Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive237

Wikipedia:WikiProject Composers ownership issues

There are some serious ownership issues on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Composers, exemplified by (but not limited to) this edit (suggestions for an alternative forum to raise such ownership issues welcome). Andy Mabbett 10:35, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I rather thought that the point' of WikiProjects was to provide some sort of "officially-sanctioned ownership" of articles in order to keep a sense of order and continuity? Maybe you can direct me to where I am mistaken? TIA HAND —Phil | Talk 17:01, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

This does not require admin intervention. Moreschi ^Talk 10:39, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

As someone holding a strong opinion in that debate, you have a vested interest. Andy Mabbett 11:03, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I think this may well be more about the attempt by Wikiproject biographies to WP:OWN every bio in existence - and stick hideous ugly standard boxes on them. But then, I could be wrong.--Doc^g 10:40, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Something like that. Moreschi ^Talk 10:42, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

As indeed, you are. Regardless of the merits or problems with infoboxes, referring to another editor as a "guest" on a set of pages is unacceptable; as are other comments of a similar nature in that debate. Andy Mabbett 11:00, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

That much is true; there is a definite WP:OWN violation here. Guy (Help!) 11:16, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I was not involved in the debate, and the language was certainly infelicitous, but Andy Mabbett's comments were inadvisable and needlessly contentious in the context of a project page that caters to editors with a common interest in writing about composers. Righteously bandying policy around and making accusations against other editors, impugning their motives, etc..., (many of whom have put in an extraordinary amount of effort on the various composer pages) was bound to elicit a reaction of frustration. The editors at the composer project certainly know they don't own composer articles. In its context, the comment was clearly borne out of exasperation. Taking this to ANI is somewhat inflammatory in the context of the discussion. A break from involvement in the debate might be a good idea. Eusebeus 14:22, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm very familiar with Kleinzach (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), he has exhibited WP:OWN issues in spades before. Not least was his repeated ad nauseum claim that WikiProject Biography shouldn't tag opera-related articles, one reason for this was that it encourages rock fans to edit them! :) I believe that a thorough examination of this editor's contribs (particularly at WIkipedia talk and user talk) would show it wasn't an isolated incident or as innocent as you think. The editor in question plainly believes that his WikiProject should have sole scope over these articles. --kingboyk 14:39, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

If that is the sole instance of WP:OWN being referenced here, I take back my comment and offer an apology. My suspicion is that the accusation is intended to address the general tenor of the debate, which impugns the intent of many other editors and that is not acceptable. Eusebeus 14:42, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand. Please rephrase. --kingboyk 14:51, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

My apologies for not seeing your initial report beyond the statement: There are some serious ownership issues on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Composers, exemplified by (but not limited to) this edit. That is the comment to which my reaction was directed. Eusebeus 15:12, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I thought my initial report (about which you, Eusebeus, failed to AGF), was perfectly clear - there are multiple breaches of OWN, including but not limited to the one I cited. Andy Mabbett 15:06, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I largely agree with Eusebeus, but may I point out that no adminstrative action is, as of yet, required to address the actions of anyone, and that this is not the appropriate forum for this discussion? Doubtless Kleinzach is not perfect, but then no one is, but he is a very valuable contributor who has done a huge amount of good for Wikipedia,so AGF. This is a bit of a blind alley from the real issues at hand. Moreschi ^Talk 15:09, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm wondering if someone might be able to explain to me whether I am to consider myself a "guest" or whether I may edit in these topic areas? Is one invited to do so or must one have an established presence in the subject? If so, then what policies are to be followed and what are not? How does one stop being a guest? Is there a test to pass or something? Must I follow the policies of the composers project when aditing articles about classical composers and related subjects? Or should I follow sitewide policy. This is very confusing and I'm not at all sure what to do now. I wrote a new article today about an Offenbach Opera that no one had done before, but I wasn't sure what to do and whether what I had done was right. Gretab 15:43, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Some clarification for you: there is no sitewide policy concerning these infoboxes. They are entirely voluntary and not mandated by anything or anyone. Moreschi ^Talk 18:38, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

There is none. His accusation was unacceptable in my eyes (as a normal editor anyway). You're within your rights to contribute -- productively -- to the discussion and make any edits you see fit provided they follow policy (and if they happen to go against consensus, should be reverted with a note as such). As for User:Kleinzach, I don't know him, but in light of the words, I am not surprised to find that he is indeed the same one who made this edit (with the resultant talk here ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 16:05, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) I think the discussion has become unfocused here a bit. If Andy Mabbett's complaint is that Kleinzach referred to editors as "guests" of a body of articles, then I, and probably most others, would agree with him without reservation about ownership issues. As I understand it, though, the larger point was that a group of editors, regularly involved in Composer's bio pages, discussed the value of the boilerplate infobox that the bio group likes to put on pages and found it generally wanting with respect to specific issues pertinent to composers. The subsequent debate leans overwhelmingly in favour of not using such boxes. Because that debate largely involves people who are connected to the composer's project and because the consensus against infoboxes was formed within that community, they were accused of "owning" composer articles. That is simply not true; to bandy accusations of ownership around is disingenuous. Obviously a group of people who are actively involved in a specific area are going to have issues and viewpoints that exist simply as a function of that involvement. The slap-happy infobox taggers at the bio project should be sensitive to that. Eusebeus 16:51, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Indeed a stronger case of WP:OWN might be lodged at the door of Mr Mabbett and his pals at WikiProject Biography who have decided to assert "ownership" over every single biographical article on Wikipedia. Might we hear his thoughts on that particular aspect of this matter? TIA HAND —Phil | Talk 17:01, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Go look at the contribs as I suggested. The editor in question feels he has the right to prevent others from editing "his" WikiProject's articles or talk pages. That's OWNership. WikiProject Biography doesn't do that so you're way off the mark there. --kingboyk 19:06, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to echo what Eusebeus and Phil have said. WP:OWN is a much wider issue and I strongly object to projects like WP:WPBIO trying to force their poorly-designed infoboxes everywhere indiscriminately. The composer bioboxes were particularly bad as they caused basic distortions of fact. Factual accuracy is essential for an encyclopaedia, infoboxes are not. --Folantin 17:17, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Right, while perhaps not the original intention of this report, it does bring to light what Folatin, Eusebeus, and Phil have said in relation to WP:OWN and wikiprojects. This is something I've been noticing more of lately; members of wikiprojects at least insinuating on talkpages that they somehow have more right to edit their project topics than non-project editors or using their project numbers to stuff AfDs. It is not a helpful trend.--Isotope23 17:27, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

"Mr Mabbett and his pals at WikiProject Biography who have decided to assert "ownership" over every single biographical article on Wikipedia.". Your accusations are unfounded (if not, cite evidence) and yorur tone unacceptable. Andy Mabbett 19:38, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Eusebeus, you totally misrepresent the complaint raised here. Andy Mabbett 19:38, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

How so? Are you stating that your problem is limited to Kleinzach's comment about guests? In which case, you will get no argument here. Or do you have a wider issue? In which case, could you link to the specific comments you find objectionable and iterate your reasons for finding them unacceptable? Eusebeus 19:50, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

The fightback starts here.--Doc^ga pox on the boxes 18:53, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

With all due respect that's not a very helpful statement. The issue is perceived statements of WP:OWNership. It's fine to debate and reject infoboxes, it's not fine to say "you're not editing because I don't like your edits" or, even worse, "we don't want pimply pop music fans editing our articles". If they feel that way (and I can provide a diff to show this was said (minus the "pimply" bit), they can go to another wiki! --kingboyk 19:04, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Right, project perceived ownership is the issue here; not infoboxes.--Isotope23 19:18, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

How is this a WP:OWN problem? Show of hands: who hasn't seen stuff five times worse than that diff on an average page? "The box wars are hot" is an understatement. "We should finish the template box debate" would be nice. "People get worked up about this" is a truism. "This particular page shows WP:OWN violations from one person" doesn't seem supported. "You are a guest" is the "own" thing? Ok, so that's one person with an opinion. Other people have other opinions. Geogre 19:20, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

"How is this a WP:OWN problem?" - read WP:OWN, and the cited diff.

" "This particular page shows WP:OWN violations from one person" doesn't seem supported" Hence "exemplified by (but not limited to) this edit".

Andy Mabbett 19:44, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, so this is about boxes? Good grief! Boxes are imminently foolish when they're applied by fools or when they are designed by fools. They are wholly inappropriate as a "must" on anything. The only truly consistent people are the dead, and I would argue that they're not consistent, either. In fact, a standardized anything works only when we are absolutely sure that all elements of the series have absolutely defined common points of importance. It's fair to have a blanket rejection of boxes for biographies (as I do), because it's fair to believe (as I do) that no two lives are alike and no two people can be reduced to any common points of importance. It's fair to tell the templateers to go away, as what they're doing is not editing the article but dressing it. Putting a decal on your bumper does not make you an automotive engineer. Geogre 19:24, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

"Oh, so this is about boxes? " No; it's about ownership. Andy Mabbett 19:38, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok, well, it's about conflicting OWNership, then. That's the problem. Boxes are not good or bad: they're GIGO. However, when WikiProjectX asserts control of all articles written under a particular subject matter, that is an assertion of OWNership, too. If two WP:OWN violations meet, we have problems. I think the impulse behind "we have a project that claims this article, so you must now have the following qualities placed here" causes conflicts across the project, and, of course, "I wrote it, so it's mine" does, too. The problem is that I see the edge going to the people who have worked on the content, and I regard boxes and templates as non-content contributions. Therefore, even if the content folks were ill humored and acid tongued, we're not really at the level of a WP:OWN violation -- just regular boorishness in the face of a conflict. Geogre 19:54, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

"it's about conflicting OWNership, then." No. Andy Mabbett 20:29, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

You're right, Geogre. Bioboxes were an ill-conceived disaster from the start. Take Philidor, for instance, who was equally famous as a chess champion and a composer. Somebody has put him in the chess master biobox. Does someone now come along and add a composer biobox below? Or Ignacy Paderewski, still mercifully free from the box straitjacket. He was a composer, a concert pianist and a prime minister of Poland. Do we fill his page with three infoboxes? Or do we create a special, one-off Composer/Pianist/Premier version? Yet some of the people complaining about WP:OWN here apparently want to make bioboxes obligatory on all biographical articles to make automated data-parsing easier. --Folantin 20:01, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

They also seem rather ill-disposed to discussion to boot. (The Paderewski example is judicious). Eusebeus 20:03, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, per Who OWNS what?, talk of "organised resistance" and "trolling" are certainly not helpful, and do not indicate a willingness to work towards consensus. Nor does talk of "BOX fascists". Andy Mabbett 20:29, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

"some of the people complaining about WP:OWN here apparently want to make bioboxes obligatory on all biographical articles to make automated data-parsing easier": Do you have any evidence to support that remarkable allegation, or is it just another failure to mention breach of WP:AGF ? Andy Mabbett 20:33, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, this discussion [1] between you and another user entitled "Why is persondata separate to infobox" isn't entirely irrelevant. You answer the other editor's objection "This would require every biography to have an infobox, which many editors are opposed to" by saying "I would question why they're opposed, and whether they're perhaps putting personal (aesthetic?) preferences before the convenience of users. That said, perhaps, one day, it might be possible for user preferences to include a 'do not display infoboxes" option, like the current "do not show TOCs' option". That's rather propietorial (although you do generously admit that one day it might just be possible to have a page without an obligatory biobox). Also, it's worth remembering some editors have personal preferences for things like factual accuracy. --Folantin 21:34, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I stand by those comments, which neither prove your earlier claim, nor your new allegation of being "propietorial". Andy Mabbett 21:53, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

So you don't think planning to impose infoboxes on every single biographical article whether other editors want them or not conflicts with WP:OWN then? OK. --Folantin 22:04, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I think yet another false insinuation is unhelpful - nobody is "planning to impose infoboxes" on anything, much less on "every single biographical article whether other editors want them or not". Perhaps you might kindly refrain from inventing such things? Andy Mabbett 22:34, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Woot hoot, this is actually quite funny. It doesn't matter who ownes what. Nobody is really explicitly claiming to own anything. The point is that these boxes are a joke. Again and again they have promoted inaccurate information, and such a simplified view of matters that the aura they project is misleading. I mean, check out this monster. His "associated act" was apparently the Pittsburgh Symphony. Right. This is not, by far, the only example: there are plenty worse.

This isn't about ownership. This is about inaccurate and oversimplified information being removed. Anyone can do that, WikiProject or no. I've tried to help out GretaB, so if there was any bad fallout from Kleinzach's remark, I've believe that's been dealt with. At any rate, these infoboxes, where they are inaccurate, are being removed and will continue to be removed. That is supported by consensus and, more importantly, the fact that Wikipedia must be accurate at all costs, regardless of whether the boxen make data-parsing easier or whatever. For future reference, it's not a good idea to apply boxen intended for those working within the tradition of more popular music to "classical" composers, and vice versa. Like applying a country infobox to a philosopher. You will have problems with accuracy and lack of NPOV definition. Moreschi ^Talk 20:58, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

The issue is ownership. This isn't the forum to debate the merits or otherwise of infoboxes; much less to once again conflate specific issues of accuracy with generic infobox matters. Andy Mabbett 21:33, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Fine. I believe that issue has been dealt with. I've tried to clarify matters to GretaB, and Isotope23 has left a message on Kleinzach's talk. Fair enough. It may be worth noting that he was probably referring to GretaB not quite getting the fairly deep-seated issues at hand: I've also tried to clarify that. Incidentally, several people here have expressed a distaste for the lack of consideration in the mass application of infoboxes. Is there anything else you want done? If not, I can go back to removing more misleading and useless boxes. Moreschi ^Talk 21:40, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Second that. Andy Mabbett's response strikes me as galling hubris. A group of editors who have committed a lot of time to improving composer and composer-related articles have concluded after open debate that the bio-project infoboxes are ineffective for composers. Andy aired his view in their forum. They disagreed, expansively explaining why. In lieu of accepting the issues raised, he instead bring the issue up - very inappropriately - as an administrative matter. Ridiculous. Eusebeus 21:44, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Yet again, you completely misrepresent me. You also ignore the other, uninvolved, editors who agree that that there have been "ownership" issues; and the fact that one of the editors concerned has acknowledged, and rightly apologised for, his inappropriate behaviour. Andy Mabbett 08:02, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Very well, so time to move on now I think. As Moreschi notes, the issue has been settled. Eusebeus 09:29, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Seconded. I'll leave the difficult task of interpreting Andy's comments and behaviour "correctly" to others if they are so inclined. There's nothing more to be said here. --Folantin 09:43, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I notice also that no one seems to have even informed Kleinzach that this discussion was going on. It's completely inappropriate to start talking ill of a user without telling him or her that the discussion is going on. Heimstern Läufer 21:53, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Good morning (I'm on a different timezone here). I have written to Gretab directly (also on the Composers Project page) to say that my comment about her being a "guest" was inappropriate. I've withdrawn what I said. The last thing I wanted to do was to personalize a difficult issue - not just of the problematic infoboxes - but about the way the different projects relate to each other. I had intended to avoid getting involved in the increasingly ill-tempered tail end of the Composers Project discussion, and I should have trusted my better instincts. --Kleinzach 01:10, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I do appreciate the note and the invitation to join the Opera project. However, in exploring the project further, I came across this comment concerning naming a category of opera in German. Could you please explain what the word "interlopers" means in this context? Who are the "interlopers" here? Gretab 07:43, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, as I've already explained to you directly, I didn't make this comment and I don't have anything to say about it. --Kleinzach 08:17, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I think it's quite clear from the context that "interlopers" refers to operas rather than editors. "German Romantic opera" is a very specific category. Some well-meaning users might be tempted to add items to the category which don't belong there (merely because they are German and involve romantic love, say). GuillaumeTell, the editor who made the remark, is suggesting that calling the category "Romantischen Opern" will prevent this confusion and stop people mistakenly adding the wrong operas ("interlopers") to the category. --Folantin 08:26, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, GT, is clearly referring to operas being added to silly cateogries rather than people. Moreschi ^Talk 12:04, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

What a lot of ink and ire spilled over box/not-box. Can't we leave it up to the editors of the individual articles to decide whether they need a box or not? Boxes work in some situations (cricketer biographies, for example, are almost always improved by a box, as it moves the stats into one place, neatly) but not others, particularly people whose "facts" are not well established or disputed. It is just as bad to insist that no article should have a box as to insist that they all must. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:49, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Again: The issue was ownership. This isn't the forum to debate the merits or otherwise of infoboxes; much less to once again conflate specific issues of accuracy with generic infobox matters. Andy Mabbett 13:10, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, this is not really the forum to discuss the ownership issue either, but as you brought it up, yes, you do seem to be trying to own the articles on composers by insisting that they must have an infobox, contrary to the consensus that the other editors involved in the WikiProject seem to have reached a consensus that they should not. I understand their frustration when you insist that there is "no consensus" because you hold an opposite opinion. -- ALoan (Talk) 15:17, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Which editors? The whole story started with a bunch of "project members" installing ownership and chasing editors off their (the "project") turf. So the question is: does the editors include only the owner-editors, or the rest of wikipedia have a say too? NVO (talk) 03:38, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

In my view, this was a dispute over infoboxes that brought several ownership issues to the surface. The ownership issues are easily dealt with, but the infobox issue is not going to go away anytime soon. I will reiterate my views here:

• Infoboxes can work well in certain contexts (even people).
• Infoboxes should not be used as a way to store metadata for parsing.
• Metadata should be added invisibly or otherwise generated - the visible stuff must first and foremost be readable and accurate, and be simple for editors to edit for readability and accuracy
• Infoboxes should be an "at-a-glance" summary of the article, similar to but different to the lead section.
• Infoboxes should summarise the key points of an article - effectively they should be a tabular form of the lead section, plus some statistical information that is too dry and boring for the article (see Earth for an example).
• Anything controversial or difficult to explain should be explained in a footnote or left for the main text of the article to explain. This takes priority over any perceived desire to "fill in an entry" just because the entry exists in other infoboxes. Just deleting a 'difficult to explain' parameter is better than fudging the issue or over-simplifying.
• The main text of an article will always be the primary conduit for transmitting information from the editor to the reader - infoboxes should never be more than summaries of existing information (with the 'dry' data exception pointed out above).

If the above could be written up as a guideline (maybe it already exists), and (this is the difficult bit) a culture change instituted among Wikipedia editors (or at least those that misunderstand or fail to see the above points), then the tide may start to turn. Carcharoth 13:12, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much Carcharoth for providing very helpful guidelines on infobox usage. I hope that perhaps these guidelines are available in a much more visible and formal setting for the reference of other editors. I look forward to the day when there is a wider concensus on the use of infoboxes. - cgilbert^{(talk|contribs)} 18:58, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Not sure...

I wasn't sure where to report this, but after some investigating of 2 users (User:E-abulous and User:Driski555), one of whom left a cryptically threatening message on my talk page (which I've deleted), I've discovered that they're using Wikipedia as a social networking site. They're friends from Wisconsin, apparently, their pages are filled with user boxes, and yet their only edits to pages, other than each other's talk pages, are almost always vandalism. I'm not sure, but I think this should probably earn them both a block, or at least a stern warning by an administrator. Fuzzform 02:28, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Here is a list of specific violations. I would appreciate it if someone did something about these two. They're being disruptive to wikipedia, and they're using Wikipedia as a social networking site, rather than actually contributing anything. It would be pointless for me to leave even the most civil of comments on either of their talk pages; doing so would definitely just cause them to leave more ambiguous threats. Violations:

Civility violations; threats on my page and other users' pages - [2] User talk:MER-C/archives/13 - WP:CIVIL, WP:Harassment

User page violations - User:Driski555, User:E-abulous - WP:NOT#WEBSPACE / WP:NOT#SOCIALNET / WP:NOT#MYSPACE / WP:NOT#USER

Vandalism, from E-abulous [3] [4] - WP:vandalism

Vandalism, from Driski555 - [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] - WP:vandalism

See user contributions for E-abulous [10]

See user contributions for Driski555 [11]

Fuzzform 16:22, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Deletion and restoration of List of ethnic slurs

Yesterday at 22:00, Anthony.bradbury deleted the List of ethnic slurs article with the summary "contains only racist jargon," a remarkably peculiar rationale for the removal of an article about ethnic slurs (and certainly nothing resembling a speedy deletion criterion). Evidently, this action was inspired by the insertion of the tag "{{db|It is full of racism.}}" by the well-intentioned (but inexperienced) Super World Champions at 20:52.

An anonymous user (67.171.71.96) posted a policy-based complaint on Anthony's talk page, to which Anthony responded by criticising the editor for failing to sign the message.

This article has survived four deletion debates, three of which were closed with a result of "keep":

• September 2004
• December 2004
• March 2006
• August 2006

Per the deletion policy, I've undone this obvious out-of-process deletion and informed Anthony via his talk page. —David Levy 03:55, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I will accept that my message to the anonymous user was over-brusque, although it was in my view neither offensive nor rude. As to the article, I take full responsibility for its deletion; the editor tagging it merely did so in standard and correct format, and he carries no blame for any part of this affair. I will accept, if this is the view of the community, that deletion was not appropriate, although the very fact that it has gone through four deletion debates indicates that opinions exist on both sides.--Anthony.bradbury 14:28, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, Anthony.

My objection to your reply to the anonymous user is that you didn't address any of his/her comments (which were civil and policy-based). Replying only to criticise him/her for neglecting to sign the post seemed rather dismissive.

I strongly agree with your comments regarding the newcomer who added the tag. I noted this fact only to avoid implying that you appeared out of the blue and deleted the article for no apparent reason.

The number of deletion nominations certainly reflects the subject's controversial nature, but keep in mind that three of the four debates ended with consensus to keep the article (and the one failure to reach consensus was due to correctable problems that subsequently were addressed, thereby enabling the following debate to reach another "keep" consensus).

Out of curiosity (and in the hope of providing constructive criticism), could you please elaborate on your speedy deletion rationale? Your summary was a bit vague (especially considering the fact that it described the subject's nature). —David Levy 15:06, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I have no problem with receiving, and learning from, constructive criticism. My rationale, which I now make no further attempt to defend, was that the article contained significant racist comments without enhancing the content of the encyclopedia. But I accept that was, in the view of the community at large, a misjudgement.--Anthony.bradbury 16:30, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for responding and for being so receptive. Your error in judgement was not in deciding that the article was unencyclopedic (which is a reasonable opinion, regardless of whether it's held by a majority). It was in acting on this determination by speedily deleting the article (instead of following the standard deletion process).

This is the sort of decision that shouldn't be made unilaterally by users not named Jimbo. As such, it can only be reached via a community discussion leading to consensus.

With occasional common-sense exceptions, the speedy deletion criteria should be applied. One needn't always follow them to the letter, but the spirit should be observed. When in doubt, don't delete. —David Levy 16:47, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Terry Lewis (police commissioner)

I earlier stubbed this article as it contains large amounts of negative information about a living person, and has been tagged as unsourced since June 2006. Administrator Rebecca has since twice restored the article, despite me leaving a message on her talk page after she restored it the first time. She claims blanking not justified by policy, when my stubbing was fully justified per WP:BLP. Please intervene, thanks. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 03:58, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

As I explained on Hackey's talk page, the BLP policy requires that material be contentious before it be removed on sight. The material is not in any way in dispute, nor is it in any way speculative; it describes his very high-profile and very widely-known firing, trial and conviction. It was much reported on at the time, and is still fairly well remembered twenty years on. What this needs is someone to take the time to cite the obvious; not to trash what is a perfectly good article through overzealous misinterpretation of a policy. Rebecca 04:09, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

WP:BLP states Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material — whether negative, positive, or just highly questionable — about living persons should be removed immediately and without discussion from Wikipedia articles. The article has been unsourced and tagged as unsourced since June last year, my stubbing was fully justified per policy. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 04:12, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

You've completely missed my point and misread the policy. As I've twice noted, the key word in that policy is "contentious". This material is not in any way contentious, disputed or questionable; it is just a matter-of-fact description of events which are well-known, on the public record, and easily verifiable. Accordingly, it is not an appropriate candidate for being shot on sight; perhaps instead of revert warring, your attentions could be better spent actually sourcing the article. Rebecca 04:19, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

My interpretation of the policy is one which has been backed up many times, unsourced negative information is removed on sight. You caused the edit war by repeatedly violating WP:BLP and restoring the unsourced negative information to the article, so perhaps your attentions could be better spent actually sourcing the article? One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 04:25, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Rebecca, I don't see a source, and untill I see it sourced in the article, I'll say 'I dont believe this'. Consider it contentious as of now. -M^ask? 04:39, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Please restore the article, citing Commission of Inquiry into Possible Illegal Activities and Associated Police Misconduct from Fitzgerald Inquiry which discusses the same incident and gives basically the same details, and maybe also the two books cited in the Fitzgerald Inquiry article. One Night in Hackney could have avoided this drama by clicking on the Fitzgerald Inquiry link that was very prominent in the Lewis article and pasting the references from there into the biography. Please help keep Wikipedia running smoothly. 75.62.7.22 04:44, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

That's funny, because I think Rebecca could have avoided all this by sourcing the article the first time it was stubbed. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 04:51, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Or, you could have used a fraction of the energy you've expended here and done a 5-second google search, as I have. See below. El_C 04:57, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• Invoking BLP is usually reserved for cases which are not immediately verifiable. El_C 04:47, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
• I also count four and five reverts for ONIH and Rebecca, respectively. I'll gently remind both that I've been known to block for 3RR without an AN3 report having been filed. Let's move on & edit nicely, with common sense extended to the usefulness of reverts, too (Rebecca). Thx. El_C 04:57, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• I checked AN3 just to see if a report was filed, and it was. I closed it as no action, noting, however, the 3RR violation by both parties. El_C 05:12, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• And I would respectfully remind you that my reverts were covered by policy and exempt from 3RR. Thanks. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 05:10, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

There is no excuse for restoring negative, unsourced material about a living person. The burden of sourcing material rests on the person adding it. Frise 05:13, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

The stubbing was not justified per BLP policy since the article was not controversial in tone. (It also referenced another article about the relevant incident, which was thoroughly sourced). At most, if something had to be removed, it should have been done with ordinary editing so that the stuff in the edit history could be recovered and sourced by non-admins. One Night In Hackney was the only person who treated the material as contentious, and that only after repeatedly stubbing the article with no discussion. I count two wheel warring admins, but One Night In Hackney's unwillingness to use common sense about checking out the article comes across to me as disrupting Wikipedia to prove a point. 75.62.7.22 05:26, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

There was no wheel warring (definted as a revert war involving administrative —not editorial— means) to the best of my observation. El_C 05:32, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Can you verify that? I had thought the article had been repeatedly stubbed and unstubbed (i.e. all revisions administratively deleted and undeleted) and not just blanked (contents removed and restored by normal editing), but I may have gotten confused. As a non-admin I can see the (empty) deletion log for the article, but not for its revisions. 75.62.7.22 05:40, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

There was no wheel warring, although there should have been at least one admin action I can think of. Frise 05:43, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks, blanking is much more correct than stubbing, in a situation like this, and I'm glad there was not a wheel war. It still seems to me, however, that One Night In Hackney was disrupting to make a point. 75.62.7.22 05:48, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Negative and unsourced material about a living person has no place on Wikipedia. Sourcing is preferable to removing, but re-adding such unsourced material once it has been challenged is completely unacceptable. Frise 05:37, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Technically the page is still unreferenced, until the list of references is linked with citations for the actual claims involved. The page needs to be upgraded with use of the ref tag and the references/ tag. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 05:17, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• My conclusion as the uninvolved admin attending to this is that you are not, in fact, entitled to invoke the BLP clause to violate 3RR over content which is immediately verifiable. A cursory search is expected. El_C 05:19, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• Policy says otherwise, the material should not have been restored. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 05:29, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• I gather this being your position, but it is within my mandate to correct you in this limited instance. El_C 05:39, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• Also, Jimbo Wales agrees with my actions. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 05:34, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• The case here involved claims which are much more limited and easily verifiable. El_C 05:39, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Exactly, ONIH. Frise 05:37, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

It does sound as if the BLP policy needs clarification on what 'contentious' means, since in this case two established users disagree on the meaning of the policy here. If this misunderstanding happens once, it will happen again. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 05:45, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

"Consider it contentious as of now" tells me that the article got blanked before its contents were considered contentious. We really don't need more instruction creep, we need less confrontational attitudes. Edit collaboratively instead of trying to press every prerogative to the hilt. 75.62.7.22 05:57, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Good luck. I had a long discussion about a user who was doing the same thing as ONH did on this area, except, on a much wider scale. Not only did I get yelled at to "Get off my ass" instead of complaining (and asking that contentious be removed from the BLP, if that's the way it's going to be enforced), another user got indefblocked (since removed) for restoring the information removed as a BLP violation. ONiH was a member of that discussion, so I'm sure he was quite sure of what the folks who inhabit WT:BLP think the policy is. If you want to see the discussion, here it is SirFozzie 15:49, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I would contend that most people would think unsourced claims that a policeman accepted $700,000 in bribes to protect brothels, SP bookmakers, illegal casinos, in-line machine operators and to prevent poker machines being legally introduced in Queensland, and committed forgery were contentious. The only person that doesn't think it's contentious is the administrator who's failed to source that page for over a year, and clearly has it watchlisted. Still, I'm sure someone will try and make me look the bad guy in all this still..... One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 05:57, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I think Rebecca edit warred and should have sourced the article. I think you should have spent a few seconds checking out the underlying claims and discussed the situation with her in a cooperative spirit, instead of using policy as a bludgeon. 75.62.7.22 06:02, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• It dosen't seem that abstract. The stabbing even omitted any refernce to there being an Inquiry and so on, but the individual is already depicted in its own article. Which isn't to say that Rebecca couldn't have added a source as I did. Both users could/should have done so. El_C 06:00, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Again, ONiH was just applying policy as it was explained on WT:BLP. SirFozzie 15:51, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• It appears that Fitzgerald Inquiry has contained a link to the outside source for all this information since at least February, and that article has been linked from Terry Lewis (police commissioner) for at least that long as well. Yes, there should be a direct footnote in Terry Lewis, but stubbing seems dramatic overkill for statements that a) aren't in dispute, and b) are fully referenced in a closely-linked article. Both involved editors dropped the ball here, and should be chastised for choosing to get into a pissing match rather than just add the bloody reference. Why isn't WP:SENSE a policy yet? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:13, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Proposed unblock of ISOLA'd ELBA

ISOLA'd ELBA (talk · contribs) has been indefblocked by Durova as a sockpuppet of Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles (talk · contribs). They requested to be unblocked. I investigated their contribs and was not convinced there is any connection. I emailed Durova asking for clarification and found the response well-intentioned but not persuasive. ISOLA'd ELBA gave wiki awards to several users, including Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles but other than that all I see is a user who while perhaps a little too userpage-focused, has made an effort to contribute productively. Their only mainspace contrib looked like a hoax (and they were briefly blocked by Sandstein for it) but it is actually legit. Also, there was a checkuser on Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles, but did not cover ISOLA'd ELBA. I'm listing here to propose they be unblocked and to invite others to comment on whether they think this is a sock account, and Durova has been notified. —dgies^t_c 04:38, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Temporal evidence doesn't show a link either: Le Grand Roi seems to go to bed at about 6 UTC (no edits for a good 9 hours after), whereas this user appears to sleep 4 hours earlier, although lack of wide-spread contributions make it a little hard to determine. I would support an unblock. -Amarkov moo! 04:45, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

To outline my reasons, Isola's third edit ever was to suggest that another editor try for administratorship - not the sort of thing genuine new user usually does. Both accounts use a similarly florid prose style and it's highly unusual for a new account to give a user award to an editor who was indef blocked before the new account was created. Also note that an anonymous user spammed both the thread about Isola at my talk page and the checkuser request on le Grand Roi, similar to le Grand Roi's IP tactics when I ran an investigation and imposed a six week block last fall. Since the Isola account has made only one mainspace edit and was essentially using Wikipedia as Myspace, I'm not very optimistic about the prospects. Durova^Charge! 05:03, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Re 3rd edit: You said that before, and it seemed quite damning, but as far as I can tell this is their 3rd edit, copyring userpage design from The Transhumanist. The anon is a lot more suspect, but if I were to venture a guess I'd say the anon is Le Grand Roi trolling you over a collateral damage block. —dgies^t_c 05:14, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Wasn't this the same guy who disrupted a bunch of AfDs as an anon user by voting speedy keep on them all? JuJube 05:05, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

It's news to me, diffs? —dgies^t_c 05:19, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

My bad on the third edit: that must have been one of the other sockpuppets I investigated from those threads. And to Dgies, if my guess is correct this is the same user who disrupted AfD. Durova^Charge! 05:45, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, diffs for the anon? —dgies^t_c 06:01, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Some diffs: [12]. Some discussion here and here. 75.62.7.22 07:18, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• I feel it is quite likely that Le Grand Roi is behind those anon AfD bulk votes, but I'm still not convinced of the connection between Le Grand Roi/the IPs and Isola'd. Isola'd left wiki awards on several user pages, including Le Grand Roi, and later a strong inclusionist, possibly Le Grand Roi, does cleanup work on their article to try to prevent its deletion. Also Isola'd and the inclusionist anons have different time-patterns. I just don't see enough evidence that Isola'd is a sock account, merely that a sock is interested in them. I am going to unblock ISOLA'd ELBA, but if more damning evidence comes to light please let me know. —dgies^t_c 15:35, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

3RR board refuses to listen to my complaints

The 3RR board refuses to acknowledge mmy complaint even the user chazbeckett has clearily violated the 3RR rule on the List of Heroes Episodes page.annoynmous 04:42, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

He was reverting your obvious vandalism, exempt. Please read WP:POINT. -M^ask? 04:45, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I read this and I had to do some digging. "Obvious vandalism"? Hardly. Content dispute over fair use images, definitely, but I see no part of WP:3RR that makes content disputes regarding policy implementation exempt from the rules. There is no clear, final consensus on the use of fair use images in lists. As a matter of fact, that very matter is currently under discussion.

This is a clear-cut 3RR violation. Admins are not exempt from the rules. -- Y|yukichigai (_ramble argue ^check) 05:28, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

There can be no dispute if they are siply not allowed, and they arent. Read the process that arrived at that here. -M^ask? 05:38, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

There is no "process that was arrived at". The discussion is ongoing. Regardless of your position on the matter, there is no Wikipedia policy document which explicity states that fair use images in lists is a violation of policy. (Or one that says it's okay, for that matter) All the existing policy documents use intentionally vague wording, such as "minimal" and "decorative". Even the Wikifoundation document uses vague language about "narrow limits".

Until such time as there is a clear, unambiguous directive or decision on the matter all "enforcement" of the no fair use in lists "policy" is edit warring based on differing interpretations of policy, not "reverting vandalism". Plenty of users, even admins have been blocked for this very thing before, and there is no reason why it should suddenly change now. -- Y|yukichigai (_ramble argue ^check) 06:03, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Im sorry, but you seem to be confusing that page for a debate. This is a foundation issue. That page explains our policy, it is not a debate to see what we do. Consensus does not trump legal issues. -M^ask? 06:07, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

This is a flat out lie. chazbeckett was the vandal who deleted fair use images then falsely claimed they weren't.

An why in the hell is he exempt. He violated the rules and therefore he should be banned. Why does he get a pass on the rules and I don't. You guys are such sticklers for policy in every other part of wikipedia, why is this any differnt

I repeat the 3RR board has refused to block chazbeckett even though he has clearily violated the rules.annoynmous 05:10, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Fair Use images in Lists of Episodes is against policy. There has been a mass removal of this from the wiki today. It is completely inappropriate and legally unstable to add them back. Cease doing it. -M^ask? 05:27, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Uh, the 3RR page listing is incredibly malformed, almost to the point of incoherentness. That's probably why no action is taken. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 05:18, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Noted such on user's talk page. MSJapan 05:19, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Reverting vandalism is an exception to 3RR, and right now it seems that constantly re-adding fair use images to episode list articles qualifies. JuJube 05:20, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Anonymous: Read the instructions carefully. When making a 3RR report, you must fill it out thoroughly. You must include the diffs of at least four reverts. You included only a warning to ChazBeckett. Format the report correctly and you will at least get a response rather than having you report removed (though I don't guarantee the response will be the one you want). Heimstern Läufer 05:42, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

For the record, i've blocked anonnymous for 1 week for 3RR violation of his own: he made 3 reverts, then logged out shortly after to avoid being caught for the 4th. The user has been blocked several times before for 3RR violation, and received something like a half-dozen or more warnings. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 08:10, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

User is on Active Leave, but has several problems with images

I just tagged Image:VelocityRunning(2).png at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion, and did so on his talk page. I then went to his main page and just now realized that he might be actively deployed (if I interpret his page correctly). Now i'm abit worried now, because i've also seen this image that he uploaded elsewhere that has that ominous red tag of death. And I scrambled to get fair use mantra at Image:Velocity1.jpg in place as well. Now seeing he maybe on active duty and can't really defend himself or the images, what sort of action, if any, can be done to rectify the problem with the other two images? --293.xx.xxx.xx 09:30, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

No special action is needed. The deletion policy makes no exception for stuff added by users who are not currently active for whatever reason. If he wishes to contest the deletion after the fact he can start a deletion review once he comes back. --Sherool (talk) 11:33, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah ... the other thing to keep in mind is that it used to not be possible to undelete an image ... so it was extremely important that the uploader be notified. Now, though, they can be undeleted so, while we still need to notify the uploader, it isn't as big of an issue if they don't get the message in time. --BigDT 12:54, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

"Prankster club" setting up shop in userspace

The "main page" seems to be Melbourne DX (talk · contribs) where they have a "hit list" for pranks and all sorts of non-ensyclopedic stuff. The following user acounts are also part of this group:

• MELDX1 (talk · contribs)
• Mdshtl (talk · contribs)
• MELDX3 (talk · contribs)
• MELDX4 (talk · contribs)
• MELDX5 (talk · contribs)
• MELDX6 (talk · contribs)
• MELDX7 (talk · contribs)
• MELDX8 (talk · contribs)
• MELDX9 (talk · contribs)
• Dingv03 (talk · contribs)

User:Melbourne DX should be deleted obviously, but what if anyting should be done beyond that? My knee jerk reaction was almost to block the lot of them for inapropriate use of Wikipeida, but I don't deal with user conduct issues all that much so I figured it would be better to bring this to broader attention here rater than risking to overstep my bounds. After all if you look at each acount independently (and asuming they are different people) most of them haven't rely broken any concrete rules. --Sherool (talk) 14:07, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I deleted the userpage mentioned above. Editor had no actual edits and while there is no specific CSD for this, I think it is pretty safe to say that using userspace to coordinate real world "pranks" that may constitute criminal acts is worth a speedy; realistically there is no way this was going to survive an MfD. I'm holding off on acting against any of the individuals at this point until I have more time to review. On the surface it looks like some just need a reminder that this is not a chathost; the rest have no edits.--Isotope23 14:18, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Hex Number

Okay, what the bleep is going on? I note several people mentioning some hexadecimal number in as many places as possible, and clamoring about censorship, as well as a rather contentious deletion review that is now closed. Any official word on this? No, this is not THAT number, this is just a random string I made up. >Radiant< 14:30, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Discussion is on AN [13] pschemp | talk 14:33, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

[ec]Yeah, I think it is that number. EVula // talk // ☯ // 14:35, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Some anon is doing stuff to the heading of this thread - is this a bad thing? x42bn6 Talk 14:59, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm guessing it is a bit of WP:POINT.--Isotope23 15:02, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I replaced the heading with a new number. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 15:04, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Removing {{ifd}} tags.

I need some help from someone more tactful to explain User:Kogsquinge that removing {{ifd}} tags from images ([14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19]) isn't a helpful behavior. --Abu badali ^(talk) 15:13, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Good grief, he has uploaded an unbelievable number of promo photos. Using them in an article on the fictional character ... ok ... but they absolutely need to be removed from the actor/actress articles. --BigDT 15:48, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, those are not promo photos, although User:Kogsquinge, in good faith, believed them to be. Those are images produced by CBS to enhance their site, cbs.com. And they made it clear in their terms of use that those images are not to be used in any other publication (that's the point of nominating them to ifd). But this is tangential to the matter. --Abu badali ^(talk) 16:15, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• : Blocked 48h for repeated removal of tags. Guy (Help!) 16:17, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

  Not exactly "tactful" though... --Abu badali ^(talk) 16:55, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

New sockpuppets of VinceB

I would like to ask for an administrative intervention against two new sockpuppets of a banned sockpuppeter VinceB (talk · contribs). Odbhss (talk · contribs) and Pannonia (talk · contribs) appeared after the last sockpuppets of VinceB (Norman84 (talk · contribs), The only sockpuppet of VinceB ever (talk · contribs), and 195.56.91.23 (talk · contribs)) were blocked. User:Juro requested a CheckUser, but the request was refused as unnecessary (as their behavior itself was a duck test[20]) and a direct administrative action was recommended instead.[21] Since VinceB is a prolific creator of sockpuppets, I would like also to ask a more general question what is the most efficient way to deal with them. Should we post them at WP:ANI or we need an answer from CheckUser each time? Thank you in advance Tankred 17:39, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

An IP of VinceB's range and POV has just appeared.[22]. Since all the IPs of the range 195.56. have been proven to be sockpuppets of the banned VinceB so far, I would like to ask to block 195.56.224.252 (talk · contribs) as well. Tankred 18:55, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Another evasion of a ban, with the same IP range and the same POV: [23] I suggest someone blocks 195.56.207.50 too. Well, if anyone finds this requests. Tankred 19:41, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

A new one: 195.56.51.196.[24] Tankred 13:48, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I've been asked to post here. The fact that VinceB self-identified through an IP sockpuppet at my user page and asked other editors to run a checkuser certainly raises my eyebrow. At the very least that demonstrates he's watching the situation closely. In general, when a problem editor goes out of his or her way to solicit checkuser it's because they've set up some meatpuppets that they're certain will pass that test. Durova^Charge! 18:39, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to say, but this is bullshit. I do not set up any sock or meatpuppets. No need to. I do evase ban openly, when I'm around. :) I'm checking Tankred's, Juro's and PANONIAN's edits regularly, and I always find, when they lie, or abuse references [25]. These stupid accusations above are simply harassing other editors, and are good to hide my reports. WTF are you thinking abt me? BTW it is nice, you think I have that much power. LOL. If it would be, these reports were long ago initiated, almost in first edits. This is sad. LOL. --195.56.231.222 21:25, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Vince, I withdraw the offer I extended to you via e-mail. I don't do favors for people who insult me. Durova^Charge! 21:52, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Inappropriate warning re: Homosexual agenda

This post is to complain about an administrator, User:Nandesuka. I have informed her on her talk page about this complaint.

Around a week ago, I added an unsourced statement to this article. A few days ago, it was deleted, and I made 4 reverts to this article during a 2-day period. I do not wish to discuss the content dispute here as I believe this is not the appropriate place. Nevertheless, explanations of the situation can be found on the talk pages of me, her, and the article in question.

A neutral observer, User:Orthologist, had this to say [26]:

Policy states that one should use common sense; as the information wasn't libellous or extraordinary, I tried to rephrase it and put it back in.

Then, yesterday, Nandesuka, who had no previous participation with this matter, issued this warning on my user talk page [27]:

If you continue the stale edit war on your admittedly unsourced statements on Homosexual agenda, I will block you for disruption. Please consider this your final warning.

I believe this warning to be improper. It violates policy at least in spirit to block over this, as it is long-established that this is not vandalism and that unilateral blocks are almost always appropriate only for simple vandalism.

Nandesuka has not meaningfully responded to my criticisms of her action.

The warning is an attack on my honor and I request that it be withdrawn. The way, the truth, and the light 22:05, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

looks like a good warning to me - from a quick skim other editors had already discussed with you in detail why that information was unsuitable. Good move by that admin to stop a possible edit war. --Fredrick day 22:14, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, this is not meant to be about the content dispute itself. The way, the truth, and the light 22:31, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

You readded the same unsourced information about 10 times. That is edit warring. The warning wasn't abusive. IrishGuy ^talk 22:15, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I reverted just 4 times after it was deleted, as I said above. For my justification see User talk:Nandesuka. The way, the truth, and the light 22:31, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

No. Six times you added a link to Pederasty as well as the sentence It is commonly believed that the gay agenda will lead to the acceptance of pederasty. The other four times you merely added the sentence. IrishGuy ^talk 22:33, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I believed that it was resolved as of Apr 23. I had not received any warnings, and 3 users had endorsed the information's inclusion. That is why I started my complaint with the Apr 27 deletion, after which I made only 4 reverts. The way, the truth, and the light 22:41, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Who might these 3 users be? Based on the talk page, I am only seeing one, Orthologist. My point stands, 10 times you continued to add unsourced information (you even admitted that it was unsourced on the talk page) that was removed by others. How is that not edit warring? IrishGuy ^talk 22:45, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Two other users edited my statement without removing it, I was counting those in the 3. I did revert 10 times in all, but the two periods should be considered different incidents for the reason I gave above. The way, the truth, and the light 22:50, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Not exactly. One added a citation tag, the other added a tag for weasel words. Neither of those actions would be termed "endorsements". IrishGuy ^talk 01:16, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

How can you justify re-adding a statement you say yourself is unsourced? Complaining about an admin "attacking your honor" is not going to help you here. JuJube 22:36, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

As I have said twice now, this is not the place to discuss the disputed content. The way, the truth, and the light 22:41, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Then you're wasting our time. JuJube 22:49, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

The place to discuss the content of the article is at the article's talk page, where I have just made another reply. The way, the truth, and the light 23:32, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

You can't have it both ways. The warning was related to the content. If we are going to discuss the warning, then we have to discuss the content that led to the warning. If we cannot discuss the content, then we cannot discuss the warning, and this thread shall be closed. ··coelacan 23:38, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

The reason for having policies is to distinguish arguments over process from arguments over content. I did describe here the actions leading up to the warning, and you are welcome to expand/comment on that. But we are not here to rehash all the argument that should be made on the article talk page. The way, the truth, and the light 01:39, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

This is pedantic. Your complaint is that someone "attacked your honor" for warning you about edit warring against consensus. This could only be a valid complaint if you were not edit warring against consensus. It is already a long-established consensus on Wikipedia that if you are going to add contentious content to an article, it had better be well sourced. You added your unsourced original research and complained here about being warned for it. To investigate your complaint, we must decide whether the warning was a valid one, and the substance of the warning regards disputed content. So you can't divide the process from the content (which is why we have processes regarding content, by the way). In any case, no one here seems to agree with you that we must evaluate this on your terms. I suspect that if I haven't made myself clear to you yet, there's no point in explaining further. ··coelacan 04:03, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

'Edit warring' is a pejorative term and I prefer to avoid such terms if possible. I never intended to keep reverting forever, and indeed was about to stop when given the warning, as I saw that it wasn't getting anywhere at the time. As far as process versus content, Wikipedia can keep the peace only by dividing the two. It's true that we are having this discussion because of the content, but I never attempted to defend it on this thread. The way, the truth, and the light 12:42, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

(Edit conflict, comment aimed at TW,TT,ATL) Yet it was still unsourced. You were edit warring, adding something that could be deemed to be libellous, and not providing sources. That is disruption. The warning was fair- the fact that the editor was uninvolved is a good sign they were not biased in the matter; it would not be good practice to warn someone which whom you were, at that time, in a content dispute with. J Milburn 22:38, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

One has to wonder if anybody who uses the handle "The way, the truth, and the light" could ever be anything but contentious. Corvus cornix 22:38, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

For the record, I have now blocked TWTTATL for disruption, specifically for his repeated editing of other user's comments on the talk page. Diffs are on the block notice on his talk page. Nandesuka 02:05, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I endorse this block. If someone disagrees with someone else's edits on a talk page, they should rebut them, not remove them. When the edits are links regarding the editor in question's previous disruptive behavior, that's even more reason not to remove them. And then revert warring over it? Yes, if a block is what it takes to stop that, then block. ··coelacan 04:12, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I did not remove edits on the talk page, only edit them without changing the meaning. Please don't make assumptions about whay you don't know yourself. The way, the truth, and the light 12:42, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, you did remove content: see here. You were removing evidence that you blanked warnings. IrishGuy ^talk 15:43, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

As I explained somewhere else, I was not removing evidence because I admitted that I had done it in the next reply. The way, the truth, and the light 03:32, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I think it's a good block too, she's shown herself to be perfectly willing to waste admin's time on silly nonsense like protecting her honor (I suspect this person's a female... gut feeling). I really don't think anything good's going to come out of this. JuJube 06:43, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I am male. I would much prefer to be left alone, rather than 'waste admins' time'. Finally, the main part of your post says that complaining about admin actions warrants a block. No comment is needed there. The way, the truth, and the light 12:42, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Good block, clear disruption after disruptive edit-warring. I would suggest that User:The way, the truth, and the light stays away from Homosexual agenda, because at the moment he's is adding nothing constructive to the article in question, nor to the talk page. Moreschi ^Talk 15:51, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Kelly Martin 4

Without trying to cause a conflict on the above dispute, the above page is still fully protected on grounds of a dispute, with the discussion here now closed, where are people supposed to discuss? Ryan Postlethwaite 23:36, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I think the discussion is over? --Cyde Weys 23:37, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Any further issues can be resolved on the user talk pages, or an application for unprotection can be made. --Tony Sidaway 23:38, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Feel free to discuss my deletion of the RfC on my talk page. El_C 23:39, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I fully support deletion, but what's the point in keeping it undeleted if it's protected? Ryan Postlethwaite 23:40, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

As mentioned, I've always kept the talk pages of deleted RfCs intact and I see no compelling reason to change that practice now. El_C 23:42, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Well might I suggest removing the disputed template from the top? Ryan Postlethwaite 23:52, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not following that. El_C 23:54, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

So where is this dispute settled? Don't say in userspace because that's not what the tag suggest. Ryan Postlethwaite 23:56, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

It's just how the tag is designed. I can modify it if it's really important to you. Anyway, the point of having it undeleted even if it is protected (which happned after undeletion) is that it can still be read by non-admins. El_C 00:03, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, I'm really not that bothered to be honest, but it just seams a bit stupid to have a template on the page saying it's disputed with no-where to go to settle the dispute. Ryan Postlethwaite 00:07, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I modified it to read something more generic. Hope that helps. El_C 00:11, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Cheers for clarifying the template. Ryan Postlethwaite 00:09, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I wanted to post to that page as well, but I realised my comment was more about RfCs in general, so I posted to Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment. Incidentially, while reading up on all this, I came across this, which seems to raise an important point. Where is the dividing line between blocking vandals and biting newcomers who carry out test edits? The issues of cool-off blocks (bad) and blocking test-edit 'vandals' (bad) should be made clearer, or rather it should be made clearer that those who disagree with those assessments shouldn't carry out such blocks regardeless. Having said that, it did seem to cool the situation down, and I applaud those who were blocked but didn't get upset. One day, not having a block on your block log will be seen as a sign of not having been around long enough to get an unfair block or two! :-) Carcharoth 14:59, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Huh? See Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment and Wikipedia talk:Requests for comments. The former is the talk page I meant to link above (I've now corrected it), and the latter is a redirect to Wikipedia talk:Peer review. Seems confusing and might be to do with an earlier page move. Should the pural "requests" talk page redirect be pointed back to the singular "request" talk page? Carcharoth 16:31, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Are you having a conversation with yourself? I love those. El_C 21:22, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Who, me? Carcharoth 22:54, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

No, he means me! Carcharoth 22:54, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

What, are you sure? Carcharoth 22:54, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, no, I'm confused now! Carcharoth 22:54, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

That's OK, I've explained everything in the edit summary! Carcharoth 22:54, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Requests for comments is now re-redirected to Wikipedia_talk:Requests for comment. -- Ben ^TALK/_HIST 23:00, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. A three-and-a-half year old mystery spotted by my typo is now solved. As this is the only "Kelly Martin" thread on ANI that seems to be still open, I suggest someone archive it quick! I suggest a puce shade of mauve. :-) Carcharoth 00:09, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah, A Puce Shade of Mauve, the famous unwritten Travis McGee novel! -- Ben ^TALK/_HIST 22:25, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Possible death threat

Resolved

 – Or seems to be? – Luna Santin (talk) 21:27, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I reverted User:219.95.37.175 twice today at Womanizer. 219.95.37.175 then made an edit which included "Remove will die" [28] as a wikilink. I also reverted that edit. There is no article and only a single unrelated Google hit on "Remove will die". PrimeHunter 17:24, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

That's not a death threat, it's just adding nonsense into the article, I'll warn the user. Ryan Postlethwaite 17:27, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry about it too much unless you live in Malaysia... and I agree with Ryan, this is just silly vandalism.--Isotope23 17:28, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I would wanr, but he's been blocked.... I'll speak to the blocking admin. Ryan Postlethwaite 17:28, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Since their vandalism kept getting removed and then they added it, I interpreted it as a threat and blocked 31 hours. —dgies^t_c 17:29, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Let's not assume our editors dont live in Malaysia but I agree that such an edit should be ignored/treated as simple vandalism, SqueakBox 17:30, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I personally think a warning would have been more than sufficient. Ryan Postlethwaite 17:32, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I treated it as a (admittedly improbable) threat because they kept making the same vandalism and having it removed, so it was clearly directed at the person removing vandalism. I was under the impression threats are to be treated very seriously. If you think it was overly harsh you can unblock/warn. —dgies^t_c 17:34, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I think the block was fine; I'm not a big fan of warning for the sake of having warned a user. It's obvious they had vandalism on their mind, and so AGF goes right out the window. EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:35, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Seems to me that we should have a zero tolerance toward death threats. This may not be a clear threat but we should be sending a message that says death threats (however they are stated) will not be tolerated. It's s little funny and editor can get blocked faster for making a legal threat then by making a death threat. RxS 17:37, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I still don't agree, we don't just block IP address's for vandalism when they haven't been warned, especially when it was simple nonsense that was being added, not a threat. I'm not unblocking, but I'm not happy about it. Ryan Postlethwaite 17:38, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

To me, it looks like a poor-English version of "If you remove this again I will kill you". —dgies^t_c 17:43, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I can't see how you got that from; Victor the Great (Remove will die) - somebody must have some really bad english problems. Ryan Postlethwaite 17:45, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Well not everyone speaks English, SqueakBox 17:49, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not in Malaysia and I'm not worried about my safety. More details: I reverted two additions [29][30] of "[[Victor]] (''[[ Victor the Great ]]'')". My second edit summary was "Listings should have an article". The user then added "[[Victor the Great]] (''[[Remove will die]]'')" instead.[31] It seems impossible to me that the user thinks there is or should be such an article on a non-existant phrase, so it looked like a (strangely formatted) threat to me. A 31-hour block is OK for me. PrimeHunter 17:53, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I still see no death threat, I'm not going to be on the computer for a while so I guess I'll be getting shot down for my stance! The guy was adding nonsense into the article and that was it, something which most probably a warning would have dealt with, but I notice that despite 4 revisions throughout the day, not a single warning was given. Ryan Postlethwaite 17:56, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, generally speaking I don't think we should be forced to warn people about death threats before a block (or threats that could be interpreted as death threats). That goes beyond simple vandalism. If, after getting blocked, the editor wants to clarify his remarks then fine. But death threats should never ever be accepted (just as legal threats are not accepted). I agree that a warning sequence needs to be followed in the case of simple vandalism. RxS 18:05, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not saying that death threats shouldn't result in an immediate block, I agree they should, what I'm saying is, this wasn't a death threat, it was simple vandalism. Ryan Postlethwaite 18:42, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

That's why I put in "threats that could be interpreted as death threats". This seems to qualify as several editors saw it as a possible death threat. If his less than perfect command of English got in the way of his real message, he can explain himself more fully on his talk page. I'm not trying to focus only on this block, I'm trying to make a more general point about these kinds of threats...this just happened to catch my eye. In general, I think we need a zero tolerance policy toward someone threatening an editor. You make what could be interpreted as a death threat, you get blocked. You can explain on your talk page if you'd like, and the blocking admin can bring it here for discussion...but we shouldn't accept any threats of this kind. RxS 19:20, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Another IP, User:60.49.108.42 (whose only other edit is about Malaysia) has now added "[[Vicotr The Great]] (''[[!!You Remove You Die!!]]'')".[32] My revert edit summary before that said "Was that edit a death threat against me?)".[33] This looks like the answer. I have reverted for the 4th time today. I assume that's allowed here. PrimeHunter 19:39, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

http://www.ip2location.com/free.asp says the two IP's are to:

219.95.37.175: MALAYSIA, WILAYAH PERSEKUTUAN, KUALA LUMPUR, ADSL-STREAMYX-TMNET

60.49.108.42: MALAYSIA, WILAYAH PERSEKUTUAN, KUALA LUMPUR, TELEKOM MALAYSIA BERHAD

Combined with the huge similarity in edits and the second IP being used after the first was blocked, it looks like the same person to me. PrimeHunter 20:16, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Any action or comments on 60.49.108.42? English is my second language but writing "!!You Remove You Die!!" at something I had removed 3 times sounds like a threat. PrimeHunter 02:07, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Having known Malaysia, it sounds a lot like Manglish - Malaysian slang. x42bn6 Talk 14:52, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Warning is not a prerequisite for blocking; this block seems fine. I would have likely done the exact same thing. El_C 20:07, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Extreme POV pushing

Resolved

 – Or seems to be? – Luna Santin (talk) 21:31, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Sarah777 has just removed Category:Terrorism from the Proxy bomb article, then replaced it with two dubious categories, one of which does not exist. Nobody operating from a neutral point of view could possibly say that forcing an innocent member of the public to become a suicide bomber is not a terrorist act, and it certainly isn't the act of a "freedom fighter". One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 19:36, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

To her credit she has self revert the "freedom fighter" cat.--Vintagekits 19:39, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Only because the category doesn't exist. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 19:40, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Exactly.--Vintagekits 19:41, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

And it continues. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 20:12, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I have conceded on the category because I was technically wrong. Not conceding the POV; but that's for another day. Basically my stance is that NPOV across and between articles is as, or more, important to the credibility of Wiki than NPOV within a single article. (Sarah777 20:31, 1 May 2007 (UTC))

2 articles in need of semi-protection due to homophobic and/or scatalogical vandalism

Resolved

 – Resolved for now? I'll see if I can help keep an eye on these. – Luna Santin (talk) 21:32, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Two articles that I watch are very frequent subjects of scatalogical vandalism and/or homophobic vandalism. Thos articles are: Fudge and Jim Jones. I bvelieve that semi-protecting the pages against new users and users with accounts not older than 4 days will suffice. most of the vandalism coomes from unregistered users. It seems like every day someone vandlaizes the Fudge article and at least a few times a week with Jim Jones. Frequent reverts make it hard to do any real editing on these articles. ThanksLiPollis 19:48, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Requests for page protection should really be made at WP:RFPP, where there will likely be a quicker response. Will (aka Wimt) 20:33, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I looked at both articles, and there appears to be not enough recent history to warrant semi-protecting those two articles. Nishkid64 (talk) 21:20, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

OK. If you say so. I hereby refuse to revert any more unconstructive edits to those articles- let somebody else take up the cause. I'm tired.LiPollis 07:34, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Military brat

Resolved

 – reverted the move. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 05:39, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Somebody made an arbitrary decision to move Military brat (U.S. subculture) to simply Military brat. This is a huge mistake as discussed on the Military brat (U.S. subculture) talk page. The article has a definate US bias because that is where the research has been done and it would be impossible to make a global page unbiased. I need somebody to revert this move ASAP---otherwise, there will tons of criticism (and rightfully so) of the article.Balloonman 05:16, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

(EC on expand)User in question is User:Deltabeignet. This move wasn't done right, as the talk page is still at the Talk:Military brat (U.S. subculture) page, and there was existing talk at [Military brat]], which seems to address the problems with this. Further, a review of the editor's history shows NO involvement on any of the related pages or talk pages, going back 500 edits, which gets back to the start of 2007. ThuranX 05:19, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

In general we don't disambiguate unless necessary; disambiguating just because an article doesn't yet contain all worldwide points of view isn't the way things are generally done. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 05:21, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

As the complaintant explains, however, there is no information on the other nations. The article perhaps should've been moved and tagged as america-centric (i forget the proper tag terminology). The way this move was done left behind the talk page, and had NO consensus, and the editor moving had no involvement anywhere on the article before. ThuranX 05:26, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Two things: Wasn't this recently a featured article? Why would it be moved at that point? That's ridiculous. Secondarily, Thuran, I believe the tag is called worldview.⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 05:35, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

(That's the one, thank you.) ThuranX 05:41, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Yep, it was a featured article recently, and also per the move log: "Move log 04:51, December 1, 2006 Balloonman (Talk | contribs | block) moved Military brat to Military brat (US Subculture) (Per Military Peer Review and FAC comment) (revert)" I've therefore reverted it back. Deltabeignet clearly did not bother to check for or get consensus before moving a featured article....that's just ridiculous. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 05:38, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

However, its current title does not comply with Wikipedia's standard naming conventions, which are to only disambiguate if there actually is something TO disambiguate. I think the problem is that the term "Military brat" is normally used only in the US, but the concept that it describes is not necessarily so limited. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 05:51, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually it is commonly used in England, US, Canada, and Australia (and probably other English speaking countries.) But the research on the subject has been strictly done in the US (see talk page for full discussion supporting that statement.) Thus it is necessary to create a stub for just Military brat to cover the subject in a generic sense... and then a disambiguous page to cover the specific researched effects on the US phenomenon (again see talk page for discussion on why it is impractical to try to write a comprehensive global article.) Thus the disambig is used to indicate that this article is talking about the US impact of being a military brat. Anyways, I do thank you guys for fixing it... if it stayed it would have caused major problems.Balloonman 05:58, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

World view for ya—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 06:03, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

In case it wasn't clear enough below, the stub Military brat also exists, for the "world view" aspect of it, you may want to look into adding it there too Ryulong (and now I'm REALLY going to bed). ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 06:51, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I just realized that when Swatjester fixed the move made by User:Deltabeignet that he moved the article Military brat. There was a stub there that covered military brats from a more generic point of view... and having been involved with this article, that page is necessary. Can somebody restore that page? I've asked swatjester to look at it, but I don't know if he's still awake.Balloonman 06:28, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. BTW, I didn't move it, Deltabeignet had already deleted it. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 06:50, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

NP thanksBalloonman 06:50, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Um, so because a Featured article only discusses the US point of view, it must have a disambiguation attached to it? why? Seems like someone is deprecating the article with the tag. If there are other views besides the US POV, add them, don't create forks for every country in the world in which the term might be used. Corvus cornix 18:53, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

IP 24.255.161.9 NPA

Resolved

 – Or seems to be? Heh, didn't see this report... – Luna Santin (talk) 21:42, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• 24.255.161.9 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

• Repeated personal attacks... latest one here, in which he blanks my userpage to make more personal attacks.

/Blaxthos 06:08, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

He's been blocked for 31 hours by User:Luna Santin. Mahanga^Talk 06:53, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Massive fraud by administrator User:Jersyko

Resolved

Jersyko is massively blocking others, including hard blocks in order to sqaush all reasonable, NPOV edits in place of subtle POV edits. He falsely claims he’s blocking socks. He accused lawman8 yesterday (proven to be in Atlanta) then blocked sample123 claiming that that user was also in Atlanta, Georgia (abbreviated GA). Jersyko deleted (reverted) evidence proving sample1234 is in San Diego, California (thousands of miles away on the same day). If lawman8 is a sock then sample1234 is innocent because of location and IP.

• Worse yet, Jersyko is guilty of being a sockpuppetmaster because only a guilty person would delete SSP and RFCU complaints against himself as Jersyko has. This alone should cause the banning of Jersyko.

I am not involved in any content dispute and I can prove that I am not anywhere near Atlanta (location of accused sock) or San Diego. I know that I will be blocked just because I’m exposing fraud by an administrator.

This AN/I is already too long but give me a chance and I’ll show even more of Jersyko’s fraud and deception. Block me and delete this AN/I and you prove that you support fraud and cover-up. You should immediately and temporarily block Jersyko so that I can present evidence without being blocked by Jersyko or his accomplices.MAB1970 08:30, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Diffs, and/or links to relevant block logs, please. Grandmasterka 08:38, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Exactly what I was going to say.... --Kzrulzuall ^{Talk• Contribs} 08:39, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Also pretty odd to be discussing adminabuse when the editor has only two prior edits, unless there were deletions.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 08:42, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

"Block me and delete this AN/I and you prove that you support fraud and cover-up. You should immediately and temporarily block Jersyko" - ah, nope. Not without evidence. Fraud is a pretty heavyweight word to be swinging around, unless you actually meant to accuse them of a criminal offence - Alison ☺ 08:43, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

And I've just been looking through his deletion log, and didn't see any instances of "delete SSP and RFCU complaints against himself as Jersyko has" in it. Bad faith request I would say.--Kzrulzuall ^{Talk• Contribs} 08:52, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Beat me to it. 3rd edit and you know what SSP and RFCU are? Who's the sockpuppet now? ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 08:53, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

More suspicion is in the actual checkuser request for Jersyko, which has not been deleted.[34] Looks like retaliation to me. --Kzrulzuall ^{Talk• Contribs} 08:57, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

... also see User:MAB1971 as well as this posted to various talk pages. Nothing wrong if this person has genuine concerns, but creating sock accounts to post (as yet) unsubstantiated complaints?? Smacks of dishonesty - Alison ☺ 08:58, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I wonder what this is for. 75.62.7.22 08:58, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I have block MAB1971 (talk · contribs) as a sock of MAB1970 (talk · contribs), feel free to revert my block. Gnangarra 09:06, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, right... Jersyko is committing fraud... thanks for the laugh, anon... nothing to see here, move along... Phaedriel - 09:08, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• • (edit conflict) Chances are both of them are socks of some other blocked user. I've notified Jersyko about this thread so he might be able to indentify them for us, but I suspect he won't be around until at least daybreak in the U.S., several hours from now. (I should write on my userpage that I'm an extreme night owl.) Grandmasterka 09:11, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

CheckUser says this is the banned Dereks1x. Dmcdevit·t 09:15, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah! What a surprise! - Alison ☺ 09:17, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Fits doesn't it? Anyway, indef blocks anyone? --Kzrulzuall ^{Talk• Contribs} 09:18, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Way ahead of you.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 09:21, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Careful Ryulong, didn't you see that you now support fraud and cover-up? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 09:22, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

"support fraud and cover-up?" That comment doesn't seeem to be very civil, Seraphimblade, so can you calm down a bit. --Kzrulzuall ^{Talk• Contribs} 09:29, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Er, time for the annual humor sensor readjustment? Try reading it in context this time... ;-) Dmcdevit·t 09:35, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh right. I was wondering about why that comment was placed, especially by Seraphimblade... Sorry. Well I better go and sob in my corner...and I still don't get the joke. --Kzrulzuall ^{Talk• Contribs} 09:53, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I quote MAB1970, "Block me and delete this AN/I and you prove that you support fraud and cover-up." Ryulong blocked MAB1970. I think we have an airtight case! :-) Abecedare 10:08, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Well that explains it... I was searching through Ryulong's userpage trying to find any mention of fraud and cover-up... --Kzrulzuall ^{Talk• Contribs} 10:12, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

See, that is the cherry on the "conspiracy theory" cake ... absence of evidence of fraud proves the cover up. :-) Abecedare 10:21, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

How fun! That was a nice start to my morning. Thanks everyone. · j e r s y k o talk · 12:43, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Slightly unresolved

I got targetted by two more socks after I blocked them, but I requested that a checkuser block be put in place to get this guy to give up for a while.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 22:56, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I sincerely hope that works. However, given that I and others have hard blocked IPs that Dereks1x and his socks are known to be editing from yet more socks keep appearing and more edits continue to be made, I suspect that it might not stop him . . . · jersyko talk 02:46, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, I certainly doubt that his Arbitration request against me will be even accepted.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 02:49, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, I'm surprised he hasn't accused you of being my sock yet, as has been his MO so far. · jersyko talk 02:52, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Death threat again

I reported this edit yesterday under Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Possible death threat. The edit contained "!!You Remove You Die!!", apparently aimed at me who had just removed 3 times. See the earlier discussion for context. No action was taken. Any comments? PrimeHunter 11:16, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Just to clarify, the first reported IP was blocked for 31 hours. This edit by a new IP was reported near the end of the discussion. PrimeHunter 11:19, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

It seams punitive to block the IP now, if it happens again, re-report it. Ryan Postlethwaite 12:53, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

As documented yesterday, the IP is almost certainly a sockpuppet of the first IP which is still blocked for threatening me. Is it really allowed, with no block, warning or any other comment, to repost a death threat with another IP after being blocked? I reported it 25 minutes after the edit. The IP only has one other edit. Ryan Postlethwaite made 7 posts arguing against the block of the first IP in the above discussion. Does somebody else want to comment? PrimeHunter 13:36, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

If the guy is changing IPs then blocking the IP would serve not purpose. `^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)}

As shown above, the two IP's are from different ISP's in the same city. If he has to change ISP to circumvent blocks then a second block might work. I also agree with RxS who wrote above "... we should be sending a message that says death threats (however they are stated) will not be tolerated". It seems we are sending the opposite message now. PrimeHunter 14:11, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

It hasn't happened again, the incident your referring to happened almost 24 hours aago, we block for protective and not punitive reasons. As I said, if it happens again, re-report it. Ryan Postlethwaite 14:49, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

On the bright side, their intended meaning is a bit more clear, this time. I'll see if I can try and keep an eye on it. May as well just block, if they pop up again. – Luna Santin (talk) 21:50, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

astrology.com

Looks like someone who had a beef with me subscribed my email address to a number of "newsletters" from astrology.com. This shady company does not verify the subscription request properly and does not allow me to unsubscribe from their spam. I'm reporting their unsolicited commercial email to their ISP (ivillage.com) and others, but if anyone else just got a whack of messages from this company, let me know and we'll see if we can figure out who impersonated us. --Yamla 13:53, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Before you unsubscribe, can you let me know what's in the forecast for Taurus this weekend? - eo 14:18, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

"Taurus April 20 - May 20 It's useless to sit at home and wish that a crazed masked murderer would take a welding torch and slaughter your town's sexually active teens when you own a perfectly good welder's torch yourself."[35] Sucks, Yamla. Who would have thought that astrology could be shady? · jersyko talk 19:42, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Whew, thank goodness I picked up that new welder's torch at Wal-Mart last weekend. - eo 19:44, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

El-dood (talk · contribs) and Image:Retard.jpeg

Resolved

 – Or seems to be? – Luna Santin (talk) 21:17, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd take this to AIV but since I can't see the image in question because I use a screen reader, I'm not completely sure about it. El-dood (talk · contribs) tried to insert Image:Retard.jpeg into mental retardation. Most of the edits of this user seem to be vandalism and the user has been blocked before. What should be done about the image and the user? It seems to be a vandalism only account judging by the contributions I can evaluate. Graham87 14:22, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I've blocked the user indefinitely for being a vandalism only account, and deleted the image. Incase you're curious, Image:Retard.jpeg was a school photo; the person in question was wearing a school uniform. I think it's pretty clear that it was meant as some form of attack. Thanks for the heads up. --Deskana (fry that thing!) 14:26, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks - I thought it'd be some kind of attack photo. It always pays to check these things though. Graham87 14:31, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

HD-DVD decryption key

Over on the Cornish Wiktionary, where I'm the only sysop, it seems the HD-DVD encryption key postings have spread to there too. See kw:wikt:Special:Log/protect for more details.

In one of the postings, a connection to John Bambenek seems to be possible - although it could just have been someone spamming his email address.

I'd appreciate some help with people tagging them for deletion over there, just use {{delete}} (which we've got a similar version of there), and I'll delete it right away, or add it to protected titles if there are multiple re-postings.

kw:wikt:User:SunStar Net is my username there. Thanks, --SunStar Net ^talk 16:59, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I deleted this from Digital Rights Management because it felt wrong. Can someone point at a more firm pronouncement, and is it necessary to get the revisions deleted? Notinasnaid 19:20, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Ok, found [36] but it isn't clear if I should report the revision for deletion. Notinasnaid 19:27, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

User accusing another user of vandalism over a POV dispute

Experienced User:Vintagekits keeps spamming a vandalism tag on new User:Swuekilafe's talk page for this edit which is a POV dispute with Vintagekits over whether Malvinas is an English word. Spamming vandalism tags onto new users to promote a personal POPV that is highly disputed isnt aceptable IMO. Can an admin please take a look, SqueakBox 18:25, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• More disruption from Vintagekits. Guy (Help!) 20:55, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Please revert my monobook

Resolved

 – Or seems to be? – Luna Santin (talk) 21:14, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I fried it again. Rollback one edit please. --Pupster210 20:04, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

You can do it yourself. In IE: Tools -> Internet Options -> Security -> Custom level. Then under 'Scripting' Set 'Active Scripting' to disable. Prodego ^talk 20:08, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Ahhhhh! Settings restricted at school!!!! --Pupster210 20:11, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

This is the third time User:Pupster21 has accidentally locked himself out by modifying his monobook, see WP:VPT. Would somebody please revert the last edit to User:Pupster21/monobook.js? The account that posted the message on WP:VPT is also operated by Pupster and he only uses it whenever his monobook fries up. Thanks in advance. Valentinian ^{T / C} 20:04, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Looks like he beat me to posting here. It is the account mentioned directly above this post. Valentinian ^{T / C} 20:06, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

He can do it himself. In IE: Tools -> Internet Options -> Security -> Custom level. Then under 'Scripting' Set 'Active Scripting' to disable. Prodego ^talk 20:08, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Ahhh! Settings restricted at school! --Pupster210 20:10, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I am mad at javascript. All I want is a working rollback button. --Pupster21 Talk To Me 20:13, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Incivility by User:Gon4z

Gon4z (talk · contribs) has a content dispute with User:Noclador about what material is currently owned by the Albanian Army. However, Gon4z now repeatedly smears Noclador on his talk page calling him "anti-Albanian" and his edits "propaganda". Gon4z has also behaved with a similar disregard for WP:CIVIL against other users lately, and a NPA warning I posted to his page was immediately removed. He rutinely threatens or smears other editors.[37], [38], [39], [40], [41] Will somebody please do something to make him stop attacking other users? Valentinian ^{T / C} 20:27, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Semi-protection

Resolved

Can an admin please semi-protect Brazilian waxing (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) for a few days? A determined IP editor, using three different IPs so far, has tried three times over the past 12 hours (making several edits each time) to add material about a company to the page. Thank you. Anchoress 20:58, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

This is not the place to put this. You may need Requests for Page Protection --24.136.230.38 21:06, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, OK. Wow, I didn't even know that page existed. Thanks! Anchoress 21:07, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

{{uw-block3}}

Resolved

Hi, I'm bringing this here as I don't want to get into 3rr, and would appreciate some outside input. User:98E changed[42] the image and some wording on {{uw-block3}} without an edit summary. I have almost all of the warning templates in my watch list and reverted[43] the change with the edit summary please discuss any further changes at WT:UTM. He did leave a brief message which I missed but he then changed[44] it straight back and I reverted[45] him again and left a message asking him to discuss it. As I'd missed his note, and already reverted it twice I can't go any further. I'd rather as with all the templates that the change is discussed first, and left another message to that effect. If someone could have a look please would be appreciated. Cheers ^Khukri 21:48, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

After multiple warnings, User:98E continued to revert and has now been blocked for 24 hours by EVula. He/she is of course requesting to be unblocked. - auburnpilot talk 22:07, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Block log says he's been blocked a month ago by Nishkid for the same. I've had dealings with himr before and have to honestly say it had all been good. If it hadn't been for the other block would have argued on his behalf. Thanks for the intervention however. ^Khukri 22:12, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I have blocked 98E indefinitely per incriminating checkuser evidence. Picaroon (Talk) 22:58, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Another sockpuppet of Danny Daniel

Resolved

Supericious (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is a probable sockpuppet of User:Danny Daniel (long term abuse styled page of Danny Daniel is already wikilinked in heading). The user created a hoax article called Space Ham (A spoof of Space Jam, an article that some of Danny Daniel's other likely indefinitely blocked sockpuppets, such as User:Choolabuuulba have started to edit. Usually, these accounts created hoaxes based on Space Jam.). The user also contributed to List of characters in My Gym Partner's a Monkey. Squirepants101 22:29, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

This incident was resolved by the User:Ryulong. Supericious has now been blocked. Squirepants101 23:26, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Request for sockpuppet block

My previous request appears to have been lost or buried in the sheer volume of material that gets added to this page so I am re-posting it in the hopes that it catches an admin's attention this time.

I would like to request blocks of probable sockpuppets as indicated by this checkuser case. Thank you. JFD 23:16, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

 Done Thatcher131 00:13, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Userpage of User:Davenbelle

• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Request for additional remedy in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Moby Dick

I was wondering if the page could be undeleted since arbitrators will be reviewing evidence from the past arbitration case which includes Davenbelle's userpage. -- Cat ^chi? 02:32, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

The arbitrators are admins, and therefore can view deleted edits and pages unless such edits/pages have been oversighted. —²¹⁰physicq (c) 02:34, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

True I suppose... -- Cat ^chi? 02:41, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Repeated inappropriate edits to a biography of a living person article

FactsFirst (talk · contribs) is a single-use account dedicated to adding pejorative material to Kevin Potvin. The article was fully protected for a while because of a political controversy that drew some unsavory editors to the page. I requested that it be only semi-protected and since then only two editors have been making inappropriate additions, and now it’s down to one. I suggest that FactsFirst be blocked for the following reasons:

• User has refused to discuss contentious edits on the article’s talk page, instead choosing to engage in a POV edit war with me and the occasional snide comment on my talk page.
• User has been amply warned on their talk page that their edits are inappropriate, with reference to relevant policies and guidelines, including a final warning.
• FactsFirst’s edits are sourced with newspaper editorials smearing the subject, but only serve as character assassination and don’t speak to the subject’s notability. Some of the individual edits just look like bad encyclopedia writing, but taken collectively constitute a systematic campaign in contravention of WP:BLP, WP:NPOV, and possibly WP:DICK. Diffs are as follows: [46], [47], [48], [49], [50], and [51].

The controversy in the real world has run its course and it appears only one diehard is keeping up the campaign on Wikipedia, so it seems that a block is in order rather than full protection of the article. If FactsFirst is blocked and similar inappropriate edits continue, I will request a check-user because the style of another editor, Naddude (talk · contribs), suggests a bit of sockpuppetry has occurred. Thank you. bobanny 21:54, 2 May 2007 (UTC)(moved from Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard. bobanny 02:56, 3 May 2007 (UTC))

Legitimate link was reverted by a bot

The article Age_of_Conan:_Hyborian_Adventures has an out-of-date link to a guild website (guild is "The Hand of Set"). I updated the link, creating this article version. Then the well-meaning User:Shadowbot thought it was spam and reverted it, creating this article version. I received a message telling me the link was removed because it matched a rule "invisionfree\.com" but that site is hosting the bona fide, current, active website for the guild, a guild that has been listed in & linked from the article since September 2006. Thank you for your time. 67.165.120.204 05:57, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

It is spam, and none of those sites are notable or worthy of mention. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 07:32, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

For the record, the game is not even in open beta....signups just went out less than a month ago. There is no need for a listing of "guilds"....every game has them, few if any are nearly a sliver of the notability threshold for inclusion. And certainly not before the game is even released, or even in beta. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 07:35, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Allowing guild/clan listings in game articles would open the floodgates to all sorts of spam. Some games have thousands of such groups. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 16:55, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

See AN/I complaint against me WAY down on the page regarding this. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 15:51, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Violation of WP:POINT, by User:Steve Dufour, User:Misou Redux

• Disruptive editing of a Straw Poll, with sarcastic comments and fake votes, to make a point, most recently here by
  • Steve Dufour (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log) - DIFF
  • Misou (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log) - DIFF

Archived discussions

1. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive221#Violation_of_WP:POINT.
2. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive224#Violation_of_WP:POINT.2C_by_User:Steve_Dufour.
3. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive229#Possible_Tendentious_editing_by_User:Steve_Dufour_and_User:Misou.

Thank you for your time. Yours, Smee 05:36, 2 May 2007 (UTC).

3O:I'm not involved in these edits. After reviewing them, I did not see that they were disruptive. It appears to me that Smee is very quick on the trigger with NPA, CIVIL and POINT complaints, rather than WP:FAITH. Lsi john 06:49, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• If the curious editor/Administrator will simply look at the history involved and the DIFFs in question, you will see that the issue involves obvious sarcasm and fake voting, to disrupt Wikipedia to make a point. Smee 07:22, 2 May 2007 (UTC).

*'''Support''' two templates on each page. Why not three? :-) [[User:Steve Dufour|Steve Dufour]] 11:42, 1 May 2007 (UTC) doesn't seem like a sarcastic comment or fake vote to you Lsi john? Anynobody 07:34, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

1. I do not see sarcasm listed as a criteria in WP:POINT.
2. Both you and Smee seem to believe the comments where sarcastic. If they were, then they were not intended to be taken seriously. This would directly refute any claim of overt fake voting or WP:POINT disruption.

The charge Smee raised here was one of WP:POINT and I do not see a violation of that policy. He did not charge them with WP:SARCASM or WP:CIVIL.

IMO there was no violation of WP:POINT in this case.

Also, note that a case could be made against Smee for WP:POINT Here. He reverted user comments in discussion and, specifially, reverting article content after a request was made for discussion and after discussion comments were made Here. Then, after hitting 2RR and being forced into discussion, he stated that he refused to participate in the discussion. Then, rather than participate in the discussion, he opened up an RFC. This would seem to directly qualify for a charge of WP:POINT as these actions are specifically mentioned in the description of WP:POINT, yet none of the involved editors filed such a charge here.

These are heated discussions in highly emotionally charged articles and some latitude should be given rather than simply filing grievances and wasting administrator's time. Lsi john 13:51, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, seriously. Smee. No, a sarcastic comment is not "disruption". De minimis non curat lex. Please avoid posting trifles at this board. Bishonen | talk 01:30, 3 May 2007 (UTC).

I will not push this further, but the actions were disruptive to the discussion and the poll. Smee 06:04, 3 May 2007 (UTC).

Smee, thank you for your reasonable response. Bishonen | talk 09:55, 3 May 2007 (UTC).

You are welcome, Bishonen. Smee 09:56, 3 May 2007 (UTC).

Who's being a dick, me or them? *You* make the call!

(I love having fun with my headings)

Quick run-through: in Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, the main character (Jedi Exile) can be either male or female. Canonically, they are female (as noted on Wookieepedia). This is somewhat controversial, but that's neither here nor there; canon states that the Exile was female, end of story.

Along comes The Matrix Prime (talk · contribs), who is editing numerous articles to change the Exile's gender back to male. I've addressed this problem, complete with evidence why the Exile is female, on their talk page.[52] The only rationale Matrix has provided has been basically "you have to just deal with it".[53] Matrix also POINTedly tweaked the Exile article to remove any trace of gender.[54]

Given his repeated reverts across multiple articles, I've warned him about 3RR.[55]

Since this is almost a borderline content dispute, am I stepping "out of bounds" by bringing my mop to the fight? I've got a sourced claim to back up my edits, while he does not; my justification is that I'm removing incorrect information and unsourced claims, but I could easily be seen as being a total dick about the whole thing. So, I want some outside opinions.

Any feedback is more than welcome. :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:11, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd say that it's a content dispute (although such disputes can be clear-cut on occasion; I don't know anything about the subject, so I wouldn't know). I don't think anyone's violating the famous Meta page in this situation, especially if you've got sources; but to help prevent the matter escalating, I'd suggest that you don't use admin tools in the dispute (if it gets to the point where admin tools would be useful, ask another admin to take the action just to provide a sanity check and to keep AN/I just that bit calmer). Even admins can use WP:AN3 if they want to! --ais523 16:16, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Ugh... not this again. I think this was one of the very first disputes I ever saw when I started editing here. Give me some time to look into this a bit more.--Isotope23 16:28, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

It does appear to be a content dispute. I'm a bit perplexed why Wikia is being offered as a reliable source for this content; I would not consider it as such. Of course The Matrix Prime (talk · contribs) going around and changing the gender with no source isn't helping much either. I'd be happy to look at sources etc and provide an outside opinion (I personally don't really care either way if the Exile was male or female from a canonical aspect and I've played the game so I can probably provide an objective outside opinion), but at this time I don't really see any need for admin tools to be used.--Isotope23 16:39, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't citing wikia itself as the source, I was citing what Wookieepedia cited as its source. However, the full Gender section presents the full argument.
My only concern about the need for admin tools is if Matrix keeps making the changes without discussion; it'd be a violation of 3RR, but as the person that is conflicting with Matrix, I'm not sure if I should be the one to block over it, or if I should recuse myself (I'd rather not, as I enjoy taking care of things myself, but if there's a concern about a possible COI, I'd rather avoid it). EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:03, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to wait and see what effect, if any, your 3RR warning is going to have.--Isotope23 18:08, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Alrighty. In the interest of fairness, I've alerted the user to this discussion.[56] EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:05, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that the proof needed to trotted out again. Aside from that fact that the Exile is male canonally, end of story, the website called him male, the trailer also shows him as male and the official LucasArts promotional art for the Jedi Exile show a male Jedi and Sith (despite repeated attempts to pull that picture from the article *coughEVula cough*) and traditionally LucasArt has considered the male light side ending to any Star Wars game to be canon (or as canon as such games get). I don't really care if the Exile is male or female, I've played both ways and have no real preference; but I'm a sticker for the facts when it comes down to it.

In the interest of those unwilling to accept such and to be fair to all parties I compromised by changing my own edit to a complete gender neutral version. Unfortunately someone removed that edit and did not even bother to state why.

I realize I may be coming down a little heavy but we had this problem with the Revan article too and I’m not to happy to see that people have transferred it over to the Exile article now. I realize that since Revan was stated to be male it makes some people more determined that the Exile be female but so far their only source is “deal with it”.

Now I believe EVula is editing in good faith but I see no reason why the gender neutral version should be unacceptable in this case. --The Matrix Prime 21:55, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

As a third opinion, and someone who played KOTOR (so I understand the whole male/female issue about Revan which sounds exactly like the subject of this discussion.) It seems like a good idea to explain the overall concept that the Jedi Exile, as the player character can be male or female because it makes the tone sound more out of universe. Then address each piece of information as presented, for example the "x source" showed a male, the "y source" showed a female. Anynobody 10:37, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd have to agree with that... I've not seen anything that would constitute a reliable source for a canonical sex of this character. I'd say a qualifier in the articles and gender neutrality would be a good middle ground for the time being and an RFC or some sort of centralized discussion should be undertaken. At the end of the day, this is a content dispute and it would appear that both editors involved in it are good faith editing, they just are coming at it from opposite viewpoints.--Isotope23 16:09, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Inappropriate removal of article's discussion page content

In the case of the article David_Boothroyd, on 5 April Admin FloNight removed, without obvious discussion, the majority of historical content for the article’s talk page – see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=Talk:David_Boothroyd

Although Admin El C sites “personal info” in his original deletion on the same date, he sensibly, it appears, immediately restored the remaining presumably non-personal info. There is therefore no apparent reason for Admin FloNight to have involved himself in such a hasty and undocumented deletion of material from a public article.

Having attempted twice (9 April and 16 April) to obtain clarification from Admin FloNight via his own talk page [[57]] without response, I am now appealing for clarification and review as to why such an amount of previously relevant material has been removed from a discussion page of a public article.

I have left a message at FloNight talk page relating to this appeal in order than he is aware of the outline complaint against his decision to remove the material in question. leaky_caldron 18:46, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Please wait until Flo responds to your question on her Talk page. There doesn't seem to be any obvious hurry for the material to be re-added until such a time. Corvus cornix 19:00, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

The query has now been archived twice - how long do you suggest it is reasonable to wait? It would be easy to answer my question and Flo is answering other later queries, on other topics leaky_caldron 19:04, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Evidently I removed this as a speedy delete request for personal information. I think I deleted about 200 article that week that were backlogs. This was one of those. It has no special significance to me. It appears that this was a request made after material was added again after El C handled a request. Sorry for a slow reply, but I did not recall the specifics of the situation and did not make it a priority to review it as I have many other pending issues that I deemed more urgent. FloNight 19:32, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Comment: having looked at the deletion history, I think that the 38 edits that were originally restored were too many. Sometimes, when someone deletes and restores something inappropriate that has just been added, he or she may miss earlier inappropriate additions from the history. I'd only restore up to and including Kingbotk at 22:00, 19 September 2006 (UTC), plus, of course, edits from after 10:15, 5 April 2007, as they were not subject to the original deletion. Musical Linguist 19:41, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I think the point here is to allow David Boothroyd, i.e. user:DavidBoothroyd, to keep his other wikipedia identity private. While this has the air of trying to unscramble eggs, much of the deleted talk page content is trolling of this user. I don't see anything that must be restored in to order to understand and move forward editing the article. I could be persuaded to restore the content as Musical Linguist suggests, but only after obscuring the user's other account name. Thatcher131 20:18, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

This is true. There is no particular need to retain that history, and woe betide anyone who commits the gross privacy violation of mentioning the current username and the real name together (although the connection is trivially easy to establish). Guy (Help!) 20:53, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

The subject had asked that specific edits be removed from multiple pages (not just the biography), so I limited myself to that request. I don't wish to compromise Dbiv current account, but he expressed satisfaction with these measures. El_C 01:18, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

As the aggrieved party apparently expressed satisfaction at the removal of personal material by Admin User:El C then surely the appropriate action is to reinstate the position to the status following the User:El C changes?

User:FloNight has stated that they acted in haste and without any particular knowledge or interest (see above). However, on a point of fact, having now been able to untangle the relationship between the subject and their various editor names, it is not the case that the request for deletion was a backlog. Within 30 minutes of the subject's request on 5 April, Admin User:El C correctly removed the material supposedly compromising Boothroyd's wiki-editor identity.

It is therefore insufficient, in good practice, to make further sweeping changes, when the situation had already been correctly assessed and dealt with by User:El C to the subject's satisfaction.

Can I request that the discussion page is reinstated as per the User:El C edit at 10:22 on 5 April, subject of course to the removal of any residual "personal info" as suggested above by Thatcher131. Thanks leaky_caldron 09:06, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Conduct of User:Kafziel and Fox News Channel

Can someone please look into the conduct of the above user on the Fox News Channel talk page. Although there has been a vigorous debate for weeks on this page, today Kafziel decided to unilaterally declare an edit war (although the history shows no sign of one [58]) and full block the page. When I told him I disagreed with the block and responded to his other concerns [59], he responded with this [60]. First, I think it is troubling that a) he apparantly thinks lively discussion on the talk pages is an edit war, b) that he is apparantly gleeful about blocking everyone in a content dispute, and c) the unnecessarily hostile stance. Can someone please review this and remove the edit protection from the article, it is not needed. Ramsquire ^{(throw me a line)} 21:23, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

As someone involved in this dispute, I actually support the page protection. This debate/edit war has been ongoing since October 2006 and includes one anon user who has been blanking the section since the very beginning (see diffs here). Without getting into the merits of either side of the argument, having the ability to continue reverting was not helping the discussion. If this forces discussion to continue (as it was already occurring), I see no need to unprotect just yet; let's give it some time. - auburnpilot talk 21:42, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. Although my objection remains (even though the correct version of the page has been locked), it should be noted that what led to the block was a report at 3RR for a user who was editting another section of the article. In addition, none of the current users who were discussing the intro on the talk page the last few days have been edit warring, as shown by the page history. But I will assume good faith and drop this for now. Ramsquire ^{(throw me a line)} 21:58, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I have to step in and disagree with my friend AuburnPilot here... it's a very very bad thing when an admin feels the need to accuse all editors of being "out of hand" and worthy of blocks -- AuburnPilot, you yourself are very aware of the situation and persistant bad faith actions of some editors. By supporting this admin's actions you're both doing the good faith editors a disservice by supporting a lump categorization as well as inhibiting their ability to resolve the issues. Consensus building is a team effort that only works when everyone plays by the rules -- need I remind you of bad faith RFC's and blatant disregard of consensus and wikipolicies and guidelines by those editors? Protection and "encouraging discussion" with no understanding of the situation does no good. /Blaxthos 02:10, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

What I was saying was that if Tom needed to be blocked, so did everyone else. But I also said Tom didn't need to be blocked. By extension, neither do any of you. So let's not try to portray me as some block-happy maniac. In fact, your real complaint is that I didn't block anyone at all. But admins aren't attack dogs you can just sick on people you don't like.

Consensus building can occur whether the article is locked or not. Consensus building can't occur when one of the editors is frozen out of the discussion. Tom was warned, agreed to stop edit warring, and was willing to discuss the issue, so I didn't block him. As I already pointed out, he couldn't have violated 3RR unless the rest of you were on the other side reverting him. Just because a bunch of you ganged up on him doesn't mean it isn't an edit war. He was stubborn, POV-pushing, and bold, but none of those constitute vandalism so you should have discussed the issue without revert warring after it was clear he wasn't going to stop. 3RR isn't something you strive to push your opponents into so you can shut them up and win an argument. Kafziel ^Talk 13:18, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

A request to restore a small part of deleted content

I do not believe this qualifies as an "administrator incident." I believe this is an editing dispute involving an administrator; however, the administrator in question disagrees and pointed me here. I shall attempt an unbiased summary and then proceed with my request.

A Wikipedia administrator, Swatjester, removed a portion of the Age of Conan article on the grounds of WP:V, WP:NOT, WP:EL, and WP:RS. Note that I partially agree with his deletions; in particular, regarding the guild-specific material. However, at the time, I mistakenly assumed this was another act of weekly vandalism and, after reverting, stated a gruff warning in my comment. He believed my warning was uncivil ("brutal") and, after undoing my last change, posted on my Talk Page in a manner which, I felt, was equally uncivil. A hotly-debated war of words began on his Talk Page.

However, I am not here to debate those events, my incivility or, in my opinion, his brusque intractability. I am posting here to request permission to retrieve certain sentences purged in his administrative deletions.

Now, I agree with the administrator that the bulk of the content he removed is, indeed, "unreferenced fancruft." I further agree that the majority of guild-specific content was appropriately removed in accordance with WP:V, WP:NOT, WP:EL, and WP:RS. I am not objecting to his enforcement of those policies or his overall reasons for the deletions. I am objecting that I cannot salvage certain imbedded sentences regarding Funcom's community initiatives: I would like to restore two small parts of his deleted content which are not "unreferenced fancruft." However, as Swatjester maintains that all the deleted content is unreferenced fancruft and also does not deem this as an editing dispute, I am in a bind.

In short, I would like to restore the following sentences from his administrative deletions:

“ Throughout the development of Age of Conan, Funcom heavily emphasized community relations to encourage the fan sites that support Age of Conan. The fan sites are frequently sent exclusive content to display on their pages as well as exclusive interviews with development staff. ”

And:

“ In April 2006, Funcom created a Guild Hall for its pre-launch community and, within hours, forum members began organizing their player guilds. These guilds consist of individuals who typically share the same playing styles and gameplay opinions. ”

Note that the above sentences can be properly cited and/or referenced via official websites.

And, yes, this is a very trivial issue. -- Flask 00:03, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

If you want to put those sentences in, then go ahead; reverting that would certainly be an editing dispute. Your statement implies that you have previously attempted to put in only that information, which you haven't. -Amarkov moo! 00:31, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I have no objection to those sentences if they are sourced, however they are rather redundant and pointless: ALL publishers and developers give fan sites exclusive material: almost all include a community forum of some sort. That is commonly accepted in ALL games, not just MMORPG's, and I state that coming from extensive experience of work in the games industry in both management, editorialship, reviewing, and game development.⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 02:52, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Also, as I mentioned on Amarkov's talk page, this is the first I am hearing about wanting to put in two lines. Those two lines were never discussed with me, certainly not discussed on the article talk page. If they had, we wouldn't be here, as they are obviously fine for inclusion. However the rest of the stuff wasn't, and the resulting brouhaha coming out of it was a little sickening. Again, see below section for more details. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 15:55, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

response

This is not the whole story. I have made a total of two edits, reverting unsourced information about a non-notable, unsourced bit of game fan cruft. Diffs: my original removal of information, Flask's disruptive attack on me for deletion including threats, my revert and response, citing policy (current version. Please see my talk page for the full length of the discussion.

Content wise: this game is not yet released. There is overwhelming precedent not to add information about guilds to articles on MMORPGs: there is even less reason to add the information for one that has only been in beta testing for less than 1 week. The information was unreferenced, does not come from a reliable source (claims from the publisher itself about their own product), and is entirely non notable. Go see the diffs. Compare to our articles on Counter-strike, World of Warcraft, Dark Age of Camelot, Everquest etc. Fan run community stuff is not suitable for inclusion unless it achieves some level of notability itself: this is well established.

So now we have WP:NOT a crystal ball, non notable, unsourced, unreliable information. I removed it, and I was immediately accused of a WP:OWN violation, disruptive editing, ignoring WP:V, incivility, abusing my authority as an administrator, threats, vandalism etc.....all in the space of one edit.

I'll point out Flask's edit summary there "Reverted a mass-deletion by Swatjester. If you continue to delete large sections of this article without any preceding Talk Page discussion, I'll report you for vandalism and notify an administrator." Who's making threats? My edit summary in response was to cite policy and state "I am an administrator.

Flask cannot even argue there is any talk page consensus. the history shows that were only two talk page comments in the past TWO MONTHS, and none of them had anything to do with the subject matter.

Summary: this is absolutely ridiculous. I perform an uncontroversial action, not even requiring the use of any admin tools, and I'm brutally attacked by this editor, throwing misquotes of policy at me, and trying to misrepresent my actions. This is absolutely absurd. I've warned Flask for his incivility, threats, and ownership violations. This is the last straw. Outside observers need to clearly inform Flask of his errors, and correct his misperceptions of policy, or I will do so by any preventative measures necessary to continue to keep the editing on the article constructive and civil. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 02:16, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

• Agree, this is a crock. Archive it out or mark it as done with. Guy (Help!) 13:33, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

• SWATJester is in the right here. Any unsourced information can be deleted at will. Unless there are reliable sources, it doesn't get in the article. Period. The fact that Flask made inappropriate threats makes it harder than usual to assume good faith in this matter. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 16:07, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Kd lvr (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (combined User:TREYWiki and SVRTVDude requests)

User:Kd lvr is a nuisance and vandal. He continues to troll on mine and User:Orangemonster2k1‎'s talk pages, after we have apologized for the sock accusations. User:Blueboy96‎ brought up meatpuppet accusations, that are obviously true. His friend, User:Kdkatpir2, was indefinatly blocked for personal attacks and socking. Kd kat has violated the 3RR on the KDKA page, and his own user page, removing {{meatpuppet}} tags and trolling. He has created KDKA anchor pages, text copied off the KDKA website, and violates WP:OWN, assuming ownership of articles. He is severely disrupting the project, we could all be making helpful edits instead of dealing with him. He has proven extremely hard to deal with, his page is loaded with warnings, and I think he needs to be indefinatly blocked. We have reported him to WP:AVI but they have directed us here. --TREYWiki 02:02, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

User:Kd lvr continues to add inaccurate and unconfirmed information to pages after last warn, continues to WikiOWN several articles on Wiki, including KDKA-TV (which has had inaccurate, unconfirmed and unneeded information added to it repeatedly). User is also a suspected meatpuppet of User:Kdkatpir2 (who has been blocked indefinitely for being a sockpuppeteer and abusing several accounts) and has been previously blocked for this behaviour in the past couple days. User continues to add inaccurate information as of this writing. - SVRTVDude ^(VT) 02:03, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Kd lvr was blocked for personal attacks on me, which he has continued after that block expired. --TREYWiki 02:12, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

It looks to me like you two have been stalking and harassing him, and scored the inevitable flame after endless flamebaiting. I see no reason to think the utterly lame content dispute you are engaged in at KDKA-TV has anything to do with vandalism or trolling, or that Kd lvr is any more of a meatpuppet than you two. I'm blocking all three and deleting this offensive attack subpage: User talk:TREYWiki/KD KLAN. Screaming "WE KNOW YOU ARE A SOCKPUPPETEER!" with no basis and "WHOOHOOO!!!" when someone gets blocked for 3RR is very immature and doesn't belong here. You've been assuming bad faith from the beginning and it needs to stop if this is going to be resolved. Dmcdevit·t 02:21, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

• Support Dmcdevit's blocks 100%. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 02:53, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

• I like it, just like Solomon, cut them all in half. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 13:41, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Multi-editor improper deletion (without another AFD) of main part of United States military aid to Israel

Some editors are trying to delete the weapon systems list from this article. It is the main part of this article. Here is the last revision of the intact article:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=United_States_military_aid_to_Israel&oldid=127900153

This article already survived a recent AFD, a recent incident report, and a recent DRV.

Discussion has already been tried and failed. Dispute resolution suggests protecting the page while further discussion continues. I am also asking other editors and admins who are reading this to come to the talk page. I am also asking those MANY editors and admins who commented on the AFD, DRV, and PREVIOUS incident report to also come to the talk page. I also am asking those who understand better the dispute resolution processes, and incident boards, to take the appropriate actions. I do not know all of them. I have used many of the dispute resolution processes in the past, but I have found that until some admins get involved, genuine discussion frequently does not occur on the talk pages dealing with Arab and/or Israeli articles. But the bottom line is that an attempt to delete the main part of the article is happening YET AGAIN. The weapon systems list is the reason this article can not be merged with other articles, and should not be merged. It is another roundabout deletion without having to go through AFD. I am requesting that the last intact revision be protected, so as not to allow this roundabout deletion to stand.

Here is a summary of what already has happened with this article:

United States military aid to Israel (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). See: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/United States military aid to Israel. The original closing admin (Doc) wrote: "The result was KEEP - merging is of course an editorial decision to be worked out on the talk pages." Another admin deleted that closing improperly, and changed the closing admin comment to "The result was Delete - with a strong suggestion to merge." See: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive235#User:Jayjg and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/United States military aid to Israel. During the DRV, Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 April 26, the original closing admin (Doc) clarified his closing comment and changed it to, "The result was No Consensus = default KEEP - merging is of course an editorial decision to be worked out on the talk pages". The DRV closing admin wrote: "After examining the comments carefully (and ignoring the boldfaces here, which were often confused), there is a ~75% consensus in support of Doc's original closure. Relisting is at editorial option; merge discussions belong on the appropriate talk pages." There are overall articles called United States military aid and Israel-United States military relations. The list of U.S.-supplied weapons systems in the article in question here, United States military aid to Israel, is already too long to merge with those 2 articles. It is also too long to merge with Israel-United States relations#United States military and economic aid. WP:NPOV help is needed to maintain and to fill out this spinout article more. --Timeshifter 09:36, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

QUACK QUACK QUACK

We don't need a DNA test to tell which type of bird this is.

I rather suspect that this was so loud they probably heard it in China. 69.105.173.150 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) is, I suspect, the latest visitation of Jacob Peters. Los Angeles IP, pro-Communist/Stalin trolling hitting Peters' usual articles. Might be a good idea to block for a couple hours so he won't use this IP again either today or tomorrow. Moreschi ^Talk 09:38, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Potential sock puppets' affecting opinion at deletion review

Please check the three users at the bottom of http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Deletion_review&oldid=125702519, User:TomSkillingJr., User:Chudzooka and User:Shoopshoop for sock puppetry. They posted within six minutes of one another, and each made the same mistake of arguing for deletion on a discussion page. Their user contributions don't extend further than discrediting Cory Williams. More puppets might be found at Talk:Cory Williams.

I ask this because the article Cory Williams is currently undergoing deletion review at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Cory_Williams. Although no puppets have surfaced at the review yet, the user who initiated the review did so solely on the basis of a perceived controversy on Talk:Cory Williams at the behest of User:TomSkillingJr., whom I believe to be the puppet master. Even though the user who initiated the review states he finds Cory Williams notable, a manufactured controversy could end up compromising the review.Ichormosquito 10:34, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

User:K1ng l0v3

The user mentionned above has been calling me "Persian wishfull thinker" in the past when I added a sourced statement in the Iranian Military Industry and this is unacceptable. It was related to an Iranian submarine Nahang 1, which exists but this person denies it, and keeps reverting my edits. So I don't know what to do and I don't want to make any personal attacks. SSZ 13:25, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

JASON NAZARIO

Resolved

 – It seems to be deleted, I'll watch it and salt if needed. CMummert · talk 14:03, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Can someone please delete this attack page asap and deal with the interference of the other school kids trying to keep it in existence. --Dweller 13:33, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Dealing with a POINT violation but concerned about 3RR

I've got a problem with a user who's disrupting the Anomalistics page by moving the pages infobox from the top right hand corner of a page to the the bottom right hand corner of the page, and by deleting pertinent information from the definition of the term described on the page even though it is backed up by references from the man who first coined it.

With the exception of moving the infobox to silly places the users edits aren't obvious vandalism (there's no bad language or anything) unless you're familiar with the topic, so I'm concerned that I will be slapped with a 3RR violation if I keep undoing it. An admin's assistance would be most welcome here.

perfectblue 14:27, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Try the talk page to figure out why they're doing it? Content disputes like this aren't vandalism. Luigi30 (Taλk) 14:34, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

HD DVD#Muslix64.27s exploit

Over all the hype, why put the wikimedia foundation in any trouble? No body knows IF the number has an legal value or not. EFF anyone? Cyb3r01dX 04:58, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

It seems that someone is determined to post this DRM Key here on wikipedia, and keeps recreating an article, that I won't link to because that would require typing out the DRM key, and as of their last attempt to recreate it, created a username that was the same as the Key. That page needs to be deleted, but it can't be salted, since that would require the DRM key to be listed somewhere on wikipedia. Are there any options to deal with this other than repeatedly redeleting the article in question? And by article in question I of course mean the one I can't link to, not the one linked in the title of this thread. Not to mention, the content of the "article" is visible in the deletion log, showing the complete key, is there some sort of oversight that could deal with this? Speaking of which, it should probably be oversighted out of HD DVD--VectorPotential^Talk 22:24, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

A number alone probably doesn't violate the DMCA, so salting isn't an issue. A number with instructions on how to use it might not be so good. There's already a thread going on at WP:AN#HD-DVD_decryption_key. We need someone who knows what they're talking about to settle this. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 22:31, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah, sorry, I didn't notice the AN thread--VectorPotential^Talk 22:33, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

We've been salting pages titled with the number so far, so I've added done these ones too. Not an ideal solution though... WjB scribe 22:36, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

It would be nice if there were a way to keep google from caching certain pages, such as Wikipedia:Protected titles and its various subpages--VectorPotential^Talk 22:40, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

There is. Files listed on Robots.txt by the Developers aren't google cached. It may be worth making a request to include all our lists of protected pages (if they aren't already) though I suspect they have a fairly low google profile. WjB scribe 22:58, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Some context: this info is (reportedly) an important master key used by AACS, in this case to protect HD-DVD disks. Having been discovered a while ago, it appears that the industry association which operates AACS has been sending DMCA notices to blogs either hosting that number or linking to the forum posts which report its extraction. Reports of this have in turn reached popular technology websites including Digg, Slashdot, and Boing Boing. There some posters are reposting the key, and others are in general encouraging a general guerilla/disobedience campaign, advocating the information be so widely disseminated that it can't be removed everywhere. Digg and BoingBoing report having received legal notices themselves, and posts containing the key have been featured on (and quickly erased) on Digg several times. Posts on Slashdot and Digg advocate Wikipedia as a suitable target for this campaign. The page VectorPotential reports is the tip of the iceberg - the key appears to be present on several pages. An article named for the number has been created and destroyed and recreated today (it's presently a redir to HD-DVD) and some of the contributors who have added it in various (logical, DVD-related) places have also spammed it onto unrelated pages too. There's every liklihood that subtler individuals will have posted the key into more places, hoping its being unnoticed will assist its dissemination to Wikipedia mirrors. I expect this behaviour to repeat over the next 18 hours or so (generally the hot period associated with a Slashdot story). I guess it's rather ironic that I can't (well, won't) link to the offending articles or user contribs and can't actually tell you the number so you can go search for it. I expect WP:OFFICE will shortly be receiving a complaint from the AACS people, so I imagine a rather extensive clusterfuck is about to ensue. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:46, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Full agreement with your last comment. Can the variations be salted as protected redirects, to strike the proper balance between information and legality? -- nae'blis 22:55, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Any redirects would show up in Special:Whatlinkshere/HD DVD, and would probably be conspicuous. — tregoweth (talk) 23:21, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

IANAL, but protected redirects contain the minimum of information necessary to prevent further pages being created with the illegal information. Therefore it would seem to me that they constitute a 'good faith' effort to abide by AACS' requests, and Special:Whatlinkshere is a nigh-unavoidable feature of the software that only some users will be aware of. It is not our job to prevent information in all forms, though we can try to perform reasonable actions. -- nae'blis 23:47, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand. Do we remove any information that random individuals complain about? Of course not. We remove illegal content or libel. Neither is the case here. We don't simply comply because the AACS requests it. If WP:OFFICE requests it, that's different, of course. — BRIAN 0918 • 2007-05-02 01:06Z

That's the point; some people with a lot of money say that the number is illegal, under the DMCA, and they're happy to use their money to back that point up. Dan Beale 21:09, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

(sigh) I've had to protect Talk:HD DVD; anyone have any better ideas? — tregoweth (talk) 23:29, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

How about stop misusing admin powers. There's no reason to protect a talk page, ever, except in cases of involvement by WP:OFFICE or temporarily to clean up vandalism or libel. We have no reason to self-censor unless WP:OFFICE gets involved. Until then, stop assuming the worst. This is very anti-wiki, especially on the talk page. — BRIAN 0918 • 2007-05-01 23:44Z

There are absolutely good reasons to protect talk pages. Illegal material posted to them repeatedly would qualify in my book. -- nae'blis 23:47, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

That is certainly true, but that is not the case here. — BRIAN 0918 • 2007-05-02 01:03Z

Looks to me like the key was being added by anonymous users. Wouldn't semi-protection be sufficient in this case? *** Crotalus *** 23:53, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

It was added a number of times when the article was semi-protected. — tregoweth (talk) 00:00, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

There is nothing illegal about the string of characters. Do you agree? — BRIAN 0918 • 2007-05-02 01:12Z

Assume Good Faith is not a suicide pact. I believe you know very well that's not the context of what was on the talk page in question. Since that sequence has the clever "S/5" substitution, your own intentions are somewhat suspect here. -- nae'blis 01:41, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Clever? You mean trivial. How many strings are we no longer allowed to write because they may be "cleverly" too close in some way to the one you claim is unspeakable (for what reasons? the string is not illegal. disseminating it is not illegal. only using it to copy DVDs is illegal) — BRIAN 0918 • 2007-05-02 03:45Z

You're free to use your domain to disseminate the string of characters, and to use your money to defend your right to do so. I'm told that the DMCA makes it illegal to distribute information to break copy protection. This key seems to be part of that information. Dan Beale 21:12, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

It sounds like a version of the "guns don't kill people..." argument: "typing a string of numbers and letters isn't illegal, but using it to break hd dvd is"218.215.0.134 04:17, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Endorse block against "industry association that operates AACS" based on WP:NLT. Oh wait, they already don't edit here. In this case, m:avoid copyright paranoia and recognize the censorship attempt for what it is. Let the Foundation office decide how to deal with the legal stuff. Follow the office's instructions if they issue some. If they don't, then quit the amateur lawyering and and decide whether to include the number in the article based on normal editorial criteria of whether it is encyclopedic or not, as with the Muhammad cartoons. To the office: for this and many other reasons, consider pulling the servers out of Florida and putting them in California or some other state with a good anti-SLAPP statute. Please also report any interesting developments to the Chilling Effects clearinghouse. 75.62.7.22 04:23, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

According to the policies, copyright infringement (even alleged) is not allowed because it "threatens our objective to build a truly free encyclopedia that anyone can redistribute, and could lead to legal problems." Pizzachicken 06:12, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Even alleged??!!! Are you kidding? Anyone can censor the entire encyclopedia by alleging infringement? Be real, we have to carry out office directives but on this matter we haven't gotten one, maybe for good reason. If it does become necessary to block that hex number, patching the spam blacklist MediaWiki code to prevent saving edits containing the number may ease on some whack-a-mole. But the whole situation is extremely offensive and I hope that the office is on the phone with the EFF about its options. 75.62.7.22 05:46, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm completely baffled as to why we aren't forcing the Foundation with respect to this issue. If they are not prepared to step in and tell us conclusively whether or not we should include the data on Wikipedia, we should be forcing their hand. This is a very important editorial decision that cannot be made until the Foundation tells us something critical. theProject 06:34, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

The office and its lawyers are almost certainly studying their options. Let's assume that they know what they're doing. We can cheer ourselves up with the thought that the longer the office makes us wait, the more consideration they're probably giving to the possibility of coming out swinging.

There seems to be another issue here too--the code isn't just being deleted, any mention of the code and the issues surrounding it are being deleted despite it being patently obvious that it's encyclopedic at this point. If getting tens of thousands of hits on Google in just a few days, major posts in major sites/blogs, an official announcement from Digg.com and numerous people becoming aware of it don't make it verifiable, reliable and notable, then I don't know what it is. For the time being, I think at the very least, they should allow a description of the issue--which I've seen deleted wholesale from at least one article. If you want to protect it for the time being until there is official word on the issue of the code itself, FINE, but at least post the text people have recommended be posted on the talk pages that describe the issue. -Nathan J. Yoder 07:36, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the issues surrounding this are probably justifiably notable enough for inclusion. However, the key itself has no business here. It's nothing more than trivia from an encyclopedic standpoint and it's trivia that can realistically invoke the ire of a highly litigious organization that would be nice to avoid. It may be wise to let things cool off a bit before putting discussions of the topic into articles. This whole issue is recentism to the extreme, and the "Internet ADHD effect" will likely kick in within a few days. -- mattb 07:53, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Whether the key is encyclopedic is an editorial decision; whether it's legal to publish is up to the courts to decide; whether wikipedia must censor it because it might be illegal to publish it is up to the office. It's certainly not trivia or else the AACS lawyers wouldn't be going berserk trying to suppress it. It's part of the workings of an HD DVD decrypter and as such, documenting it is like documenting the workings of a printing press in a country where printing presses are illegal. If we document how printing presses work and someone uses the info to build an illegal one in their country, we might consider that a good thing. That is why we help Chinese users route around the Chinese government blocks against Wikipedia for including the Falun Gong article, for example. And, even if HD DVD decrypters are illegal in the US, the information can probably still be used to build legal decrypters in countries where the lawmaking process isn't as corrupt as it is in the US. 75.62.7.22 07:19, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. Who has been removing it? A mention in the AACS article is warranted. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 07:59, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

It's already mentioned in various articles already, including Streisand effect, which also got keyspammed (I just removed it - again!). I've no issues with the mention of the incident, but I do with publishing the keys for the reasons SJ mentions below - Alison ☺ 08:10, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Uh guys: Universal v. Reimerdes. Though that's outside Wikipedia's circuit, we should not include the code itself, nor link to anywhere that does. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 08:07, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

For the record: 17 U.S.C. 512(c)(1)(A)(2 a.k.a. the DMCA Title II (OCILLA) safe harbor clause. Which states, in summary: Wikipedia is granted safe harbor immunity from DMCA litigation, if we do not allow the HD-DVD key if we have reason to suspect it might be a violation.

in whole: "A service provider shall not be liable for monetary relief, or, except as provided in subsection (j), for injunctive or other equitable relief, for infringement of copyright by reason of the storage at the direction of a user of material that resides on a system or network controlled or operated by or for the service provider, if the service provider — " ...does not have actual knowledge that the material or an activity using the material on the system or network is infringing;"...in the absence of such actual knowledge, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent; or "upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, acts expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material;" ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 08:29, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I can't see a (good) reason, why this code should not be included in wikipedia.org (for example as a redirect) with more than 300000 google hits nobody can claim that this is a trade secret anymore. And I doubt, that a mere number is copyright able. --LN2 10:02, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

HD DVD encryption key controversy has been created. Please keep an eye on this page also. -- lucasbfr ^talk 11:31, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I've had to semi-protect the article after 192.55.4.36 (talk • contribs) inserted it into the article (revisions now deleted), though he's now using edit summaries to publish the key. --  Netsnipe  ►  17:01, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Question, if an article is about the news worthy event of the leak of the key, can't we use the key in a fair use capacity? (get ready for tomatoes to be thrown at him) ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 13:34, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I understand that Wikipedia has to cover itself from possible (frivolous) legal threats but I feel this setting a very bad precedent - after all, we have Illegal Prime. And this new illegal number is definitly notable - so I'd like to see WP:OFFICE here, either allowing it or not. CharonX/talk 21:43, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

User pages

What to do with userpages that include the key? I just stumbled on User:MarSch who included the key in al kinds of obsfucated forms on the page and the edit summaries in order to defeat searches and such. --Edokter (Talk) 13:29, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I've deleted the HD-DVD key from his userpage and warned him regarding WP:POINT while we await WP:OFFICE clarification. --  Netsnipe   ►  16:28, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

He's still posting it elsewhere. Full agreement that this is a POINT. Pagrashtak 16:58, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Those posts were prior to my warning. --  Netsnipe  ►  17:02, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I assumed it was new since it the key hadn't been removed. Pagrashtak 17:17, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Signatures

[61]. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 20:59, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Indeed - that there user was blocked earlier though. Will (aka Wimt) 21:12, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

JoshuaZ and BLP and Daniel Brandt

JoshuaZ did this. Good judgement or bad judgement? WAS 4.250 01:09, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Bad judgement, besides which he reverted my comments and I am not banned, and DB is only banned at his own request. This violates the spirit of BLP amongst other things and I have reverted because my comments were removed and I absolutely have the right to comment on the BLP talk page, SqueakBox 01:17, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Brandt was commenting in a policy situation and engaging in more of his standard threats. This was not an attempt by Brandt to fix specific issues on his page, and so the "spirit" of BLP does not support him in this instance. As I have already commented to SqueakBox, it doesn't make sense to only remove every other comment in his discussion. JoshuaZ 02:28, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

On a technical point, I don't see any legal threat from Brandt in that thread. He mentions a schedule for appealing to the Wikimedia Foundation board of directors. Durova^Charge! 05:01, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Brandt is indefinitely banned. If he wants to have something done, he can email the foundation. He knows who to contact.--MONGO 07:38, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

We can also ignore WP:BAN when the net benefit of Brandt being able to post is good for the encyclopedia; his latest posts certainly seem helpful and not hurtful. --Iamunknown 08:00, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Brandt knows the email address for OTRS, Jimbo and most of the arbcom, he also knows that he is absolutely banned from posting to Wikipedia AT ALL, including the specific case of his article's talk page. Why would we continue to allow him to ignore that? He has means to get factual inaccuracies fixed, and his past behaviour is such that simply engaging with him presents a real riski to the privacy of editors, a risk to which people should not be subjected. Guy (Help!) 13:32, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

If ignoring WP:BAN would improve Wikipedia I would agree, but in this case I think BAN is protecting Wikipedia from disruption. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 13:39, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

True. --Iamunknown 13:53, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Daniel Brandt was indefinitely blocked by Jimbo. If anyone wants to proxy edit for him, they had probably better get Jimbo's permission or approval, first. Corvus cornix 02:36, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Nobody is proxy editing for him. He signed two separate statements made from 2 different ip addresses (a classic Brandt tactic) with the ip address and date stamp (the 4 squiggles) and also signed them Daniel Brandt. Its impossible to stop someone who can change ip at will and lives in a large US city from editing as an IP and at least he has the honesty to always sign his comments (though that is the point too), SqueakBox 02:41, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Disruption of active content dispute by FeloniousMonk

FeloniousMonk moved my comments, and those of many others, in this edit, in a content dispute of which he is an active participant, in an effort to marganilize opposing viewpoints. ImprobabilityDrive 05:15, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

This active discussion is in regard to the very reason the article was protected. While I am an active participant (and target), I request that an objective administrator review the move, revert it if it was against wikipedia policy, and provide appropriate response to FeloniousMonk. Thanks, ImprobabilityDrive 05:20, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

It's not that uncommon to move a particular thread to a subpage, if it's off topic, clogging up the page, or causing disruption. No idea if that's the case here, but he didn't use any admin tools, so I don't see what his involvement in a content dispute has to do with it. In any case, it's not something that requires administrators' intervention. If others agree with his move, they'll support him at that talk page; if not, someone will probably move the comments back. Musical Linguist 05:32, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

It takes sophisticated knowledge to move the article back, and it is well known that FeloniousMonk is an admin. His edit summary's convey his authority. He indicated in his move that the purpose was to avoid complicating the case that I was a disruptive editor. He provides permission to other contributors to continue to enforce his move here. ImprobabilityDrive 05:38, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

ImprobabilityDrive has been deemed by the community at that article a classic disruptive editor. The section I moved to a subpage was a proposal already widely rejected by every established editor of the article several times over and reintroduced yet again. It was moved to allow for other discussions to take place that might actually have a change at gaining consensus.

ImprobabilityDrive's disruption has taken the form of edit warring at that article and at Sternberg peer review controversy, and have resulted in both being protected. He consistently rejects community input and calls for moderation while continuing to edit in pursuit of a certain point despite an opposing consensus from impartial editors and admins. Not to mention his campaign to drive away productive contributors through gaming the system at WP:AN/I and WP:DE. There's an ongoing discussion among the regular editors to that article (which I am not one) for a user conduct RFC on ImprobabilityDrive, for which there is near unanimous support. FeloniousMonk 05:49, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I encourage whatever objective admin that looks at this to dig in to the veracity of the assertions made by FeloniousMonk. For example, the only person now contributing to the discussion is FeloniousMonk, now that he has disrupted it [62]. Previously, as can be seen here, other contributors were commenting, and we were making headway. ImprobabilityDrive 06:01, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

The discussion is free to continue on the subpage, here: Talk:Creation-evolution controversy/Sternberg dscussion I don't see how you can in all honesty call no one agreeing with you "making progress." Also, this section Talk:Creation-evolution_controversy#To_all_those_that_are_piling_on adds zero value, is further disruption, and really needs to be userfied. — Preceding unsigned comment added by FeloniousMonk (talk • contribs) 06:16, 3 May 2007

In around six days, User:ImprobabilityDrive has posted 112 times to Talk:Creation-evolution controversy, making him the 10th largest contributor, compared to people who've been posting there for years. It's too much, and it's overwhelming the page. I've asked him to consider taking it off his watchlist for a couple of days to let things cool down. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 06:36, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

If only Slim would take her own advice on (e.g.) Pallywood. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.173.66.55 (talk) 19:03, 3 May 2007 (UTC).

<officer barbary> "Nothing to see here people, move along"</officer barbary> ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 06:57, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I have indef blocked ImprobabilityDrive as a sockpuppet of Jason Gastrich. It surprises me no one did it already: the account was obviously a sockpuppet, nearly all the edits touched on fundamentalist Christianity in some manner, and the attempts to whitewash Louisiana Baptist University are a dead giveaway. Durova^Charge! 07:18, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I only had it at 50% probability, wasn't there a recent checkuser on Gastrich? Anywa, good call - that one is here to promote The Truth (TM) not what is verifiable. Guy (Help!) 13:29, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd say the community is much better off now. I recently began to realise he was likely a sock, but like Guy I was a bit surprised that he was Gastrich's sock. Zeus knows he certainly stirred up enough trouble. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149; 15:09, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

What really did it for me was the diff where he fluffed up a citation of the school's doctoral program. I mean, who else would both care about inflating the appearance of one particular program at an unaccredited bible college and know so much about how Wikipedia works? It's a slam dunk in my opinion, and if checkuser didn't catch this then all it means is he's getting a little clever on the technical end. That might be worth watching for future reference. Durova^Charge! 15:15, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Checkuser does not show anything, but editing pattern is a dead giveaway. Fred Bauder 20:35, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Personal attack

User Biophys who is involved in editing Operation Sarindar article, made the following statement: "I believe that recent edits of this article represent a clear vandalism". As I am (User:Vlad fedorov) the only one user who edited the article recently, I regard it as a personal attack on me. The issue between me and Biophys is whether statements of Senior Defense Department officials should be mentioned in introductory paragraph. I have included mentioning of these statements, because they are also contained in the main body of the article.

User Biophys, repeatedly deleted this text supported by reliable sources without discussions. He was reported on 3RR board here.

I also would like to pay attention of the admins, that Biophys continues his abuse of me by calling me vandal. Please, see here for previous instances http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive229#Multiple_instances_of_Biophys_calling_me_vandal.2C_wikistalker_and_so_on. Vlad fedorov 15:57, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

He continues to make very abusive comments on me diff, despite of my sincere attempts to find a compromise and peace with him diff, diff. Vlad fedorov 16:16, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Reply. Yes, you can take a look at the link provided by Vlad Fedorov: [63]. I am not going to comment here any more, since you are very busy.Biophys 16:37, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Ugh....Biophys vs. Vlad Federov again? This really should go to RFAR so we can get some sort of injunctive relief seperating the two permanently. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 00:48, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Swat, see my previous message. I sincerely tried to make a peace with him, but he continues to threaten with new articles of contraversial Russian political issues. For example on article Human rights in Russia we discovered more reliable and official source which praises Russia, not condemns. When we attempted to introduce this into the article he threatened by creating separate articles on different issues. See here [Biophys message]. Though it is not addressed to me, see how Biophys forcible pushes his version of article against numerous editors who disagree with him. Remember that Biophys was making pomises right here to step out of contraversial political issues each time he was discussed here. You see that he is clearly pursuing just the opposite pattern of behaviour. He also was vowing to step out when we were editing Boris Stomakhin article. Currently Boris Stomakhin article is protected in his version, but nevertheless he continues to add conspiracy theories on articles about Russian and continues to add hearsays and empty allegations, like in Internet brigades, which survived the AfD. Also at AfD, Biophys vowed to step aside from editing contraversial articles if the article would survive, but he isn't. Vlad fedorov 03:43, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Notice of possible vandalism by User:JzG

Resolved

 – seems to be resolved --Iamunknown 01:31, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

This user removed all content from the Larry Gluck article. Here is this user's explanation [64]--Fahrenheit451 18:43, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

That's not vandalism, that's a content editing decision based on the Biographies of living persons policy. Please feel free to follow his instructions for a sourced rewrite, if you feel you can create such a thing. FCYTravis 18:55, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Just to clarify Larry Gluck was a redirect to Lawrence Jerrold Gluck, which JzG deleted per an OTRS ticket (and I just deleted Larry Gluck as a dead redirect). Looking at the deleted history I'm going to have to agree with JzG's deletion; this article was in no way adequately sourced in a way to meet WP:BLP.--Isotope23 19:03, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

That was an article that I and another editor started working on. It is too bad it was summarily removed.--Fahrenheit451 19:18, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Please consider reading Wikipedia:Avoid the word "vandal". --Iamunknown 19:23, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Please consider reading the title at it states "possible vandalism". I used the word appropriately as modified by an adjective.--Fahrenheit451 19:42, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

And stating that something is "possible vandalism" rather than "vandalism" is different and appropriate, how? --Iamunknown 19:44, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism implies bad faith and I see no evidence of that here or in Guy's edits generally, SqueakBox 19:45, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. You said it much more clearly than I. --Iamunknown 19:48, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I do not know Guy and posted this notice about possible vandalism to have an admin look into the matter. Possible vandalism means that it is uncertain whether good faith or bad faith actions have taken place.--Fahrenheit451 19:59, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

If you don't understand the difference between possible and definite, then I am not the person to attempt to help you any further.--Fahrenheit451 20:01, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

The issue here is that it's a living person's biography and so we have to immediately have a good and well-sourced article. JzG's actions were drastic, but not wrong. Living biographies are a major pain in the arse for Wikipedia. Best thing to do is to write an article that is immaculately up to the standards of WP:BLP and put it there. If you're not sure, I advise you to work with JzG on the issue - I assure you, he's really good at these difficult issues, and all living biographies are difficult issues by nature - David Gerard 19:51, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Guy is an excellent administrator here, and it would be best to take his advice, rather than complain about him. -- Fyslee/talk 20:10, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

We could have used all this BLP support yesterday, when One Night in Hackney stubbed an article and an admin kept restoring it without sources. [65] BLP needs to be enforced consistently and by everyone to be effective. No free passes. Frise 20:09, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Frise, when you have an issue like this it's always best to post it as soon as possible to Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. Cary Bass ^demandez 20:28, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't the one having the issue in that case. I just noticed it after the fact and was disturbed by the way it was handled. Frise 20:42, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure why User:JzG couldn't simply have removed any info from the article that he felt violated WP:BLP. (I'd love to know what info that was.) And if he felt the article was non-notable in the first place (as he stated), then why not take it to AfD and let someone else weigh in before completely deleting the work of other editors? There wasn't a single sentence in that article that wasn't backed up by the sources given. And we were in the process of adding more information about Gluck's long and prestigious art career so that it wouldn't be weighted in favor of the negative Scientology-related information, when the article was suddenly eradicated. Nevertheless, the info will appear again soon as part of the World Institute of Scientology Enterprises article, and maybe there will be discussion rather than deletion. wikipediatrix 20:55, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Frise, are you going to complain about that incident indefinitely? You are wrong, some common sense is expected. I won't reiterate the absurdity of removing mention of an Inquiry when the person is already featured (and sourced) in its own entry. El_C 21:44, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Are there any oustanding complaints? Can this topic be closed? --Iamunknown 23:52, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Matrixism (3rd nomination)

• There's an issue here that I'd like an admin familiar with policy to clear up. To wit, the issue is that Matrixism has already been deleted twice, with several DRVs. Now, it's up for deletion again, but this time the article is substantially different and has sources (albeit somewhat questionable ones). Isn't it customary to normally bring an altered version of an article whose subject's notability is questionable to another DRV first? That would seem like the best way to get a community consensus. Instead, the primary editors are stating that because it has sources, it can't be deleted, and since it's different from the other versions, it can't be speedily deleted. This reads like first-grade policy gaming to me. JuJube 19:31, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

• I don't know if AfD is necessarily the wrong place for this, but the problem is that the nominator didn't actually give any valid reason for an AfD here...--Isotope23 19:37, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

• • • In my opinion, the whole reason we don't generally salt deleted articles is to cover cases such as this, where a valid article is created in the place of a failed deleted one. (For the record, JuJube, I !voted keep on this one and have never edited this article in any way — and I note you still haven't given any reason for deletion other than I don't like it — iridescenti (talk to me!) 19:47, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
      • I don't know if that is a reason not to salt... salting can be undone (I salted Caspian (band) and unsalted it when someone produced verifiable information towards WP:MUSIC). That said, I'm tempted to snow the afd because it has not been started on any sort of solid reasoning for deletion. That said, I'm extremely dubious about the sources being provided... WP:AGF, but somehow I suspect if anyone went and picked those books up they would not offer much in the way of actual verification.--Isotope23 19:57, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
      • My reason for deletion was actually I'm not convinced that Matrixism isn't religioncruft. And I'm not. The sources are still dubious, as I said. But that's for the AfD. JuJube 19:59, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
        • For what it's worth I'm not at all convinced this isn't something made up in school, although certainly this link seems to be a bona fide source. We certainly have plenty of other made-up-in-school religions — iridescenti (talk to me!) 20:25, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Request for reconsideration of decision not to block IPvandal

[Copy-pasted (mostly verbatim) from Alison ☺'s Talk page]

Re: 199.216.98.34 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

This user has made four, not three, edits to Wikipedia today, and eight since the 27 April block expired -- all of them vandalizing. I did not leave a fresh final warning on this user's talk page after his or her previous block expired because it has been my experience that each final block warning negates all final block warnings preceding it. ("How come you gave him a final warning when he already has a final warning? You should've just reported him, etc.") Out of this IPvandal's 101 edits, I have determined, based on a random sampling, that approximately 0 of them have been constructive.

It is more likely that the sun will explode this afternoon than that this user will turn out to have deserved the benefit of the doubt. If you want to go letter-of-the-law on this, there are a grand total of five warnings on the user's talk page (including mine), which explicitly state that the user will be blocked without further warning if disruptive edits continue. These warnings date back to last October.

All I ask is that a long-term (semi-permanent is too much to hope for) block on anonymous editing from the IP address be imposed. Is this possible, or will the vandal be allowed to continue wasting our time into the forseeable future on slow days at his or her public works department office in scenic Alberta? --Dynaflow 19:26, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

• Well, here's my take on it. The address is a shared IP and, while their contributions have been abyssmal to-date, I can't just block them because of something they may do. At the very least, they deserve a final warning here. I don't want to give a confirmed shared IP a long-term block without a little due process here. It's not a simple AIV case and, for that reason, you might want to bring it to WP:ANI and state that the AIV report was turned down by myself. That way, other admins will get a look-in and decide accordingly. - Alison ☺ 19:34, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Administrator Abuse by User:Netsnipe

Resolved

 – Discussion closed by initiator's request - Alison ☺ 23:54, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Idaho Springs, Colorado vandalized

Idaho Springs, Colorado has been vandalized. Suggest checking User contributions, there has been extensive activity. Thanks, Richard Myers 21:15, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest Request for Page Protection for a lot of vandalism. --24.136.230.38 21:19, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Just revert. It wasn't that extensive. For proøpt actions next time → WP:AIV. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 21:23, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Vandal attack on Gwen Shamblin

There have been several different IPs vandalizing the Gwen Shamblin article. On the talk page, a regular editor of this page alleges that at least one of these IPs is assigned to an organization that Gwen Shamblin runs. That particular IP was removing negative but well-sourced info from the article but the link provided does not prove, to me, the affiliation claimed. In any case, this article might be one to watch a bit more closely for a time. DES ^(talk) 21:16, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

My suggestion is to warn that person for deleting content. If they keep it up, report them to WP:AIV, and watch them get blocked. --24.136.230.38 21:17, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see. You're just giving us the heads up? --24.136.230.38 21:25, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Warnings have been put on at least three different IP addresses, at least one has been blocked. Problem is, either there is a coincidence or one or more people using multiple IPs are targetign this article. DES ^(talk) 21:56, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Josh Hancock image situation

This is about Image:Josh Hancock.jpg

I'm sick of people telling me I'm wrong, because I know that I'm right on this and I'd like admin assistance.

Notice the Reds logo on the uniform, it is backwards. The Reds have NEVER worn a backwards C with the word "SDER" (in backwards letters) on the left side of the chest in their uniform. I believe the "3" and "4" were photoshopped, as Brandon Claussen (left-handed) wore "34" when on the Reds.

There's the image in its proper form, the only thing incorrect is the number, which appears to have been edited.

http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/6669/claussenrx3.jpg

Notice the "Reds" logo is on the right on their now old home uniform [68]. In the image, it's on the left. Can anyone explain this? Or am I just "fantasizing" (as said in the Commons RFD)? --CFIF ☎ ⋐ 22:12, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

• Note discussion here on Commons - Alison ☺ 22:15, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I swear to God I am not doing this for shits and giggles....notice that the Reds logo in the image is on the LEFT. The Reds logo has always been on the right in their uniforms. [69] [70] In the image, the logo is on the LEFT. --CFIF ☎ ⋐ 22:19, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I think you have a fair point here. However, it's currently on discussion over on Commons, where the image resides. Best off not reverting the article (again!) until the matter is resolved - Alison ☺ 22:25, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Possible canvassing by newbie

Could someone have a look at User talk:Sp1959? He appears to be soliciting signatures on his talk page for a petition. I almost reported him to WP:AIV, but I think this may fall into a gray area where while it isn't appropriate, it doesn't merit a block.Blueboy96 22:44, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, I left a note on his talk page. Let's see if he replies. Veinor ^{(talk to me)} 22:53, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Tsyam

Hi sir, I have written an article titled "Tsyam" but I do not find it in Wikipedia now. I would be most grateful if you can help restore it. Best regards Shkëmbi 01:47, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I believe it is right here, at Tsyam. To create links to other pages on Wikipedia add two square brackets, [[ and ]], on either side of the word or words you want to link. Picaroon (Talk) 01:50, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Write Open Story

Resolved

Hi there! Can someone take a look at this one? I have a feeling that it is some sort of school assignment taking place in Wikipedia article space--looking at the deletion log seems to indicate recreations by multiple users with different content. Since I can't see the deleted material, I have brought my concern here. Thanks!--Xnuala (talk) 01:47, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

The first instance was a description of a website, apparently that described in the title. The others were random dumps of text, much as this appears to be, but entirely different from the current content. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 01:53, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Any clues as to what the point of this is?--Xnuala (talk) 01:59, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Blocked user WilliamMelvin evading block with IP address

Not even trying to disguise it. WilliamMelvin (talk · contribs) was blocked yesterday for making personal attacks among other problems. Has returned as 84.64.234.112 (talk · contribs) to resume the same "bullshit"/"pricks" editwarring, at Highest snooker break. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:35, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Blocked. Extending the block of the origina account to 1 week. Viridae^Talk 03:51, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Anon IP user 207.207.127.254 on C++

This user continues to edit against consensus on the C++ article. He has repeatedly tried to modify the "Hello, World" program ([71][72][73] and others). He originally wanted to remove an #include required by the C++ standard, now he wants to change the program to use legacy C functions. He has tried to argue his case on the talk page but not a single editor has agreed with him.

He has also blanked and vandalized his anon IP talk page ([74][75]) and left spurious warnings on another user's talk page ([76]). I've repeatedly tried to warn him that his behavior is inappropriate, and advised him to register an account, all to no avail.

His IP address is from a college, but he claims it's his machine, so he may have a static or long-term dynamic IP lease.

Can one of you please either put an extended block on this IP, or semi-protect the C++ article so we don't have to keep reverting him? Thanks. ATren 03:43, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Please look deeper into this matter, and don't block me if you can help it. My very first edit to Wikipedia was a removal of a include statement in the C++ article that I thought was inappropriate. This was met by severe warnings and hatred from a few editors that apparently feel very strongly about this matter. After being informed (rather forcefully) of the "discuss, then make change" policy of Wikipedia, I took a legitimate route to editing the page, debating the change until it was clear there was no argument against it, then made a careful, noninflammatory change. Note that ATren (and possible sock puppet Xerxesnine) have been following me around, evidently with some vendetta against me. Note that I haven't vandalized a single page, and the 'vandalism' ATren cites is only done to my own talk page, and even then it was quite some time ago.

I'm new here, and I'm learning, but users like ATren don't make Wikipedia a very inviting place sometimes.

Anon IP user 63.192.130.60

This user appears to do nothing but make spurious additions and deletions in vandalizing random pages. Could someone please review this user's contributions and issue a warning or block as appropriate?

Thanks.

Spventi 04:36, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

See me on your talk page, and I'll run down how this works. --Dynaflow 04:49, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Anti-semitic behavior from an editor

I have always vowed to never filed a complaint here (editorial comment), but I need to do it now. In all of my edits, I use G_d as the form to use. Please see Names of God in Judaism#In English. I have had two discussions about this topic on my user talk page User talk:Orangemarlin#Spellings and User talk:Orangemarlin/Religion 2#Personal editing with the Name. It's a personal belief that many Jews follow, even though there is a technical point about using the name on a computer screen.

Today I was informed by dave souza that a mass change had occurred with the use of my name by r b-j. We both informed him of this situation here and [77]. r b-j has a significant history of uncivil remarks (which can be documented, but that isn't the point for this notice) towards me and others. I'm sure you can find a few diffs where I did not respond nicely to his comments, but once again, that's not the point. I believe that this editor needs to be reprimanded for what I consider to be borderline anti-semitism. Orangemarlin 19:32, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

You haven't even read his response, and you want him reprimanded? Surely there's something to be said for hearing the other person's side, no? --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 19:40, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, I am not Jewish, but I think we can assume good faith here and guess that this editor just wanted to make your comments a little clearer. A polite request to not edit others' comments should be enough, in my opinion. J Milburn 20:22, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Huh, I hadn't been aware of that practice, until now. Probably better to use the full spelling in mainspace, but in talkspace, I'd have to agree that one should have a good reason when editing comments from other editors. That said, I don't think rbj's had a chance to respond to this, yet -- no need to get everybody alarmed unless this sort of thing becomes a pattern, unless there's something I'm missing? – Luna Santin (talk) 20:55, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I think editors should always be very cautious about editing others' talk page contributions. This goes doubly for editing the comments of anyone you have a dispute with or have had. R-b-j should know better and probably does. Let's see what he says in his defense. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 21:41, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

<unindent> Well, I evidently didn't appreciate how sensitive this is. He's undone the edits as I suggested, but far from apologising or giving any reason for his action, he's made accusations that others did something similar to himself in the past[78], and has been advised to offer apologies instead of escalating the incident.[79]. ... dave souza, talk 11:13, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

r b-j has now responded. An aggressive and unrepentant defence. .. dave souza, talk 17:50, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

That's a new low for Rbj - saying that he doesn't believe OrangeMarlin's claim that it was religiously offensive? Wow. I am reminded of Benapgar (talk · contribs)...similar type of incivility, albeit with a better-informed sense of content. Guettarda 18:15, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

After he responded to a "why" with a blanket accusation at no one in particular, accusing others of changing his posts and lying[80] I suggested he apologise to Orangemarlin and not escalate, and if he had a complaint about others altering his posts he should post a dif.[81] His response was to ignore the suggestion to apologise and ignore my request for diffs, and instead to accuse me of lying (his words were "stretching the tr_th"[82] - the underscore in "truth" I can take only as yet another deliberate trolling insult at Orangemarlins' preferred "G_d", his rude edits of which is what started it all. I try to AGF, often beyond what is generally considered reasonable, but this is well beyond anything remotely acceptable. I try to help and I'm accused of lying, and in the same breath he yet agains taunts and insults Orangemarlin, this after several editors have suggested, with varying degrees of emphasis, that he owes Orangemarlin an apology? It is community ban time, this user has always been disruptive, argumentative and hostile, with no constructive contributions that I can recall, and I cannot any longer view this situation as anything other than deliberate, hateful anti-semitism towards Orangemarlin and general nastiness towards everyone else. One puppy's opinion. KillerChihuahua^?!? 21:08, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

(EC)I'm jewish, (not an admin, but i watch here regularly and kibbitz a bit), and I've experienced this before, but not on Wikipedia. Many jews observe this, even if they're not regular shabbos synagogue-goers. It's a fairly traditional behavior, but it's also a reasonably obscure one. When explained, most non-jews apologize, shrug it off, and move on, and most jews do the same. Ultimately, the jew knows he was observant of the tradition, and that someone else, who happened to be ignorant of the idea, did the changing. The jew has done nothign 'wrong', and really, most jews assume the other person hasn't done something 'wrong', but just needs to have it explained. The fact that Rb-j didn't apologize or concede ignorance of the tradition, but immediately dug in seems far more evidence of incivility than his initial action, which could be seen as a member of another faith showing their version of respect, and not someone acting against another faith's show of respect. One observer's opinion. ThuranX 21:32, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Which is where I was, until he responded so hatefully, with the "tr_th" which can only be a snotty dig. There is no other way to view it. And I was asking for difs so I could right any wrongs which might have been done him! Nope, I'm all out of AGF for this one. KillerChihuahua^?!? 22:55, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Yep, exactly. He's now complaining about the block JoshuaZ gave him, using the premise that the editor isn't actually observantly jewish enough for his objection tothe change to count as offensive. ThuranX 02:33, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if this is "anti-semitic" but seems to be clearly deliberately antagonistic behavior. I'm blocking RBJ for 24 hours for incivility and grossly disruptive behavior. JoshuaZ 21:29, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Joshua, consider this: If I were white, and I knew another editor were black, and I started saying "nigger" and "darkie" it really wouldn't matter if I, personally, were actually racist or if I were doing it just to be a dick. The words themselves are bigoted and racist. Same applies here. He's being anti-semitic, whether or not he personally is anti-semitic, and if he's just doing it to be a dick it doesn't change his actions. One puppy's opinion. KillerChihuahua^?!? 09:34, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

RBJ has objected to my block and claimed that I'm "full of crap". He has however raised what may be legitimate objections to his block. I would appreciate if someone would take a look over at his talk page and maybe comment here whether he should be unblocked. My feeling is no. JoshuaZ 02:26, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

He hasn't bothered to put an unblock request on his talk page. And he has continued his flame-war like posts, his latest being to yet again basically (boiled down) say Orangemarlin is full of crap, the administrators here are crap, and invites you to kiss his ass. Not really seeing any reason to unblock. KillerChihuahua^?!? 09:43, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

As an Orthodox Jew, I also usually write the word as "G-d", and tend to type it that way on computer screens, even though there is a debate if the legal religious reasons for the tradition are applicable to computer screens. Regardless, I would agree that in article namespace, it should be written fully spelled out, as that it how it would be printed in a book. On talkspaces (be they user, article, template, etc.) it would strike me as impolite for one user to change the posts of another, in either direction. In this particular situation, I don't think that addingthe middle "o" is ipso facto antisemitic, but the incivilties that arose from the issues do need to be addressed; on both sides. I think this edit shares in the incivilty issues as well. RBJ could have been informed in a less antagonistic manner; not that that excuses his resulting incivility. Oh well. -- Avi 16:13, 4 May 2007 (UTC)