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BLP violations by User:Delicious carbuncle

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

Repeated BLP violations by the user in question, despite requests to stop and 3:1 consensus at WP:RSN against using a questioned source that fails WP:RS on a WP:BLP page.

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1. Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) adds controversial info sourced to website "www.truthaboutscientology.com" to WP:BLP page on Jamie Sorrentini, diff link
2. After talk page discussion, this issue was taken to WP:RSN. At the RSN discussion three editors, myself and two others, did not support use of this website as a source.
3. Fifelfoo stated, "Unreliable. Self-published; absence of recognised expertise; no editorial oversight."
4. Becritical commented, "There's no indication that the site is reliable."
5. Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) was shown a prior Request for Comment on the matter, where dispute resolution did not find consensus to use the website as a source, at Talk:Catherine_Bell/Archive_1#Request_for_Comments_-_Use_of_the_.22truthaboutscientology.22_website from 2007.
6. In a strange edit summary actually acknowledging there is no consensus supporting use of a questionable source in a BLP, Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) willfully violated BLP anyways, and added the questionable info back with the website source that fails WP:RS, see diff link.
7. I posted a note to the user's talk page, asking him to stop the BLP violations at the BLP page, and stated the issue would be reported if the disruptive behavior continued, see diff link.
8. Despite the 3:1 consensus against using this website source from the WP:RSN thread, and the WP:BLP issues involved as mentioned at the user's talk page - Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) proceeded to add this website source and questionable info to the BLP page, now a 3rd time, see diff link.

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Requesting a previously uninvolved admin take action here. The info violates WP:RS and violates WP:BLP. It is contentious, poorly sourced info about a BLP, and should be removed from this BLP page. Admin action should be taken with respect to the disruptive behavior of Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs); deferring to uninvolved admins to review. Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 07:52, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

• This looks also as though it has WP:ARBSCI implications, especially remedy 13 and remedy 4. --Jayron32 07:59, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Yes, however the user has not been previously notified of WP:ARBSCI by an uninvolved admin. In any event, it seems actionable simply under the repeated WP:BLP violations, itself. -- Cirt (talk) 08:03, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
    • DC has now been notified that all Scientology articles are under ARBCOM sanction. I have also removed the contested text per WP:BURDEN and WP:BLP pending resolution of the issue. I have no opinion over the reliability of the source nor of the appropriateness or relevence of the text to the article in question; the removal of the text is purely administrative as Wikipedia policy is clear that contested text of this nature is to be left out until the dispute is resolved. --Jayron32 08:24, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

He obviously meant the edit summary to be "there appears to be no consensus on NOT using this source and it is used on other BLPs" We really need to have a consensus for or against using it, it seems to be a wider issue. I see no indication of editorial oversight as I said before, and would not use it. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 09:06, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Reply by Delicious carbuncle

I am not a Scientologist nor an activist against Scientology. In fact, I have no particular interest in Scientology and have no strong opinion on the reliability of the source that seems to have sparked this tempest in a teapot, but I hope that this episode does get the attention of ArbCom as there is clearly something very wrong in the area of Scientology-related articles.

1. I identified Jamie Sorrentini as a Scientologist, citing a source that at that time was being used in other biographies of living people (I know this because I copied the citation from another BLP to save myself a bit of typing).
2. Literally within a minute of my adding that reference, Cirt had removed it, claiming it was not a reliable source.
3. After I point out on the article's talk page that Cirt has used that source themselves, they state "I have not used that source for years, after discussion on multiple talk pages and consensus against using that website as a source".
   1. The first statement is simply wrong, as this same source had been added by Cirt to articles as recently as August 2009, including BLPs (eg Barret Oliver). What is more , as recently as April, Cirt left the source in a BLP when they went on a spree of trimming information from BLPs of Scientologists.
   2. The second statement (about consensus) appears to be wrong, although it is repeated by Cirt in the WP:RSN thread that they started ("Consensus in the past at Scientology-related talkpages has been that it is not an acceptable source and fails WP:RS"). When Cirt provides a link to this consensus, it is a discussion from 2007 that is inconclusive and where Cirt (editing at that time as User:Smee) is in favour of using the source. Cirt later contradicts their earlier statements by stating that "There is not consensus now, there was not consensus then...".
4. Minutes after saying "there is not consensus now", Cirt posts in the RSN thread saying that I had gone against consensus and "violated BLP" by adding the information back into the article. Again, this was a source that was being used in other BLPs and the RSN thread was still very new.
5. In messages left on my talk page and elsewhere, Cirt uses the phrase "3:1 consensus" meaning that three editors have suggested that the source is not reliable and one (ostensibly me) believes it o be a reliable source. This appears to be a novel interpretation of consensus.

Although I was not aware of the extent of Cirt's involvement with that source, my feeling is that they were content to use it so long as it suited their purposes. Once I used it to label Jamie Sorrentini as a Scientologist (and note that there appears to be no dispute that Sorrentini was a member of the Church of Scientology), Cirt decided that it was no longer a reliable source. Only after this dispute began did Cirt remove the source from CoS-related articles. And only after being questioned about it did Cirt remove sections in BLPs that were left unsourced or poorly sourced by that removal.

To be plain, Cirt's purpose here and on Wikinews is to advocate against the Church of Scientology (hereafter referred to as CoS for brevity). Not to ensure a neutral point of view, but to identify, minimize, and add negative information about members of the CoS and the CoS itself. This is the sole reason for the puff piece Cirt created about an otherwise unremarkable minor actress named Jamie Sorrentini who has split from the CoS and become a critic. It does not suit Cirt's purpose to have her labelled as a Scientologist, hence the aggressive reaction to my edits, by which I hope Cirt has helped to make the real issue clear. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 02:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Comment: The simple issue here is of Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) adding a poor source website that fails WP:RS to a WP:BLP page, then when this was clearly disputed and consensus did not exist to re-add the source, repeatedly, to the WP:BLP page, Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) did so anyway, despite objections to the source from multiple editors at WP:RSN. -- Cirt (talk) 08:16, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

You can certainly fault DC for using a BLP to make his [WP:POINT}, but the point remains well made. Any admin should really take a good hard look at Cirt's history (including that of User:Smee) before closing this matter. The fact that scientologist probably deserve it is neither here nor there.120.23.73.50 (talk) 09:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Cirt, do you dispute anything that I wrote about your anti-Scientology POV-pushing, and the disturbing ownership of Scientology-related BLPs that you have demonstrated through your actions in this tempest in a teapot? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 13:05, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• There is quite a difference from adding the link in as an EL and using it as a reference in an article. Furthermore, the consensus at the RSN discussion is quite apparent and it seems to me that you are the only one arguing for this, even when multiple other users have clearly explained why it shouldn't be used. Also, you went ahead and added the information back in, twice, essentially starting an edit war. I agree that something needs to be done about this, especially in light of the ARBCOM sanction in the article area. Silverseren^C 19:52, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
  • You seem to be misunderstanding the situation, Silver seren - no one is arguing for the use of that source. I have agreed that it is not a reliable source, and it has been removed from all articles where it was used as a reference or as an external link. The issue is now Cirt's POV-pushing and anti-Scientology activities. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 21:47, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
    • DC, can I suggest that if you have specific BLP or NPOV concerns with entries edited heavily by Cirt that you attempt to engage him directly about those concerns first? To my pleasant surprise he immediately addressed two such concerns when I brought them up at the RS/N. See Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#BLP_Problems_remain_in_two_entries. Just a suggestion. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 22:02, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Scientology-related article fall-out

Rather than spread this out across WP:RSN, WP:BLPN, and WP:NPOVN, I am going to post items here to back up my allegations of Cirt's anti-Scientology agenda. I believe it is glaringly obvious, but some recent examples may be helpful. Bear in mind while reading this that Cirt is an admin who is very well-versed in our policies and guidelines, that my interest here is our neutral point of view (not Scientology), and why this thread was started. To make sense of this, it is also helpful if you know that Jamie Sorrentini is someone who has split from the Church of Scientology and is now publicly critical of that group.

Only after I used the source to cite that Jamie Sorrentini was a Scientologist did Cirt object to www.truthaboutscientology.com. Cirt repeatedly and falsely claimed there was consensus against using this source and inaccurately claimed that they had not used it "for years". In fact, there was no such consensus -- although there is now -- and Cirt had used this same source for the same purpose as recently as August 2009. More to the point, that source was left in biographies of living persons edited by Cirt, as this example from April 2010 shows. It was only after Cirt had started this thread and the RSN thread that they went through and began removing it from articles.

I fully support the removal of the www.truthaboutscientology.com source, but although Cirt is normally a very careful editor, their edits have left us with some problems:

• Heron Books - this article, which has a large Scientology footer on it and lots of Scientolgy categories, appears to exist only to label it as related to Scientology. Where it previously used that source to identify the founding headmaster as a Scientologist (i.e. a WP:COATRACK article), Cirt's removal has left it with no source at all for the connection to Scientology. Although untouched by this, Delphi Schools appears to be in a similar situation (and is similarly a coatrack article).
• Barret Oliver is now identified as a Scientologist, completely unsourced.
• Alexandra Powers continues to be in Category:American Scientologists despite the removal of the poorly sourced identification. This article could probably be speedily deleted for lack of notability.
• On Lee Baca, Cirt removes the reference (which was actually applied to the 'wife of the subject) but then takes another swipe to remove what appears to fairly innocuous material sourced to CoS sites. Heavy-handed removal of positive or neutral material about people associated with the CoS seems to be a pattern with Cirt. Note that Cirt failed to remove an unsourced statement about the Baca's salary.

Much of this could be attributed to plain sloppy editing, which would be unlike Cirt, but in each case it serves Cirt's purpose, which is to identify, minimize, and add negative information about the CoS and associated individuals. The flip side of that is creating articles about anti-Scientologists like Jamie Sorrentini and oddly controversial wine bars. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 21:33, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

• This has absolutely nothing to do with your actions explained above and is clearly an attempt of misdirection of the topic onto Cirt in order to avoid coming under further scrutiny yourself. Bringing up events from the past (events that are about content disputes no less) about another user in a discussion about your own conduct is not appropriate. Silverseren^C 21:43, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Silver seren, considering that all Scientology-related articles are under an ArbCom probation, I fully expect to be under a great deal of scrutiny for this. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:06, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

FYI, I asked Cirt to remove this material. It is trivial at best.Griswaldo (talk) 22:16, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

• Silver I can't make heads or tails of how you get from here to there. I think it is clearer than day that User:Delicious carbuncle inserted that reference specifically to make a WP:POINT -- and yes I think he ought to be admonished for violating WP:POINT. However, what he is now doing appears, again rather obviously, to be the larger point he was trying to make in the first place. By all means take issue with his methods, I think there are issues to take with them, but lets not pretend to misunderstand what is going on. Carbuncle, if you think there are serious NPOV, or BLP issues with some of Cirt's articles you should have posted to the NPOV/N or BLP/N and not inserted an obviously unreliable reference to one of his articles to illustrate your point. That said, I think at this point this is exactly the type of productive thing that can come out of this. I have already, myself, started addressing some of the issues. Please keep them coming.Griswaldo (talk) 22:11, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

As some one who has a lot of interaction with Cirt, due to our similar interests (though completely ideological perspectives) I am unsure of what your problem is. I suspect it because you believe him to be paid editor with COI. That being said I cant see what the problem is other than your irritated with him and assume things that may or may not (and knowing Cirt are not.) If you feel so strongly collect evidence in RFC/U but really I fail to see any issue apparent here. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 02:56, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I am not irritated with Cirt, nor do I believe them to be a paid editor (although that has been suggested by others, as the link you provided shows). My "problem" with Cirt is the campaign against the CoS which they are waging on Wikipedia. Cirt does a lot of good work in both an editorial and admin capacity, but it is time to put a stop to their rather blatant POV-pushing. As much of a problem as the pro-Scientology activists have been here, we should be looking for a neutral stance rather than having one of our admins using Wikipedia to advance their own ideological position. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 03:33, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

This is not the proper venue then, I but heads with him more often than not. Cirt does good work thus people at WP:NRM and balance him out quite adequately for NPOV. His extensive collection of work demonstrates the ability for neutrality. start an RF/U or drop the stick there is nothing here that needs immediate Admin attention. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 04:07, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Out of curiosity when do you butt heads with him? I agree that I'm not sure this is the right venue. RFC/U does seem more like what carbuncle is looking for unless he wants to just tackle the content issues in which case there are several applicable noticeboards, and I already mentioned two above.Griswaldo (talk) 05:08, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

While the noticeboards can help with individual articles, they are not intended to deal with a pattern of biased actions. I have placed notes on the relevant ones linking to this discussion. There is no need for an RFC/U as all Scientology-related articles and editors are already covered by the WP:ARBSCI ruling. I have notified ArbCom of this discussion. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 16:36, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

More fallout: Speedyclick.com & Doug Dohring

Two more examples of articles from which Cirt removed the www.trthaboutscientology.com source: Speedyclick.com & Doug Dohring. Speedyclick seems to be a defunct company that is "notable" for being started by two Scientologists (and sold two years later) and later being associated with spamming. It's another coatrack article:

Connections with Scientology The founders of SpeedyClick, Farid Tabibzadeh [4] and Shahab Emrani [5] [6] are both OT VIIIs, the highest currently attainable level of the Church of Scientology. Doug Dohring, Scientologist and CEO of NeoPets, was a significant shareholder and personal acquaintance of Tabibzadeh and Emrani[7][8]. Donna Williams, co-founder of NeoPets, worked as an administrative assistant at SpeedyClick for a short period of time. Like NeoPets, SpeedyClick was run according to Scientology business management techniques.

I am not sure how it is relevant that the former owners were Scientologists, but the source used is something called "Freewinds 45 (Scientology publication)". Note what Cirt said when questioned by another editor about {http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lee_Purcell&diff=401216959&oldid=400929558 removing Scientology sources] from an article just days ago: "In particular those primary sources are notoriously unreliable and will say whatever they wish to manufacture, in order to promote the parent organization. Get it?". So it is ok to source membership in the CoS to CoS publications, but not to cite that someone was the MC at an event?

In the external links section, there are links to what purport to be (but are likely not) the personal websites of the former owners, identifying them as Scientologists. Remember that this article is ostensibly about a company not about the former owners. The section that links those named individuals to spamming either relies on dead links or is fabricated since I could turn up nothing relevant at Spamhaus. (Finally, could someone remove the AdPro Auction spam from Speedyclick? I'd rather not touch anymore CoS-related articles in case people misunderstand my goals here.)

Doug Dohring (see Speedyclick.com excerpt above) would seem to have been quite successful in business, but you might not know that from our bio. Like the former owners of Speedyclick, he is linked to spamming with non-functional Spamhaus links. Using CoS primary souces, the article states this:

According to the Church of Scientology's magazine Source, Dohring completed the course OT VI[17], which, according to Scientology, means that he is progressing on a program to become "essentially a being able to operate free of the encumbrances of the material universe".[18]

I can see no reason for including that quote except to make Dohring appear foolish. Although they removed the one source that was under discussion, Cirt, an admin who claims to be very concerned about my possible violation of WP:BLP, managed to overlook all of the things that I have pointed out in articles that are in Cirt's primary editing area. I am sure if someone wants to start digging, it won't be hard to find much more evidence to back this up. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:27, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

The case is well made that Cirt is an attack account. I'm sure this will be dealt with now. Right?Bali ultimate (talk) 22:36, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

The above comment clearly violates NPA. Silverseren^C 23:10, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Why are you spinning all of this as if it was a Cirt problem? Did Cirt introduce those problems in the articles? (assuming for the moment that they are problematic, which I cannot judge yet). No, apparently he did not. He hardly edited these two articles at all, and the only edits I can find are those where he removes those external links, an action which you say is justified. What kind of twisted logic is this: he went and touched an article, uncontroversally fixing a problem, so now he's suddenly responsible for all remaining problems in that article, real or perceived, that he happened not to fix? If you feel those articles are problematic, then go and fix them, otherwise drop the stick, or this is going to become a boomerang for you. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:47, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it's a Cirt problem, but the references to publications such as Freewinds is certainly problematic. A fair few of the articles are just unsourced coatrack articles, and although I have every respect for Cirt, there does seem to be an ongoing issue as to whether or not in-house magazines such as Freewinds are actually good enough for references on BLPs. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 23:03, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

The simple cases are in the "Scientology-related article fall-out" section above. In Barret Oliver for example, Cirt did add the source. When Cirt removed the source, they left Oliver identified as a Scientologist with no sourcing at all. Cirt is an admin. An admin who claims to be very concerned about WP:BLP. Scientology is their primary editing area. Cirt reacted very aggressively to my sourced addition that someone was a Scientologist, yet when they edit BLPs they accidentally leave people identified as Scientologists with no sourcing at all? In multiple cases? So you are suggesting that Cirt is merely incompetent? Sometimes? But that the rest of the time they are fastidious? Really? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 23:12, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

So he committed an error of judgment by adding that external link (not "source"), and then he later fixed his own mistake by removing it again. So what? It still wasn't him who inserted the claims about Sc. membership in the article – that was in there unsourced even before his first edit. Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:18, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

• I echo Future Perfect. Are you seriously going to say that any user who edits an article must immediately notice anything bad that's in it and removed it or it is their fault that the bad stuff is in there? That is utterly ridiculous. It is not his responsibility to remove all of those things from the article. If he had been the one to add them in, that would be one thing. But he didn't. This is a completely frivilous section and an utter waste of time. ANI should not be used for content improvement. If you don't have any actual situations to report based on a user's conduct, then this discussion should be closed. Silverseren^C 23:09, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
  • It's not just that Cirt has left BLP violations inserted by other editors; this edit is as clear a BLP violation as any I've seen. At Talk:List of Scientologists Cirt insisted for a long while that anyone who had ever done a Scientology course should be listed as a Scientologist, because that is the definition of a Scientologist the Church of Scientology uses (to inflate their membership statistics). Listing people like Chaka Khan, Gloria Gaynor and Will Smith as Scientologists spawned several BLPN threads, and got Jimbo involved. Cirt wrote a complete puff piece on minor politician Kenneth Dickson (Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Kenneth_Dickson_(2nd_nomination)), because Dickson at the time stood against another candidate deemed too friendly to Scientology. Cirt has in many ways become more cooperative and proactive in recent months when there have been disputes, and has written some articles on Scientology of late with whose neutrality I was genuinely impressed, given Cirt's history in this topic area, but no one should pretend that Cirt's hands are entirely clean here. They are not. --JN466 01:54, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
    • That doesn't change the fact that ANI is not the place for this content discussion. Take it to the article talk pages or make a subpage somewhere, but it shouldn't be at ANI. Silverseren^C 04:57, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Case study number one: Michael Doven

Michael Doven is apparently an actor and a producer. His biography was created almost solely by Cirt. We actually get four sentences into the lede before Scientology is mentioned (if you discount the completely unnecessary reference to well-known Scientologist Beck in the second sentence). Like other BLPs of this type, it is a coatrack on which to hang information about the individual's connection to the CoS. There are four paragraphs in the section labelled "Career" - the first is fluff the rest are about Scientology. Those who doubt my accusations against Cirt should simply read this article and ask themselves if this is just a normal BLP or if it is something more. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 00:13, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Case study number two: Jamie Sorrentini

Jamie Sorrentini (the article involved with the start of this ANI thread) is an minor television actress. Most similar bios do not survive AfD, but they are usually created by publicists or the actors themselves, not by Wikipedia admins. It may be helpful to connect some dots here:

• 15 July 2010 - Marty Rathbun, well known critic of the CoS, posts on his blog a piece by "Jamie Sorrentini Lugli" about her split with the CoS.
• 15 July 2010 - Cirt creates Jamie Sorrentini
• 16 July 2010 - Cirt creates Daryl Wine Bar and Restaurant. The restaurant is named after one of the founding partners, Daryl Sorrentini, mother of Jamie Sorrentini, and herself a former member of the CoS.
• 8 October 2010 - Rathbun posts an entry entitled "Free Daniel Montalvo". According to Rathbun, Jamie Sorrentini and her husband Tiziano Lugli got Montalvo released from jail by posting his bail.
• 9 October 2010 - Cirt uploads the image of Daniel Montalvo uses on Rathbun's blog entry to Commons
• 9 October 2010 - Cirt creates an article on Wikinews entitled "Scientology defector arrested after attempting to leave organization". One of a long series of anti-CoS articles created by Cirt. There likely isn't a lot of positive news about the CoS, but nor is there a need to write negative pieces, except by choice.
• 22 October 2010 - Rathbun posts an update about Daniel Montalvo, including the information that his lawyer is John Duran.
• 23 October 2010 - Cirt uploads an image of John Duran (plus two cropped versions)
• 23 October 2010 - Cirt makes nearly a dozen edits to John Duran including adding the image from above.

I haven't taken the time to find further correspondence between Rathbun's blog and Cirt's edits, but it should be blindingly obvious by the above that Cirt is in lock-step with a well-known critic of the CoS. It should also be clear that Cirt's contributions on Wikinews need to be examined to get the whole picture. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 01:49, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

yah, and that proves nothing as far as WP:NPOV is concerned, because wikipedia is not concerned with your personal opinion, personal motivation, or even where you get your inspiration. Even WP:COI doesn't say "if you get your inspiration from" or "people with the following opinion/occupation can't...". All of those articles you mentioned are sourced, verifiable, and a few went through heavy discussion to validate their notability.Coffeepusher (talk) 07:08, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Comment: Yeah, I read the blog. That is in and of itself a non-issue. Actually, if from there I find BLPs that need quality improvement, that is a good thing. This is simply an attempt by Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) to deflect attention away from the user's BLP violations. -- Cirt (talk) 17:48, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

There is nothing for me to deflect. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 19:58, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Cirt's anti-Scientology articles on Wikinews

Cirt is also an admin on Wikinews. Here are some of their articles on Scientology, in the order that they appear in a listing of Wikinews articles created by Cirt:

• Author Amy Scobee recounts abuse as Scientology executive
• US federal judge and Florida judge clash over Scientology wrongful death case
• Scientology defector arrested after attempting to leave organization
• Australian Senate Committee recommends formation of Charities Commission
• Women reveal accounts of forced abortion in Scientology
• Author of My Billion Year Contract reflects on life in elite Scientology group
• Senator Xenophon of Australia calls for criminal investigation into Scientology
• Blown for Good author discusses life inside international headquarters of Scientology
• New book Blown for Good reveals details inside Scientology headquarters
• Court in France convicts Scientology of organized fraud
• Academy Award-winning film director Paul Haggis leaves Scientology

The eleven I have listed appear in the first twenty-five articles on that list. An article on US politician Sharron Angle could probably be included in that list, since Cirt includes a hyperlink back to their Wikinews article on allegations of coerced abortion. Note also that in the talkpage comments of the "forced abortions" article, two editors take issue with the closing paragraph of the article which is, inexplicably, all about Angle.

Note that some of those articles are interviews conducted by Cirt. Cirt's point of view is made very clear by this series of articles and the evidence I have thus far offered should show that their edits here are not neutral at all, but very much in keeping with that anti-Scientology viewpoint. I have no opinion about the appropriateness of their activities on Wikinews, but the time has come for their activities here to be dealt with. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:06, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

so if Cirt is not being neutral, how is he distorting the viewpoints that are being published in reliable sources, since that is the qualifying factor in WP:NPOV. from what I have seen of the reliable sources available Cirt is editing in regard to weight, not distorting the information presented in these sources one way or another, and verifiability. to prove that he is not neutral from wikipeida standards you will have to present that he is willfully distorting those reliable sources, or that he is suppressing the other viewpoint when presented with reliable sources...neither of which is accurate. I have personally seen Cirt defend pro-scientology edits when they are compliant with policy, and oppose critics who do not comply with wikipeida policy.Coffeepusher (talk) 17:04, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

this entire section is an obvious example of gaming the system to prove a point. The discussion was opened up regarding Delicious Carbuncle's use of an inappropriate source, soon thereafter s/he agreed that the source was not a reliable source and then since the discussion was going on, proceeded to use the ANI as a soapbox for his contempt of Cirt's editing in an attempt to discredit an editor. This argument strangely familiar to Justallofthem's, justanother's, Justahulk's, Alfadog's, etc. attacks on Cirt, up to and including the wikistalking of Cirt on Wikinews. At best this entire thread is a direct violation of WP:POINT, at worst sanctions have already been instated as a violation of "...refrain(ing) from any form of advocacy concerning any external controversy, dispute, allegation, or proceeding."Coffeepusher (talk) 17:23, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Comment: This is absurd. Many of my contributions to Wikinews are Featured Articles on that project. This is merely an attempt by Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) to deflect attention away from the user's BLP violations. -- Cirt (talk) 17:49, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Is anyone expressing agreement with DC that there is a problem needing admin attention here? If not, I recommend that this thread be closed/archived. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 18:31, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I have placed a comment on DC's talk page asking him to cease gaming the system.Coffeepusher (talk) 19:35, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Coffeepusher, on your user page you call Scientology "The fruity little club that scrambled Chef's brains". Unlike you, I have no dog in this race - my concern is neutrality. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 20:01, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

• This is the wrong venue. Article content can be dealt with on article talk pages, or the various noticeboards; if DC wishes to comment on Cirt's editing in general, he should prepare an RfC/U or go to WP:AE. --JN466 20:08, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

you are right, I do have that printed on my page...which is an allusion to what television show...what was that show called...it was a direct quote from what show that I have watched over and over and over...that show that insulted EVERYONE including 3 organizations I belong to and I still love it...that show that I own every single DVD from and even have a "oh my god they killed kenny" keychain that I have owned and used since the first season... so is it a political stance or a direct reference to a cartoon?Coffeepusher (talk) 20:10, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Note: Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) has failed to attempt any previous form of dispute resolution, content-based-RFC, discussion at article talk pages, discussion at my user talk page, or anything of the sort. -- Cirt (talk) 20:12, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Creation of articles from leaked classified documents

Because this topic is relevant to almost every noticeboard, I'm posting a brief incident report here. meco (talk · contribs) and Wnt (talk · contribs) have been spearheading the creation of encyclopedia articles based on leaked classified documents from WikiLeaks, using the leaked cables to support the majority of the article. This was recently discussed at Talk:United_States_diplomatic cables leak#List of vital sites, with both meco and Wnt ignoring the points raised in that discussion. Wnt took this a step further, and created a new article, Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative, which is primarily based on a classified, February 2009 cable from the U.S. State Department that lists foreign installations and infrastructure considered critical to U.S. interests. U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the information "gives a group like al-Qaeda a targeting list" and British prime minister David Cameron said the list damages the national security of the U.S., the U.K, and other countries. Because this list was uploaded from the classified leaked documents and lacks enough secondary sources for a standalone article, I redirected it to the United States Department of Homeland Security.[1] Wnt restored it soon after,[2] and I once again redirected it.[3] We have a problem that needs to be addressed by the community. Since the WikiLeaks cables are considered "raw data", they are primary sources. The content in question here has been described by the BBC as "one of the most sensitive",[4] and by CNN as "key to U.S. security".[5] According to meco and Wnt, this means Wikipedia must host an article on the subject and include classified content from leaked documents. I leave this matter for the community to decide, as this issue will continue to come up in the coming days as more documents are released. As Wikipedia editors, we need to show self-restraint and self-control when using leaked primary documents, and doubly so when we are dealing with leaked classified documents considered vital to global security. Viriditas (talk) 02:51, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Surely this is dealt with by WP:PRIMARY? Physchim62 (talk) 02:58, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I think Jimbo Wales and the Wikipedia legal team are looking into this. At least that is my reasonable guess. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 03:00, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

e/c The issues of "classified" and "leaked" and so on are irrelevant. For the most part at least, there's little doubt they're authentic. The problem is that they're primary sources -- and often consist only of ephemera (the views of a given foreign service officer, often quite junior, in one place and time). This makes them great stuff to be trolled through and synthesized by historians. Your average wikipedia editor? Not so much. But there's no need to reinvent the wikipedia wheel here. Treat them for what they are -- primary, non-peer reviewed sources. Which is to say, with great caution. Any article built entirely around these kinds of cables should be deleted on site. But judicious use of cables, properly attributed and handled by wikipedia's army of crack researchers, should be ok.Bali ultimate (talk) 03:01, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

There's also a COPYVIO problem, at least at Talk:United_States_diplomatic cables leak#List of vital sites: close paraphrasing of the BBC which exceeds acceptable levels (even for me, and I'm usually quite cool about such things). Physchim62 (talk) 03:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The redirect requires deletion. The immediacy of this issue requires further clarification by the community because it is going to keep happening over the next month. Obviously, we are here to write articles based on secondary sources, but Wnt is trying to get around this by briefly quoting a secondary to support the creation of a stub, and then filling the majority of the article up with content directly from the leaked, classified documents. In my opinion, Wnt (and others) are purposefully trying to game the policies and guidelines to write articles based solely on classified documents. That's why this requires administrator attention. Viriditas (talk) 03:05, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes that sort of thing is a problem and should not be tolerated. However, it's not only tolerated, it's supported, every day here. Wikipedia supports the invention of fake "topics." Go no.Bali ultimate (talk) 03:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

This isn't "gaming the system", but following the rules. An article has to have sources to meet the general notability guideline. So I came up with several such sources - more are easily available - and used some sources published by the agency that created the CFDI, and used a definitive primary source. This primary source in turn provides numerous search terms to find more secondary sources. Right now, people all over the world are writing news stories about many of the specific sites listed in this cable - about what was meant, whether it was out of date, what it's importance is. The primary source lets us find these sources and compile that expert analysis from secondary sources that people here say they value so highly. Wnt (talk) 07:13, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• The cables are PRIMARY. Articles written from PRIMARY sources are SYNTHESIS and ORIGINAL RESEARCH. Warn the editors; Speedy or AFD the articles depending on current deletions policy. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:09, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The leaked documents are leaked! Even if it was Wikipedia's responsibility to safeguard U.S. security (and it isn't), it is too late for that. They are however primary sources however, and should be treated as such - at best as a source for quotes to add a bit of colour to proper reporting of what reliable secondary sources say. Anything else is likely to be OR from people perhaps a little over-enthusiastic with their interpretation. This isn't our job either. Topics need good verifiable secondary sources to justify creation. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:12, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. Writers do have ethical obligations in every field, and in an encyclopedia, the policies and guidelines are based on such obligations: Why should we use reliable sources? Why should we be careful writing about BLP's? Why do we care about a NPOV? These are all ethical problems requiring responsibility, self-control and restraint. As I said in the discussion linked above, we're not here to write articles in the vein of The Anarchist Cookbook. Viriditas (talk) 03:28, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

As a Brit, I have no more 'ethical problems' with dealing with this in a neutral manner than I would if the leaks came from anywhere else, but this is beside the point. Nothing written in Wikipedia is going to alter the fact that the documents 'have' been leaked. If we report this issue in a responsible manner (i.e. using verifiable secondary sources), nothing will appear that isn't out there already. Even if the odd bit of 'primary' were to be included in an article, this isn't releasing anything that isn't already known. I think it highly likely that anyone intent on using the leaked documents for hostile purposes will acquire their own copies, rather than looking for snippets on Wikipedia. I think are normal policy (properly applied) is quite adequate - though perhaps we need to remind people about BLP policy on naming non-notable people, if for no reason than that is ignored too often anyway. The 'Anarchist Cookbook' issue seems a bit of a red herring to me, as 'articles in the vein of' it would violate WP:NPOV. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:39, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

In any case WP:HOWTO covers the case of The Anarchist Cookbook! Well, it used to... Physchim62 (talk) 03:44, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

AndyTheGrump, the red herring here is the notion that because "the documents have been leaked", there's nothing we can do. That isn't true. We only write encyclopedia articles based on good secondary sources, and we do so carefully and with good judgment. Just as we don't tell people how to make weapons or hack into the Pentagon, we don't provide them with a classified list of sensitive installations and say, "do with it what you will, it is out of our hands, we're just Wikipedia editors." What you are forgetting is that WikiLeaks provides these documents to journalists, who do have ethical obligations and are supposed to be professionals. The raw data was not meant for use by Wikipedia editors who may not, and who in your case, refuse to recognize and accept this great responsibility because of a refusal to act professionally. We've got the ethical foundation in the policies and guidelines, and nothing in them says we write articles with an attitude of "well, that's that, it is out of my hands, I don't care." Just the opposite, in fact. Why do we care about accuracy? Why do we care about getting BLP's right? Why do we care about copyright? Viriditas (talk) 03:54, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Half the pintards out there think Wikileaks and this site are linked; let's not give them any more fuel. HalfShadow 03:56, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Reply to Viriditas: I'll not comment on whether I rate the ethics of the average journalist any higher than the average Wikipedia editor, but I will point out that you are wrong about access to the Wikileaks documents. Anyone can download them. As for your comments about me refusing to recognise responsibilities, I consider it unworthy of response as a gross distortion of what I wrote. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:02, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The stuff released by WikiLeaks has been vetted to make sure it can't do any damage to lives of people. What is now going on is that the US government is finding herself in the same boat as e.g. the Chinese government is in when issues regarding dissidents/Tibet etc. are raised. They will invoke national security as a real life version of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Count Iblis (talk) 04:05, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I know; funny as hell, innit? HalfShadow 04:12, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) That is 100% not the issue. The issue is that this is basicly a bunch of unfiltered emails (i know, "cables", whatever, same thing). You can't source a Wikipedia article to a bunch of unfiltered emails. The reason we don't allow primary sources like this to be the main source of references for an article is that there is no analysis of those sources. Wikipedia cannot be the first place of analysis. If as person wanted to, they could simply cherrypick specific cables to use as references and build a case to "prove" anything they wanted to in a Wikipedia article. We don't do that here. Its not the role of Wikipedia. It is the role of reliable secondary sources like newspapers, magazines, peer-reviewed journals, or respectable book-publishing scholars to weed through these cables and then report on what they find. Only after someone else, outside of Wikipedia, has assigned meaning to these cables should that information be used in a Wikipedia article. Right now, its a bunch of unfiltered communications and none of us has any idea what ANY of it means. So we shouldn't use it in articles, period. When the BBC does a major piece on some aspect of something they found, and researched, and checked into, and confirmed, and THEN reported on; we use the BBC source. But not before that. --Jayron32 04:18, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Yup. Normal policy applies. No synthesis. Use WP:RS, Work within WP:BLP (for a change...) If some idiot wants to compile a list of 'potential terrorist targets' using the cables, it won't get on Wikipedia, not because it is a 'security threat' (which it is unlikely to be, for the reasons already given), but because it isn't acceptable content. End of story. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:25, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• All of our normal policies should apply here. For there to be individual articles on any of the specific documents leaked by Wikileaks, there needs to be a certain amount of significant coverage in secondary sources about those documents. However, on the other side of the field, if there are enough secondary sources to qualify an article for inclusion as a stand-alone article, arguments based on it being about classified material are irrelevant. Once released by a source, classified material becomes public. The source in this case is Wikileaks. Once released, the material is free to be used by both newspapers and any other group, since it has devolved to public information upon its release.

To summarize: articles need enough secondary sources to qualify under our policies and guidelines. If a topic does qualify, arguments for deletion of said articles because they are classified information should be considered irrelevent. Silverseren^C 04:38, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I would like to note that reprinting any material that is in the "cables" released could be possibly be covered under the Espionage_Act_of_1917 and could lead to repercussions against Wikipedia. All editors should be careful to not jeopardize the project in such a way. No matter who all has done so before it could still be done on a case by case basis and people and organizations fined and/or jailed if it is determined to be. The Espionage Act has already been upheld to not violate First Amendment rights of free speech since it involves the act itself, not necessarily the material. And reproducing classified material wouldnt be justified just by saying "well, they did it too". I dont know where the whole WikiLeaks thing is going to go, but I dont think we should get involved in any way with it. Wolfstorm000 (talk) 04:41, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Ooh! Scary legal threat. Edison (talk) 06:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

No, that's not how it works. The original releasing agent of the material is liable for the "damage" caused by its release. The releasing agent in this case is Wikileaks. Thus, the government is entirely able to sue and/or prosecute Wikileaks under the Espionage Act. However, since Wikipedia has nothing to do with Wikileaks, we are not in liability with them. Furthermore, like I said above, once information is released by an agent, that material then becomes public and other sources that utilize that material are not liable for holding and/or re-releasing it. This is why newspapers and other news sources are able to discuss and re-release the classified information, because they are a secondary agent that had the information after it was made public. It falls under the First Amendment of the Constitution, namely, freedom of the press. And, because Wikipedia uses news reports to make our article, making us a tertiary source, we also fall under freedom of the press and are that much more removed from the original documents. If the government had the audacity to try and prosecute Wikipedia, it would also have to prosecute every news agency that ever made an in-depth news report on the documents, since it is their information that we are utilizing for our articles. Silverseren^C 04:50, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not give legal advice. Please don't. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:50, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I was expecting to argue this issue at AfD, not ANI. We haven't even had time to properly start an edit war! I must strongly object to the continual bait-and-switch between policy issues and legal issues on this topic. There is nothing illegal about discussing "classified" information that has been widely disseminated on web and news sites all over the world. So then we get into arguments about "primary sources" - but those are policy arguments, which at most would be used to try to excuse specific changes within the article. And when those run out, we run into "ethical" arguments. But I'd like to know what kind of ethics it that demands us to pretend that we are protecting secret information, at the expense of actually abandoning WP:NOTCENSORED like it was yesterday's news.

Now as for specifics, I should point out, that in the article I created, I have secondary news sources as well as the primary source; and the secondary sources attest to the apparent authenticity of the primary source. Now some people on Wikipedia, especially when they're trying to promote a point of view, like to disparage primary sources; nonetheless, there is nothing that gives a person a better idea of what is in a list of things than the list itself. And do note that the primary source (the 2008 Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative list) is being used as a source about itself, which is the most kosher use for such a source. Wnt (talk) 04:53, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Let's suspend legal and ethical issues for the moment. Please read WP:PRIMARY; it will explain everything. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 05:04, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:PRIMARY would be useful if only primary sources had been used in the article being discussed. However, as can be seen], there were secondary sources involved. Only a few, admittedly, but that means that it should have been taken to AfD. A redirect edit war was not the way to go. Silverseren^C 05:07, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll add that my article is about the "Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative". The primary source that I cite contains text that identifies itself, as confirmed by secondary sources, as the "Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative (CFDI) list". So I am using this primary source as a statement about itself. I fully understand that there are very problematic uses of the cables as primary sources - for example, the widely disseminated news stories that China wouldn't mind if South Korea took over North Korea, based on a leaked cable which quotes a South Korean defense minister stating that opinion. But that's not what I did here. Wnt (talk) 05:28, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I think one of the other issues is that the secondary coverage isn't really solid enough to warrant a stand-alone article. Of course, like i've been saying, that means that it should have been taken to AfD, not just automatically redirected. Silverseren^C 05:39, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Agenda driven editing is not good, unless the agenda is to create high-quality encyclopedic content. If editors are out to make a WP:POINT by creating lots of original research articles based largely on primary sources, not only should those articles be deleted, but the editors causing massive disruption in that way ought to be blocked. Editing in such a volume as to win a dispute by overwhelming the other side, in contravention of policy, is strictly prohibited. Jehochman ^Talk 04:57, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether I'm being addressed by Jehochman above, so I'll specify I don't think that I'm the one trying to "win a dispute by overwhelming the other side" when I make up a new article. I feel like I'm the one being overwhelmed by accusations of policy violations, being unethical, and being threatened that the ancient legal evil that attacked Eugene Debs has crawled out of Lake Totenkopf and is about to start chasing Wikipedia editors. And the agenda foremost on my mind when creating the list section of the article was to take a confusing jumble of unfamiliar terms and convert it into a sea of pretty blue Wikilinks so that you could look up and understand all the sites and networks of pipelines and cables. I should be a poor inclusionist if I did not observe, by the way, that due to unreasonably restrictive standards, Wikipedia's coverage of corporations is so poor that even many corporations identified by the U.S., a foreign country in their lands, as critical to the U.S. economy, have not been deemed worthy to have their own Wikipedia articles. I'll also say there is nothing shameful about an agenda of using the cables to add facts to Wikipedia articles. We've just been handed a treasure trove of inside information such as the world has rarely seen. Yeah, it should have been kept secret, but it wasn't, and now we have new information about all kinds of topics. That's as conventional of an encyclopedic agenda as there is, and it is also as radical as Wikileaks: because the premise of SIPRNet is that 1 in 500 people is entitled to know the truth, and the rest aren't. Wnt (talk) 05:57, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

To say something about your statement "I'll also say there is nothing shameful about an agenda of using the cables to add facts to Wikipedia articles." What you are doing by adding things straight from the cables to articles is to confuse data with analysis. As they stand right now, the cables are basically raw data. We have no idea what they mean. Random statements taken from those cables, out of context from the entire situation that generated them, serves no purpose at Wikipedia. What needs to be done is someone who knows what they are doing, and is an expert in either investigative journalism or international relations or both needs to sit down with the cables, sort through them and generate a reliable story that lets us know exactly what they mean and can explain why they think that. Wikipedia is not the place to do that. When John Doe in a cable says something, I don't know what he means. I don't know what its in response to, I don't know how it relates to other parts of the world the cable refers to, but is not covered by this current data dump. I don't know shit. I know he said what he said, but I have no means to put it into context such that I can extract meaning from it enough to use it appropriately in a Wikipedia article. THAT is why we need secondary sources. Secondary sources do the hard work necessary to provide the context necessary to extract meaning from primary sources. The cables themselves are useless until they are analyzed. --Jayron32 06:07, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The primary source was not being used to interpret anything in the article. It was being used to source a list of infrastructures. See my response below. Silverseren^C 06:34, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

However, we're discussing a single article that was created that did have some secondary sourcing. The question I have is why the article wasn't taken to AfD. The efforts by Viriditas to redirect it seem to be against policy. Silverseren^C 05:05, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

People often mistake "Articles for deletion" as a delete/keep only discussion, when there are other options such as redirection. This is probably covered more broadly at ANI. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 05:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Can I suggest we (or rather you - I'm off to bed) stick to discussing the general principle here, rather than getting drawn into debates over specific articles. As I see it, since those advocating 'restraint' are really only suggesting that we don't engage in OR, and the majority of remaining comments are saying much the same thing, we are close to consensus anyway: Work within policy, properly applied. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The problem may lie within the interpretation of said policy, rather than the policy itself or the work involved in applying it. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 05:11, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree with that, but it also stands to reason that policy was not followed by Viriditas. The whole edit war of redirection, unredirection, and redirection should have never happened. I put more blame on Viriditas for this because s/he should have followed policy and taken the article to AfD. Silverseren^C 05:43, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

<Undent>My two cents: WP:Primary and WP:BLPPRIMARY could usefully be edited to prevent use of primary sources that could reasonably put people in physical danger, even if those primary sources are available elsewhere. BLPPRIMARY already says: "Do not use public records that include personal details, such as date of birth, home value, traffic citations, vehicle registrations, and home or business addresses." So why do that but allow use of secret records that could get people killed?Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:20, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

See my comments above. The reason we don't use primary sources isn't because they are secret or harmful. Its because, without the acompanying analysis provided by secondary sources, we have no way to assign meaning to things that are in primary sources. Secondary sources (news outlets, scholars, things like that) will read through the cables, analyze them, work with other known information to construct a story about what they all mean, verify their story, confirm it independently, and THEN report it. That sort of work is what is needed before we can use information. Raw data (and that's all the leaked cables are) isn't of much use to anyone unless we can put the raw data into context. We can't put them into context ourselves, that's the textbook definition of WP:OR. We wait for someone reliable to do the work to put them into context, then we report what THEY find. That's why we don't use primary sources. It has nothing to do with rights, or privacy, or secrecy, or liability. Its all about the core purpose and values of Wikipedia. This is a WP:5P issue and nothing else. --Jayron32 06:28, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

However, like i've been saying above, the article did have secondary sources, so this continued throwing around of WP:PRIMARY is unfounded. If you actually look at the article, you'd see that the primary source was only being used to source the list of infrastructures. ALL of the other sources in the article were secondary. Silverseren^C 06:32, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm still talking in the general, not the specific. If your article doesn't meet the problems I laid out, then I'm not talking about you. People, however, keep trying to say that these cables are somehow useful to Wikipedia. They aren't. They are next to worthless until someone else comes along and tells us what they all mean. Insofar as you have found someone that did that, you may be OK. (I am not saying that your secondary sources are good, and I am not saying they are bad, I am just saying, you know!). The problem is that people are expressing the belief that the cables themselves are good sources for Wikipedia articles. --Jayron32 06:36, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:Primary: "Primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia....."

Jayron32: "we don't use primary sources."

Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:51, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) No, we don't use primary sources to build an article around. Primary sources are useful in limited ways. For example, if we have an article about, say, an important chemical process, while the main text of the article is cited to reliable chemistry texts which discuss the process and its applications, it is quite appropriate to also include the primary publication that introduced the reaction as a supplemental source. Likewise, using the cables as supplemental references in articles which are reliably sourced to good, solid secondary sources may be appropriate. However, the use of the cables as the sole or main source to build an article is a bad idea. You conveniently left out of your quote from WP:PRIMARY above "...but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them." and later " Do not make analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about material found in a primary source. Do not base articles entirely on primary sources." (bolding original). The problem is claiming that the cables can be used to write Wikipedia articles. They cannot. They can be used to supplement articles in very limited application. --Jayron32 07:00, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Some cables are primary sources, essentially telegrams from an individual official back to Washington. But others are "scenesetters" compiled by a group of embassy personnel to brief a visiting high-level official. These seem comparable to a secondary source in nature. Whether primary or secondary, they will often turn out to be useful - for example, a quote from a foreign politician will often be quite informative in itself, without further explanation, simply as an insight into his opinions. Wnt (talk) 06:58, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm, do WP:VALINFO and WP:USEFUL apply here? Whose Your Guy (talk) 07:18, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Jayron, as I pointed out above, there are certain public record primary sources that Wikipedia currently prohibits BOTH for basing a whole article on, and ALSO for mere supplementation purposes. I'm saying that leaked national security info should be added to the list. Otherwise, clever editors will find a way to use it as supplementation instead of as the core of an article.Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:23, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Leaving out "private data" from an article already risks running into censorship, but the hope is that it is not really encyclopedically relevant anyway. It is a prohibition on specific types of facts of low importance. Your proposal is to ban information according to the route by which it reached us, regardless of its (generally large) overall significance. We should not allow the small errors of one policy to turn into the larger errors of the next until we end up ruling out coverage of major world events. Wnt (talk) 07:37, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Anythingyouwant, adding "national security" to the list of things to exclude is a very bad idea. Many governments around the world use those two words (or one of many commonly-known related terms) to suppress all kinds of information, sometimes for no understandable reasons at all. (Unless you consider "someone with a lot of power doesn't want this known" to be an understandable reason.) If you think we have enough of a headache with ethnic/nationalist squabbles on Wikipedia, allowing "national security" to be a reason not to use a primary source will make those squabbles feel like playful noogies. The best solution in any case which may involve those two words is to continue to use such sources (per our guidelines, of course) unless explicitly told not to by the Foundation: since they're the ones who'd be on the front lines in any tangle involving freedom of speech vs. national security, our best course would be to defer to their decision on the matter, not matter how stupid it is. -- llywrch (talk) 18:54, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I've raised the issue at Wikipedia_talk:No_original_research#FollowIng_reliable_sources.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:31, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

• I agree with most of the editors above that the classified or leaked status of the cables is not relevant for us (we are not the US government), but their status as primary sources is: they are "accounts written by people who are directly involved, offering an insider's view of an event", as described at WP:PRIMARY, and have not been subject to editorial oversight. As such, articles should not be based exclusively on them.  Sandstein  07:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

In covering the documents in question, CNN announced that it "is not publishing specific details from the list, which refers to pipelines and undersea telecommunications cables as well as the location of minerals or chemicals critical to U.S. industry."[6] However, this did not stop User:Wnt from citing the CNN article and publishing specific details from WikiLeaks. This is most certainly relevant for us, as this is incredibly poor editorial behavior that is not condoned by Wikipedia. Here we have reliable secondary sources that admittedly refuse to print the details, and yet we also have Wikipedia editors who ignore the secondary sources and decide to publish the details from the primary sources anyway, because they know better than the secondary sources. Furthermore, Silverseren's laughable claim that "the primary source was only being used to source the list of infrastructures. ALL of the other sources in the article were secondary" is highly and purposefully deceptive. Wnt's original article was 24,876 bytes, of which only 3,664 bytes were sourced to one secondary source (CNN), with the rest coming from WikiLeaks. The rest of his sourcing was a combination of original research and misuse of primary sources. A later revision by Wnt added a BBC source and a Times Online source printed by The Australian, expanding the article a little more, but with the majority of the article based on primary sources that CNN refused to publish. So, we have secondary sources that refuse to publish sensitive classified information that a Wikipedia editor feels they can safely ignore. Wnt should be blocked for doing this. Viriditas (talk) 07:56, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I slept through this part of the debate, but I just want to say that the New York Times is close to the bailiwick of Joseph Lieberman, who has been running around intimidating companies like Amazon.com by various methods. I feel like they've been intimidated rather than educated. When I read the list I see nothing that looks like an ingenious opportunity to do harm that al-Qaida would never have thought of --- to the contrary, I suspect that many of these sites are on the list because they've been the targets of previous terrorist attack. That's a big supposition of course, assuming that things like the Internet cable cuts in previous years were in fact attacks, but in time as the secondary sources are added for each of the items on the list, the truth should become apparent. Wnt (talk) 15:01, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Here, i'll break down the sources that were used for you. There were the news articles (this, this, this, and this). There was a book (this). There was a website - Army Technology (this). There were two company links, ones that were mentioned in the article (this and this). There were two links to Department of Homeland Security informational pages (this and this). And there was the link to the cable document from Wikileaks (this). That was the entiriety of the sources.

Of these references, the department of homeland security ones were used primarily in the lede as an intro. Then three of the four news articles were used to make the paragraphed content section. The rest of the article was the list of infrastructures. The Wikileaks cable link was attached to the opening sentence of the list, which stated what the list was of. The company links, the other news link, and the website link were all attached to individual things in the list.

Now, can you tell me again what was wrong with this article? If you are going to say not enough secondary coverage, then fine. But that means you should have taken the article to AfD, as any other editor would do when following process. Instead, you started a battle of redirection with the article. For reference, this version was the one I was lookng at while making this comment. Silverseren^C 08:19, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The article itself was created out of process, when its original proposal was rejected on the parent talk page (linked in the first comment). Wnt ignored that consensus and created it anyway, along with a detailed list of sensitive sites -- even after the single, solitary secondary source he relied upon rejected the detailed list.[7] This doesn't require an AfD, it requires a behavioral readjustment. Here, we have Wnt ignoring the discussion which rejected the proposed article in the first place, and ignoring the secondary source he himself relied upon to create the article, which also rejected the detailed list. The sources you refer to above aren't even worth discussing as no article on Wikipedia could ever be created with them. Viriditas (talk) 08:34, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

If you would actually read my previous comment, you would notice that there were four news articles. Yes, CNN says that it won't disclose any specifics, but the other three (this, this, and this) do specifically discuss the items in the list. Not all of them, of course, but quite a few, including the various pipelines and materials in various countries. Presumably, CNN didn't put any specifics because it is a US paper and its protecting its own interests. The other three are not US-based, so they don't have a problem discussing things. Silverseren^C 09:21, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Which reliable secondary sources support the subject of the article, Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative, and which support the existence of the list items in whole or in part? That's right, the answer is none. Viriditas (talk) 09:33, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Aside from the issues with WP:PRIMARY, I really don't see any problems here. The requirement is that content is verifiable, and – for better or for worse – these cables have been leaked and are now publicly available. I notice that some editors above are making, "Let's not make Wikipedia look too connected with Wikileaks," type comments. These have no relevance to our content policies and should be discounted. WP:CENSOR is the standard which applies here. ╟─TreasuryTag►pikuach nefesh─╢ 08:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Synthesis is the relevant policy. While they are editors, Wikipedia editors are not political scientists and political sociologists. Fifelfoo (talk) 08:39, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• What exactly is being synthesized in the article, the list? Silverseren^C 09:18, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Comment: The WP:AFD process is the appropriate method to deal with assessing community consensus regarding notability and whether Wikipedia should have article(s) on this. -- Cirt (talk) 08:53, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Except we've already had three discussions on this topic, with the editors above refusing to acknowledge the most basic policies and guidelines supporting article creation and development. Now, we can look forward to a fourth discussion to make it "official"? Sounds like unnecessary bureaucracy. Viriditas (talk) 09:35, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Looks 100% fine to me. We have notability established in multiple reliable sources, critical coverage in reliable sources. The classified nature of the primary source is irrelevant. And primary sources are not disallowed, simply to be treated with care. As third party RS's have identified this as the CFDI list then it can be legitimately used to source the contents of the list. There is no issue here. --Errant ^(chat!) 09:58, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Could you please name a single reliable secondary source that supports the article subject as found in the current title, as well as a reliable secondary source that supports the contents of the list? I looked and did not find any. This appears to be a serious problem. Viriditas (talk) 10:17, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

*floods* Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. I can go for 100 if you want. Want me to? :) Silverseren^C 10:31, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Viriditas, I think you misunderstand the point of WP:PRIMARY. The list is identified as what it puports to be according to reliable sources, the initiative exists as recorded in reliable secondary sources. Now, there is the issue to discuss whether to include the actual list in entirety, and in fact I would tend to agree with not including the list. My thinking there is not to do with primary sourcing (primary sourcing is absolutely fine if no OR is conducted, and notability is already established), but rather to do with having an unwieldy list sourced to a marginally verified document. But the notability of the article topic is, I think, not in question --Errant ^(chat!) 11:58, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I have misunderstood nothing. There are no reliable secondary sources about the subject. All of those sources linked above are about WikiLeaks and regional installations that were named on leaked secret cables from the State Department, as well as reactions to the leak from officials. Reliable secondary sources about the Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative, also referred to as the "Department of Homeland Security list on overseas sites" are simply non-existent. So, my original creation of a redirect to the DHS was entirely supported. What we are seeing are attempts by editors to create new encyclopedia articles with every new classified document released from WikiLeaks, even when the coverage amounts to little to nothing. Per WP:RS, "sources should directly support the information as it is presented in an article, and should be appropriate to the claims made. If a topic has no reliable sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." There are no sources on the topic of the Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative, only passing mentions to it in sources about leaked documents from WikiLeaks. I can't see it being anything more than a redirect to the DHS. Viriditas (talk) 12:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Ok, you may have a point there. Although there is sourcing pre-dating the leaks. So; take it to AFD and make the case. --Errant ^(chat!) 12:11, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

There seems also to be a problem also with WP:NOT#NEWS here. Just because WP is not censored, doesn't justify us being used as a dumping ground for material taken straight out of a primary source on the backs of a few news clippings. This 'mass creation' of articles in such a fashion might satisfy a few egos in the competition to create new articles, but it seems to me not to be the route to proper encyclopaedic content. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:43, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Because of a considerable amount of good editing done by Silverseren recently, the sourcing of the article has been strengthened considerably. Many thanks. Wnt (talk) 16:52, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

 Administrator note In reviewing the sources at Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative, there are many good sources, but there is also a large amount of information that is either unsourced or sourced to an inappropriate primary source. I have left a note at that article's talkpage[8] that the primary source should be removed. Anyone who wishes may remove it, along with any other information in the article which is not sourced to a reliable secondary source (such as respected news and journal articles). --Elonka 06:22, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

• It didn't work. I tried to carry out the consensus opinion, but have met with tag-team efforts of Selver seren and Meco. I will stand aside and let someone else have a go. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 11:49, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Careful. That source and its use seems to meet the requirements of WP:PRIMARY - people who yell "that is a primary source and must removed immediately" I find usually miss the fact that primary sources can be used :) --Errant ^(chat!) 11:54, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I second that - I was surprised and disappointed to read Elonka's comment. I should note by the way that the sum total of people who have want to keep a primary source and happen to be working on an article do not constitute a "tag team". Edits like this are essentially original research. I want to keep the list in full agreement with the source I took it from, not revise it based on personal opinions. Also I should add that since the CFDI list was compiled by DHS working with other government agencies and quoted in an official cable requesting further input, I would suggest it may actually be a secondary source anyway. Wnt (talk) 13:39, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Primary sources are easy to misuse. In the case of non-controversial information, a primary source is occasionally appropriate. But as soon as information is challenged, the requirement for sourcing becomes more stringent. --Elonka 14:40, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Ah, see, that is subtely different from what was originally contended :) However, WP:V simply requires a reliable source. Primary sources cand be reliable and useful if used with care purely for factual information; in this case sourcing the content of the list to the list is exactly the sort of careful use allowed. --Errant ^(chat!) 14:44, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

 Administrator note The use of {{adminnote}} should be severely restricted. It should only be used for clearly administrative purposes. In particular, using it in what amounts to a ex cathedra statement in a content dispute is entirely inappropriate. Seriously. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:03, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

We should edit these articles as we would any other articles and respond to calls for censorship of the content just as we would were the calls coming from a government like PRC. We don't need to carry the water of a government which conflates journalism and treason. The biggest issue I see here is WP:PSTS. We can't build articles on primary sources, but we can add details which other secondary sources skipped over. For instance, if the NYT does a story on the vatican complaining about Irish priests being brought to justice for child abuse but doesn't publish the cable, we can excerpt it. But if nobody writes about some cable between the US ambassador to Luxembourg we can't very well construct an article over it. This is not rocket science. Protonk (talk) 18:07, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

On Viriditas and this article

Viriditas recently placed this notice on Meco's talk page. It seemed a bit houndish to me, but I decided to take a moment to investigate his claims of consensus. The article's talk page doesn't seem to tell much, since there is very little discussion at all and that can hardly be called consensus. But the cable's talk page discussion was quite revealing. It seems to be Viriditas arguing extremely harshly about not having the article exist, with Meco and Cyclopia arguing against him. Furthermore, this discussion is not about making a separate article, but about having a section on the vital lists in that article. Also, Meco perfectly summarized the statements from editors in the discussion here. It seems to me that this entire ANI discussion is him being a bit pointy. I still have no idea why he doesn't just put the article up at AfD. Silverseren^C 09:46, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

This is my last edit to this thread. Feel free to close. Viriditas (talk) 12:13, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

But don't leave now. There's more to come! I'm sure your perspective will still be appreciated. __meco (talk) 13:21, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh, there's more to report on the surreptitious machinations of Viriditas (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) in this conflict. Let me serve you a few items:

1. At the top of of the section to which this section is an addendum, Viriditas begins their "incident report" by asserting that "meco and Wnt have been spearheading the creation of ...". Now, if one checks the edit histories of both United States diplomatic cables leak, its talk page, Talk:United States diplomatic cables leak, and the article which Wnt created, Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative, this user's first post on either of the first two was this edit to the article at 18:26 (and this is their only edit to that article) adding a wikilink to the article which they had begun writing at 06.45 on Dec 8. Wnt's first post on the talk page was this post at 23:22 on Dec 8. I.e. by all likelihood Wnt knew nothing of the ongoing conflict and wasn't involved in spearheading anything. Unless Viriditas knows something that isn't immediately apparent, Wnt's role in this is simply a gross misrepresentation of the facts. (correction: according to Talk:Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative Wnt cofirms having had casual knowledge of the ongoing discussion. However, this information was given at 05:14 on Dec 9, so it should not impinge significantly on Viriditas' "spearheading" claim vis-á-vis Wnt. __meco (talk) 15:06, 9 December 2010 (UTC))
2. On Talk:United States diplomatic cables leak Viriditas repeatedly accuses me of disregarding consensus and making unilateral moves. Viriditas claims that five editors have told me off, but this I'm supposed to ignore in cavalier fashion. In this section I make a summary of the the preceding discussion ("perfectly summarized", according to Silver seren above), where I show that Viriditas' asserted consensus is no such thing, i.e. again a blatant misrepresentation.
3. Then, finally there's the matter of the redirect and the section which I wrote for United States diplomatic cables leak on the cable detailing facilities worldwide that are critical to US national security. The section I wrote was taken out of the article by Viriditas, who claimed I was violating consensus against having this section [I have copied it to the talk page where it can be easily read on yellow background). Obviously floundering in their frantic attempts at having this information kept out of the article, Viriditas then becomes highly "creative": at 14:42, exactly two hours after I had added the section to the article[9], Viriditas self-appropriates unilateral emergency powers and makes a drastic re-organization of the article—purportedly to reduce its by claimed unmanageable size—moving all discussion of substantive cables content from the article (reducing its size from 166kb to 43kb) to Contents of the United States diplomatic cables leak, a page which was originally created on Dec 1, then at the same time reverted to a redirect, but now, in one unilateral, undiscussed (well, there had in fact been discussion, but that turned out to oppose having this fork as a separate page) move recreated, of course, completely bereft of any mention of the sensitive facilities cable. (Now, I immediately went to AfD with this article, however, seeing that whatever shenanigans had caused the recreation of this article at this point in time, having this AfD process ongoing besides all else was not the best strategy going forward, I withdrew the nomination. Viriditas' actions in this, however, are still salient points to be considered in the context of the present discussion.)

In my opinion it is Viriditas, and nobody else, who has been shown attempting to game the system in this case, and I would suggest that their repeated display of inappropriate and disruptive behavior should call for them to be banished from editing on this subject. __meco (talk) 13:19, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

When Viriditas first redirected the article, I noticed on his user page that he had a userbox saying that he followed a 1RR and preferred to talk through disputes. As I felt that redirection was grossly inappropriate, I put the text back and summarized my position at Talk:Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative. I wish he'd followed his stated preference, because I think he's simply wrong with his idea that one article's talk page can prevent creation of another, sight unseen. Seriously, I think that even if there had been a formal and well-attended !vote at that talk page that said specifically "You, Wnt, shall not start the CFDI article", it still would have no basis in Wikipedia policy. In general I don't think we have a policy that provides a way to ban the creation of an article in advance, even here on ANI; we have WP:SALT, but that's only for repeated creations of bad articles and there's still supposed to be a way around it. Wnt (talk) 14:46, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The redirect action which Wnt mentions here is not the same one as I'm discussing above, just to avoid any confusion. I didn't mention the inappropriate redirecting of Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative, but it is yet another incident that goes to show the M.O. of Viriditas on this subject. __meco (talk) 14:54, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

All of a sudden, Viriditas's obsession with deleting content in the United States diplomatic cables leak article and people out of the talk page is starting to make a lot of sense. 122.60.93.162 (talk) 03:53, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

• My summary of the situation is:
  • Viriditas should learn WP:NOTCENSORED by heart and take notice of all the cases listed in WP:COMPREHENSIVE to make himself acquainted with the fact that we do not censor sourced information (even primary sourced information) just because it's "sensitive". Our imperative is to give as much as possible full and unbiased coverage to our readers of notable information.
  • To my knowledge, there is no need of having prior consensus to create an article: we invoke consensus to remove them at AfD.
  • WP:PRIMARY does not prohibit to use primary sources, as the leaks are, but requires secondary sources to give them context and interpretation. "A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements that any educated person, with access to the source but without specialist knowledge, will be able to verify are supported by the source. For example, an article about a novel may cite passages to describe the plot, but any interpretation needs a secondary source." . Now, Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative seems to source to the primary source just the bare list, while all the context comes from secondary sources. It seems roughly fine to me. If anything, this is something that has to be discussed at the talk page as a content issue. But there is absolutely no problem with the existence of the article (notable by any standard) and with exposing the full list (remember, we're not censored, at all). --Cyclopia^talk 16:56, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

That was a wonderful summary. Silverseren^C 20:39, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

And to update this section, Viriditas again resorts to unacceptable modes of putting their position forward, obviously completely ignoring any and all criticism that has been directed at them. Either that, or this user simply fails to possess the basic community skills required for partaking in a joint project such as this one. __meco (talk) 10:14, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

FYI, Viriditas just tried to convince me that since we sometimes remove unimportant people's names for BLP concerns, we should censor all sensitive information, and still wikilawyers about primary sources without getting the gist of WP:PRIMARY. Weird. --Cyclopia^talk 12:22, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

• Well, WP:PSTS does state that our articles should be based on secondary and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources. It is generally accepted that an article should not mainly be based on primary sources. Citing a primary source should be an exception, not the main content of an article. In general, we should also reflect the editorial judgment of our sources, rather than substituting our own judgment. --JN466 14:19, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Yes, but the articles we're talking about -at least, the ones I've seen- are mainly based on secondary sources, and use the primary source only to document the bare, raw list. It's not different than a plot synopsis sourced to the book/movie itself. I strongly disagree about reflecting the editorial judgement: sources are what give us information, but it's up to us and only us, as a community, to decide what to do of their information. We are a free encyclopedia: if sources choose to be censored, this doesn't mean we choose it, too. WP:COMPREHENSIVE, again, is a good read to understand that this is common practice here. --Cyclopia^talk 16:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I would argue that Jayen466's idea about using the sources' "editorial judgment" is flawed:

• Many, many sources chose to mention some specific items from the list within their own region. If they truly believed that "editorial judgment" required them to censor list items, why would they name some? And why wouldn't they at least name items in some other part of the country...?
• The editorial judgment of a newspaper involves making articles a certain length, for a certain audience, and covering breaking news. We have more space available, a broader audience, and an encyclopedic focus. So how can we possibly base our editorial judgment on theirs?
• Wikipedia has an educational mission. A newspaper's mission is to maximize its ad revenue by appealing to a broad audience while not offending corporate sponsors. That's why our NOTCENSORED policy trumps their "editorial judgment".
• The purpose of appealing to sources in general and secondary sources in particular is to get reliable (or more correctly, verifiable) information. It is not to gather votes about what should be published. I base this on the admittedly controversial idea that the purpose of a journalist is to report the news, not to decide how to censor and skew the news. Wnt (talk) 17:00, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
• The idea of using a source to document what no other source would print should not be unfamiliar to us --- this is an encyclopedia, so we do that constantly. If a source contained no unique information, you wouldn't actually need to cite it. Wnt (talk) 20:52, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikinews

Not commenting on the specifics of whether these articles should be on Wikipedia (I haven't looked at them in detail) but I just wanted to note that Wikinews does accept articles based on primary sources and to some extent original reporting. I'm sure more contributions to their Cablegate coverage would be welcome. the wub "?!" 13:34, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Answer: WP:NOT#NEWS. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 15:54, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Wikinews != Wikipedia. Wikinews is another Wikimedia project. (Or, to explain it at length, The Wub is wisely suggesting that anyone who wants to write articles based on material from WikiLeaks should take it somewhere else -- such as, but not limited to, Wikinews.) -- llywrch (talk) 18:07, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• • Are we still discussing the notability of the page, even after the links I gave in the above section? Fine, have some new ones, here, here, and here. Are we good now? Silverseren^C 19:43, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• • I was looking to create a stable resource explaining the CFDI, which could be added to over time, rather than a one-time news report that would become locked and unable to integrate further information. Because of this general preference I have very little familiarity with Wikinews. Wnt (talk) 02:12, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Requesting review of my removal of talk page access of TFM

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Well I think we've had more than enough discussion of the thread topic, which is "Should TFM's talk page access remain revoked?" Conclusion: yes. WP:BASC is that way. Rd232 ^talk 00:54, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

---

Based on comments left at User talk:Newyorkbrad, at least one editor is requesting a review of my actions regarding the removal of talk page access of User:The Fat Man Who Never Came Back. I should note that yes, I did use an incivil edit summary during the process. That was wrong, and I should not have. Regarding the issue of whether or not TFM should be allowed talk-page access, there was an unblock request on his talk page which I attempted to respond to. In responding to his unblock request, I made no less than three attempts to discuss conditions for an unblock with him. All I was trying to ascertain was the sort of restrictions that he would accept if unblocked. He never once responded to my inquiries, except for some attempts to make light of my attempts. I renewed my efforts several times to get him unblocked, but he made no indication that he wished to participate in his own defense. After it became clear he wasn't directly interested in further improving Wikipedia, I went to Newyorkbrad to consult with him; he had recently restored TFM's talk page access, after a previous admin had removed it. With NYB's advice and consent, I re-removed TFM's talk page access. If there is consensus to restore it yet again, that is if consensus among other users is that TFM should continue to have access to his talk page, I will restore it myself. --Jayron32 17:21, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

If the editor was not constructively using their talkpage for unblock requests, then they probably don't need access to it. They can of course still email the arbcom and appeal their block directly, as well as emailing any other administrator on the list. Syrthiss (talk) 17:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Don't feed the trolls. Rd232 ^talk 17:45, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Let's close this thread quickly before anyone else gets a laugh out of it. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 17:52, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't think you should block someone's talk page access just because they are joking around and playfully mocking you there. Jokes are a good thing. Jokes do not equal disruption. Anthony (talk) 20:15, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

It was very, very obvious that he was just joking, as he usually does. You know when he is being serious, as can be seen in his unblock request, which was serious and to the point. I do not believe that he said anything in the discussion on his talk page that warrented removal of his access to it. Silverseren^C 20:22, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The seriousness of the unblock request merely throws the trolling elsewhere on his talk page into sharp relief, and in this context bringing down the curtains on his little play is appropriate. Rd232 ^talk 20:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure he was joking. I made no less than three serious attempts to redirect the discussion to his unblock request. He "joked" every time. At some point it ceases being joking, and becomes "lets see how many people I can piss off". That's kinda trolling, isn't it? Let me ask you Anthony and Silver seren a question: if he did wish to be unblocked, why did he not take my questions regarding his unblock request seriously? More to the point, how should I have phrased my discussion with him to elicit a serious response from him? I am being serious here in wanting help. I don't know what I could have done better to engage him in discussing his unblock request, if you have ideas on how it could have been done better, please let me know.--Jayron32 20:32, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, the "no fun with your mates" thing was a little over the top, and no one would really agree to that. The problem isn't fun with his mates; the problem is fun with people who do not want to have fun with him. I think a compromise might have been possible on-wiki; I don't know for sure because I don't know his ultimate motivation. But you pretty much gave him a take it or leave it option that no one would have taken. Sure, he handled it unhelpfully too, but since you asked. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:40, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I think the main problem was that, at the same time you were asking him your questions, other users were not being very couteous to him within the same discussion. I know I would get rather pissed off if some of those comments were directed at me. It's quite clear that he tries to use humor or sarcasm to diffuse tension and as a response to the discourteousness of others. Silverseren^C 20:42, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Ok, but then let me ask you this Silver seren. Was I, in the messages I left at his talk page, being discourteous with him. What in my comments indicated that I was being discourteous in some way. I am trying to see where I could have done something differently, rather than what other people were doing. I have no control over what others were doing, only myself. --Jayron32 20:54, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I understand that and, no, you weren't being discourteous. However, the fact that others were was not very conducive to him properly "debating" with you over what his restrictions could be. So, he did what he does in this sort of thing, he jokes about it. And I think the joke about "laughs with his mates" was actually hiding it being a real question. I know I would pretty much die and leave Wikipedia altogether if I was restricted to only editing articles. Silverseren^C 20:59, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The difference, of course, being that you've not done the sort of gross dirsuption he's done, which includes among other things, creating sock accounts for the sole purpose of trolling. This whole discussion is predicated on the belief (which I still hold) that he's not here to improve the encyclopedia, he's here to take the piss out of as many random people as he can. The more chances he gets to do that, the more emboldened he becomes in his trolling. You are clearly here to improve the encyclopedia, so no one is telling you that you deserve sanctions. TFM appears to have different motives. --Jayron32 21:20, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Are there other socks that I don't know about? I thought it was just the one alt? Silverseren^C 21:25, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Ah, you mean this? Silverseren^C 21:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

No, I mean User:Bad edits r dumb. --Jayron32 21:29, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Is it untrue then that, as TFM said here that multiple other users knew Bad edits r dumb was him? Becuase, if they did, then it's not a sock, but a known alt. Silverseren^C 21:30, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 2) See Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of The Fat Man Who Never Came Back for the four socks. Eagles 24/7 (C) 21:32, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

To silver seren: That other users knew about an alternate account doesn't mean that the alternate account wasn't being used abusively. Being known by other editors doesn't mean that the alternate account is instantly allowed to do anything. I have some (particularly painful) arbcom decisions I can reference regarding this if you want. --Jayron32 21:45, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Folquenbeam. I think the problem was your proposal was something that most people would reject. He did it his way. Anthony (talk) 20:48, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• (e/c) In this particular case, I understand your (Jayron) motivation, but it might have been better if you'd thrown up your hands in frustration (perfectly understandably), but allowed Gimmetoo and possibly others to take a crack at it. The only real disruption going on was the annoyance it was causing some people who were watching the page; a better solution in these cases (IMHO) is to not watch the page anymore. Because there were (again, IMHO) other, rather less helpful people than you on that page as well, I don't think it's a bad idea for TFM to engage Gimmetoo (or others) via email, rather than continue the zoo. But I'd have left that up to him. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:36, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
  • I've looked again for a distinction between his interactions with Jayron32+Gimmetoo and with others - and I don't see it. YMMV. Rd232 ^talk 20:48, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

This option [Allow talk page access] should not be unchecked by default; editing of the user's talk page should only be disabled in the case of continued abuse of the talk page. I don't see "continued abuse of the talk page". Not debating someone on his own terms is not abuse. Bad decision, undo. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:40, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I should note that I wasn't debating him, I was trying to unblock him. --Jayron32 20:43, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• So undo the talk page lock-out. But if anything, I think it will only lead to a quicker community ban of TFM. Gwen Gale (talk) 20:47, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Yeah, I actually considered that; for reasons that I also disagree with (but can only argue so many things at the same time), this kind of talk page behavior frustrates some people to the point where they think a community ban (rather than unwatchlisting the page) is the solution. If the page is unblocked, I'll probably point that out to TFM. As I said above (or below, I'm getting lost in the threading) email might be a more productive path for him right now. That's what I'd do if I were him. But I'm not. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth, that's way close to what I was thinking, hence I wasn't too worried about the TP lock-out, about which I'm truly neutral. Gwen Gale (talk) 21:05, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Well, "I made no less than three attempts to discuss conditions for an unblock with him. All I was trying to ascertain was the sort of restrictions that he would accept if unblocked." sounds like an attempt at debate to me. I appreciate your good intentions, but I see no reason for removing talk page access. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:48, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. I take your point here. --Jayron32 20:52, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• I don't think it was in TFM's best interest to subtly attack User:Access Denied, who, although his comments were very direct and possibly aggressive, was only trying to aide in the discussion. Edit summaries like "replies... and whoever access denied is, please leave the grownups alone" and "young man, go back to the clubhouse. this is not helping matters." are condescending and belittling of another editor. His comments in the discussion were silly and unhelpful, especially his last response to Jayron32. I would support the revocation of his talk page access, and I think discussing matters privately with Gimmetoo would be the most beneficial. Eagles 24/7 (C) 21:09, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• And you think this as a first comment from access denied out of the middle of nowhere is appropriate, in response to TFM's unblock request? And this response, when TFM clearly explains that it was a legitimate alternate account. Has he ever used a brother excuse or did access denied make that up? (As also can be seen from TFM's comment, he can be serious, for those who say he never is) Silverseren^C 21:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't believe TFM on that. Gwen Gale (talk) 21:17, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't agree with the comments AD made on his talk page either, but it wasn't like TFM was responding to a personal attack with another one. And, FWIW, TFM claims User:Mike R is his brother (though I highly doubt it, since they both edit the RefDesk and have the same idea of humor). Eagles 24/7 (C) 21:21, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The childish immature idiocy displayed both here at ANI and at TFM's talk page must be giving him a great laugh; it certainly is giving one to the entire Wiki. Yes, MikeR is TFM's brother, and why anyone doubts that is beyond me. Does anyone pay attention here? Why isn't TFM unblocked yet, and his talk page access restored? Is there some intensely satisfying thrill in blocking someone who has ten times the intelligence of the average AN/I hangers-on, or do people honestly not know of his contributions? Either way, it's certainly good fodder for a laugh while an unfortunate indication of the extent to which the children have taken over Wiki. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:06, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yeah, Bad edits r dumb was NOT a legitimate alternate account despite his claim. It was a clear good-hand/bad-hand sock account which existed solely for the purpose of trolling. Given that the TFM account has quality article edits to fall back one, one can at least claim that the person behind them maybe, perhaps, at one time was willing to do some article work. But the BERD account was absolutely beyond the pale. And the brother comment was predicated by TFM claiming that User:Mike R was his brother, a claim I might note that was not confirmed and was likely just more trolling. --Jayron32 21:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

However, you are supposed to assume good faith that Mike R is his brother, like he added here. If you don't have any proof otherwise, then it shouldn't even be talked about. Silverseren^C 21:29, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I was unaware that Mike R had confirmed that. You can ignore any objections I had to that. My mistake. --Jayron32 21:38, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Why are you still talking about him? He's gone, he can't post in his page: everybody wins. Stop wasting text on him. HalfShadow

Okay, your response is definitely not appropriate and clearly biased. Silverseren^C 21:32, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• • (edit conflict) (repsonse to Halfshadow) Because some people believe he should be able to post on his page, and those people have a right to be heard. I take your post to mean that you support the revocation of his talkpage access, however reasonable people may disagree, which is why discussions like this can be important. --Jayron32 21:34, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Unless you can tell me how someone who's posts over the last week basically boil down to "Hurr-de-durr; I can haz cheezburger" help as a whole, I'm not seeing your point. HalfShadow 21:37, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, you miss the point. I agree with you 100%. I think his talk page access should be shut down, since I fully believe he has no intention to do anything else except piss off as many people as possible. However, I also believe that I am not the sole arbiter of all situations at Wikipedia, and as strongly as I hold my beliefs, I also recognize that it is unhelpful to ignore the opinions of others in matters such as this. I believe his talk page access should be removed. That's why I was the one who removed it. But I also don't think that my opinion on this should be the only one that matters. Now, if given at least 24 hours or so, it may turn out my opinion is the right one. Or it may be the wrong one. But we won't know if we don't talk it out, now will we. --Jayron32 21:42, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Because this user's edits to their talk page were not constructive, removing talk page access was appropriate. They have been told who to contact if they want their block reviewed.  Sandstein  23:31, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Well-stated. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:09, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
    • Indeed. Drmies (talk) 05:52, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
• Please, please close this thread. To those who are concerned, repeatedly making jokes when told to stop is disrupting the wiki to make some sort of point, and whatever "incivility" Access Denied (talk · contribs) may have committed does not excuse incivility on the part of User:The Fat Man Who Never Came Back. Best advice was already given by Rd232 above. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 01:45, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

• Closing this wouldn't be proper when there is disagreement on the revoking of talk page access, which there does seem to be, since opinion is split. Silverseren^C 01:48, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Disruptive user apparently no longer here to contribute to the project. Sarcasm and "jokes" on a talk page is hardly a worthy contribution when you are blocked, and demonstrates the user no longer wants to be part of the project. Let the unblock mailing list handle this so editors can move onto more useful things. --Errant ^(chat!) 16:08, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

• We do not usually remove talk page access except for repeated use of the {{unblock}} template. That didn't happen here. WP:BLOCK says "editing of the user's talk page should only be disabled in the case of continued abuse of the talk page". TFM was discussing the unblock, which was appropriate and constructive. Removal of talk page access is highly frustrating to the user, and should only be used in extreme circumstances. I don't see that here. Gimmetoo (talk) 20:14, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Would this be considered abuse of the talkpage? Is it in any way appropriate to discussing TFM's unblock, or even related to it? Does it help in any way in attempting to convince others that he wants to be unblocked, or that he will refrain from repeating his actions in the future, and that he will follow the core policies as they apply to him? I think it shows that he cares more about his burritos than in an admin unblocking him, or even contributing to the encyclopedia proper. The entire fact that he has stirred some editors above and has left the entire community divided over the use of a single user's talkpage shows the disruption involved and the damage caused. Please also respond to the question I posted below. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 04:12, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely not abuse of talk page privilege, whether considered in context or not. The appearance is that TFM is responding to an editor personally known to themself, with whom they have a genuine connection. My own life experience has always been that an exchange of lightheartedness with someone you know, during a serious situation, is always beneficial. It doesn't detract from the seriousness, it just relieves tension and can even help to adjust perspectives. In fact there is absolutely no difference between contributing to this encyclopedia and getting a really good burrito. They are both things people decide to do. Really, picking on that comment as an exemplar of "the entire community divided" - what's yer point? We are all humans here. Franamax (talk) 21:29, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

The talk page content

I know the discussion above isn't finished, but I don't see any real reason to keep the content(aside from the declined unblock requests) per the trolling, per WP:DENY. Earlier today IP socks were trying to restore the user's userpage.— Dædαlus^{+ Contribs} 10:20, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

What content are you referring to exactly? If you mean discussions that TFM was involved in, then I disagree. (And I hope you are not referring to his comments, because you would then be calling him a troll, which consensus has definitely not determined to be true or not above). Silverseren^C 10:23, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this is clear trolling, as is many of the other comments on that page by him. Do you really want me to pull up diffs?— Dædαlus^{+ Contribs} 10:34, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I have been abiding that restriction! I showed up on AN/I to sow seeds of lulz and destruction ONLY WHEN Eagles 24-7 started that ridiculous discussion about me for calling someone "dumb". Emphasis mine. There are plenty others, and most of them are pretty clear trolling.— Dædαlus^{+ Contribs} 10:38, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Except, as is being discussed above, there are users who believe that that is just sarcasm. Please join the discussion above if you believe differently, as you seem to. Silverseren^C 10:45, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

There is a large difference between sarcasm and trolling, and that is definitely not sarcasm.— Dædαlus^{+ Contribs} 10:49, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

As I stated previously, please join the discussion above, as other users disagree with you. Silverseren^C 10:50, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

And you're clearly one of them, so why don't you give some examples of this sarcasm you speak of, because I'm not seeing it; only continued laughter in the face of users trying to help.— Dædαlus^{+ Contribs} 11:04, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

• When it gets to a point where every single post is silly, and not a single one has anything of any serious value to add to the discussion, then I think it's very fair to suggest that this user is clearly being disruptive. We have made it quite clear to Fat Man that a lot of people don't find his sheer amount of so-called "humourous posts" amusing in the slightest, and he has completely ignored suggestions to tone it down. Jayron32 made a perfectly reasonable, sincere and helpful offer to Fat Man, and he responded with this. Completely deliberate, unhelpful and disruptive. I cannot see how this is not proof that he just doesn't take this place seriously. There is sarcasm for a bit of light humour, and then there is completely unnecessary and uncooperative "sarcasm". I'm not even sure why we're wasting any more time on this user, because it really seems like we're feeding the troll his dessert at this point. --Dorsal Axe 11:50, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

• Of course, no one has stated the obvious; that his comments are sarcasm AND trolling; I'm not sure why people feel that these are mutually exclusive states of mind. Sure, he's being sarcastic. Sure he's telling jokes. Sure he's amusing himself. That he's doing it just to get a rise out of as many people as possible (the sarcasm and the jokes) is why it is trolling. --Jayron32 13:22, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Never feed the trolls.

You know what gets me? He won't even behave himself long enough to get unblocked, in order to continue whatever he thinks he's doing. In the circumstances, it's beyond me why others feel the need to agitate on his behalf. It's not like he can't speak for himself: he just chose not to. Even now, he still has email as an option available. In the mean time, let's just give him the chance to live up to his username. Rd232 ^talk 12:07, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

You know what gets me is that he's currently blocked indefinitely, is an acknowledged sockpuppeteer, is abusing his talk page while blocked, and yet his various friends keep reverting his user page to his nice, pretty, version without the indefblocked and sockpuppeteer templates. The rules should be the same for everyone. This entire dramafest is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen here on Wikipedia, and probably belongs at WP:LAME. If he's blocked he ought to be blocked and remain blocked under the same rules as everyone else, with the appropriate tags and everything. If people want to be "nice" to him because they want him to come back and amuse them then just unblock the guy now and let him do whatever he wants. That's basically what he does anyway. Please just shit or get off the pot already. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 14:29, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

And before all of his pals come here and jump all over me with their snark, this isn't even about this particular guy. I don't know him and couldn't care less. What I'm bloody sick of is the absurd and blatant nepotism and totally unfair and uneven application of policy, this elephant in the room nobody ever wants to talk about or deal with. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 14:38, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

One of the most telling moments was when one of his supporters went to his talk page and chided him for continuing his behavior, and he responded sarcastically. That ought to seal the deal. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:53, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Pray tell, what is the difference between joking inappropriately and trolling? :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 20:47, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Mocking an admin who's trying to help you is a pretty good example of covering both options. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:02, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

TFM's userpage needs the correct templates

TFMs friends have reverted his userpage to his preferred version and then protected it. The account is blocked indefinitely and is an acknowledged sockpuppeteer and everyone should be treated the same here, no special rules for special people. Please place the templates back in where they belong and apply policy and administrative process in a consistent manner. If the templates are not to be used anymore, then send them to MfD. Nepotism is not a legitimate reason to treat someone differently than others. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 16:35, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Hopefully we all have better things to do than worry about the status of a blocked user's userpage not long after blocking. At any rate, in this instance worrying about it may constitute feeding the troll. Rd232 ^talk 17:33, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

It's not about his individual userpage, it's about objectively treating everyone the same across the board, whether they're someone's friend or not. I think that's a very important thing to be concerned with. Anyway, I am washing my hands of this political nonsense. People will do what they do. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 17:40, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Theoretically true, but keeping that joker indeffed is far more important to the project than whether or not his self-pity/mockery stays visible. Give it some time. If he starts socking again, his support will likely melt away. And if he doesn't, then all's swell. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:15, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Do you think referring to another editor as a "joker" is particularly helpful? Gimmetoo (talk) 20:14, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Evidence suggests that he and his pals would consider "joker" to be a compliment. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:43, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

So you are actually claiming that referring to another editor as a "joker" or a "bozo" is constructive, helpful, and not in the least uncivil or a personal attack? Gimmetoo (talk) 00:24, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

The definition of a "joker" is "one who jokes." Judging by the users who supported TFM's unblock, calling his edits just "jokes," I don't see anything wrong with it. Eagles 24/7 (C) 00:51, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Really? This is what passes for civil discourse at ANI? Gimmetoo (talk) 01:20, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes... :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 04:13, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Check Joker and you'll see that the first item on the list takes you to a page[10] which includes the very illustration that Fat/BErD posted on his user page. He self-identifies as a joker, so don't yell at me for going along with it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:37, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

You realize this is part of a discussion about an editor blocked indef for allegedly "trolling". That could happen to you if you continue. Stop making further references of this sort, and stop trying to defend them. You will not be warned again. Gimmetoo (talk) 15:51, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Instead of yelling at me for calling him what he and his friends call him, how about you do something useful by protecting (or better yet, clearing and protecting) his talk page. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:55, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Such templates aren't needed in the near-aftermath of an indef block, moreover if outcomes are still being talked about. I protected the userpage only because all the back and forth over them stirs things up even more. Any admin can still put templates there, following their take on consensus about the block and the editor's standing. Gwen Gale (talk) 10:05, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Good Gawd, this is boring. So, would all of you who are messing with TFM's talk page please remember to go and do the same thing to Mattisse (talk · contribs)'s talk page? Now there is real sockmaster, yet somehow, TFM gets special rules; looks like folks aren't paying attention. Is school out or something? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:09, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Do we really need a userpage template when it shows in his contribs that he is obviously blocked? See this relevant discussion for such editors. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 04:12, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I put his talk page up at WP:RFPP and nothing was done about it,[11] so the admins have only themselves to blame for any edit warring that may continue on that page. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:40, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

BB, you and Eagles really should step back and cease your obsession with His Corpulence; you've already made enough of a mockery of Wiki, and this obsession with his talk page is tiring. If you don't like it, stop going there; if you insist on templates, add them to Mattisse (talk · contribs) first. Until such time as the same standard is applied to all, you really should move along and stop demonstrating the extent to which Wiki has fallen into ill repute due to immature admins and immaturity at ANI. I used to think you were funny and insightful; don't most adults in your area have snow to shovel today? Once the silliness stops here, perhaps we can get TFM unblocked and get back to the real reason we're here-- building an encyclopedia-- something TFM has actually done, unlike some others participating here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:19, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Likewise, you should back away from your inexplicable defense of that guy. I couldn't care less about templates, and I couldn't care less what other specific content is on that guy's page. If the admins want to leave it open and leave it subject to edit-warring, that's their business. All that matters is that he stays indef'd until he decides that wikipedia actually matters, which is where your priority should be also. Your defense of that guy's behavior opens that to serious doubt. P.S. There's hardly any snow here in Miami today. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:26, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Agreeing with BB - the defense of this self-admitted troll is completely incomprehensible. Sure, he's done some article work in the past but so did Mattisse, who seems to be the editor of comparison. This is a good reason why it's unhelpful to make good friends on the wiki - good judgment seems to go out of the window when rushing to the defense of friends. AD 16:31, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Wait, isn't "His Corpulence" an attack on TFMWNCB? And Sandy, User:Matisse has a template on his userpage. Are you suggesting that we should also put a sockpuppeteer template on TFM's userpage? Eagles 24/7 (C) 16:33, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Gee, we have an admin asking if "His Corpulence" is an attack on The Fat Man, demonstrating once again that the granting of tools to this particular admin was perhaps premature. I think it would be grand if some of the folks spinning their wheels in this discussion could see their way to, say, actually going and writing some articles or something useful. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:53, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

According to the standards of some editors here, it is a personal attack. See User:Pedro's block log, as well as my talk page for "warnings" for calling TFM a troll. If you are so opposed to my having the mop, do something about it. Eagles 24/7 (C) 18:02, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Speaking of which, has any checkuser looked into Fat/BErD's claim that Mike R (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is his "brother", as opposed to being merely another sock? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:43, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Gee, perhaps you can submit an SPI just to round out the idiocy here nicely and make busy work for folks. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:45, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

You know, I never heard of you until a couple of weeks ago, and so far I'm not impressed. Have you been paying no attention whatsoever??? Fat/BErD requested an unblock, claiming that his "brother" needed help over at the ref desk for a fairly mundane question that ended up being answered at length despite the lack of help from "brother" Fat/BErD, who remained blocked. P.S. I was once blocked for 5 days for calling editors "idiots". You had best take your own advice and vamoose. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:23, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

That is really funny; perhaps you spend far too much time around drama boards and not enough on content. You seem to know a bit about baseball; why not edit some of those articles? Sorry you are no more up on TFM than you are on other content editors; seems to be a casualty of too much time at ANI. Also unfortunate that Eagles knows so little about the editor he blocked that he would think calling him His Corpulence is a personal attack. Guffaw ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:57, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I have over 5,000 items on my watch list, and monitoring those items keep me busy. If you think Fat/BErD's approach to things is just fine and dandy, I don't know what to tell you. But I do hope he comes back soon, so he can continue his mockery of wikipedia, and continue to make you proud to be one of his supporters. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:21, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Magical appearance by a newbie

John lilburne (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Help me out here, but how is that any different from having 5000 friends on facebook, or 5000 contacts on flickr? John lilburne (talk) 23:41, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Help me out here, but this is your 8th edit on wikipedia under that ID. What other ID's and/or IP's do you edit under? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:45, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

My advice would be that you take a rest and leave off the aggressive behaviour you have been exhibiting in this thread, and concentrate on some more productive activity. With dilligence you could get your watchlist count up to 6000 by the end of the day. — Preceding unsigned comment added by John lilburne (talk • contribs) 00:02, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I think Bugs is hardly the person you need to be "advising" about aggressive behaviour. And who are you anyway? AD 00:04, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Really? I'll just point the passive aggressiveness of this edit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by John lilburne (talk • contribs) 00:32, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Notice how he didn't answer the question. Must've slipped his mind. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:35, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Really. AD 00:33, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Guys, please! Lilburne is  Unrelated to TFM, or anyone else, from what I can see. Chill, everyone - Alison ^❤ 00:26, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into it. I didn't figure it was Fat/BErD, but more likely the slippery eel that likes to create impostors in order to try to get a blocked user into further trouble. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:30, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

It's definitely not TFM - he knows how to sign his posts. Eagles 24/7 (C) 00:35, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Could be A Glass Bubble (talk · contribs); it's the sort of thing he does. HalfShadow 00:40, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Templates cont'd

Userpage and talkpage templates exist for purposes. Extended argumentation about what templates should go on what pages is generally not helpful. In this instance, the user's current status is obvious enough from the talkpage that it is not useful to push for additional templates to be added, certainly not at the present time. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:45, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

What is the problem here?

From my reading of TFM's talk page, he has begun to understand that his opinion of what is appropriate and what is funny is not shared by many other editors. He agreed with Jayron's request to exhibit proper decorum; he agreed with Gimmetoo on staying away from AN/I; he agreed with Gimmetoo on not using "bad words" anymore. What he had a problem with was Jayron's proposed condition of editing only articles - which condition I think is rather unreasonable, if he wants to have fun with his mates and his mates are agreeable, so what? Sandy seems to think he is a worthwhile article writer and her word is good enough for me. He has been making article edits, so it's not pure trolling. I would extend the restrictions a little:

Use only one account, no "legitimate alternates", just the one.

Stay away from AN/I unless already named there.

Drop the bad language and insults, be serious about communicating with others.

In the same vein, drop the grammarz and alternate spellinz, since he is obviously capable of spelling correctly.

Fun with mates (user talk page banter) is accepted as long as it is acceptable to the "mates" and as long as it is not directed at other editors.

Make a serious effort to contribute to the articlespace, don't treat the other spaces as a playground.

Most of those conditions are already agreed and the remainder won't seriously impair TFM's enjoyment of contributing to an encyclopedia project. Why can't we just propose these as a condition of unblocking? If TFM can't abide by them, it will show soon enough. Franamax (talk) 19:11, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Another condition should be to run a checkuser between Fat/BErD and the user "Mike R", if that has not already been done. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:19, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

It's all very well him making promises, the problem is him keeping them, something he's failed to do. You mention him promising to stay away from ANI, well he failed to do that. He's promised to stop insulting others/trolling (at least twice) and has failed to do that. There is nothing to suggest that he will keep his "promises", and everything to suggest that he is just saying what we want to hear, so he can get unblocked, and continue trolling. No. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 19:23, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Bugs: That's not a condition that applies to TFM, that is up to the CUs. You can file an SPI if you want and see where it goes. The condition to only use one account covers it as far as TFM themself is concerned. If they abuse multiple accounts, no matter what the name, then they are gone. If there is supsicious activity from this day forward, SPI is fairly good at that sort of scrutiny.

Kingpin: disagree, he has stayed away from AN/I since the "douche" affair, except where he was explicitly named. Limiting an editor from participating in discussions of their own behaviour is also an unreasonable restriction. TFM discussed this on their talk page. Franamax (talk) 19:30, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

His smackdown of the admin who was trying to help him, as cited by Gwen below, illustrates his true value to wikipedia. As far as the checkuser part, if you want to bring back a proven sockpuppeteer and take his "brother" comment on faith, then you will have assumed responsibility for monitoring him. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:34, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Respectfully correcting you, he has not stayed away from ANI threads which don't concerning him since the "douche" affair (and since promising that he would). - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 19:36, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Dammit, yes I missed that one. :( That does put a bit of a hole in my boat. Of course, if I saw TFM doing that again after a clear outline of unblock terms as above, I would immediately re-block indef. And yes Bugs, I indeed will monitor the editor. Franamax (talk) 19:44, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

It's linked on TFM's talk page. I said something to TFM about it at the time. Gimmetoo (talk) 19:48, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

This is the last edit he made before he was locked out of his talk page. I got a few emails from him yesterday (they were civil and very clearly written) and I answered on his talk page. Gwen Gale (talk) 19:28, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

That last comment before being put on ice, which you've cited, was extremely rude to an admin who was trying to help him. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:32, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I thought so. I could hardly understand it. By the way, yesterday he also asked me to post here in this ANI thread the emails he sent to me. I wasn't willing, because I didn't think doing so would help him or the project. I believe it will take more talk between him and say, WP:BASC, before any hope of unblocking. Gwen Gale (talk) 19:39, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Keeping in mind the bit about allowing leeway for blocked editors on their own talk page, that can be interpreted as a defensive response to Jayron's unpalatable proposed condition. It's not abusive and the proper response imo would have been to let TFM stew in his own juices until he came up with a better response. Working on articles only is not a realistic condition for actual human editors. Franamax (talk) 19:37, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

You should unblock the guy immediately and unconditionally, and he should stay unblocked until his supporters finally see the light. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:40, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

(ec) It is widely understood that there is not an overwhelming consensus as to civility needs on en.WP, editors have sundry outlooks about it and owing to this he was given bushels of leeway. Gwen Gale (talk) 19:43, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

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

Vladimir Platonov

An editor is removing sourced text from the above article as being ' Family problems irrelevant in this article'. The 'family problem' led to an arrest for attempted murder and a resignation from a university. Is the SPA editor User:Amartin1910 right to do this or am I right to restore the material? I have requested the editor to discuss the matter on the article talk page, with no result. User:RadioFan reverted a similar edit from an IP. I have no personal interest in this matter - I just saw section blanking and removal of sourced material. Peridon (talk) 17:53, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

My quick look determines that none of the statements are sourced. The only reference provided seems to be to support the claim of early retirement which is not in the source provided. The source provided is a statement from the University of Waterloo that they are looking into the matter. It does claim a conviction and charges for serious crimes but a better source should be required for contentious statements like this in a BLP. These claims should be removed and should not be added back until better sourcing is provided. And care should be taken to keep strictly to the sources. WTucker (talk) 18:12, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

The reference provided is a press release from his employer (a public university) and specifically addresses an assault conviction. This seems to be a sufficient source as it provides specifics on the charges in question. The claim of being charged with attempted murder should be removed as the only available reference doesn't support it (only the assault conviction).--RadioFan (talk) 01:09, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

The attempted murder change was mentioned in an earlier reference, and a later one, both from the same source. - David Biddulph (talk) 04:11, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

The section has been restored with these additional references. No indication that removal of this material was based on WP:BLP concerns, only WP:IDONTLIKEIT. I'll place an additional (final) warning on the editor's page. This is technically a WP:SPA but its pretty clear this editor is new and is very unfamiliar with Wikipedia's policies. If it happens again, this editor should be blocked however.--RadioFan (talk) 16:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

What an amazing amount of license you took. From where are the following facts that you restored sourced? Was an arrest performed? Who performed the arrest? How do you know the wife's name? How do you know the attack was in the home? How do you know they were divorced? How do you know the date of the plea? How do you know there was a plea? How do you know it was a lesser charge? How do you know it was aggravated assault and not just assault? How do you know the name of the judge? How do you know about the conditional sentence and that it was house arrest with specific details? How do you know the sentence was amended and how do you know he took early retirement? Is this restoration truely in keeping with WP:BLP? WTucker (talk) 20:52, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:RPP Backlog

Resolved

 – no backlog currently exists as of this edit

Whose Your Guy (talk) 03:20, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Got a bit of a backlog on RPP. Could an admin or two take a look? - Neutralhomer • Talk • 19:33, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Looks find now. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:01, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

User:Malcolm Schosha and User:Kwork

This is a multiply banned user. Kwork got dinged years ago, then was allowed to "vanish." He somehow was allowed to return as User:Malcolm Schosha got banned under that account too (mostly for serial and unfounded accusations of antisemitism against people who disagreed with him). That discussion is here.[12]. He's then been found to be socking through IPs, advocating for other banned/indef blocked users, throwing around unfounded and hateful accusations against others (me among them, if that wasn't obvious). When i came up against him, i figured out who the IP belonged too by looking at old talk pages and archives of noticeboards like this one. If I were to be subject to such stalking and abuse now (without the background i have in my head at this point) I wouldn't be able to put two and two together. Why? A series of "courtesy deletions" of the "Malcolm Schosha" talk pages and user pages. If one goes to any of the old noticeboards and stumbles across the name Malcolm Schosha (or, as i did, looks at the "global contributions" of one of his IPs and find him correcting his own logged out edits on commons, where he's still somewhat active as "Malcolm Schosha") and try to look at the user's contributions, you find he's been airbrushed out of history. It turns out that, as a courtesy to this banned abusive editor, an account called User:Kwork2 has been created for his old contributions. But you'd never find it or stumble across it in the same way. It's my understanding that banned, abusive editors don't have a right to vanish, or courtesy blankings, or what have you, particularly ones with a recent record of socking to abuse others. As I see it, a nationalist edit warrior (who repeatedly said he intended to sock and edit as he sees fit, when he sees fit) is being enabled by this obfuscation of the history. What do i want? While i think the talk page of Schosha should be restored, i'll let that go. All i want is a redirect from the old name User:Malcolm Schosha to the "courtesy rename" of User:Kwork2. Why? So others will have as good a chance of catching him and his abuse when/if he turns on them. Would be interested to hear the reasoning behind these favors being done for this fellow, and why they're being done (obviously emails/chatroom stuff).Bali ultimate (talk) 20:10, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Here's his contributions under the name "Malcolm Schosha" at commons. [13]. Have a look at the block log. Reminisicent of his own behavior here.Bali ultimate (talk) 20:17, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Malcolm Schosa has done lasting damage to a lot of articles (see his tactics at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Judaization_of_Jerusalem/Archive_1 ) and contributed to the dreadful state of the Middle East topic. It's difficult to understand why his contribution record has disappeared, other than to make it easier for him to return and carry on where he's been forced to leave off. MalcolmMcDonald (talk) 21:16, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

"Courtesy deletion" of a usertalk page? We don't do that (or at least, admins who aren't intent on acting contrry to policy don't do it). DuncanHill (talk) 22:58, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

uhh Duncan you should prolly check the page then; Malcolm's user talk page was deleted for courtesy reasons. User:Smith Jones 23:10, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

That's bizarre. What possible purpose could erasing the history of a disruptive editor serve? Sol (talk) 03:29, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Any deleted talk pages should definitely be restored; these should be deleted only in exceptional circumstances. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 03:41, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

According to the log, the userpage was deleted because "The intent here is to minimise drama and reduce disruption." Looks like it may have backfired a bit. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 04:22, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

i thinkt here are issues with the right to wp:vanish here. his talkpage should be deleted since without it peopele can still interact with him as if hes still here, even though hes not. that is contrapositive to the purpose of the concept of the right of vanishment. User:Smith Jones 05:36, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Vanishing is a courtesy to users who make a credible announcement of their permanent departure from the site. If the vanished user breaches the courtesy by coming back, the vanishing can and should be withdrawn. Restore the pages as appropriate. 67.117.130.143 (talk) 06:52, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

• The account has been renamed. While the redirect remains (and that is 100% of the content that I deleted, a redirect) he will continue to obsess over it. If it's gone, there is a chance he might not. WP:RTV. He freely acknowledges that any attempt to evade the block would be trivially easy to detect as his style is distinctive, and he understands that if he does come back then so will the redirects and templates. The issue is not that he's trying to obscure previous issues with an account, but that the account was in his real name. That is a mistake fro which we can and should allow people to recover, even if they are to remain blocked. Given that he has an account on Commons it is possible this was set up as a unified logon, I don't know; I have registered and blocked the account so that cannot happen again. Guy (Help!) 09:37, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Last time he lied repeatedly, including claiming when caught that the fact he was socking was known about and approved of by Arbcom. His style had nothing to do with how I uncovered him when he was attacking me. I uncovered him because i looked at the contributions of the account "Malcolm Schosha." That is now impossible. What you've done is against policy, standard practice, and common sense. As for the "real name" -- that was his choice. He continues to use his "real name" on commons, where he also has a horrible reputation, so I think you're being taken for a ride when he tells you (by personal email) that his real name is a concern here. All you're doing is helping to cover the tracks of a serial abuser and sockpuppeter. The redirect should be restored. Bali ultimate (talk) 12:45, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Admins can still see everything, the way it's set up now. That said, I wholly agree that MS has asked for this as a way to cover the sad wake(s) he has left behind, likely for another comeback, which for both the project's sake and I would think, his own peace of mind and privacy, mustn't be allowed. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:59, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

In my case, I had to figure out who was harrasing me myself. What an admin might be able to see was irrelevant, and will be if this guy starts taking shots again at me or anyone else. This makes it easier for him to harrass again without being uncovered. The banned user is being enabled by JzG here.Bali ultimate (talk) 13:10, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I believe I can say, JzG isn't trying to enable anything of the kind. However, I do agree the lack of a redirect will hinder non-admins from looking into things if (which is to say, when) he does try to come back. There can be no "fresh start" on en.WP for this user, he's had at least three or four already. Gwen Gale (talk) 13:35, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Could have a bot replace every reference to User:Malcolm Schosha with User:Kwork2, but that's probably too disruptive. Barring that, I think he's forfeited the right to have the accounts unlinked given the consequences for enabling socking. Disclosure: Schosha almost made me quit WP. Rd232 ^talk 13:40, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I had thought of that yesterday, but I've never seen it done cleanly and tidying up the loose bits would take scads of someone's volunteer time so I didn't bring it up. Gwen Gale (talk) 13:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Schosha continues to be active as "Malcolm Schosha" at a website called wikibias, a site where wikipedia editors gathe to coordinate efforts to fix what they perceive as bias against israel in wikipedia articles. Much of their work focuses on outing and harrasing editors here. For instance: [14]. Most recent post of his i find there under the name "Malcolm Schosha" is Dec. 1. This stuff about his real name is a red herring.Bali ultimate (talk) 13:53, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I would say that's true, Bu and given that, I don't see harm in a redirect. Truth be told, only since this has come up again, I wouldn't care if all the histories of all his accounts were restored, though keeping them out of public view may indeed tamp down some kerfluffle. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:32, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Let's at minimum get the redirect back. As stanard practice, the talk page shouldn't have been deleted and should be restored, but i'm not going to fight about it. But the redirect is the minimum and I guess that will go back on shortly.Bali ultimate (talk) 14:36, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

User talk:Malcolm Schosha should never have been deleted - blanking and/or redirecting are acceptable, but we don't speedy usertalk pages. They can go to MfD, but even then it's rare for them to be deleted. DuncanHill (talk) 14:37, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

It won't tamp it down a bit. Schosha also infests the lowers rungs of the Wikipedia Review; getting these gift courtesy blankings/deletions...which should be undone IMO...hasn't altered his obsession one bit. Tarc (talk) 14:41, 12 December 2010 (UTC).

I agree that the talk page should be restored -- though it could live at "Kwork2" with a redirect. Interesting to find out what led Administrator Jpgordon to provide a "courtesy deletion" on Nov. 11 2010. In the logs, we see that Gwen had deleted the talk page in June 2008 per his first request to vanish and then that the talk page was restored by Happy-melon in May 2009 with the note "RTV has not been adhered to, restoring." Why exactly are rules and practices being bent into pretzels for a banned troll who made life hell for many contributors in good standing?Bali ultimate (talk) 14:49, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

None of the several deletions of the usertalk page were acceptable in policy. We don't speedy in RTV, and we don't speedy just because someone's a prolific banned troll. DuncanHill (talk) 14:52, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

User talk:Kwork should have its history restored too. A lot of admins do seem to have been bending over backwards to protect this person. DuncanHill (talk) 15:45, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

User talk:Kwork was deleted in November 2007 by User:Pedro with edit summary "User request - right to vanish - after due consideration. Should be restored is user returns. content was: '{{db-userreq|rationale=rationale. Since my actual name is on my user page, and in some talk page discussion, I would like to have my user page and". User:Malcolm Schosha was created in January 2008. So either Schosha isn't his real name, or he was screwing around with the original RTV request, because it would hardly make any sense to RTV because of privacy and then create an account not that long after with your real name! Rd232 ^talk 16:01, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

• I have received an email from User:Kwork2 via the Wikipedia email, which he has asked me to convey to the board.

[header removed] It is frustrating that I can not explain on AN/I what I am trying to get done.

It was never my intention to have my user pages deleted, and I did not request it. Neither am I trying to hide anything. What I wanted was to have the two tags ('banned' and 'sock') that were on the top of my user page and talk page removed and replaced with 'retired user'. I wanted nothing else changed.

The reason I wanted that done is because anyone on the web who does a search will see that, but the rules they refer to exist no place in the world but WP. The tags made me sound like a wiki-criminal or reprobate, and I am not. So the request seemed rather small, but has (so far) proved out of reach.

I only requested that my user name be changed when my request to remove the tags proved futile. But I would be quite satisfied to have my user pages restored to their former state as User:Malcolm Schosha, IF the tags are not placed there.

No doubt it was a mistake to edit with my own name; but, considering that I did, I think the request to put 'retired user' instead of the other tags is a modest request and changes nothing essential about my block.

I have promised that I will not return to WP. I have moved on to other things.

Perhaps you could convey this to the thread.

[signature removed]

DuncanHill (talk) 16:29, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Trouble is, he's a twice banned user with a history of using socks to evade his blocks and attack other editors (which is what led to the page having "banned" restored to it after he started socking again. He's forfeited any standing here by his own behavior, for which he alone was and is responsible. And he continues to use the internet handle "Malcolm Schosha" to attack others elsewhere.Bali ultimate (talk) 16:36, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I must say, he learned years ago how to find admins who didn't know him and were willing to help with civil requests. That email is not unlike the first I ever got from him almost two years ago (?). It began, as I recall, with a request for "retired" tags. Over time, with input from other helpful-minded admins, it became yet another "fresh start." I could look into the background further but I don't think it's worth my time. Gwen Gale (talk) 16:35, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, he found me and I'm not an admin. The history of the talk pages should be restored, as there was never any justification for deleting them. DuncanHill (talk) 16:40, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

• Here's the simple truth: if we insist on having a redirect, he will waste the Foundation's money responding to a frivolous lawsuit. And the benefit we get form this is... is... is... no, actually, I can't see any benefit. Other than the satisfaction of making it plain just how much we don't like him, which I think he already knows and so do we. Is there anything worng with shoing a little class here? Guy (Help!) 16:53, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
  • This has the effect of enabling him (I accept that's not your intent). Lawsuit? What nonesense. On what grounds? He'd be laughed out of court (indeed, prolly out of the lawyer's office when he asks one to take the case). He's just throwing empty threats (apparently) by email. The benefit is not to allow him to try to drive more editors away -- you know, the editors who haven't been indefinitely blocked and banned.Bali ultimate (talk) 17:01, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
  • The benefit is not facilitating a sockmaster in escaping detection of future socking. Why should we believe he won't sock again, when he's still active in coordinating in the dissemination of his beliefs on WP? Let him sue, it's not our problem (and he's probably bluffing anyway). Rd232 ^talk 17:02, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

"The tags made me sound like a wiki-criminal or reprobate, and I am not." We seem to have a disconnect here: that's exactly what the tags are there to warn people of. He's got a laundry list of blocks on both accounts and appears to have dedicated a lot of time to earning his ban. If he wants a "Retired user" tag he should have retired. Removing his history does nothing but makes it easier for him to come back. Whether or not Malcolm Shoscha is his real name, he's indemnified WP from any privacy tort by volunteering it as his user name. Sol (talk) 17:28, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

What's the concrete objection to User talk:Malcolm Schosha being undeleted, blanked (in whatever fashion), and renamed without redirect to User talk:Kwork2? Uncle G (talk) 17:27, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

• Uncle G -- do you have ANY idea that cost of defending of against even a frivolous lawsuit? Malcolm Schosha could burn away thousands ofdollars of Wikimedia Foundations money if he sues us under the WP:NLT barnstar. in the same time, we are also in the middle of one of the most comrpehensive fundraising campaigns in history. it would be a tragic and monsterous crime for this devious fiend to suck away all the money that has been raised so far in this foundations fundraising. Pehraps before we make a move we should contact Wikimedia Foundations legal counsel and seek his or her advice and assistance on how to proceed. User:Smith Jones 17:37, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
  • In amongst all that hyperbole, I cannot see an actual answer to my question. I repeat: What's the objection? Uncle G (talk) 20:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
    • The problem is the absence of the redirect from User talk:Malcolm Schosha to the new page (and from User:Malcolm Schosha to the new user page). Why? The redirects allow people who come across the edits/discussions involving "Malcolm Schosha" to actually find his history, rather than come to a complete dead end. That's the objection to the absence of redirects in a nutshell (and such redirects are standard practice). This is the general nature of the objections from others in this thread. If i'm misunderstanding, and it's possible to simply rename everything so that all the old links go seemlessly to "Kwork2" i wouldn't have a problem, and i doubt others would either. Is that feasible, i.e. if one clicks on User:Malcolm Schosha you're taken directly to the new page (and the histories) without redirect? Bali ultimate (talk) 20:59, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
      • No, not with the way that MediaWiki works. But that's an objection to a different thing — an objection to having no user page rather than an objection to restoring and renaming the user talk page. Consider the real Malcolm Schoshas of this world. (Is this this person's real name? There's certainly doubt about that. And do you have reason to think that there's no-one else in the world named that?) They find Google Web coming up with "Malcolm Schosha, Wikipedia troll and sockpuppetteer" high in the list of results for their names. That's one reason not to have everything in the name "Malcolm Schosha". But, as I've noted and as several others have noted, it's not a reason for the user talk page history to not be available, behind a blanking, at User talk:Kwork2, which at least would enable you and anyone else, along with this log entry and these log entries to find where the user went and read the old user talk page discussions, should that be necessary.

        Having the user talk page alongside the renamed account satisfies the sockpuppetteer, satisfies the people who want the talk page history available (when they come across an edit that leads them to Special:Contributions/Kwork2), and (additionally) prevents harm to the real Malcolm Schoshas of the world. I'm trying to determine whether there's a concrete objection to that state of affairs, because it seems like a reasonable, and simple, compromise amongst competing interests. Uncle G (talk) 21:29, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

        • If i follow you, that wouldn't satisfy me. I found this guy because i found a discussion of User:Malcolm Schosha. What i want is to be able to click on that link and get to somehwere that allows me to review his contributions and history. Right now it's a dead end, and will remain so by your proposal. I'm not concerned about satisfying him, and i'm particularly unconvinced by this "real name" nonsense. That was (and on commons and other sites, still is) his choice. There's no reputation risk for other m schosha's, if any exist (which is doubtful). It just shows that someone misbehaved on a website and got booted. Let's stop enabling this guy, particularly since it violates the websites policies and guidlines dealing with banned users, RTV, and so on.Bali ultimate (talk) 21:35, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
• It would make things harder to understand any socking to come (which is likely, given the background) and easier, in time, to get what would be more or less his 5th "fresh start." I don't like saying it, but he has always gamed steps taken in the name of this project's forgiving and worthy outlook on tidying up the userspaces of those who have left, even under a cloud, to to speak. Gwen Gale (talk) 17:42, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
  • The project's attitude to user talk pages is we don't speedy them - just some admins refuse to abide by policy. DuncanHill (talk) 17:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
    • The current, fairly new policy is that only bureaucrats can delete user talk pages under WP:RTV and that such deletions are seen as exceptions. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:09, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Maybe we should just tell trolls and sockers that the easiest way to get the evidence of their misbehaviour concealed is to threaten a lawsuit, and that certain admins will bend over backwards to help them. DuncanHill (talk) 17:41, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
  • The account has already been renamed to Kwork2 (talk · contribs) and the talk page would at least be associated with the account whose contributions history it matches. What's the objection to undeleting it and having it there? That's what people are (in part) pressing for. What's the objection to that? Uncle G (talk) 20:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Maybe a compromise is possible: stick a "retired" tag there, but also link manually (not with template) and as politely as possible to the ban discussion and socks. Rd232 ^talk 17:56, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

• i agree with the above. although perhaos we should redact the link to the ban discusions and the socks. if this user is actually leaving, why maintain a secret file against him?? there is noer ason to continue to menace someone who has left the project; what is he going to do, badmouth us on some other site?? that hath never been a policy on Wikiepdia b4 and it should not become one now!!! By closing the book on this incident, it limits the amoun tof drama created and helps make the proejct more efficient and mature. User:Smith Jones 18:00, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Only saying, most of the time, RTV and other tidying done by request when a user leaves doesn't stir up much if any fuss, so we only hear about it when someone has come back and caused disruption. Mostly, from what I've seen, the way this kind of thing is handled on en.WP is most of the time indeed "mature" and "classy." This can be (and is now and then) gamed, but not all that often. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:06, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

• In response to some of the above lawsuit discussions....whatever is decided here should not at all be made in concern with "spending the WMFs money" or similar sentiment. That is an ugly, slippery slope to go down. Tarc (talk) 19:45, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
  • I agree. If someone sent me an email threatening to sue WmF I wouldn't even answer it, but would likely forward the email to arbcom. Likewise, I don't think talking about legal management is within the bounds of ANI. Gwen Gale (talk) 20:13, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
• We had a recent RfC about deleting talk pages when users want to vanish, and the consensus was that they should not be deleted as a rule. The idea that this is an exception because it's his real name doesn't wash (whether it's his real name or not), because he set it up after he was blocked as Kwork, so he can't say he was a newbie who didn't understand the dangers of using real names. Regardless of what happens to the user pages—whether they are deleted, linked, or directed to new names—the talk pages ought to be undeleted, because they were not written by him. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 19:58, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
• I agree that the user talk page should not have been deleted, and have asked JzG to restore it and to send it to MfD if he still believes there are good reasons for its deletion. I also see no harm in restoring the redirect to the renamed account. WP:RTV is normally extended only to users in good standing, which this user is not. It is not our job to speculate about lawsuits. If Foundation staff believe that any action is required to avoid a lawsuit they will take that action per WP:OFFICE. Until then, we should proceed as per our normal policies.  Sandstein  20:20, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Remember: JzG just deleted redirects made afterward by Shell Kinney (for the user talk page) and Bali ultimate (for the user page). It is jpgordon (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) who is the person who actually deleted the original user talk page and user page. Uncle G (talk) 20:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
    • Ah, yes, thanks. I've notified Jpgordon about this discussion.  Sandstein  21:19, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

This seems fairly simple, and although I've repeated the question already once to Smith Jones, who didn't answer it, it deserves general repetition. Non-administrators want the user talk page around, so that they can keep track of things, and I find myself sympathetic to that. "Malcolm Schosha" wants things not to come up under xyr (possibly) real name in a Google WWW search. It seems possible, at least to me, to accommodate both sets of people by undeleting User talk:Malcolm Schosha, blanking it (in some fashion), and renaming it without a redirect to User talk:Kwork2. That way the user talk page, with all of the prior discussion, is visible to everyone, associated with Special:Contributions/Kwork2 which is the account's current name, and not associated with the name "Malcolm Schosha" (the new Malcolm Schosha (talk · contribs) account now belonging to JzG, as stated above and as recorded in the log). What are the concrete objections to this? Uncle G (talk) 20:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I have none, but it is also not clear to me why we should seek to accommodate a disruptive banned user at all by disassociating their former username (which is picked up by Google in many places) from their edits. The right to vanish is normally granted only to editors in good standing. If they choose to disrupt Wikipedia under their real name, they have to bear the consequences.  Sandstein  21:19, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

If the google search is the complaint, can't we just "noindex" it the way this page is (i believe). I would not object to that -- i'm concerned with people inside wikipedia being able to keep an eye on all this; i don't care if they can find the userpage or not on google.Bali ultimate (talk) 21:37, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Uncle G, you mention the problem that a Google search for the name still links to various disruption-related pages. Can't that problem be solved by NOINDEXing the relevant pages? I think the request to be able to connect the "Malcolm Schosha" signatures to the banned account and its contributions (e.g., with a link from User:Malcolm Schosha to User:Kwork2) is reasonable. By the way, meta:User:Malcolm Schosha, where he is not blocked, still contains a lot of googleable personal information put there by the user themselves.  Sandstein  21:40, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

sory, Uncle G -- I didnt see your original repetition; it wasnt a deliberate attempt to ignore you. I am not too concerned over the Google image bu t i am worried that this users right to vanish is being tempered by the fact that he can be constantly blackballed and cockblacked using his prior bad acts regarldess of whether or not he has reformed. the cornerstone of WP's antivandalism and pro-vanishing policy is that a user who doesnt want to participate in the project any more can just leave without being having to worry that they will be continually monitored, tormented on their talk pages, or followed around off-wiki. Instead of linking to his bad history on his user page, why not just undelete his talk page and post the history there, or a link to an external page maintained by the community. User:Smith Jones 22:18, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

• RTV is a courtesy we may grant to users in good standing. This guy's multi-banned, so we should move things back to the MS account, which seems well-out-of-the-bag per Bali's extern, and point the others at a {{banned}}/{{indef}} tag at user:ms ("{{retired}}" is simply off-the table). the prior user page history can be deleted, but the talk should be restored. There are lot of links and sigs pointing at u:ms and folks should be reasonable able to find the laundry. nb: no OFFER for this POV-warrior. Cheers, Jack Merridew 22:23, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

• The out of process talk page deletion is now being discussed at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2010 December 12#User talk:Malcolm Schosha. Of course, if the talk page is undeleted, it should be courtesy-blanked.  Sandstein  23:37, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Islam

According to the Central Intelligence Agency, Encyclopedia Britannica, PBS, Washington State University, University of Calgary, BBC, and many other academic sources, Islam is based on "Five pillars" (1. shahadah, 2. Salah, 3. Sawm, 4. Zakat, 5. Hajj) [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20]. User:علی ویکی began an edit-war with me [21], by removing all the sources I've added. User:علی ویکی is making up his own pillars for Islam by using this Shia website, which are not mentioned by any of the above major sources. User:علی ویکی refuses to discuss [22] but rather accuses me of trying to own articles. Can someone please help resolve this matter, I don't want to get into an edit-war.--AllahLovesYou (talk) 02:10, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

First off, the editor you named has NOT refused to discuss this with you, they simply have not replied to your comment. In my book, that does not count as non-discussion. Secondly, I placed an ANI notice on the talk page of the editor as required. Whose Your Guy (talk) 03:17, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

After looking at the source he used, I've changed it back. That source seems to agree on the five pillars but it includes additional acts with a different status in Sunni/Shia theology that don't rise to the level of pillars. Sol (talk) 03:26, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

What User Aliwiki has done is just inclusion of 5 Pillars of Islam as per Shiite Beliefs [which was in the article earlier as well, deleted by User Allahlovesyou], Aliwiki did not remove the Sunni faith's 5 pillars of Islam but reinstated the deleted portion. Rather I can see User Allahlovesyou removing entire Shia section here [23] which is the result of this Edit conflict commencement. No one disagrees with sources cited by User Allahlovesyou, nevertheless the act of deleting big portion of an article without any reasoning reflects biased approach. Thanks - Humaliwalay (talk) 06:45, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I looked at the source Aliwiki had provided which seemed to include the same five pillars of faith. The additional acts he'd included are good info but don't look like they are pillars. I could be reading this incorrectly. Sol (talk) 06:52, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Hello everyone here. First of all, I answered user Allahloves you on his talk page [24]. Second I'd like to note this user has an animosity against Shia Islam and if one has a fast look to his talk page [25] and his contribution [26] can easily recognize this undeniable fact. Third point, about especial case of Islam article; about reliability of the source I used see here, also edit of user Allahlovesyou is obvious ownership and s/he wants to confine Islamic articles to Sunni Islam and some minutes after undoing my edit, a third user here undid his edit. As a summary, User Allahloves you must stop ownership of Ismc articles, and let the Islamic pages reflect both Shia/Sunni ideas and if s/he sees somewhere lack some sources, instead of deletion due to WP:IDONTLIKEIT, s/he must use the tag CN and in some hours I or other Shia users will provide reliable source for it.--Aliwiki (talk) 12:58, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Islam article includes both Sunnis and Shias. According to all the sources, Islam (Sunnis/Shias) follow 5 pillars. If there are some Muslims who follow additional acts then that should come in the end, not in the front. I'm not against Shias, I'm against editors who are trying to twist information in Wikipedia. The way User:Aliwiki presented it in Islam article obviously confuses readers. I've been following some Shia editors who have been falsifying information to mislead Wikipedia readers.--AllahLovesYou (talk) 14:34, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

With articles such as Islam and Christianity, (and a host of other religious and ideological articles), irreconcilable religious in-fighting is all but inevitable. In such cases, perhaps such pages should be disambiguation pages from which the different sects (etc) can be reached. Uncensored Kiwi ^Kiss 14:52, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

If all users respect others ideas and don't feel ownership of a religion to their sect, there won't be any edit war. Edits wars start when someone tries to impose his/her idea to others.

User Allahlovesyou. Keep you animisity against Shia in your heart, and don't affect wikipedia articles by your idea. What you don't like is not false information. myse ntences are clear, informative, and correct; Even if you believe they are confusing and unclear (which is right of any user), you must put a tag, not to delete the whole information. You must change your behaviour to be able to continue contributing in Wikipedia. Deletion with excuses such as majority in population is strongly rejected according to Wikipedia policies.--Aliwiki (talk) 15:41, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Harassment and legal threats from Godisme2

Resolved

 – Blocked by SarekOfVulcan. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 04:27, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Don't feed the trolls

For the past couple of days, I've been constantly harassed by Godisme2 (talk · contribs) and his/her IP 150.212.72.23 (talk) for the past few days over moving a discussion that started on an article's talk page, they attempted to move the discussion to my talk page,[27] and I subsequently moved it back to the original talk page.[28] Godisme2 keeps saying that I have no right to move their comments, nor link to their comments which I responded to on the article's talk page and finally issued a legal threat on my talk page if I did not remove the link.[29] —Farix (t | c) 03:50, 12 December 2010 (UTC) Yes, I have every right to threaten legal actions when you have altered the intent of my words. It is called libel and is illegal.--God (Pray) 03:55, 12 December 2010 (UTC) Way to dig your own grave, here is an additional legal threat from Godisme2.[30] —Farix (t | c) 04:02, 12 December 2010 (UTC) Well this is the funniest thing I've seen this week. I'd suggest backing away from your keyboard slowly...God, before you find yourself in real trouble. HalfShadow 04:10, 12 December 2010 (UTC) Already blocked. I'm expecting a thunderbolt through the window any minute now... --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 04:15, 12 December 2010 (UTC) Pfft. Doesn't this loser know that I am the one true God? Keep it under your hat, though; I'm in disguise. HalfShadow...and not God. Really. Honest. 04:18, 12 December 2010 (UTC) Call me Fred. I'm incognito. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 04:48, 12 December 2010 (UTC) Blocking God? Preposterous. Logan Talk Contributions 04:29, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Should this be revdeled/OSed

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to call additional attention to such things, so I'll be cryptic for now. There's a talk page which currently contains discussion from 2007 expressing doubt about the accuracy of assertions as to the origin of the term in the article title. It's since been removed from the article itself, but is available in the history from about that time. The nature of the claim is that the term was inspired by a series of child molestations in 2007 carried out by a named individual who was in turn inspired by a similar crime spree by another named individual. Both names appear to be of non-notable people with no significant criminal history. 76.253.139.7 (talk) 04:09, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

If you believe it may require oversight, please contact Oversight at WP:RFO. Nakon 04:30, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Afd Troll

Article 1 : Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Patrick Bouvier Kennedy (2nd nomination)) Article 2 : Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Patrick Bouvier Kennedy (2nd nomination)

Note the extra bracket. Forgotpasswordsht (talk · contribs) is nom. User page says he's a sockpuppet. Seems to be only disruptive to me. Outback the koala (talk) 08:24, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I've speedy kept the debated. His first edit (other than to his userpage) was to nominate the articles for deletion. Seems to be rather suspicious. Stickee (talk) 09:40, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah. A good Wikipedian with no reason to hide who loses their password doesn't start a new account that says "Oh shit I forgot my password" and then dare people on their user page to find their old account name, the good Wiki-citizen creates a new account name similar to their old account name so that everyone knows who they are, and then accounces the old identity on their user page. The dynamic is all wrong here, and a block is in order for disruptive bad faith AfD nominations. Beyond My Ken (talk) 10:19, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Block for trolling. 67.117.130.143 (talk) 16:07, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

• Note that I've reported the user to UAA since the username contains profanity. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 16:11, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

 Confirmed that Forgotpasswordsht (talk · contribs) is the same as WikiCopter (talk · contribs). TNXMan 16:50, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

• I've {{usernameblock}}ed the for the clearly implied word "shit" in their username. If they continue to edit disruptively under yet another username, this can be escalated. -- The Anome (talk) 16:55, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

One would have to wonder how, if they really lost their password, WikiCopter (talk · contribs) is still editing as of yesterday. Corvus cornix_talk 21:43, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

User:Viriditas in Talk:United States diplomatic cables leak

User:Viriditas has been engaging is a wide variety of disruptive editing in Talk:United States diplomatic cables leak. He has breached WP:CIVIL, WP:PA, WP:3RR and WP:EDITWAR. Dispite numerous attempts to reason with him, he remains totally unreasonable and belligerent.

Viriditas is frequently engaged in uncivil behaviour towards User:Meco, in violation of WP:CIVIL and WP:PA. Diffs: First Second

Viriditas has continually sought to collapse an entire section in Talk:United States diplomatic cables leak, in violation of WP:3RR and WP:EDITWAR, where a discussion was taking place regarding the appropriateness of the use of primary sources (diplomatic cables sourced directly from WikiLeaks) vs the use of secondary sources (such as media reporting on leaked diplomatic cables). While part of that section should rightly be collapsed (because it is a petty off-topic tangent), Viriditas has rejected my attempts to limit the collapse to off-topic content and insists on collapsing the entire discussion. Diffs: Third Four Five Six Seven

It appears that numerous other editors are concerned about the recent disruptive behaviour of User:Viriditas, see here.

It must be noted that I cannot notify User:Viriditas in his user talk page because he has locked that page, which effectively blocks all comments (including warnings and notifications).

I am new to Wikipaedia so please excuse any mistakes in this AN/I post. Uncensored Kiwi ^Kiss 13:45, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

User:Viriditas didn't protect his talk page; the protection was placed by User:Bwilkins. It's only semiprotection, not full protection; anyone can talk with that user on his talk page except for anonymous and brand new users. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 13:54, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. I had mistakenly assumed it was locked because I received the message "This page has been locked to prevent editing." when I tried to issue a warning to him and when I tried to notify him about this AN/I. I am a new user. Uncensored Kiwi ^Kiss 13:58, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

My attempt to notify User:Viriditas about this AN/I has been deleted by Viriditas. Uncensored Kiwi ^Kiss 14:02, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Enough with the ridiculous trolling. Please see Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive654#User:122.60.93.162 The new account "Uncensored Kiwi" cannot contact me on my user talk page because he was responsible for me having to request page protection when he edited as 122.60.93.162 (talk · contribs). This is beyond silly. This user is a troll by every sense of the definition. Viriditas (talk) 14:05, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't really see the problem with User:Viriditas's edits at Talk:United States diplomatic cables leak. I see a pretty spirited content dispute, but the subject is pretty fresh in the news- give it six months, and I'm sure a reasonable consensus will emerge. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 14:11, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Spirited discussion is one thing, collapsing relevant discussion about reliable sources, in violation of WP:3RR and WP:EDITWAR, is another. Uncensored Kiwi ^Kiss 14:16, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

If you want to talk about the reliable source guideline or a problem with interpreting the guideline, the place to go is WP:RS/N. Viriditas (talk) 14:20, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

But there really was no need to repeatedly archive that section. The dispute is about using a primary source (Wikileaks' copy of the cables) on that article, so it is an on-topic discussion. Please stop trying to archive it, and we'll not have a problem. Fences&Windows 14:44, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

There was a need at the time, as the user was solely focused on off-topic personal attacks. I've unarchived it. The particular dispute is not really focused on using a copy of the cables (we aren't using them in that article) but how to understand and interpret the primary source guideline in relation to that problem. The scope exceeds the article talk page, and WP:RS/N is full of past discussion on the topic.[31] I'm not seeing a need to recreate the wheel here. Viriditas (talk) 14:52, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I haven't followed the entire exchange, but I caught some of it and I thought User:Viriditas was the voice of reason.--SPhilbrickT 18:15, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, you know what they say about a little knowledge, lol. Uncensored Kiwi ^Kiss 22:45, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I've been involved in the larger Wikileaks debate, but this looks like a bizarre and unimportant sideshow. I just want to point out that without any evidence that Kiwi is anyone else, we should discount the idea. This is a highly political issue in the U.S. and we'll have new users with strong opinions joining every day - they're not all the same person. Wnt (talk) 00:21, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome + pending changes

Would anyone have any problem with me breaking the rules and placing pending changes on this article just for a day or two? As you can see at Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard#Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, most of the recent edits are poor quality IP edits, yet the most important updates are coming from IPs. Magog the Ogre (talk) 18:01, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Sounds sensible.--SPhilbrickT 18:12, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

If the well-meaning but generally unuseful IP edits continue, semi-protection should be considered for a few days. I have not seen much OR, though. Even the poorer edits have not strayed far from the reported facts. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:18, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Alright,  Done. I know PC is unpopular in some circles but this seems to be a textbook time to use it, and it shouldn't be more than a few days. Magog the Ogre (talk) 18:21, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

sockpuppetry

I have discovered a sockmaster with atleast five user accounts and a dynamic IP who is has been actively editing for the past twenty days or so. It started as normal reverting of a new user and after some digging i have found he has been editing with many accounts and IPs. The oldest account goes back to 2006. I opened an SPI, but there is a backlog there and he is editing regularly daily. Also the evidence is very clear that its socking. Can someone take a look and ban the socks and the dynamic IP range 117.193.32.0/19.

The accounts involved are User:O0I1E3S5, User:Qarub, User:Katheeja, User:Prakashbabu77, and User:Shinas and several dynamic IPs from range is 117.193.32.0/19.

1) User:O0I1E3S5 is IP 117.193.37.73 (IP started argument that gbooks shouldnt be used as sources [32]) and continued to do after logging in as O0I1E3S5) He created this account for the purpose of edit war. At the end of the day logged out, copied all the discussion in his talk page to mine as the IP)

2) User:Qarub is IP 117.193.37.73 - IP starts edit war in Rajkiran that birthname is to be used [33], couple of days later Qarub comes along and does the same. IP removes description of the image of tomb of Mahmud of Ghazni from Somnath article. Few days later Qarub removes the same image file from Mahmud of Ghazni article and Ghazni article

3) User:Katheeja is User:Qarub - Katheeja uploads a file on 6.05 10 Dec and Qarub uses barely 2 hours later. Katheeja has not used the file anywhere

4) User:Prakashbabu77 is User:Katheeja Katheeja uploads a file on 6.05 10 Dec and Prakashbabu77 uses it 4 minutes later [34]. This account was created to edit Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazagham article. Katheeja has not used the file anywhere

5) User:Shinas is User:Katheeja. Shinas uploads a file on 16.01 4 Dec and Katheeja adds it to an article 18 minutes later. Shinas has not used the file in any article (Both accounts are old and have become active in November 20010 after long periods of inactivity). They also both uploaded the same image with the same description twice within 30 min of each other

6) User:Shinas edits logged out from 117.193.32.0/19 range as shown by this diff (IP blanks the criticism section and Shinas starts editing the article four minutes later)

7) All the above users have the habit of using a single "fx" as edit summary without explanation for large content changes

8) Similarity in User pages. The new accounts created in the past week (Qarub, Prakashbabu77 and O0I1E3S5) create their userpages and talkpages as their first edits to make them blue links.

There is a sockmaster operating from the IP range 117.193.32.0/19. The IP range is from Chennai and belongs to the state isp BSNL which provides dynamic IP's contributions from both IP ranges are overwhelmingly about the same subjects (Islam in India, Islam in Tamil Nadu) [35]. Contributions begin in the middle of Nov 2010. I haven't been able to identify the original sockmaster for sure. But these five accounts are sure his sockpuppets. As this IP range is usually quiet, there is a high chance that most of the new accounts created from it since Nov 20 are sockpuppets of this master. --Sodabottle (talk) 20:44, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

You might just want to wait for the SPI to give conclusive results. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 22:56, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

could someone review this?

Could someone please review my block of User talk:Zxoxm? It may be mistaken, or not, I need to sleep and since they've appealed the block, don't want to leave them hanging if I was wrong. Any admin can unblock as they please without asking me. Thanks. Gwen Gale (talk) 21:29, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I looked at the unblock request and I am not sure that the behavioral evidence is sufficient for a sock block. Both users are pushing the same fringe POV about water fluoridation, but not in an identical manner. I don't know how widespread these fringe beliefs are. On the other hand, leaving Zxoxm blocked simply on account of the questionable merits of his edits (e.g. [36], [37]) would not be a great loss to Wikipedia.  Sandstein  21:56, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Zxoxm is an unambiguous sock. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 22:40, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I've revoked his talk page access. Creating more socks and then claiming they're not his; he's not fooling any of us. –MuZemike 23:33, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

User:Smith Jones and this page

Complainant has withdrawn his complaint, it seems Rodhullandemu 00:22, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
When I was an administrator, I first came upon Smith Jones (talk · contribs) when he made several uninformed comments to various issues brought up on this page. I requested on four separate occasions that he stop making these comments ([38], [39], [40], [41]) and it was clear in 2008 to me at least that he does not have the competence to provide any insight in matters that often require administrative assistance. This is not the first time he has been brought up here (see IncidentArchive351#User:Smith Jones and Archive179#User:Smith Jones) so this behavior of his is not new and has persisted over the past two years. A cursory review of his more recent comments brings up things such as this, this, and this. I honestly have not looked into his article edits, but it is pretty clear that whenever he is on this board, it does not do anyone any good. I believe that Smith Jones should be subject to a ban from any of the noticeboards unless he is directly involved with the issue at hand.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 22:41, 12 December 2010 (UTC) this thread smacks of retaliation becuase i suggested that you and pmanderson were having problems avoiding edit warring on certain topics. if you want me to stay off your threads, thats fine, but only an administrator and/or the community has the right to tell me where i can and cannot edit and i dont feel as if i have to continue take orders from you. you dredge up old mistakes of mine that i have long since apologized and atoned for repeteadly in order to smear my name (how would you feel if i did that to you??) and you try to use the fact that i disagree with you as some kind of proof of misconduct. if you dont like my edits, you have no obligation to read them. User:Smith Jones 22:47, 12 December 2010 (UTC) Please close this thread unless we need to discuss a ban on Ryulong for defaming good editors.--William S. Saturn (talk) 22:51, 12 December 2010 (UTC) Ditto. We've been through this before, and no action has ever been deemed worthy of consideration. Smith Jones's mode of communication may be unconventional, but WP:AGF, you know. Rodhullandemu 22:58, 12 December 2010 (UTC) i freely admit that ive made dumb comments here before but i feel that the past 2 years i have tried to comment less and comment more substantively. you can check my editing history if you want. User:Smith Jones 23:04, 12 December 2010 (UTC) This has nothing to do with retaliation. I have just been seeing the same questionable edits from Smith Jones on this page and it just so happened that he was doing it in the thread concerning my recent block. I've assumed good faith, but he clearly does not know how to hold himself on this page. He may be fine in the article space, but on WP:AN and WP:ANI he only gets in the way.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 23:22, 12 December 2010 (UTC) Actually, Smith Jones came up with a good solution on that page. I fully support his comments there.--William S. Saturn (talk) 23:26, 12 December 2010 (UTC) On what page? All I have ever seen him do is get himself involved in disputes that are brought to ANI and provide nothing of worth to the conversations.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 23:28, 12 December 2010 (UTC) Overlooking the typos (which he later fixed), I fully support the comments he made here. The only incompetence is reflected from the opening of this inappropriate thread, and the misguided view that your opinions on community matters are superior to Smith Jones'.--William S. Saturn (talk) 23:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

User Dogemperor and WikiLubber and MegastarLV

1. Dogemperor (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
2. WikiLubber (talk · contribs)
3. MegastarLV (talk · contribs)

Very inactive and sporadic user, Dogemperor (talk · contribs), shows up to add report to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/WikiLubber and to Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/MegastarLV. With regards to Special:Contributions/Dogemperor, this seems rather curious. Thoughts??? -- Cirt (talk) 23:52, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Glad to comment on this (and incidentially, if I've reported it to the wrong place, I do apologise--I have been inactive on Wikipedia for a while, and am trying to contribute usefully; if I did this the wrong way, please feel free to let me know so I don't err again).

I had noticed in a check for files for deletion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Files_for_deletion) which had no less than 11 images removed from the same user (MegastarLV); a check of the userpage shows that MegastarLV has had rather longterm imagevios of multiple game-show articles (particularly America's Funniest Home Videos since at least 25 April 2010 and apparently ongoing, including with edit wars where nonfree content has been replaced after removal. The evidence on the user's [page] shows no less than 56 separate requests for either speedy deletion of files, removal of orphaned non-free content, or flagging of non-free content from 25 April 2010 to 6 December 2010 (the most recent material being speedily deleted including [and 11 more non-free images flagged for speedy deletion due to imagevio in the same list for Files for Deletion for 6 December 2010]). User has been warned no less than 6 times over imagevios alone, with evidence the user has attempted to pass off nonfree images as Creative Commons licensed[[42]][[43]][[44]][[45]][[46]][[47]].

In addition, there is evidence there is a broader abuse/vandalism issue that makes report simply for longterm copyvios inappropriate (I do realise that it's iffy to list here as the user themselves have (miraculously) NOT yet been blocked to my knowledge, but the amount of various sorts of abuse here are pretty staggering). Among other things, there is evidence the user is engaging in vandalism[[48]], has attempted merges of articles without community consensus and has been warned about this[[49]], changes to various infoboxes without community consensus[[50]][[51]][[52]], randomly changing styles of articles with established style guides[[53]][[54]] (the latter also involving changes in infoboxes), and at least two cases of edit warring[[55]][[56]].

I also did have some concerns based on one of the ANIs of sockpuppetry; an ANI noted below re the edit-warring on The Price Is Right article notes that user WikiLubber has engaged in similar abuse; a view of WikiLubber's talk page and user page indicates the two accounts have engaged in a similar history of tendetious editing of articles on gameshow-related pages, hence the request for checkuser.

According to a check I've done, MegastarLV has been involved in no less than two WP:ANI discussions, the first being [case on 21 September 2010 involving edit-warring and potential talkpage vandalism and wikistalking involving this user], and a second case [recently as 24 November where MegastarLV reported what was apparently an innocent IP address for vandalism of articles he himself had perpetrated].

If I reported this in the wrong place, I apologise; my intent was solely to get admin eyes on what may have been an abuse issue that slipped under the radar, and I do apologise if I was out of place in this. Dogemperor (talk) 00:03, 13 December 2010 (UTC)