on the other hand, I find this issue rather boring and wouldn't personally need the hassle of fixing. 2) Keep on fighting until either Floydian gives up or the whole issue goes to the arbitration committee. Since I've had previous experiences with Verbal, I think that he stands a good chance against Floydian, so let's get it on! 3) Or, and this would be the preferable solution: Topic Ban Floydian right away and save us all a lot of stress.

• P.S. If someone finds my cynicism offensive, I'll apologize, but I think I've figured out how Wikipedia works by now. - Question: How many administrators does it take to deal with an edit war concerning NPOV? Answer: Five. One to block/warn one of the involved editors, and the other four to figure out that they've blocked/warned the wrong one. - If you would now excuse me, there is an edit war on the German Wikipedia that I might want to attend. Zara1709 (talk) 15:16, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

I will only point to a peer reviewed source that describes adverse reactions to silver (including colloidal) in detail. You'll find it never once states argyria is anything more than a irreversible pigmentation of the skin.[37]. However, the changes to the article are less important than the conduct of everyone around it, myself included (I'm no angel).

Once again, I'm not concerned with its modern usage as an alternative medicine. I'm concerned that it was an anti-biotic before the discovery of penicillin, and that it should be discussed as such, and that its use for decades as a topical wound dressing is just now winding down as they find better solutions that don't turn you into the tin man. And does nobody else see how hard these people are trying to not have to discuss the changes that are disputed? They'd rather have me banned. Seems like the simpler solution than following the dispute resolution process. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 16:11, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

"These people" asked for you to be blocked because you broke WP:3RR twice. Simonm223 (talk) 17:26, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

I broke it once, for which I've apologized and would like to move forwards from, by discussing the changes on the talk page and avoiding the need to make edits and stonewall them. A fourth revert doesn't count as a new 3RR violation. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 17:57, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Timeline: conduct problems

This outlines why I found problems with both Floydian and Verbal's approach, among other other editors:

• On 21 Oct, Eubulides (talk · contribs) made a series of bold edits [38] [39] between 8:20 and 8:30. He noted that it was in response to a suggestion made about 1 day earlier on the talk page. Floydian (talk · contribs) reverted these between 16:31 and 16:36. This was permissible in accordance with WP:BRD; Floydian also commented which should have started the discussion. 10 minutes later, Verbal (talk · contribs) instead of attempting to seek a consensus by commenting at that discussion, broke WP:BRD and reverted. This was highly inappropriate; at that point, even the NPOVN discussion only had 2 editors responses that had differing views to Floydian. Floydian reverted and made an aggressive comment at the discussion directed at Verbal.
• It was after this revert that the third editor commented at the NPOVN discussion, after which Verbal reverted again (again, avoidable) and endorsed as the forth editor. However, Floydian should have considered avoiding any further reverts at this point as it was potentially inappropriate, but nevertheless, did revert. Verbal then made a response at the discussion, to which Floydian responded 10 minutes later. No responses were made at the discussion after this time. Shortly afterwards, Master of Puppets (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) appropriately made a general warning to stop this cycle, and discuss it on the talk page to avoid the main page being protected. Floydian and Verbal made responses [40]. Meanwhile, a fifth editor also endorsed the differing position at NPOVN.
• On 22 Oct, Verbal made an edit [41], which was reverted a bit under 1.5 hours later by Floydian [42]. 5 minutes later, Verbal reverted again. Floydian partially reverted. Simonm223 (talk · contribs) made a partial revert without discussion, which was reverted by Floydian under 15 minutes later. Hipocrite (talk · contribs) partially reverted 5 minutes later, and Floydian made partial reverts 3 minutes later. Simonm223 again reverted.
• On 23 Oct, Mangoe (talk · contribs) boldly removed a section from the article. This was reverted by Stmrlbs (talk · contribs). Mangoe then broke WP:BRD and reverted. Mangoe finally opened a discussion and the article was then protected by Master of Puppets. Simonm223 and Verbal endorsed Mangoe's view; Floydian and Stmrlbs did not. Was this sufficient to form a consensus to remove the section?
• Later, during one of the discussions later, Verbal closed part of one discussion in which he was involved with Floydian, where Floydian asked a question. Floydian reverted the close and Verbal edit-warred to maintain it, even though he should not have been closing it off to begin with.
• Accordingly, it appears that a 1RR on Verbal and a page ban (and possibly 1RR) on Floydian is warranted. Ncmvocalist (talk) 18:51, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

As stated above, I would have no objection to a page ban on Colloidal silver. However, I wouldn't doubt it if Verbal and Scienceapologist tried to persue having me banned from the talk page to completely bypass relevant discussion. Nevertheless I think you for providing a timeline to show the faults of both sides.

I only wish to object to one point though Ncmvocalist, and that is the number of people with a differing view on the NPOV noticeboard. Some of the comments weren't clearly endorsing a side and were merely comments. For example, Steven Schulz. Only Verbal, Baccayak, and ScienceApologist give differing views, and two of those are editors involved in the questionable reversions - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 19:34, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

• I see no reason for any sanctions on me, I have acted properly and well within wikipedia norms throughout despite abuse, provocation, and baiting. Nothing in Ncmvocalist's timeline, which is incomplete, shows me acting improperly, so I don't see what problems it supposedly highlights. I don't see why this is still even being debated. It's pointless now Floydian has been given his final warning. Let's go back to the article, go back to improving the encyclopaedia. The "discussion" I closed was a violation of WP:TALK and merely consisted of more baiting and off topic, misleading, accusations - I asked Floydian to continue in a more appropriate venue. Other editors have also reverted Floydian, and we can assume that they woud voice this opinion on the talk page were it not already clear that he didn't have consensus. Verbal chat 19:43, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

With all due respect for Ncmvocalist's analytic skills, it would probably be far more helpful to hear the opinion of an administrator like MastCell who has some idea about the medical content and editors involved. Mathsci (talk) 19:48, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Why would we need to discuss content? This is ANI. A 3rd party analysis is exactly what this needs, neutral of any previous knowledge. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 20:27, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Sometimes it is helpful to distinguish between mainstream science and fringe POV-pushing. Mathsci (talk) 21:00, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes please get Mastcell to look at this this. Even though he managed to get me banned from the article I respect that he's usually fair in his judgement and has a long history with this article. The key issue seems to be whether comments about the in-vitro antimicrobial properties of colloidal silver (broadly defined) should even be in the article. A pretty simple question I think. DHawker (talk) 20:50, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

If you're looking for advice as to whether or not specific content should be in an article, then ANI is not the right place. I'm not disagreeing about Mastcell's ability to discuss content, merely that the content portions don't belong 'round here. If that discussion will solve most of the issues above, then awesome. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 21:10, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

The content issue itself should not be argued here, as there are several open venues for that. However, the content is relevant in some ways to the discussion at hand. I only hope that when the content is discussed, that its relevance to this discussion is mentioned if its not abundantly clear. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 22:17, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that content should not be discussed here. Whether or not one side is 'right', there was still edit-warring on both sides (note: 'edit-warring' and '3RR' don't have to be synonymous - you can edit war without breaking 3RR). I'm fully in support of letting go of all the warring behaviour and excusing it provided that all parties promise to not do it again; that way, we can get to discussing the content and resolving this. If that can't be done, then this will go nowhere.

Oh, I am previously involved, for the record. Master of Puppets 04:45, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

To elaborate on the point raised by Master of Puppets, editors are each responsible for noticing when a debate is escalating into an edit war, and for helping the debate move to better approaches by discussing their differences rationally, rather than through disruptive editing - revert rules (such as 3RR) should not be construed as an entitlement or inalienable right to revert, nor do they endorse reverts as an editing technique. Edit-warring is unacceptable, whether by reversion or otherwise; this is so even when the disputed content is clearly problematic. Appropriately, more stringent sanctions would be needed (and likely handed out) if this were escalated to ArbCom the next time this sort of thing happens at the article.

For the record, at the request from MastCell for uninvolved input on a previous occasion, I took a look at the conduct on this article a while back - at that point, I felt it necessary to propose a topic ban on DHawker, and that was enacted accordingly. I'm not aware of any other interactions with both parties. Again, as someone completely uninvolved, I've taken a look at some of the major conduct issues and I outlined recent major issues above. I too would support letting go of all, should both parties promise not to do it again; but they do need to take it as an absolute final warning with respect to such conduct on any article/talk they edit. The parties also need to understand that admin noticeboards are not a step in dispute resolution for a reason. Ncmvocalist (talk) 08:18, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

• Verbal approached me on my talk page here. I thought the above comments by me and Master of Puppets explained the distinction between 3RR and edit-war, and why both sides engaged in edit-warring (see the timeline). Yet, it seems that Verbal still insists that his conduct was flawless, which suggests that he does not understand or accept the problems with his conduct. In such circumstances, the conduct is likely to continue in the future, and a promise to not let it happen again will be futile. I've tried once again to explain to him here. I am calling on an uninvolved admin to make Verbal (and others who fall in the same boat) understand that 3RR and edit-warring is not the same thing - what happened here was, for the most part, edit-warring, and is not acceptable. If another explanation does not happen or work, then sadly, sanctions will become necessary. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:36, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Analysis of article content and edits

I thought that I might as well spent another hour on the issue, and here a my results: Currently the article mentions that colloidal silver was used before the 1940s and for what it was used, but it doesn't really say why its use was discontinued. According to the medical literature, the main reason was not the "introduction of antibiotics", but the side effects caused by colloidal silver. Since I have an web page which quotes some literature (and a lot of experience with literature search), the articles aren't hard to find, and the Journal of the American Medical Association certainly is a reliable source. There is an article from 1935 about an "alarming increase of argyrosis". (SEVENTY CASES OF GENERALIZED ARGYROSIS FOLLOWING ORGANIC AND COLLOIDAL SILVER MEDICATION). There is also an article from 1940 in the Archives of Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery: (ARGYRIA RESULTING FROM INTRANASAL MEDICATION). I think these sources are sufficient to establish that the medical use of colloidal silver was discontinued sometime in the 1940s because of its side-effects, which leads me to the interesting question: Why doesn't the article mention that?

If you look at the point of controversy between Verbal and Floydian, you'll see that it is about two sources diff. One is a study about in vitro anti-bacterial effects of colloidal silver from 2008, but the other is a book from 1920. So, if Floydian, as I assume, managed to find a book source from 1920, why didn't he manage to find articles in highly reputable medical journals from 1935 and 1940? There are three possible explanations: 1) Bad luck 2) neglect of academic sources, in favour of on-line sources or 3) tendentious editing. One can suspect that Floydian only used those sources that support his view. That is the editing pattern of a partial-POV-warrior.

The problem is, if you want to identify those partial-POV-warriors, you can't rely on an an analysis of editor conduct. Why? Because someone who is, as a matter of principle, interested in a neutral point of view, is also a POV-Warrior, only a NPOV one. You need to analyse the content of an article, and identify the POVs involved, which in this speaks case against Floydian. From his comments on the noticeboard I know that he would downplay the side effects of colloidal silver diff, and a short analysis of the point of controversy in the article would allow a similar conclusion.

As an editor concerned about NPOV (regardless of whether your understanding of the NPOV in a specific case is correct), you don't have many options. If you argue nicely, but abstain from reverts, the partial-POV-warriors will simply ignore your comments on the talk page and only reply with 1-or-2-line remarks. If you confront him, and revert him if necessary, he will go whining to the administrators noticeboards and try to frame you for edit warring. There currently isn't a working strategy to deal with a partial-POV-warrior, which is among the reasons why I am not doing much at Wikipedia any more. You can only chose the confrontational tactic and hope that some people at the noticeboards are competent enough (and are willing to spent the time!) to identify the core of the issue.

Back to this specific issue: If Floydian could agree to abstain from editing the article for 3 months, that would be a workable solution. It would allow the removal of the full protection and should give me and other interested editors enough time to research some facts that are currently missing in the article - like the real reason why colloidal silver was discarded as a medical treatment in the 1940s. But after my previous experiences at Wikipedia, I would not be willing to work on this article when I have to fear that someone who can't be talked to reverts my edits. Zara1709 (talk) 10:45, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

This is NOT what the present war is about. The question of why colloidal silver use was discontinued is a minor issue. DHawker (talk) 14:37, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

If you look at the comment Floydian gave me on the fringe theories noticeboards, the reason why the use of colloidal silver was discontinued is indeed part of the issue, because Floydian reacted quite strongly to that comment. I should have searched the academic sources to substantiate my view back then, but I didn't, so I supplemented them now. And anyway, I found another source, and this time a recent one (although this source also quotes my 1935 source). The side effects of colloidal silver can be more severe then he probably thought so far:

"Consumption of large doses of colloidal silver can result in coma, pleural edema, and hemolysis. Colloidal silver is also toxic to the bone marrow and may be associated with agranulocytosis. The toxic effects of inorganic silver ingested orally in large doses are very similar to any corrosive solution." (Systemic argyria associated with ingestion of colloidal silver

This certainly is of higher relevance to the article then the question whether colloidal silver shows anti-bacterial effects in vitro. Floydian is working on this article at least since September; I needed not even two hours to find these sources, so how come Floydian didn't find them in about two months? I think that this is a very good question, and it helps us more then the discussion who reverted how often. Zara1709 (talk) 16:15, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Not only that but you are taking a look at conduct from several weeks before the conflict. ANI is not for content disputes. It should also be noted that I have no access to academic journals. I've only made use of the sources that were in the article when I arrived, and have brought any potential sources to the talk page rather than editing the article. Am I POV warrior solely because I felt a source that was brought to the page seemed biased? Also a quick look through the talk page will show that I'm the one with the three or four paragraph debates while the others generally put two sentences in that completely evade me. You'll also notice the more up to date study from the more reliable source that I published above (Oxford Press > Dermatology Online Journal) that never once mentions the toxicity of argyria, despite the paper being a focus on the health effects of silver. But I appreciate the generalization, once again, Zara. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 16:24, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

This issue is now discussed on how many noticeboards, including this one? 3? 4? Already in September you were unable to admit that colloidal silver does have dangerous side-effects (and you still are). You were apparently trying to push the point that colloidal silver shows anti-bacterial effects in vitro into the article, before it was fully protected. True, I can't rule out that you simple did not find the sources I found, but then again, the only additional tool I have at my disposal is a database of academic journals, however, you could find these journals yourself using any search engine. The other possibility is that you are trying to promote colloidal silver, and simply ONLY brought forward those sources that support your view.

Really, why are so many articles at Wikipedia in such a bad shape? Is it because many of our editors simply are incompetent, or is it because many of them are not interested in writing good, neutral articles, but in promoting their personal POV? Probably, this case is not altogether clear, but I've seen editors "play stupid to spin articles in their direction" (to paraphrase a statement from Dbachmann) before. Of course, this page is not for content disputes, but I have to provide the evidence here that gives substance to the view that you, Floydian, are trying to promote a fringe theory at the article Colloidal silver by using the sources in a highly selective way. The evidence is here, and let me add that, aside from that short encounter with Floydian in September, I am an uninvolved editor. Zara1709 (talk) 17:22, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

It should be noted that the invitro effects were placed in the lead independently of my contributions to the article (and as far as I remember without going and checking, was there when I stumbled upon the article). Most of my edits involved changing the wording to represent the information that was presently on the article. I will still deny the dangerous side effects, as clearly the danger of the side effects are disputed from source to source. Every editor brings a point of view to the table, especially with fringe topics, and many editors have admitted to their POV. It an go without saying that any editor who takes a stance on the subject is going to input terms into a search engine looking for studies that validate the way they feel. As long as those are valid and reliable studies, are those editors committing some atrocity, or are they merely one of the many POV's making edits to the article? I have always discussed my changes before implementing them, and problems only arose when other editors failed to uphold the same courtesy and civility. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 18:05, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Floydian, I am sure that you will not find an article from an reputable medical journal that disputes that colloidal silver can have severe side effects. Of course, your average article on the anti-bacterial effects of colloidal silver in in-vitro experiments will simply not discuss the side effects of colloidal silver when used as a medication, but the absence of this fact there is justified because of the limited scope of these articles. In an encyclopaedic article, on the other hand, the absence of the very same facts is not justifiable. I took a look at the edit history, and the source I have quoted, "Systemic argyria associated with ingestion of colloidal silver" has been present in the article for over a year. Revision of September 22, 2008. Currently you are using this source as a reference for the statements that: ".. some websites still list its use for the prevention of colds and flu, and the treatment of more serious conditions such as diabetes, cancer, chronic fatigue syndrome, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis, among other diseases." and that "A number of case reports describe argyria after ingestion of colloidal silver marketed as an alternative-medicine treatment." Yes, this source say that. However, the source also has includes a comprehensive summary of the "Toxicology of silver", where it includes the information I have already quoted above: "Consumption of large doses of colloidal silver can result in coma, pleural edema, and hemolysis." Is there any good reason not to mention this in the article, aside from the fact that this information does not fit into your personal point-of-view? Zara1709 (talk) 19:35, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Because I hadn't even noticed... And if it has been that way for over a year than clearly other editors didn't notice either. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 04:37, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Zara. One good reason not to include that statement might be that the source provides no references, no case reports, or any details whatsover to support it. They sound like pretty exceptional claims to me. Isnt there a Wiki rule somewhere that says exceptional claims need exceptional sources? This source doesn't cut it IMO. DHawker (talk) 10:38, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

User:EMCEEHOOD

I wanted at least one more admin to be following the activities of this editor, who appears to be determined to be offensive to Jews and may well be a white supremacist. I warned him on my talk page when he called me a "nazi" and I think the pattern of his edits and activities indicates that in the future he will be extremely offensive to all with whom he comes in contact, with little chance of any useful contribution. I think I'm a little too personally involved now to be able to act with the appearance of impartiality, and I understand the relevant policy suggests I can't pre-emptively block him, so I would appreciate it if someone kept an eye on this editor; my experience suggests that he will need further admonishment, if not blocking, in short order. Thanks in advance. Accounting4Taste:talk 14:12, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Indefblocked. Cut-and-dry racism, there. Tan | 39 14:14, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks; I appreciate your taking a hand. (I frequently think I am too Pollyanna-ish about the possibility that editors will reform.) Accounting4Taste:talk 14:17, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Nothing like this happens to those who personally abuse Palestinians and exhibit constant racism towards them as a group and towards any testimony from them. And deny the Nakba. Articles concerning Palestine are very distorted as a result. 86.158.184.158 (talk) 13:33, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Really? You have proof of this? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 00:11, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

It's all over every article concerning the Middle East. Overlapping that problem is armed people involved white-washing incidents. There are some POV problems in articles like Fallujah during the Iraq War perhaps because they suffer the same problems, but they don't suffer editors denying ethnic cleansing and killings in the same obvious way. The English Defense League is making headlines in the UK at the moment, there is even interference there that looks rather like the same people carrying on even while they're being criticised on ANI here![43] 86.158.184.158 (talk) 09:46, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I can attest to this. I was dealing only a few weeks ago with an editor who sought to dispute or remove Arab sources from an article because he believed that Arabs have what he called a "generic storytelling culture" which makes anything they say unreliable (i.e. they are congenital liars). A number of editors rightly criticised this as overt racism. A while back, someone proposed on the reliable sources noticeboard that all Arab sources should be declared unreliable. The proposal didn't get anywhere, but it was dismaying to see several editors agreeing. There is, unfortunately, a significant amount of overt racial and religious prejudice in this topic area. -- ChrisO (talk) 11:45, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Would people be prepared to look at the discussion on Al-Jazeera in particular and maybe this one on Arab News? 86.158.184.158 (talk) 12:47, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

A number of editors rightly criticised this as overt racism - seems to me, then, that Wikipedia worked the way it's supposed to. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 20:15, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I notice that the same editor trying to shout down 6 others and declear al-Jazeera NOT:RS is currently trying to dominate the Muhammed al-Dura article with an accusation exceedingly offensive to Palestinians. 86.158.184.158 (talk) 08:39, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. If you spot an editor being racist towards Palestinians, please report them. We don't refrain from enforcing policy in one instance because somebody got away with breaking policy some place else. Jehochman ^Talk 12:54, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

The response to my complaint here is that Scotland and Wales have no right to be treated as separate nations and it's offensive of me to complain of the racism expressed. And messages on my Talk page telling me I'll be reported for complaining of racism. And, of course, I and others have reported the racism aimed at Arab sources and nothing has happened there either. 86.158.184.158 (talk) 14:39, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

SPA at Atmospheric water generator repeatedly removing sourced info and inserting copyright-violation images

I posted this at wp:COIN 9 hours ago[44] but it looks like that noticeboard gets very little attention these days. Meanwhile the SPA has continued reverting to their preferred version (complete with copyright violation images).[45] This is the fifth time Mateyahoy (talk · contribs) has reverted to the same version since October 15 while making no other mainspace edits. The only explanations given (for reverting additions of NYT, NPR, and Science Daily sources, better writing, wikifying) are that they will "add more info soon" (it's been 9 days!) and that the images self-made. I've already tagged the images for deletion at Commons,[46][47] but I could use some help with Mateyahoy, who only seems interested in maintaining an old version of the article while not editing any other article. T34CH (talk) 00:03, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I have notified Mateyahoy of this thread. Please note this is a REQUIREMENT of filing an incident here. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:37, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Elen

When I first saw the AWG page it was full of misinformation and as an AWG engineer I have tried to add reliable information. T34CH is adding information that is total misinformation such as his statement that Calcium and Magnesium are added because the water is so pure etc... Insofar as the images go I created them and agreed to the waiver. I have suggested to him to keep his edits to the desiccant section but he doesn't seem to want to do this. I dont have a lot of time right now to add more new information but misinformation doesn't help anyone. I will add some better info to the discussion page, that may help clear up any misunderstandings.

Cheers

--Mateyahoy (talk) 05:37, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

The problem is, you took out a lot of referenced content and added a lot of cheerful "in my experience" type content. This is not going to go down well. Are there some textbooks on atmospheric water generators out there you can cite to show that your unsourced content is more accurate than that which was there before. If you have references, fine. If not, you need to leave the article alone until you have them, rather than change the content and promise the references later. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:11, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Elen There are no textbooks on AWGs. The information that is on the page is accurate referanced information. The info T34 is trying to add is misinformation. I have suggested in discussion that he confine his addition of desiccants to a single heading on the page and then it can be looked at by all and a desicion made as to its relevance and accuracy. All of the information on the page was put there by others except I added the pictures to give a better idea of their looks and how it works. Any of the rest of the information was added or edited by others, but I do agree with their edits.

I have added no cheerful in my experience content at all, except to the discussion page, where I am not trying to start a fight but rather help people understand how AWGs really work.

--Mateyahoy (talk) 06:47, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

• Mateyahoy has now made the same set of edits three times, and been reverted by three different people (none of them me) in the space of 2hrs. Frmtt gave him a level 1 warning and Tide Rolls a level 2 (read and removed). Although I wasn't the one reverting, I have added a level 3 warning.Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:57, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Mateyahoy, the other editors have included references. Don't take this the wrong way, but for all anyone knows, you could be making all that stuff up - you might be an engineer of 20 years experience, or you might be a bored short order cook on a slow night. That's why Wikipedia insists on sources. You must stop until you have something that can back you up, otherwise you will end up being blocked. Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:57, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Did you ever think to read any of the info and look at the page history to see where the info came from. I have been supporting proper edits of real information that others have put up. My only real contribution was the photos. Any information that I put up was edited out.

Let me repeat any info that I have been putting up was the original info that Luttinger and T34 have been taking down. It seems to me you are fighting without even reading the info, but if you like the information they are supplying and think its accurate then God Bless. --Mateyahoy (talk) 08:44, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

There is a small number of editors at WP:COIN who respond to requests. I generally respond to everything posted there if someone else doesn't first. Recently there was some controvery at Vivek Kundra involving sockpuppetry, edit wars, page protection, it was a mess. Sorry if the squeakier wheel got the grease. :( In any case, I'll respond here instead of over there... It seems to me that this editor likely has a conflict of interest in their edits. There is no "smoking gun" per se; they haven't claimed to be associated with any company or shown a definitive tie. However, the single-purposed nature of their edits that seem intended to promote "Everet Water" should make it clear. That combined with the spamming, edit wars, original research, and unwillingness to even approach a compromise and constant user page blanking seems to indicate to me an editor not likely to ever be productive to the project. I'd support an indef block if they don't change their ways soon. -- Atama頭 06:04, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Looks like the squeeky wheel is getting the grease here as well. I thought the whole point of Wikipedia was to disseminate real information not misinformation. --Mateyahoy (talk) 06:47, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is based upon verfication not 'truth', if you can't provide a reliable source for a piece of information, we can't verify it and it is likely to be removed. --Cameron Scott (talk) 10:51, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

---

Mateyahoy has reuploaded the images even though their web source has a copyright notice at the bottom. image on commons and on ttwltd.com; image here, and on everestwater.com Looking over the history, this article has been the target of numerous SPA's in the past. One of the previous SPA's was actually Mateyahoy as 24.70.183.75 (talk · contribs)[48][49] T34CH (talk) 17:43, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

24.70.183.75 was my address before I had an account :) Since I received an account I have always tried to remeber to log in first.

The images were re-uploaded with appropriate permissions :)

The information you keep uploading is not accurate and is misleading :(

Cheers Mateyahoy (talk) 19:58, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Permission from who? The webpages indicate copyrighted material. Please change the information on the Everest webpage. T34CH (talk) 20:13, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Why dont we follow Wikipedias rules instead of yours, and let the admins do their job? If they have a problem with the images I am sure they will let me know. Cheers Mateyahoy (talk) 20:48, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Here are the rules. Notice, given that the Everest website claims a copyright and used the images before you uploaded them, the burden of proof is on you to prove you are the owner. Anybody can copy an image from the web and post it on Wikipedia, claiming it was theirs. The admins will be doing their job when they get a chance. I suggest you give some sort of proof about the images and start cooperating with other editors at the article before they get around to this case. T34CH (talk) 21:03, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Like I said its already done, why are you still talking about it? The admins will take care of it if its a problem :) Cheers Mateyahoy (talk) 21:57, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

BTW when you start complaint here you are supposed to notify me, if Elen hadnt brought this to my notice I wouldnt have seen it at all. Mateyahoy (talk) 22:02, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

And I've deleted the local image that Mateyahoy has uploaded as an unambiguous copyright violation, and I'm certain the image on Commons will also be deleted in short order (I'm not an admin there). Mateyahoy, do *not* upload images from website and claim your own free license. T34CH is fully correct in this situation. It isn't a matter of whether or not admins have a problem, but one of copyright, and you are violating this. Consider this a final warning. — Huntster (t @ c) 22:09, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Hunster I have followed the rules as per Wikipedia guidelines, there are no copyright violations T34CH is not correct and neither are you. Please refrain from speculation and stick to the facts. If there is a copyright problems then the admins will have a problem with the images, if there is no copyright violations they will not.

Lets repeat The images have been uploaded, wikipedia guidelines have been followed and the images have been placed in public domain following WIKIPEDIA rules. OK? Why dont we all just wait for a ruling from the admins? Mateyahoy (talk) 22:18, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Mateyahoy, I am an admin, which is how I deleted the local image. You refuse to provide any evidence that you own the copyright to those images, and both websites the images come from specifically describe a copyright that is of the "all rights reserved" variety. If you own these images, then you must show *proof* that you own them. — Huntster (t @ c) 22:23, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh sorry I didnt realise you are an admin. I had a notice and emailed appropriate permissions to 'permissions-en@wikimedia.org' as per the instructions. Is there a problem with the email? Mateyahoy (talk) 22:35, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

There are several problems. One is that the website still claims copyright status. Another is that if you are the copyright owner, you have a wp:COI with editing the Atmospheric water generator article. T34CH (talk) 22:40, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

T34 I am pretty sure the admins will be able to handle this :) Mateyahoy (talk) 22:47, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay, the OTRS ticket has been received, and both images are in the clear. Thanks for sending the email Mateyahoy. I'll make sure both image descriptions are cleaned up appropriately. — Huntster (t @ c) 22:50, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank You Mateyahoy (talk) 23:02, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

And just a note that both images are now at Commons: Commons:File:Atmospheric Water Generator diagram.jpg and Commons:File:Everestwateryeti12.jpg (with request to rename to a more descriptive title). — Huntster (t @ c) 23:52, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Most of the "Dry desiccation with pressure condensation" section was copied from here, with grammatical errors intact. --John Nagle (talk) 02:31, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks John, but I am at the point that if no one is that interested in how AWGs really work then I think I will just leave them at it.

But it is interesting that I was never notified by T34CH as per the rules

Also he has been using content that is copywritten. "Site developed by APL Technology and Management Ltd. All Rights Reserved."

I could point out a lot more problems with his content but Ill leave it to the admins to figure out.

Thanks Again Keep up the good work :) Mateyahoy (talk) 05:21, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Restoration of Twinkle

Resolved. I don't need twinkle. The problem is Wikipedia's attitude towards vandals, not mine.   Nezzadar ☎   16:38, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Two weeks ago, I was blocked from using Twinkle by Hesperian. After much discussion, it was agreed upon for me to take a two week break and do my edits without twinkle. After the two weeks, I would come back and be judged on my edits. The whole thing is here.

Well, it will be two weeks on Tuesday and I doubt I will be online much until then because of my regular Sunday activity and a one time horrible activity on Monday. So this is it. I have made amends, softened up, and joined a network of supporting people making wonderful contributions. And I would like TW back for those times that I do go on RCP and come across stacked vandalism, where undo just dosen't cut it.

I'll be good, I promise. Thoughts please.   Nezzadar ☎   07:24, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I have not followed the history, but coming back early and issuing a promise with no content are not good signs. Presumably you previously thought you were being good, so what is new? Johnuniq (talk) 07:54, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I just glanced at your most recent contribs to look for dealings with vandalism/newbies, as that was a focus of this issue. I thought I'd mention this -- You shouldn't leave two warnings at once. Warnings are meant to inform the editor that they did something wrong, not to make a record of individual bad edits. If you see consecutive vandalism edits by one editor, and that editor hasn't been warned yet, just leave one warning. The stepped warnings are there for a reason -- we're assuming good faith that after being informed of an error, the user will learn, and it's only after they ignore a warning that we step up to stronger words. Equazcion (talk) 08:16, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

This is the second time now that Nezzadar has brought this issue to AN/I without having the courtesy to let me know about it. I have no time to respond in full for the next few hours, and I'll take the opportunity to think about it during that time. For the present moment, though, I am opposed. There is/was a serious attitude problem here—an inclination to treat newbs, and indeed just about anyone, as the enemy, someone to be squashed as rudely as possible. I don't see that a problem this fundamental can be fixed in less than two weeks. Hesperian 08:55, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

In response to "where undo doesn't cut it", personally I almost never use rollback, and rarely use undo, because in nearly all cases I want to look at the user's preceding edits, in their context, in order to know how best to respond. I want to know whether this is two users playing a to-and-fro vandalism game, in which case rollback will simply mask one user's vandalism with the removal of the other's. I want to know if the blanking or an article is inexplicable and unwarranted, or if it is an escalation from a previous thwarted attempt to remove specific objectionable text. I want to find the last good version of the article. There really is no substitute for going the long way: history->diff->edit old version->meaningful edit summary. What Nezzadar needs is a year or so of doing it this way—the right way. Once the fine art of assuming good faith and treating people like human beings has been learned, tools like rollback and twinkle may be offered in confidence. But in my view this lesson cannot be learned in two weeks, especially not two weeks spent avoiding RC. It was only 11 days ago that Nezzadar was saying "I have an overarching policy against tolerating stupidity.... If you want to stick your head in the sand and pretend that there's good faith where there overwhelmingly isn't, feel free to do so. I won't." Hesperian 12:18, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Have to agree with you here. Unless it's someone inserting "Barbie does it in the dollhouse", I like to take time to check the history of a strange edit. It sometimes worries me that in the time it takes me to work out if the edit IS vandalism, someone else has just removed it.Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:07, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Undo always cuts it except in the case where someone nails 50 articles at once. But, if someone does that it is very likely another editor with the appropriate tools will encounter it.--Crossmr (talk) 16:04, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Regarding "I have an overarching policy against tolerating stupidity.... If you want to stick your head in the sand and pretend that there's good faith where there overwhelmingly isn't, feel free to do so. I won't." I still believe that, heavily. For example, User talk:99.74.31.16 is a perfect illustration of a drive by bigot. Makes racist comments, I revert them, he vandalizes my userpage. This type of clear bad faith behavior occurs so very often, and people love to give level one warnings saying "oh in case this was an accident, don't worry." This is what I mean by sticking your head in the sand. If Wikipedia doesn't respond harshly to bad faith vandals, that is a serious problem. I created the NWarn template specifically to deal with this gaping hole. Whatever though, if passivity is the way of Wikipedia, so be it.   Nezzadar ☎   16:36, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Moot point probably but template:bv exists for a reason. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:32, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

This is a horribly misleading argument. Some newb comes along and says "Wow, can I actually edit this live?!" and blanks a page to test it out. He receives an abusive threat in response. Apparently this is justifiably because some other newb might be a racist vandal? That doesn't make sense. "Assume Good Faith" is not a suicide pact. "Assume Good Faith" would be better phrased as "Presume Good Faith": i.e. assme good faith until you have confirmation that good faith is lacking. Sometimes that confirmation arrives with the first edit. Sometimes it takes many more. Patience is required. The solution is not to immediately attack anyone who makes an inadvisable edit. Hesperian 23:46, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, Nezzadar seems to have nailed his colours to the mast now. "Human nature is bad. Humans are overwhelmingly stupid."[50] Hesperian 00:07, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, except for me. I'm cool and have the neatest name. HalfShadow (talk) 00:32, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Fast Way to Comment Out Links?

As per Talk:Van_Morrison#Link_to_Van_Morrison_Website I'm commenting out links to vanmorrison.com and vanmorrison.co.uk but it's slow going and I have to leave soon. Is there a faster way of doing this with admin tools? --NeilN ^{talk ♦ contribs} 14:05, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

It looks like the issue with the Van Morrison site containing trojans has been resolved. How many links are you talking about though? If there are more than a handful, the ones not supported by WP:EL should be removed (using a bot if there's a really large number), not commented out. If there's just a handful, commenting them out by hand shouldn't be that difficult. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 22:56, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/David Shankbone

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

---

The DRV is over here. — Jake Wartenberg 18:05, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

---

Resolved

 – Closed. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 16:41, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Due to close. Warmly, NonvocalScream (talk) 14:52, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm glad we're treating this as we would any other BLP, including the customary message on ANI about impending closure. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:56, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I'll take that with a touch of humor :) Best, NonvocalScream (talk) 17:21, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

What does it take to make some people observe proper process? I've no opinion about the article or the result, but AfDs run for a minimum of seven days, which would have been until 22:39, 25 October 2009 (UTC). This means that the AfD was closed several hours early for no good reason, and I'd support a DRV complaint on this basis. Yes, a few hours more would not have changed the result, but if we accept this, then why do we have a minimum AfD duration (recently increased from 5 to 7 days) at all?  Sandstein  16:50, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't get it. You would have supported a DRV complaint even since you also state that a few hours would not have changed the result? I know you are experienced and perhaps even largely vested, but I must remind you sir... please don't DRV a discussion just to make a point about the procedure. Warmly, NonvocalScream (talk) 17:24, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Not to mention the amusing suggestion that only four of the keeps were weak (at least a half dozen were boilerplate ARS canvass-fodder), but that's a matter for DRV I suppose. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 16:54, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Why do we have a minimum at all? Sounds like bureaucracy to me. Chillum 17:00, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Presumably it acts as a safeguard against bad closes caused by a skewing of the early responses. WP:SNOW is there for genuine no-brainers. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:13, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I've re-opened this debate. WP:AFD is explicit about "at least seven days." I see no reason to make an exception in this case; in fact, I see all the more reason to follow the rules by the letter. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:24, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I have re-closed it. You do not challenge a closure by reverting it, you can talk to the closing admin first at least, or file for DRV. You are talking about hours over the course of a week, this seems to accomplish little. Chillum 17:25, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

• Note I was mistaken in thinking that the closing admin was not contacted, it happened off wiki and I did not realize until later. Chillum 18:22, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

You must not war over the close. We have a process, however, I think you should talk to the closer firstly. NonvocalScream (talk) 17:26, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

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

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eric Zaccar

Resolved

 – The AfD has been closed and the potential socks have been blocked. Guest9999 (talk) 14:33, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

This discussion seems to have attracted a lot of single purpose accounts. So far I count a total of five acounts which registered during the course of the discussion and have only contributed to the discussion and in a few cases the article up for deletion. Given that all of these accounts have expressed the same preference as to what should happen to the article and it doesn't seem like a topic which would neccessarily attract a lot of attention from forums/blogs, etc. it seem to me that socking or at least meatpuppetry is a distinct possibility. Guest9999 (talk) 19:48, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I see that an IP editor has described the same pattern at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Eric Zaccar. Guest9999 (talk) 19:49, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

To be honest, only Robroams (talk · contribs) is still contributing to this discussion … the others stopped after the {{spa}} labels were added … Happy Editing! — 138.88.125.101 (talk · contribs) _{20:56, 25 October 2009 (UTC)}

Aren't we now at 7 days? someone want to close that sucker down? --Cameron Scott (talk) 21:08, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Removal of vandalism warnings

Resolved

 – policy clarified Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 22:00, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

It is my understanding that removal of warnings from one's own talk page was allowed. The reasoning is that it is indication that one has read the warnings. However, I have now seen this given as a reason for blocking an IP user. In this particular case, I believe the user had commited other blockable offenses, but this was the ultimate reason given for the block. Of course, some things are supposed to remain on a user's page (e.g., sock, whois, and block templates), but I was under the understanding one could remove warning templates. Thanks. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 20:38, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

You are correct. As per WP:BLANKING, while we may prefer that comments be archived instead, policy does not prohibit users -including anonymous editors - from deleting messages or warnings from their own talk pages. — Kralizec! (talk) 20:43, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I will alert the admin who issued the block, but no need to "name names" or anything. Thanks again. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 20:47, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I think you should name names. Why should admins get away with undoing the revision of an IP edit that removes a warning template when if an IP editor undoes the removal of content from an Admin's talk page, it is considered vandalism?--125.239.151.99 (talk) 20:52, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

No need. As I said, I alerted the admin. It's not that hard to figure it out if you are really interested. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 21:58, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

You are right. If a person removes warnings from his/her talk page, then it is generally understood that he/she acknowledges the warnings. The problem with new/naive users is that, in removing warnings, some think that they can use the "I never got warned" defense (like with WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT). However, because all contributions are stored in page histories, that falls apart.

Users should not be blocked, however, for simply removing such warnings. MuZemike 20:53, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Fair is fair. If IPs and non-admin registered users have to have the "sockpuppet" "block" etc name-and-shame templates on their pages, admins should be named and shamed for their bad edits too.--125.239.151.99 (talk) 20:55, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

You don't happen to be 219.89.57.102, are you? Just wondering, because both your IPs come from the same town. MuZemike 21:04, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I've been wondering that too MuZemike. They're from the same town, as is 122.57.91.165. I had blocked 219.89... and then these other two have come along to comment at my talk page about the block. either way (talk) 21:31, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Funny you saying that because I thought that 219 editor was told to stay relevant. Which is completely opposite to what you are doing now. I also find it suspicious that you would take interest in me now considering that you just reverted my edits to your talk page ignoring them and then come here to blatantly accuse of me f such nonsense. I can see a great practise of WP:AGF here from an admin. Get a clue.--125.239.151.99 (talk) 21:55, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Speaking of which, we are just talking about removal of content from talk pages, I should really just remove your comments right now because your question is not relevant to this discussion...oh hang on. You are admins, it is okay you can revert it back and then warn me for leading by example. Oh dear.--125.239.151.99 (talk) 21:57, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Don't say it cannot be done because you did it to that ip's comments here. no discusion with them firt, just straight to the revert, warn and revert any attempt to defend themselves. How patronizing.--125.239.151.99 (talk) 22:00, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

The edits indicate clear block evasion and I have blocked all current IPs as such. MuZemike 05:47, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Problem with User:Mhouston310

Mhouston310 (talk · contribs) has repeated added a lot of WP:OR, not at all wiki formatted content that has also removed references with this edit to the Jim Bowden page. I have warned Mhouston310 several times, but the user has continued with no explanation.--Henry talk 20:54, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

For god/dess sake, someone stop Mhouston! I don't think he's even adding info about the same Jim Bowden. And Henryodell, I'd stop now, because you don't want to get into trouble for 3RR. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:34, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Note: with no judgment on the content itself, I have posted 3rr warnings to both Mhouston310 and Henryodell. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 00:50, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Add socking to the account for Mhouston [51]--Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:56, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

And that account is ignoring warnings. Needs page protection and an SPI as I think Mhouston310 has edited as at least three other editors --Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:58, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I've filed RPP and SPI at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Mhouston310. There are three IPs and Mhouston310 all adding the identical chunk of text about a person 20 years younger and with a slightly different full name. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:11, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I've also posted a 3RR warning to the most recent IP, as he is now at 4 reverts. Also, the edit summary on this edit could be interpreted as a legal threat if the intent is to file the defamation and harrassment charges off-wiki. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 01:13, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd just spotted that one :) Busy little blighter, isn't he. Netalarm seems to have taken over the reversion job. Wonder how long it'll be till the next sock pops out of the drawer. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:15, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Mhouston310 indef'd and all socks blocked for 31hrs. Hopefully things will quieten down a bit. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:21, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Last call (I hope). User:ShelbyBelle - note NOT User:ShelbyBell who has edited the article in a wholly legitimate manner - left a legal threat on Talk:Jim Bowden [52] which I have removed. If anyone wants to block User:ShelbyBelle as another Mhouston310 sock (the text of the threat is pretty identical to the one made by the IP above), I don't think anyone will be arguing. ShelbyBelle should be blocked anyway, as the username is a clear intent to impersonate, harass or otherwise annoy ShelbyBell. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 02:02, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I've posted a templated warning to the user's talk page, using {{uw-legal}}. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 02:18, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Indefinitely blocked as a sock puppet along with making a legal threat. MuZemike 05:53, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Arzel

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

Could someone please review this diff and advise if it is an appropriate removal of another editor's talk page comments? This is part of a long term pattern of questionable edits by Arzel. I can dig up additional diffs if necessary, but I'd like to keep this as narrow of a scope as possible. I've had a long history with Arzel, so I would appreciate it if someone else were to talk a look and address the issue. //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 21:34, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

And this requires admin intervention in what way? --Tom (talk) 21:45, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

The comment looks more like an opinion than a constructive suggestion for improving the article, but it's borderline and obviously removing it is causing more drama than would have been created by leaving it or moving it into the appropriate section. I would have refactored it to a subsection of the existing discussion, and I think it's likely it would have not received any responses, but I can see where User:Arzel was coming from, in that it's important to try to keep discussions on that particular talk page on track. user:J aka justen (talk) 21:49, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

The question was posed here because (1) I have a history with Arzel; (2) Arzel has a historical pattern of making such questionable edits, for which he's been blocked in the past; and (3) I wanted uninvolved opinions on the matter. You guys should disclose that you have previous dealings both with Arzel and with me. Thanks. //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 21:52, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Eh? I've seen User:Arzel's name in discussions; I don't "have [any] previous dealings" with him so far as I know. Having discussed other articles with you had no impact on my response to you here, as I would hope you could tell by my response. I don't know what to say if you feel my response is biased against you in some way, but I don't intend to preface any comments I make with "I've discussed other issues with User:Blaxthos before, but I'm here to say..." user:J aka justen (talk) 21:57, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

j, I believe Blaxthos was talking about me, but I could be wrong, I run about 25% wrong :). Unless there is some edit war or bigger thing here, don't knowwhat an admin would do. Anyways, --Tom (talk) 22:02, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

(←) I believe I qualify as uninvolved. I don't think Arzel should have removed that comment. The editor appears to have been asking about whether or not particular information should be included in the article. This to my mind seems an appropriate use of an article talkpage. Arzel's characterisation of the edit as WP:FORUM is therefore erroneous in this case and the comment should be restored. As for what should be done with Arzel, I'll defer to the wisdom of others. Crafty (talk) 22:11, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

• I have always felt that removing the comments made by others is not a good idea. The comment was bordering forum-speak, to which they should have been advised so on their talk page. Removing it, however, doesn't seem like such a good idea. I would advise for Azrel to not remove talkpage comments that are borderline and instead engage the user on their talk page. Basket of Puppies 22:38, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

• What a sickening display of pettiness on the part of Blaxthos. This report is motivated entirely on his personal vendetta against me. Please tell me the difference between my edit and this edit or this edit by Blaxthos in the past month. Furthermore, if this was such an egregious edit why didn't he just revert it, or anyone revert it for that matter? Arzel (talk) 23:54, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Why do you revert these edits in the first place? I understand the "not a forum rule", but it seems to me you are a touch zealous about this. Surely there can be some discussion about the subject matter of articles on their talkpages? Crafty (talk) 00:05, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

"these edits"? I only removed one comment from the FNC talk page. The other two edits were basically the same type of comments removed by Blaxthos on other articles. If his are fine and mine is bad I would like to know what the difference is.

I only removed the one comment mentioned in the original complaint because is sounded like forum talk to me. Maybe it is, maybe it is not, it wasn't restored by Blaxthos or anyone else involved here at this time, so it doesn't appear to have been a comment that is intended on improving the content of the article. Arzel (talk) 00:21, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/David Shankbone redux

Resolved

 – now closed. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 01:06, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

It is 4:39 pm (UTC-6) today, I believe exactly seven days. Can we close? Best, NonvocalScream (talk) 22:39, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

RFC/U canvassing and meatpuppetry

I brought this up on the RFC/U's talk page, but I feel it requires a wider audience. For the short version, see below.

I began an RFC/U on Racepacket (Racepacket (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)) and contacted a few other users ([53], [54], [55]) to add to the statement of the dispute.

I recently discovered that Racepacket contacted a series of users on Wikipedia to vouch for him:

• Anthony Krupp
• Disavian
• Vaudedoc
• Cornell1890
• Madcoverboy
• Notyourbroom
• Cornell010
• Xtreambar
• Cornellrocky

Among these users, two have given "outside views" and two have endorsed various outside views' summaries.

There is also the issue of the Baechter (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) account, which I initially believed to be a sockpuppet, but that was disproven. After Racepacket stated that he often asks his associates outside of Wikipedia to assist him, I later asked Brandon (who ran the checkuser to disprove that the users are the same person) whether or not the two were in a geographic proximity. He confirmed this and later confirmed that Racepacket and Baechter live in the same city.

tl;dr:

This RFC/U is getting out of hand with the sockpuppetry, meatpuppetry, and canvassing, and it has not solved any of the issues I intended for it to solve: Racepacket's edit warring on University of Miami and related articles, his inappropriate assumptions of consensuses, his ignoring of other users, his walls of text, ownership issues, and his non sequiturs in discussion (he now seems to be using the two failed GA promotions as evidence that he was right and everyone else was wrong). I need actual outside views on this. Soxwon has been the only completely uninvolved user to say anything.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 23:02, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I just commented there. He had not contacted me. (when somebody does, I say so in my comment ) . My evaluation of his work on the University of Miami article is highly favorable. He has been trying against considerable opposition to remove a remarkable amount of puffery from the article. University articles obviously tend to attract devoted students and alumni, and they periodically need the sort of cleanup that he has been doing. The RfC may indeed not meet the purposes of the person who brought it, and for good reason. DGG ( talk ) 00:09, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for leaving an outside view, DGG. While his work is good, the way he is going about it is what I want the RFC to discuss.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 03:10, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Ryulong, you have not informed Racepacket or Baechter of this ANI Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:13, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Baechter does not edit regularly and has not edited in several days. I do not think that contacting him will do any good. I will inform Racepacket of this thread, though.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 03:07, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Personally, when faced with something as icky as an RFC/U, I think I'd want to grab a few witnesses for myself. Is it truly "canvassing", or the "quasi-subpoena of witnesses for the defense?" I'm not going to comment on the real use Meats, because just like on AfD, I expect an Admin to be able to see through that crap. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 12:49, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I think RFC/U's, as well as most other Wikipedia threads, should be as "pure" as possible. That is, where only the selection of editors who stumbles upon it should participate. Canvassing/flagging defense witnesses, undue advertising, etc. only adds a bias to the results unless the advertising is done from a completly neutral location. This cannot be done by contacting individual editors. I'm disturbed that a lot of the community feels it is ok to contact individual editors for backup, as in these cases the facts should speak for themselves. It goes without saying that this applies to both "sides" of the RfC and that I'd equally go against meatpuppetry in the accusations as well as in the defense. ThemFromSpace 13:02, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I see an RFC/U as being conceptually different than most of our discussions: the goal is to get involved editors to the table to air their disputes, as well as getting uninvolved editors to the table to review the disputes. Thus, efforts to get individual editors that have been involved in listed disputes to comment in the RFC/U are appropriate. It's possible to do that inappropriately, though: there's a world of difference between "Remember that dispute we had over such-and-such last year? There's an RFC/U open on one of the involved editors at ..." and "Hey, those evil Lower Slobovian apologists are ganging up on Fred! There's an RFC/U open at ..."—Kww(talk) 13:14, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I left neutral messages for people who have expressed concern for the neutrality of university articles. User:Ryulong once again misreads his sources. He incorrectly said above, "Racepacket stated that he often asks his associates outside of Wikipedia to assist him." But he is misinterpreting what I said about overhearing conversations about Wikipedia.

As I read the RFC/U rules, the page is open to any Wikipedia editor to comment. User:Ryulong violated those rules by reverting the outside comments of Baechter twice. [56] [57] The underlying concern about POV-pushing at University of Miami was just reconfirmed by an independent GA review which found "Problems with lack of encyclopedic tone in sections" and "Should avoid advertising the university - present facts neutrally, avoid generalizations and opinons." [58] These are exactly the problems that I have been trying to address in my various edits since early September. Although I must assume good faith in these ANIs [59] [60] [61] and the RFC/U, everyone must realize that the time spent on these ancillary matters tends to reduce the time available for researching and improving the articles. The adversarial tone is chasing off potential contributors to the UM articles. Racepacket (talk) 15:25, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

U.S. military response during the September 11 attacks -- mediation not workinig

There are many, many problems with the page U.S. military response during the September 11 attacks, and in particular with a single user, Parserpractice. A member of the Mediation Cabal (I presume), Justin talk, had this to say about the condition of this article and the editing of Parserpractice:

I saw your mediation cabal case listing. After looking at the article, the edit history and the contribution history of User:Parserpractice I fairly quickly came to the conclusion that the article is seriously deficient in terms of WP:NPOV and violates WP:SYN, WP:NOR, WP:BLP as well as WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE. It also appears that the editor in question is not amenable to discussion. I seriously doubt that mediation is appropriate in this case, the editor in question appears to see wikipedia as a platform to right great wrongs and in my experience such editors are single-minded and mission-orientated. I would suggest you raise this at WP:AN/I. Regards, Justin talk 11:42, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I asked for help from the WikiProject & got no response. I think our mediator from the Mediation Cabal has given up, because there's been no sign of her/him since 10/15 on Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2009-10-13/U.S. military response during the September 11 attacks. The discussions have become an incoherent mess, just like the article itself. And the article's discussion page contains a number of personal attacks against me.

We need serious help please! This is very important to me because 9/11 is such an emotionally charged issue, so it's highly important that we get it right, and not use novel synthesis to blame people or allow one editor with an agenda to sit on the page and defend it in the form she/he wants it to be in. (Is that called tendentious editing?)

Please help!

Thanks -- Dcs002 (talk) 23:19, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi Dcs002, I'd be happy to co-mediate this case alongside the current mediator. PhilKnight (talk) 23:56, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you so much! It's gonna mean a lot of reading of some rather pompous material... Dcs002 (talk) 00:32, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Glad to see an experienced admin & mediator like PhilKnight take on co-mediation, however, as I highlighted to Dcs002 the article has some serious problems. There are major WP:BLP violations and from what I've seen of Parserpractice's editing it would appear to be a tendentious editor, with a single minded obsession. The BLP violations include some very serious allegations against individuals. Justin talk 08:49, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

My image uploads getting CSDed within 3 minutes of uploading. Is that reasonable?

Resolved

 – ZooFari has owned up to being a bit too quick with the old autoedits, and has apologised at the user's talkpage --Elen of the Roads (talk) 02:33, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm attempting to upload a number of record cover images for use in single infoboxes, but they are being nominated for deletion as orphaned before I have had a chance to add them to the infoboxes. I still have many that I can upload, but if they are going to be CSDed as I try, what's the point? Markfury3000 (talk) 00:12, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Are they all being dumped by the one admin? you could try having a word with him/her. Also (correct me if I'm wrong here) can't you add the fair use rationalle at the time of uploading, before adding to the infobox?--Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:17, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

When I say "CSDed" I meant tagged with a CSD, not actually deleted. I always add the fair use rationale and licensing when I upload. Markfury3000 (talk) 00:20, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Orphaned image CSDs must be orphaned for a week before deletion. So you have a week to write up a fair-use rationale and add it to an article. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:21, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I must admit, I had visions of one of the admins on speed, sat at the pc crazily deleting Markfury's images :) As it is, it sounds like a recent changes patroller being very up to the mark. The admin reviewing the CSD will decline it if the image is not orphaned and the paperwork is in place. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:28, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

It does seem to me a little pointy to CSD tag record cover images as orphaned when the proper target to place each of them in is obvious. It would have made more sense for the patroller to remind him to do it as he went along, or, even better, add the link and the rationale, thus helping their fellow editor. DGG ( talk ) 00:53, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

OP has had an apology, so I guess this is resolved now? NotAnIP83:149:66:11 (talk) 01:02, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Legal threat by IP user

Special:Contributions/12.147.22.105. IP made a legal threat in the edit summary, stating "DEFAMATION OF CHARACTER, HARASSMENT CHARGES ARE FORTHCOMING ON SEVERAL USERS THAT ARE EDITING THIS CONTENT." Difference. Netalarmtalk 01:05, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Note: The IP has already been blocked for edit warring and sock-puppetry. See also the section above Problem with User:Mhouston310, which is related to this activity. That section also mentions User:ShelbyBelle who made a similar threat a few days ago on the article's talk page. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 02:29, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Block was changed to 1 year. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:53, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Trouble with Werdnabot

Please see User talk:Werdnabot#Bot fail. Werdnabot is undoubtedly one of our most heavily used bots, and I don't particularly like to talk about blocking it, but there has been an outstanding issue on the talk page for eight days now, and no sign of User:Werdna since October 3, excepting a single edit October 19. The combination of an unattended bot making errors and an operator who can't be reached is not acceptable, even if it's an essential bot with a respected operator. As such, while I don't like to talk about blocking Werdnabot, I'm nonetheless going to ask that the community consider it. I am aware of the large negative repercussions, but after going this long without being able to contact the operator, I can't continue to ignore it. — Gavia immer (talk) 03:35, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Has anyone tried emailing him? I've had off-wiki communication with him far more recently than when he disappeared from here. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:39, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I can't speak for the other editors, but I have not. I personally check my onwiki talk page more often than my account email, though of course that doesn't mean the same is true of others. — Gavia immer (talk) 03:49, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I've since sent him an email; thanks for the reminder. — Gavia immer (talk) 04:10, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

My understanding is Werdna has been very busy with live testing and bug fixing of Liquid Threads at http://liquidthreads.labs.wikimedia.org. He's been responding to feedback threads there. You can try leaving a message on his talk page there about this, but we may need to be patient. Equazcion (talk) 04:29, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Proposed topic ban for User:Hxseek

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

Hxseek just came off a "1RR/week article probation on Kosovo" block (having been blocked once before for personal attacks) and his first edit was this. His incivility to other editors at Talk:Kosovo and to admins at User talk:Hxseek seems incessant.

I'm proposing a topic ban for Hxseek on Kosovo and Kosovo-related articles. From a cursory look at his contribs, this topic seems to be the only area that brings out this side of Hxseek. Equazcion (talk) 04:07, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps we can wait for Hxseek's response before considering a topic ban? I'd like to read his take on this. Basket of Puppies 04:47, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

This is an unfair and misdirected accusation. User Equizicon appears not to take heed of the fact that it is user Lontech that is making personal and racist remarks, blatantly and consistently. It is he who is making disruptive edits, going against concensus and accusing all the editors involved in the Kosovo-Dardania talk paragraph of conspiring. Using words such as Demagogy and Serbian Nationalism throughout his edits. I have done nothing but neutral, source-consistent edits.

I admit that some of my comments might be unwarranted. I promise to curb this. However, admin Equizicon is incorrect in charging me with PAs on "other editors" when it is clearly and solely aimed at one disruptive chap. My comments to him, apart from his obvious disregard for scholarly process and civility, are probably in part a reflection of my frustration of my being targeted by admins Equzicon and SarekofVulcan despite the obvious ill-natured edits and comments by Lontech. Merely follow the relevant talk page seciton, and it will come clear. What Equzicon labels PAs, I thought of as an attempt of light-hearted humour directed against an editor who cannot appear to be reasoned with, despite being shown that he has mis-representd sources, constructing OR, making racist statements and attacking every other editor who picks up on his obvious POV. Yet it is I that have been banned, twice. I do not even see how admin Equ.. even construes that last point as a personal attack. Can't we even joke to lighten the mood ? Even if it is not ideal, suh comments are hardly malicious

I even appealed to the very admins involved and got no responce. I stand by my record of conduct and the plethora of high quality, non-nationalist edits I have contributed to Wiki. Kosovo is not even a personal 'issue' for me. However, I think a topic ban is unreasonable. Hxseek (talk) 06:53, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I can confirm that Hxseek is usually one of the voices of reason in this field, that the article and its talk page would be worse off without him, and that the disruption during the last few weeks was triggered by typical tendentious and low-quality editing by User:Lontech. We really must start taking out the real disruptive elements before they provoke our better editors to lose their cool. I also note there's dodgy evidence being quoted here. This, cited above as an example of rampant "incivility against admins", has nothing objectionable whatsoever. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:14, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

We've all had to deal with what we would deem low-quality editors at one point or another. Low-quality editing is (unfortunately?) not a blockable offense, though. Incivility is, and so is 1RR, on this article. So we have to learn to deal with "low-quality" edits in a civil way, and this is something Hxseek has yet to accomplish, despite two blocks thus far. So what do we do then? If anyone has a better suggestion, I'm listening. Equazcion (talk) 07:26, 26 Oct 2009 (UTC)

Actually, low-quality editing, especially if it is pursued aggressively, persistently, against warnings, and combined with attacks (such as persistent false accusations of vandalism against opponents) and with a general failure to "get it", is a blockable offense. So, first thing, I've topic-banned Lontech for a few months. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:30, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

All due respect, and I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, Future, but now that this issue is here, shouldn't it be discussed who should get the topic ban? I mean you seem rather previously involved and on Hxseek's side. Why not get some uninvolved input first? Equazcion (talk) 07:32, 26 Oct 2009 (UTC)

I'm as uninvolved as can be on Kosovo topics, except that I have some prior experience through admin work on it some time last year. Knowing the field doesn't disqualify me from working on it, now, does it? And I can impose these kinds of bans under WP:ARBMAC any time, that's what we have it for. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:36, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

← Well, sure, you can. But I took the issue here to have it discussed, and you've imposed your own conclusion rather quickly and without much actual discussion. It doesn't quite seem right to me. Equazcion (talk) 07:40, 26 Oct 2009 (UTC) 07:40, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, I didn't preclude anything that you may still want to do about Hxseek. I've said what I have to say about him, now he's all yours. But Lontech clearly had it coming – he was actually indef-blocked right in the beginning of his career for rampant POV-pushing, and only let back in on promises of good behaviour, which he has clearly not fulfilled, so a topic ban of a few months is still pretty mild. In any case, I have to log off now and may not be online again during much of the day, so you guys just do whatever you feel is right. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:49, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Fut Perf. I fail to see how this edit (which was cited above by the proposer and) which appears to show Hxseek making a comment, was relevant when you used it in your rationale for topic banning Lontech. I'm thinking you cited the wrong diff? Ncmvocalist (talk) 09:19, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

For what it is worth, I declare that I will voluntarily take 'leave' from the article for a week or two, if that suits. I think the issue might be resolved anyway. There will be no further "PAs" on my behalf, I can assure Hxseek (talk) 07:30, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

4 months without any warning - this is funny ask other editors involved in that article those with 5 years on wikipedia that are familiar with this article Your statements on distruptive edits are false ive opened discussion for every change and i didnt revert not a single text without consensus. Discussion on talk page isn't disruptive edit.

attacks against opponents: you missed the user talk page about this statement. you added his comments link on my talk page

ive reverted vandalism: Type of vandalism BLANKING - Sometimes referenced information or important verifiable references are deleted with no valid reason(s) given in the summary. he under minor change mask added 6-8 lines of text

also you added a fake link on my Talk page for this With this edit this is not my edit it is hxseek talk page

find 1 disruptive edit that i did, not reverts? just one disruptive edit . and type the link here.

I'm askin from serious experienced admins to view his actions Fut.Perf..thanks-- LONTECH  Talk  13:58, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Editing scientific articles

Resolved

 – Wrong forum. Hersfold non-admin^(t/a/c) 14:11, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Editor Michael C Price recently made a statement at Wikipedia talk:Editing scientific articles. That statement read as follows,

Look at the recent David Tombe/Speed of Light fiasco. When challenged to debate the physics, he resorted to Nazi insults and was banned. Problem solved. --Michael C. Price talk 09:13, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

This statement is essentially a downright lie on two counts. Anybody who followed the recent arbitration hearing will know fine well that the actual physics was seldom brought up, and on the few occasions when it was brought up, I made my position quite clear. One arbitrator who actually understood the physics misattributed who said what. And when I contacted her both on her talk page, and privately by e-mail to clarify the fact that she had misattributed the positions, I got no reply. However she eventually turned up at the decision stage, in the full knowledge that my position was the same as her own, and she proceeded to support the motion to ban me from physics articles. It takes a very special kind of person to do something like that.

The second aspect of the lie is that Michael Price's statement has implied that I resorted to "Nazi insults" as a means of avoiding having to debate the physics. Apart from being a total downright lie, what does he mean by "Nazi insults"? The term "Nazi insults" could have a widely interpreted meaning. Let's see an example of one of these so-called "Nazi insults". Let's have it all laid out on the table to be viewed objectively by unbiased observers, rather than have the lies proliferating in the mists of time.

The truth of the matter is that I was banned from editing physics articles for the very reason that I did actually debate the physics. It was probably the first case in wikipedia history of somebody getting topic banned and put on probation indefinitely for talk page discussion.

It was Michael Price who was in fact unable to debate the physics. And his statement above amounts to baiting, in that he knows that I can no longer legally debate the physics in order to prove him wrong about his statement above.

Does wikipedia have a policy for dealing with editors who make dishonest baiting statements about other editors that have recently been sanctioned? The recent arbitration hearing exposed alot of kinds of bad behaviour which don't appear to be catered for by wikipedia's rules and regulations. In particular, I noticed what I would term the authority scavenger syndrome. That is where an editor, who is not actually an administrator, behaves like an administrator and persistently interrupts other peoples' dialogues in order to read out the rule book. This kind of editor rides on the back of authority in order to bully and bait other editors that appear to be down, and in a weakened position. Wikipedia needs to introduce strong regulations to clear this kind of nuisance out of the system. David Tombe (talk) 05:01, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

My quoted statement is accurate. Many other editors complained about Tombe's refusal to engage. Note that the banning for Nazi insults occured within the ArbCom proceedings themselves: ArbCom finding on uncivility per David Tombe --Michael C. Price ^talk 07:14, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Your statement is nowhere near accurate. Who are the other editors who complained that I had refused to engage? Show me where I resorted to "Nazi insults" in order to avoid engaging. And show me one of those "Nazi insults". All you have done is shown an excerpt from the arbitration hearing which lists four of my edits. None of those edits in any way back up what you are saying here. If you think that they do, then copy out one of those edits within its full context so that we can all see whether or not it contains an insult, and if that insult represented an attempt to avoid engaging in the physics debate. David Tombe (talk) 07:28, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not commenting on anything else at the moment, the "Nazi" bit would come from this reference to Goebel, which I guess ArbCom assumed was a mispelling of Goebbels, a famous Nazi. Someguy1221 (talk) 07:31, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Here also: [62] Last time I checked, Goebbel's was still a Nazi. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:36, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Someguy1221, Amost certainly yes. And how do you define the insult within the wider context of the discussion? Who was insulted, or why did anybody perceive themselves to have been insulted? And was that statement made in an attempt to avoid engaging in the physics debate? And what about the other three edits in question? David Tombe (talk) 07:41, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Carrots, The statement that you produced was not made in an attempt to avoid discussion of the physics. You have got as far as making a connection to the word 'Nazi' and you have chosen to freeze on that, without giving any consideration to the context. You have totally failed to show that Michael Price's statement is true, if that's what you were trying to do. David Tombe (talk) 08:04, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Refusal to debate the physics by David Tombe. --Michael C. Price ^talk 09:24, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

No Michael, Anybody who checks out this material will only find evidence that I did debate the physics. Where is your evidence that I resorted to "Nazi insults" when challenged to debate the physics? Your statement is a lie unless you can show evidence that I indulged in "Nazi insults" as a means of evading a challenge to debate the physics. You will need to show where I was asked a question about physics, and where I responded with a "Nazi insult" in order to evade that question. And you are not going to be able to do that. Your statement above is a downright lie, plain and simple. David Tombe (talk) 10:03, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm happy to let others check the link and judge for themselves whether you "debated the physics". There are plenty of other examples of you refusing to debate -- and of editors complaining about this, as I indicated earlier, both at the ArbCom thread itself and at the SoL talk page. As for this leading to Nazi insults, since you don't even accept that you made any, I guess no example I give is going to persuade you, is it? --Michael C. Price ^talk 11:05, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Quite. In order to stop this harassment, I would just ask any admin to promptly act according to wp:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Speed of light#Enforcement by block. DVdm (talk) 11:14, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Michael, Don't guess anything of the sort. If you have an example, then show it to everybody, and we'll take it from there. All you have to do is show an example of where I evaded a challenge to debate the physics by indulging in 'Nazi insults'. You have made a serious allegation, and you are obliged to back it up with hard evidence. I am meanwhile maintaining that your allegation is a downright lie. David Tombe (talk) 11:47, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

You've been shown two diff's where you called people Nazis. Trying to put conditions on the circumstances in which you called people Nazis is splitting Herrs. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:39, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Quite. As a concillatory gesture I'm quite happy to amemd my earlier statement to:

Look at the recent David Tombe/Speed of Light fiasco. When challenged to debate the physics, he refused. Subsequently he resorted to Nazi insults and was banned. Problem solved.

Happy? --Michael C. Price ^talk 13:48, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I think you all are looking for arbitration enforcement. It's thataway. Hersfold non-admin^(t/a/c) 14:11, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

old incident

From 14 January - 17 January 2009, IP 98.14.53.132 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) seems to have inserted misinformation or nonsense into about ten articles, some of which has persisted. I noticed the problems with Louis M. Goldsborough & David Graham Phillips and have taken care of them, but I would appreciate help dealing with the others; I think at this point I'm going to assume that nothing he inserted was valid and remove it. - Nunh-huh 05:01, 26 October 2009 (UTC) - I think I've dealt with them all, but an independent double-check would be a good thing. - Nunh-huh 05:30, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Personal attacks, copy vio, removal of scholarly material at Wendy Doniger

Resolved

 – Civility addressed, NPA addressed, removal endorsed and copyvio reported at Wikipedia:Copyright_problems/2009_October_22. Toddst1 (talk) 12:41, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

The Article Wendy Doniger (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) needs admin intervention, currently the article is in bad shape, with reliable sources removed and copyright violations and plagiarized content from WP:SPS. The scholarly material was removed by personally attacking as "Illiterate BJPers"....while cherry picked quotes from favorable book reviews dominate the article.

Here is the list of problems:

Removal of Scholarly material

User:Goethean (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has removed scholarly material and personally attacking edit summary as "illiterate BJPers". Few of the references that were removed include material from Rutgers University Press, Routledge, Rupa & Co., Cambridge: Harvard Oriental, Religion in the News (Trinity College) to mention a few, without any link to BJP.

Please refer to the References in this older version and compare it to the present version.

Also the Book Review section is full of opinion peices and cherry picked quotes, to give an example:

• Wendy_Doniger#The_Hindus:_An_Alternative_History has a quote from David Arnold's "Beheading Hindus", but this review also contains discussions of the shortcomings of the book, which are nowhere to be seen.

It is also interesting to note that only after that the copyright violations and plagiarized content was removed, the valid scholarly material present all these months ( or years ) are being removed.

Racial and personal attacks

Goethean is also indulgin in Racial abuse and personal attacks:

• racially attacking the contributors - "fucking joke that only a BJPer would utter seriously" and pls note that this is the response given to my comments of acknowledging scholarly presence.
• [63] : "You actually had a good point in the midst of all that self-victimizing blather"

Plagiarized material

User:Meetoohelp (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) keeps copy pasting material from Doniger's CV, Publication list and Faculty page at Divinity School. The currently protected article also has plagiarized content and copyright violations. See : Wikipedia:Copyright_problems/2009_October_22 & Talk:Wendy_Doniger#Copyright_violations_and_use_of_Self_published_sources where I have discussed this.

In appropriate page lock

Also interesting to note is that administrator User:Akhilleus (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has locked the page from editing without paying any heed to copyright violations, personal and racial attacks. ( assuming good faith, he probably overlooked it ) The last edits resulting in a protection occur in the span of few minutes :

• (cur) (prev) 14:58, 25 October 2009 Akhilleus (talk | contribs) (20,014 bytes) (protection tag)
• (cur) (prev) 14:57, 25 October 2009 Akhilleus (talk | contribs) m (19,999 bytes) (Protected Wendy Doniger: Edit warring / Content dispute ([edit=sysop] (expires 14:57, 1 November 2009 (UTC)) [move=sysop] (expires 14:57, 1 November 2009 (UTC))))
• (cur) (prev) 14:51, 25 October 2009 Goethean (talk | contribs) (19,999 bytes) (remove bullshit sections per WP:BLP. Illiterate BJPers will not dominate this article.)
• (cur) (prev) 14:42, 25 October 2009 Meetoohelp (talk | contribs) (27,178 bytes) (If you find a sentence that matches one on another site please delete it singly. Page blanking is vandalism per Wiki policy. This article is short on facts. No warring please.)

For all you know, this "illiterate BJPer" may be a non-hindu and a editor with scholarly background. I request the admins to look into it.
Rgrds,
Spdiffy (talk) 05:28, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Without commenting on the specifics of the edits themselves, Akhilleus's protection seems fine to me. He/she appears to be an uninvolved admin and this is probably just a case of WP:WRONG. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 10:52, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Before commenting on the specifics of the edits, I'm bit dismayed that Spdiffy would WP:Canvass editors about this ANI report (see here, and here) but not have the courtesy to notify Goethean of the ANI report. Toddst1 (talk) 12:08, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

• Regarding the charges of racial attacks, this is nonsense. Bharatiya Janata Party is a political party, not a race. I see a WP:Civil issue at most here.
• The page protection seems well founded and I agree with RegentsPark that this is at worst a case of WP:WRONG. I see no need to change it.
• Regarding the removal of content, see WP:Coatrack as well as the discussion on the talk page. The Rutgers piece was presented as fact, rather than one writer's opinion and the removal seems justified and in line with our policies of WP:BLP, WP:NPOV, etc.

This seems to be a simple content disupute about a WP:BLP with some WP:Civil issues thrown in on the side of protecting WP:BLP. I think we're done. Toddst1 (talk) 12:17, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

• The copyvio may have been reported, but we don't address listings at WP:CP for 7+1 day after the listing is open. Accordingly, I've removed the infringement I've found. There may be more, and I will remove it if I see it, but so far I haven't found other copyvio text. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:29, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Second opinion?

I ran across this user last friday afternoon, apparently using their talkpage as a social networking page. No edits outside of their talkpage. I left them a note, and this is the response I got this . I don't want to bite the user, but Wikipedia is not Myspace.

Thoughts? Thanks. Syrthiss (talk) 12:02, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

No edits on their talkpage since they blanked it themself on the 23rd. I know it's a pattern, but they have now been warned. Keep an eye on it is what I suggest for now. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 12:45, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Despite the fact I couldn't understand his atrocious grammar I agree with Bwilkins in that you should watch him from the page blank.--SKATER ^Speak. 14:44, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Blanking means nothing: this page was blanked several times after each chat. I posted a warning.- Altenmann >t 15:38, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Scandinavia and user Keldjylland

On Scandinavia, a new user has repeatedly been removing sourced content presenting different views on the topic to impose his personal, unsourced view. The user joined Wikipedia one week ago, and as can be seen from his history, this is a single-purpose account with a strong POV.[64]. Until the German version of the Scandinavia was protected, he had been repeating the same POV-edits there, constantly being reverted by other users.[65]. The problem in a nutshell is this: Some authorities see Scandinavia as more limited than others. In common English usage, it usually included Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, and often Iceland as well. Reading newspapers in English dealing with topics such as health care, education, welfare state, ecology etc., these countries are usually lumped together as the Scandinavia countries. On the talk page, I've shown that virtually all guide books to Scandinavia in English includes Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. While a guidebook is not an authoritative source, if almost all guidebooks, news media etc use a definition, it hints towards what could be called common English usage. I am not arguing that we should present only this usage, but it should also be presented. Keldjylland's arguments center on common English usage being "wrong" and the result of "ignorant Americans"[66], [67]. At the moment we're just reverting each others' versions.Jeppiz (talk) 12:25, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

This appears to be a content dispute (and um, Scandinavia does not include Finland or Iceland traditionally). What exactly are you looking for from administrators? (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 12:40, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Legal threats

213.7.255.111 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) who is a block evading sockpuppet of indefed user Charls Andre (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has issued legal threats at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Charls Andre/Andreas Savvides here. Dr.K. logos 12:32, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I have advised them of this thread. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 12:37, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Ten minutes ago Toddst1 blocked the IP for 3 months. I agree with the block; obvious legal threat. Three months might be a bit long for an IP block. Tan | 39 13:08, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much gentlemen. Many thanks to Toddst1 in particular. Take care. Dr.K. logos 13:17, 26 October 2009 (UTC)