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-Ril- (talk · contribs)

Apparently this user is upset by bible articles on Wikipedia. He has created three simultaneous "centralized discussions" on the subject (See {{cent}}) which kind of defies the point of being "centralized", and has spammed nearly a hundred talk pages on the subject. Also, he has a userpage intended for vote stacking to delete bible articles, and links to it from his signature. Could someone enlighten me as to the differences between this behavior and disruptive trolling? Radiant_>|< 21:05, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

This behavior doesn't have userboxes associated with it? Phil Sandifer 21:12, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I suppose we could create some and then liberally sprinkle them throughout the encyclopedia. Or perhaps ceremonial userboxes (I survived the Great Bible War of '06)? --Mackensen (talk) 21:14, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

That would help a lot, I suspect. :) Phil Sandifer 21:15, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

In seriousness, yes, this is a pretty clear problem, especially since the AfD results are pretty clear here, and it's pretty self-evident that at least some bible verses can reasonably have articles. Phil Sandifer 21:15, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Of course some of them can. John 3:16 clearly deserves its own article, but does Ezekiel 23:20? Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 22:56, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't know. Write one and we'll see what there is to say about it. Phil Sandifer 17:02, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I find it interesting that he is sending invitations to join the centralized discussions only to those who voted delete or merge on the latest round of AfDs for Bible verses Dsmdgold 21:55, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

This is nothing new. It has been about 6 months since the last round of discussions on this issue were raised at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Matthew 1:verses, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Individual Bible verses, and Wikipedia:Merge/Bible verses. It is unusual however that only persons who have displayed a desire to delete bible verse articles ever seem to be notified when the next discussion is started. --Allen3 ^talk 22:34, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I received one of Ril's messages, presumably since I have in the past voted to merge on individual Bible verses. I think it's reasonable to wonder whether we want (potentially) well over 30,000 articles on individual verses, especially since the verse construction is artificial to begin with. (And that's without getting into whether this would set a precedent for the Qur'an, Atlas Shrugged, etc.) Wouldn't it make more sense to group by topic or maybe chapter, and have the individual verses as redirects? Ril makes some sensible points here. Regardless of your view on this - and I know there are reasonable arguments on both sides - I don't see how any of this amounts to "disruptive trolling". It looks to me like a good faith discussion on a policy issue. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 22:53, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the AFD's are fairly clear - e.g. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Matthew 1:5 had the results Delete 19, Merge or Delete 5, Merge 6, Keep 14. Total Deletes, including Merge/Delete is 24 compared to 14 to keep. So that's a delete outcome, not a keep.

The question is whether every single one of the first 200 verses of Matthew notable in its own right? Or in other words do we really need all of the following articles?

Matthew 1:1, Matthew 1:2, Matthew 1:3, Matthew 1:4, Matthew 1:5, Matthew 1:6, Matthew 1:7, Matthew 1:8, Matthew 1:9, Matthew 1:10, Matthew 1:11, Matthew 1:12, Matthew 1:13, Matthew 1:14, Matthew 1:15, Matthew 1:16, Matthew 1:17, Matthew 1:18, Matthew 1:19, Matthew 1:20, Matthew 1:21, Matthew 1:22, Matthew 1:23, Matthew 1:24, Matthew 1:25, Matthew 2:1, Matthew 2:2, Matthew 2:3, Matthew 2:4, Matthew 2:5, Matthew 2:6, Matthew 2:7, Matthew 2:8, Matthew 2:9, Matthew 2:10, Matthew 2:11, Matthew 2:12, Matthew 2:13, Matthew 2:14, Matthew 2:15, Matthew 2:16, Matthew 2:17, Matthew 2:18, Matthew 2:19, Matthew 2:20, Matthew 2:21, Matthew 2:22, Matthew 2:23, Matthew 3:1, Matthew 3:2, Matthew 3:3, Matthew 3:4, Matthew 3:5, Matthew 3:6, Matthew 3:7, Matthew 3:8, Matthew 3:9, Matthew 3:10, Matthew 3:11, Matthew 3:12, Matthew 3:13, Matthew 3:14, Matthew 3:15, Matthew 3:16, Matthew 3:17, Matthew 4:1, Matthew 4:2, Matthew 4:3, Matthew 4:4, Matthew 4:5, Matthew 4:6, Matthew 4:7, Matthew 4:8, Matthew 4:9, Matthew 4:10, Matthew 4:11, Matthew 4:12, Matthew 4:13, Matthew 4:14, Matthew 4:15, Matthew 4:16, Matthew 4:17, Matthew 4:18, Matthew 4:19, Matthew 4:20, Matthew 4:21, Matthew 4:22, Matthew 4:23, Matthew 4:24, Matthew 4:25, Matthew 5:1, Matthew 5:2, Matthew 5:3, Matthew 5:4, Matthew 5:5 Matthew 5:6, Matthew 5:7, Matthew 5:8, Matthew 5:9, Matthew 5:10, Matthew 5:11, Matthew 5:12, Matthew 5:13, Matthew 5:14, Matthew 5:15, Matthew 5:16, Matthew 5:17, Matthew 5:18, Matthew 5:19, Matthew 5:20, Matthew 5:21, Matthew 5:22, Matthew 5:23-4, Matthew 5:25, Matthew 5:26, Matthew 5:27, Matthew 5:28, Matthew 5:29, Matthew 5:30, Matthew 5:31, Matthew 5:32, Matthew 5:33, Matthew 5:34, Matthew 5:35, Matthew 5:36, Matthew 5:37, Matthew 5:38, Matthew 5:39, Matthew 5:40, Matthew 5:42, Matthew 5:43, Matthew 5:44, Matthew 5:45, Matthew 5:46, Matthew 5:47, Matthew 5:48, Matthew 6:1, Matthew 6:2, Matthew 6:3, Matthew 6:4, Matthew 6:5, Matthew 6:6, Matthew 6:7, Matthew 6:8, Matthew 6:9, Matthew 6:10, Matthew 6:11, Matthew 6:12, Matthew 6:13, Matthew 6:14-5, Matthew 6:16, Matthew 6:17, Matthew 6:18, Matthew 6:19-20, Matthew 6:21, Matthew 6:22, Matthew 6:23, Matthew 6:24, Matthew 6:25, Matthew 6:26, Matthew 6:27, Matthew 6:28, Matthew 6:29, Matthew 6:30, Matthew 6:31, Matthew 6:32, Matthew 6:33, Matthew 6:34

Or should we merge/delete some of them? --Victim of signature fascism 23:29, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't know. I looked at five of the above at random and they were all very well written... Linuxbeak (drop me a line) 23:35, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Take a look at Matthew 2:21 and Matthew 2:20. Not only are the verses near identical, the article even says it is. The only content of the article is a summary of the previous 20 verses, two translations of the verse, and a comment that it's identical to the previous one. Please don't be tricked by fluff. There is no encyclopedic content in many of the articles whatsoever that merits an individual article. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove biblecruft 23:44, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Ingenuous cobblers: if you actually check the article for that second verse, it is pointed out that it describes an action taken in respone to an instruction given in the first verse; it is couched in almost identical phrasing—with the tense changed—to indicate immediate compliance. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 11:04, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

{{sofixit}}. If both articles are about the same thing, create a merged article with the content from both, and redirect both to it. --cesarb 00:16, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Uh I think you haven't read the thread you started earlier. A simple 51% majority in AfD does not mean an article must be deleted with impunity... not even close. Many informative comments were made and links provided that you might want to take a look at. --W.marsh 23:38, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

24 to 14 is slightly more than a 51% majority. So could you please address the actual question at hand - do we need articles for every single one of those 200 articles or somewhat less than that? --Victim of signature fascism | help remove biblecruft 23:44, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Merge votes simply do not count as delete votes... and even still, 24 of 38 is 63%, 66% is the bare minimum needed to delete in most circumstances. As for your other argument, this is not WP:AFD or WP:DRV, which is where that argument belongs. --W.marsh 23:52, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

If a closing admin notes keep on an AfD, that doesn't preclude anyone from merging the article, particularly if there's consensus to do that. Closing admins won't necessarily merge articles for you. --Interiot 23:43, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh not again! Despite -Ril-'s long campaign, AfD has demonstrated over many months that there is no consensus to delete good Bible verse articles. When his AfDs failed last time he tried to 'manage' his own poll at Wikipedia:Bible verses - which evidently didn't give him the result he wanted. Now, since returning from his arbcom suspension for trolling, he's back at it. Whatever your view of Bible verses, this is just troublemaking. He is, of course, free to keep nominating them - and he will keep getting 'no consensus' = default keep. This is a boring as schools debates. --Doc ^ask? 23:46, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure why this is such a contentious issue. I personally do not see the study of Bible verses as much different from the study of varieties of insects or Songhai monarchs. All are obscure subjects of interest to only a small group. Perhaps this is because I personally am quite areligious and do not see them of more them of much more than academic interest. It also might be because I am not American, and failed to understand that for some that any interest in religion is an ultra political demarcation of one's position in a "culture war." - SimonP 00:07, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Meh, let him carry on. If they're deemed not worthy of keeping then they can be deleted. If they aren't then all he has done is draw attention to the fact that we have them and encourage other people to possibly improve them. the wub "?!" ^{RFR - a good idea?} 00:15, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrary section header

• Rather than deletion, I think the two issues should be 1.merging some of the stubbier bible-related articles, and 2.discuss whether bible articles should cite their entire source text. Both can be taken care of through regular editing and possibly RFC. There's no need to involve deletion. Radiant_>|< 00:09, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed - as some of the comments above suggest, going through AfD sets up a false delete/don't delete dichotomy, with a strong (two-thirds) presumption in favour of keep. But take the articles on Matthew 1:1-5 - this is for me, unarguably Biblecruft. Wikipedia is not a biblical commentary. There should be articles on topics, and on the odd really notable verse. Rd232 ^talk 00:16, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I've never been against merging - but as -Ril-'s own Wikipedia:Bible verses has shown, as with schools, there is no consensus to create any macro-policy here. Further, why the hell are we discusising content on ANI - take it elsewhere. The only valid question for ANI is whether Ril is entitle to behave as he is. And due to my past inteactions with -Ril-, I recuse myself on that question. --Doc ^ask? 00:24, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

• I would like to point out that there is a WikiProject dedicated to topics relating to the bible. It's been exceptionally inactive, but if there is a desire, somebody could revive discussion on the issue. --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 04:14, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Block of User:Zordrac and related issues relating to personal attacks by User:Ambi

I just got blocked indefinitely, apparently because of supporting User:Mistress Selina Kyle. I have suffered extraordinary abuses by User:Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters and especially User:Antaeus Feldspar and more recently by User:Ambi, none of whom have been blocked because of it. Just now I got blocked, apparently an indefinite block. There is no evidence here, no post or anything for me to refer to. Just a warning that was absurdly ridiculous, by User:Ambi about editing User:Sean Black's user page, something which he himself requested. What the hell is this all about? And why can Ambi go around abusing people and get away with it? I haven't done anything against anyone here. I quit it because of the 2 people stalking me, and because not a single administrator would do anything about it (although User:El C subsequently apparently talked to Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters about it, and thanks to him for doing that). Its just absurd, and that still I am being harassed and stalked by this horrendously abusive editor, Antaeus Feldspar, apparently because I dared to suggest that Daniel Brandt was written badly. I was considering coming back here, but such a ban is abhorrent. What was it for? For daring to support users who were abused? Or what? I am confident that the vast majority of my edits have been on articles (I believe in the order of 80%) and that the vast majority of them have been accepted as being very positive. Why am I being treated this badly? What justification is there for this kind of approach? Zordrac

If you quit, as you say, what is the problem? --W.marsh 03:39, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Block log gives real reason for block. No user mentioned above is actually involved. Jkelly 03:43, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

If I can just note that he put this on my userpage, which I think anyone would have reverted.--Sean|Black 03:59, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I just found this: "14:31, 15 January 2006 Kelly Martin blocked "User:Zordrac" with an expiry time of 1 year (Sockpuppet of Internodeuser, who is serving a hard ban by order of the Arbitration Committee)." This year block will over-ride the indef. block that was set earlier. Zach ^{(Smack Back) Fair use policy} 04:13, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd be curious to know how the identification was arrived at, Internodeuser used a common Australiann ISP with a IP assignment within a certain range, and was a conspiracy theory editor that made legal threats and viscious personal attacks. These things don't seem to be a hallmark of Zordrac's activities.--nixie 04:23, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

From what I understand, the connection was not established through CheckUser evidence. I don't know what the evidence is, but I assume (and hope) that we will be made aware soon enough.--Sean|Black 04:44, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, Kelly Martin tells me that the ArbCom has the evidence for this block. If a current Arbitrator could let us know, that would be helpful (obviously).--Sean|Black 05:01, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Beside the point - Kelly's stepping down from arbcom did not affect her checkuser access - she is still cleared to do that. Phil Sandifer 17:13, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I do not know the particulars of Internodeuser's situation or activities, and (my feelings about arbcom aside) do not doubt the veracity of their evidence, but I know for certain that I had encountered Zordrac before Zordrac was Zordrac. I had AfD'd some chat room articles he'd written anonymously, and further interaction with him led to the creation of his account (unfortunately, I guess, now). My early (and rather frustrating) interactions with him did not give the air of one who knew the system, and his earlier contributions as Zordrac were not in conspiracy theory areas, but in areas regarding his chat room articles. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 05:07, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

As far as IP information goes, they were using the same ISP in the same city. That on its own wouldn't be nearly enough, but there was also a great deal of very convincing circumstantial evidence quite conclusively tying the two together. I'm afraid you'll have to take my word (or that of any other present or past arbitrators who drop by) on it, as I don't think it's going to be disclosed, so as not to aid the next Internodeuser in better hiding their sockpuppets. I must admit that I was one of those taken in - I'd assumed Zordrac was a good-faith (if misguided and very irritating) user, and was quite surprised when I woke up this morning to find that he'd been found to be Internodeuser. In hindsight, however, and having seen the evidence, it certainly does explain a lot of things. Ambi 05:43, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Ambi, please don't take this question as anything other than me trying to understand the system better - these conversations appear to be rather heated, and I'd like to be clear upfront that I don't have a "dog in this fight", just a desire to learn more about how processes operate.

You say above that you have "seen the evidence" in this case. I realize that you may have been on the ArbCom during the Internodeuser days, but it was my understanding that you had left the ArbCom in June of last year. If you, as a non-arbiter and someone who does not have Checkuser priviledges, can see the evidence in this case, why can't others? I realize that privacy policy normally prevents it, but if Zordrac has waived that privacy, specifically allowing his IP information to be posted... and if other non-Checkuser editors such as yourself have seen this evidence, wouldn't it be better for everyone's peace of mind to simply reveal what evidence there is? I'm sure I'm missing something obvious here, and will look silly when it's explained. Thanks, --Krich (talk) 13:43, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

The majority of Internode users registered edits were to articles on conspiracy theories about Australian murders, the users was not familiar with Wikipedia policy at all. Before banned though the user particiapted in a heap of random afds, the after being banned made a brief come back as an IP harassing the user that had taken them to arbitration and posting legal threats on Jimbos page. As I said above, I don't see a lot of similarites, and IP evidence would be inconculsive given Internodeusers IP.--nixie 05:14, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Both seem to have documented interest in similar topics, such as Martin Bryant, Port Arthur massacre, Backpacker murders and Peter Falconio... that's evident with just a cursory glance. Although such comparisons could never establish more than a purely circumstancial case, of course. He also says "Zordrac has been using wikipedia since 2002" [1]. I too await the grand unveiling of evidence that actually proves anything though. --W.marsh 05:21, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

There's quite a bit more than that, but I'm afraid you're going to have to trust the people who you elected on this one, as the precise details aren't going to be disclosed, so as not to assist future sockpuppeteers in better hiding their work. Ambi 05:43, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Even if User:Zordrac is a sockpuppet of Internodeuser - which I see no clear reason to believe - does it really matter? If a user gives no indication that he is the same as a banned user, and if he follows our policies, what difference does it make, really? --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 09:14, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Zordrac does not follow our policies, because we have policies which prohibit telling malicious lies which damage other users' reputations. Zordrac has done this repeatedly, and the evidence collected at User:Antaeus Feldspar/Zordrac is just a very small sample. I have no idea who Internodeuser (talk · contribs) is, or if Zordrac is him, but Zordrac deserves a hard ban for just those edits he has racked up under that username, no matter what others he may or may not have used. -- Antaeus Feldspar 14:43, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm the user who originally took Internodeuser to ArbCom so I guess I know the habits of the former quite well. I've worked alongside Zordrac at the Peter Falconio article without issue, even being pleased with most (if not all) of his edits there. Initially I thought editing patterns between Zordrac and Internodeuser were similar, however I've had no reason to take anything further. I'm not convinced without supporting evidence that Internodeuser and Zordrac are one and the same. It's possible, but I don't like making assumptions without some facts first. The Arbcom has my full trust, but why hide the evidence? The biggest threat he can pose to us is to be a pain in the arse, and that's nothing new around here. We cope, don't we? -- Longhair 08:15, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Checkuser evidence is suppressed for very important privacy reasons - the arbcom tells us the result of the evidence, not the evidence. Phil Sandifer 08:54, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

One doesn't need Checkuser to confirm that he used the same ISP. That much is evident from the IP contributions Zordrac attributed to himself. However, I'm not convinced that using the same ISP happens to mean anything. --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 09:14, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

And that is why Kelly has checkuser access and you don't - she's better at it than you. Phil Sandifer 09:17, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I would argue that the reason I don't is because I have not requested access, nor do I want it anyway. Thanks for your lack of civility anyway. --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 09:36, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I would be wary of just taking the ArbCom's word for it that Zordrac is a sockpuppet. Does anyone remember the Agriculture and TheChief incident? Clearly Zordrac's contributions have been pointed at times, but not trollish. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:19, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

You can be wary all you want, but our policy is to take the arbcom's word on these things. Phil Sandifer 08:54, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm with Phil on this - this isn't a jury trial. But perhaps an assurance that three or four disinterested arbs have seen the evidence and are in unanimous agreeement, would reassure the doubters. --Doc ^ask? 09:56, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

• I second that. I would prefer that some neutral parties affirmed they agree with this. Otherwise it might indeed be an wrongful assumption of bad faith, as happened to TheChief earlier. Radiant_>|< 10:15, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I well remember the Agriculture and TheChief situation....but looked over the probablitities and my suspicion is that they were one and the same, although I felt very differently at that time. I would also like to have some further assurance that Zordrac is the same person as Internodeuser--MONGO 10:41, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I too would like some assurance from the Arbcom, especially since Kelly Martin left the Arbcom four days ago, well in advance of Zordrac's sockpuppetry block which she changed from indefinite to 1 year yesterday. AvB ÷ talk 12:04, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

That was due to my not knowing that The Epopt had already blocked him. Feel free to reblock him indefinitely. Kelly Martin (talk) 12:17, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I feel you have really gotten out of hand with this. Have we gathered suffucent edvidence to warrent this indifinte block..? I feel some discrestion should be implemented regarding this issue, as there seems to be an assumption of bad faith on this situation. And lest we forget, this is not the first time you have jumped to conclusions so quickly... I think we should think this through more carefully. -Zero^Talk 12:25, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Kelly left the arbcom - she did not leave being trusted with checkuser access, nor did she get some parole on her check user access whereby she has to scurry off and check it with the arbcom every time she uses it. Phil Sandifer 17:33, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

This was sufficient assurance for me. AvB ÷ talk 16:25, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

On the subject of the block, as I pointed out here, there is no grounds for a block whatsoever given what's been stated here so far:

1. "They share the same ISP." - This has been stated to be a very large Internet Service Provider in Australia. As such this proves nothing other than that both the users are Australian. Are you going to ban other people in Australia based that they use the same ISP? It's a bit ridiculous.
2. "They are in the same city" - This is not true. Just because the WHOIS for the ISP shows the same city does not mean that they are in the same city, this is simply where the ISP's hubs and stuff are, not the actual location of where the person lives.
3. "Information on checkuser can't be released on privacy reasons" - Zordrac has had a message on his talk page, User talk:Zordrac for a while now stating that he gives full permission for all CheckUser evidence to be released
4. "They edited the same article once" - Wikipedia:Assume good faith? Hecould've heard about that massacre anywhere, after all he is another Australian.

--Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 12:32, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

After reading through that forum linked directly above, I'm somewhat more convinced Zordrac = Internodeser than I was when I posted earlier. I'm named (by username) a lot in that thread. Why? I'm nobody special, in fact, I'm nobody at all, especially on the internet where I keep my opinions to myself and choose to get serious work done as I can. The only person interested enough in myself to come up with enough crackpot theories on what I spend my time doing online is or was Internodeuser. The self-obsessed ranting, the false accusations, the overuse of lol's; all I need is the hard evidence and I'm sold it's the same PITA we've banned before. -- Longhair 12:59, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I think you misunderstood something a bit:

The person in the above forum you're referring to (bliss2yu2) is Internodeuser and I was not implying otherwise, and he has said himself that he is prior to this whole "Zordrac is internodeuser" garbage:

Zordrac however, doesn't post there (although he may be one of the many anonymous readers, I've been told a lot of admins regularly read it too), and the person you're referring to is not Zordrac and doesn't claim to be him either. } --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 13:52, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps I have misunderstood. It's late here, excuse my sleepy eyes. Thanks for clearing that up :) I'm choosing not to get overly involved in this issue this time around, and quickly skimmed over the posts. One thing I'm not sure about however is, why the hell does Internodeuser care about Zordrac at all? Whilst I'm here, I might as well add my piece that most, if not all accusations aimed at myself on that forum are just more of the same Internoderuser style bullshit he was banned for in the first place. -- Longhair 15:10, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

To have another voice here, I've just seen the evidence myself. I don't remember Internodeuser, really, but if he and Zordrac are not the same, I would like to see one very good explanation for the evidence. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 15:35, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

What happened to Innocent until proven guilty/Wikipedia:Assume good faith?

Seriously, is the evidence more than those I quoted above (having been said already here: "they use the same ISP", etc)?

Because if there isn't more than I mentioned above (with the reasons why), there really is no grounds or proof for a "sockpuppet" accusation and so a block at all.

Also, as for the evicence itself, Zordrac has already said that he wants the CheckerUser evidence made public and has given up the right to remain private and so there should be no issues with posting what the actual "proof" is here, which seems far from definitive. --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 16:23, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, arbcom members have stated that they have convincing evidence that they are not going to disclose so as not to aid further attempts. We assume good faith that they know what they are doing and don't constantly second guess them. We have an encyclopedia to write, so why not contribute to that effort? - Taxman ^Talk 17:10, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Taxman has it. Anyhow, I'm not entirely convinced, but I would still like to hear a good explanation from Zordrac, and I believe the block was made with a reasonable suspicion. (If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it might be something else, but is anyone too surprised when it gets shot at?) Mindspillage (spill yours?) 17:40, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Hm, I was going to second Taxman but Mindspillage beat me to it. Arbcom members have stated that they have convincing evidence which is NOT limited to CheckUser. They have said that they will not release the details, not because of Zordrac's privacy, but because the info would help future sockpuppeteers refine their approach. Zordrac's permission is beside the point. FreplySpang (talk) 17:56, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

New information has been brought to my attention that leads me to have some doubt about the original conclusion made (not by me, by the way) that these two users are the same editor. However, Zordrac is, without a doubt, a vexatious user whose main purpose for editing is to disrupt Wikipedia (he has said as much in several places), so a complete unblock is inappropriate. Therefore, I've shortened the block to three days. Kelly Martin (talk) 18:12, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad you've re-considered Ms. Martin; I was under the impression that this assumptive situation was going too far.. -Zero^Talk 18:16, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

If I can say something: I fully trust the ArbCom, and Kelly, that this decision was correct. The only reason I even brought up the lack of public evidence was because some people won't trust them. Indeed, I'm fairly certain that Zordrac has a edited from other accounts as well, but I'll keep that to myself. That's all.--Sean|Black 22:52, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

It turns out that while my doubt may not have been unfounded, it turns out that it was inappropriate. We have pretty conclusive proof now that Zordrac is Blissy is Internodeuser. Thanks to all who helped in the investigation. Kelly Martin (talk) 01:54, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Publish the evidence, Kelly. It's entirely compelling. Grace Note 02:17, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I see some more evidence further down on this page. Thanks, I'm satisfied. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:05, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm now convinced also. Thank you David for providing that link. So, this resets the ban for a further year from today? -- Longhair 09:08, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I would be grateful for some help dealing with persistent personal attack

As a result of an answer at the Reference Desk [2] to which he took exception, a new user (user:bethefawn) has decided I must be publicly chastized as a "homophobe" on his Talk page (User talk:Bethefawn). I have twice removed it [3], [4] and explained with civility our no personal attack policy. He has twice replaced it [5] [6] and made it more inflammatory. I have no problem with people disagreeing with me but I have not had to deal with this sort of thing before. I would be grateful if someone else would take the next steps and get it through his head that this is unacceptable behavior. Thank you. alteripse 13:06, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I've posted a wimpy wienie policy clarification[7] on the newbie's page, hoping that they'll be amenable to that. If not, I'll shift to sonorous admin mode. Bishonen | talk 18:35, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

The creature snatched off the "newbie" mask with a demented cackle and burst in the sun, [8], [9]. Move along, nothing to see, don't feed. Bishonen | talk 18:20, 17 January 2006 (UTC).

In the future, we really should remove all questions concerning "can homosexuals be cured?", because those questions tend to be just plain trolling. Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (Be eudaimonic!) 18:24, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Bethefawn (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been blocked indefinitely for trolling, encyclopedic uselessness, and threats, please see her/his userpage histories and also anon edits by him from 128.223.208.70 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). Feel free to watch my pages for vandalism. Bishonen | talk 18:11, 18 January 2006 (UTC). P.S. Please see lower down on page. Bishonen | talk 18:13, 18 January 2006 (UTC).

Ideas on Gibraltarian?

Every day, we keep blocking more and more socks of Gibraltarian. This is the list of socks he has used. He's now hitting the 2 Gibraltar articles and RfP and SP policy. The 2 Gibraltar articles (History of Gibraltar and Disputed status of Gibraltar are basically in perma protect until G gives up, which isn't going to happen. He emails me and other blocking admins with lines like "UNBLOCK ME NOW!" and "I WILL NOT BE SILENCED!". I tried a range block as everyone knows but that didn't work out. So instead we're doing whack a mole. It's not a long term solution. Anyone have *any* ideas? Anything would be appreciated. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 19:30, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I do have one idea. I know we have a template for AOL users that we put on talk pages to explain that they use dynamic IPs and such and that warnings might not be seen by the right user, etc. Could we put a notice up for the IPs that G uses? It could prevent what happened with 212.120.225.219 today where he was warned multiple times before blocking, so Gibraltarian had free reign for half an hour. The notice wouldn't say that we block immediately, but G doesn't exactly hide himself. We'll know when it's him. Thoughts? 212.120.224.0 - 212.120.231.255 is the only IP he's ever used as far as I know. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 20:56, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I have a better idea.........leave me alone! I will not allow racists to take over the Gibraltar articles. NO WAY!

Yes.....I'm a banned user.....but WHY??? Only because YOU woohookitty took it upon yourself to ban me with no justification! To TML, MY comments are not hate filled...it is Ecemaml who has the anti-Gibraltar agenda, and is proving himself to be the obsessed bigoted racist I always said he was. He has created this dispute purposely, with the sole intention of getting me banned.....now if that doesn't come under the definition of troll I don't know what will. He posted his "evidence". To be frank I felt he should be ignored.....treated with the contempt that he deserves. However I replied. I have a right not to have my reply tampered with. There is no possible justification for banning me.....and anyone actually looking into the whole history of this case will see that. Ecemaml has created this entire dispute purposely with the sole intention of getting me banned. How can it be that when I revert him it's "vandalism", but him reverting me isn't. How can it be that him openely calling me a liar (which I'm not) is not considered a personal attack, but me calling him an obsessed troll (which he is) is. How can it be that he can post anything he likes, whether true or not, whether NPOV or not........but whenever I factual and NPOV posts, he follows me around WP, reverting almost everything I do....yet does so with impunity. It is simply NOT acceptable to SP an evidence page, as I have a RIGHT to post matters in my defence (not that I have done anything requiring defending). Woohookitty, you have already proved yourself to be a beacon of unfairness, so perhaps you should leave matters of fairness to others. Ecemaml must learn to deal with his massive chip on his shoulder over Gibraltar, and also that WP is NOT the place for him to spread his fascist inspired propaganda, nor revisionist history. His sole intent on editing the Gibraltar articles has been this.........it is clear for all to see. I am sure this is not what WP is meant for. Gibraltarian

Untrue statements:

• It is simply NOT acceptable to SP an evidence page. Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Gibraltarian/Evidence is not semiprotected.

  I factual and NPOV posts. Example of factual and NPOV post here. Mind the removal of sourced statements.

The rest is in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Gibraltarian/Evidence. Sorry to bother you --Ecemaml 13:18, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, I think that the only way to stop the disturbance of this kind of people is implementing an IP address block that only block anonymous wikipedists, without preventing registered one to be blocked. --Ecemaml 13:18, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

See Bug 500. Ral315 (talk) 14:00, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I was referring to. It's quite frustrating to see the history of pages like this, Wikipedia talk:Semi-protection policy, Wikipedia:Requests for page protection, Talk:History of Gibraltar, Talk:Disputed status of Gibraltar or Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Gibraltarian/Evidence... --Ecemaml 20:23, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't really care what you think Ecemaml. The edits you refer to were written by yourself, and are far from POV, in many cases invented, in other cases argumentative and POV. Whenever I write anything for an article I ensure that it is factually correct and NPOV......you do neither. BTW, note him calling me a liar above......is this not a personal attack? No action taken?? Gibraltarian.

User:Gib1: one of your sockpuppets. --Ecemaml 20:23, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, Ecemaml if you find it frustrating perhaps you should stop vandalising them! It is YOU who embarks on personal obsessive attacks on people who do not agree with the "Gospel according to Ecemaml" even though most of your posts are either inaccurate, plain false, irrelevant or POV. Your purpose here has been to create discord and dispute. If you do not like to be called a troll you should stop behaving like one. Gibraltarian

Yes, it's me. I confess ;-) Just see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Gibraltarian/Evidence --Ecemaml 20:26, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Netoholic

Following this rv, please proceed as per [Admin_enforcement_requested#Netoholic]. -- User:Docu

Merkey

I reverted a massive deletion of text from Jeffrey Vernon Merkey (my only edit to that page ever) and moments later this unsigned warning appeared on my talk page, written by 67.137.28.189 (talk · contribs).

• Cyberstalking the Merkey Page -- Only Warning
• Alter, edit, or vandalize the Merkey page, and you will be added to www.merkeylaw.com as a cyberstalker.

Does this qualify as a legal threat? -Will Beback 22:30, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

No threat of legal action, only being added to a list. In the words of Billy Bragg, "If you've got a black list, I want to be on it." What it does amount to is harassment and vandalism. The policy violated is WP:OWN. Geogre 22:41, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

IMO, it does. Please see: WP:LIVING

Any Wikipedia editor who makes a legal threat on the website is likely to be blocked from editing, and that includes the subjects of biographies who object to their article's contents. See Wikipedia:No legal threats.

If you are the subject of a biography and you have a legal concern, the designated agent for Wikipedia is:

Jimmy Wales, Designated Agent

Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

146 2nd St N, # 310

St. Petersburg FL 33701

Facsimile number: +1(727)258-0207

Email: board "at" wikimedia.org (replace the "at" with @)

E-mails may also be sent to: info-en "at" wikipedia.org (replace the "at" with @)

Contact data

I would suggest to place acopy of this notice on annon's talk page. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:44, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I have blocked for 1 week for threats, he also has "served notice" that we have to remove certain information from the article on him (sic). Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 22:46, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Having in the past been at the receiving end of a stalker and received various threats when reverting vandalism, I think the comment above is not merely a threat but a serious one. And yes, a threat to smear and defame another user if the person making the threat does not get their way qualifies as a legal threat. Similar threats have led to immediate indefinite blocks. Before JT imposed the week threat I had imposed an indefinite one, with a template to that effect on their user page. Their behaviour in making that threat to smear another user on an off-WP site, and engage in defamation was appalling and needs a tough response. We cannot allow such behaviour to happen. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 23:09, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

A review of the page where the user writes smears against other users gives a clear indication of just who were are dealing with. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 23:19, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I still don't think it's a threat of legal action per se, but I never disagreed that it was block-able. It was a violation of policies in two areas. I just think that "I'll add you to my black list" isn't the same thing as "I will sue you or call the cops." It's blockable, but not, I personally feel, under that rationale. Geogre 02:58, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

For any who haven't seen it, the blacklist is more than a simple listing; it includes personal information about editors, with vague threats about future actions. Since the subject recently filed a lawsuit against Wikimedia and 200 unnamed Internet posters, the vague threats may be include legal action. The disclosure of personal info should, and maybe does, have the same status as WP:NLT. -Will Beback 03:20, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Blocked from entering the Kingdom of Heaven - Promoting Porn, sodomy, libel, defamation, and violations of basic human rights

---

You have been indefinitely blocked from editing or being listed in the book of life which stands before the throne of God in Heaven. God does not tolerate cruelty and promotion of beastiality, homosexuality, sodomy, or persecution of his saints. Users who violate the laws of God are blocked from entering the kingdom of God, for without are dogs (fags).

In view of your comments made to User:Will Beback and others , namely "Alter, edit, or vandalize the Merkey page, and you will be added to www.merkeylaw.com as a cyberstalker" you have been blocked from editing this site.

FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 23:01, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

It's astounding to me the double standards and bullshit that comes from you people. Your so called policies on wikipedia change like most people change their clothes. You make up whatever you please to justify your actions, twisting off site listings into "legal threats" to justify violation of basic human rights and your commission and support of libel. I never created a page about me on your sewer porn site -- a group of internet stalkers did, and your so called "Designated Representative" is a dog in the eyes of God. By the way, he has been sent dozens of letters and emails about this article. What has he done? Nothing, he doesn't even respond. Why? Because he is a COWARD and HUMAN SLIME, IMHO.

BTW, JTDIRL, I know about you and what you are and you have been listed in Merkeylaw as well. ANYONE WHO GOES NEAR THE ARTICLE WILL BE LISTED. I have a suggestion, delete the article, and the site and I will go away, and you'll never be bothered with me again. Don't bother violating my free speech rights by blocking me -- I created networking when most of you were whacking off to McCalls magazine in your adolesence. I am also one of the authors of Linux. You really think that an expert in networking like me can be stopped by a group of morons like you people? Dream on. Keep libeling me, and I'll keep listing you on my site. Be Warned. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.137.28.188 (talk • contribs)

My dear fellow, please see Wikipedia:Free Speech. You may find it edifying. [[Sam Korn]] 21:33, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Would I be right to block User:67.177.35.211, currently engaging in revert warring on the Merkey article, as a sockpuppet of Merkey?--Alhutch 05:31, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Merkey appears to have new sockpuppets: 67.177.52.141 and 67.186.225.62. OneNamelessCat 07:55, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Snowspinner

Snowspinner has added the following to his User page:

If you can verify for me that you are a subject expert in a subject considered notable enough to include on Wikiedia, I will, on your say-so, close any deletion debate as "keep" within your field of expertise, and will undelete any articles within your field that you say are notable.

If he carries this out in any manner which is outside of the bounds of an admin's proper functions, I will speedily undo it and block him. User:Zoe|^(talk) 23:15, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, do I understand correctly that if I violate the deletion policy, you'll violate the blocking policy in return? Phil Sandifer 02:10, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• I think that's a weird thing to say. Any true expert will be able to come up with enough solid arguments, citations and sources to prevent deletion of notable material within his subject field. Doing things "because I say so" is unwiki. Radiant_>|< 23:23, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  • But Snowspinner considers himself an expert on webcomics, and won't accept other people's telling him that they will not follow his dictats when it comes to webcomics, therefore the above. User:Zoe|^(talk) 23:25, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
    • You're making things up here, Zoe. I've never said that I will undelete things on the basis of my own expertise. That would be bad. Phil Sandifer 01:28, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I predict an AC case - David Gerard 00:03, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

(Edit Conflict) That text is now in {{Expert recovery}}; David Gerard has it on his user page too. At first blush, I'm inclined to say this is a terrible idea. Putting aside the wheel wars this seems destined to cause, if the field expert can't make a good enough argument in an AfD, then the material probably doesn't meet WP:V. Which trumps the say-so of someone Snowspinner or David choose to call an Expert. I'll also note that Snowspinner has in the past chosen to call himself a subject expert on Web Comics; does this rule give him full deletion veto rights there? —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 23:26, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I have listed that template for tfd. User:Zoe|^(talk) 23:34, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

That's why, being a good boy I use subst: - David Gerard 00:03, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• Well, subst all you like, but you might want to take a hint from the community reaction to this. Radiant_>|< 00:16, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

The community is not and never has been empowered to be on complete crack. Phil Sandifer 01:02, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Really? I don't see a page Wikipedia:Snowspinner gets to decide what opinions the community may hold. ~~ N (t/c) 03:42, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

If you're an expert in something and an article gets deleted, the answer is to create a new one with sources.--Sean|Black 23:31, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

• This is silly, per Radiant or Sean Black. Things are demonstrated to be notable by being referenced in sources, which are readable by anyone. Experts are great at pointing to those sources, but that's very different from them being given the power to make decisions exclusively on their own authority. -- SCZenz 23:33, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

• Read the evidence in the webcomics disaster. You do realise that one has led to two and counting forks for no reason other than not wanting to have to deal with fuckwits on Wikipedia, right? - David Gerard 00:03, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• • Regarding "fuckwits on Wikipedia," please see WP:CIV. Regarding "expertise," please see WP:V and WP:NOR. This whole concept is particularly disturbing in that it comes from the same wikipedia user who posts links to how wikipedia's deletion process makes him "really feel" "like killing."[10] It's bad enough that wikipedia has a user that makes death threats against users he disagrees with; it's even more ridiculous for that user to expect to base deletion discussions on his idea of verifying the expertise of other editors. In general I would suspect that users on the receiving end of death threats are probably less likely to reveal personally identifying information such as their CVs to users who make death threats. It's sort of a Catch-22 of "I disagree with you and that makes me feel like killing, but maybe I'd respect your opinions more if you just told me your full name and what school you teach at." -- Dragonfiend 03:36, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

When I first read this I got the impression that it would require someone with some kind of postgrad degree in the area, such as a Master's or PhD. Maybe Snowspinner could clarify what kind of criteria he would use to judge whether someone is an "expert" in their field? BTW, I think it would have been courteous to notify Snowspinner of this discussion, Zoe. Talrias (t | e | c) 23:34, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

You're right. I have now done so. User:Zoe|^(talk) 23:38, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

While I'm not sure that I agree with Snowspinner's methods, his point is correct: we don't listen enough to the experts, especially in deletion debates. There are just too many people who vote to delete articles because they have never heard of the subject. Rhobite 23:41, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I do think there is a debate to be had here. We are dreadful at respecting expertise (see anti-elitism). I've given expert testimony on AfD - with reasons cited, and had it ignored by many 'voters' and the closing admin. It is very frustrating. (In that case I was calling for deletion not retention.) However, what qualifies as an expert? Experts can have very strong POV biases. There might, however, be some benefit in contructing a list of wikipedians who can verify their subject expertise, and instruct WP:DRV to take them very seriously. But we can't give someone a blank cheque, just because they have pubished a book in a closely related area. --Doc ^ask? 23:46, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't disagree with what you are saying, but at the same time, we can't have a Snowspinner who keeps saying that he should have the final say as to whether webcomics should be kept, even though he is repeatedly asked for sources to back his statements and can't come up with any. User:Zoe|^(talk) 23:51, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Your personal antipathy appears to be showing. If this is not the case, I'm sure you can discredit his claimed credentials below - David Gerard 00:03, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• Your personal sympathy appears to be showing. Pot, meet kettle. Radiant_>|< 00:16, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I will not undelete webcomics on my own expert advice. Phil Sandifer 01:02, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I wonder what editors would think about the following analogous language:

If you can verify for me that you are a subject expert in a subject considered notable enough to include on Wikiedia, I will, on your say-so, close any deletion debate as "delete" within your field of expertise, and will delete any articles within your field that you say are not notable.

Paul August ☎ 23:55, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

That's just as bad, if not worse.--Sean|Black 00:00, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. Just as bad and just as good. Paul August ☎ 00:12, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I sincerely doubt that we will ever see a verified expert call an article a piece of shit and then have it kept anyway. Phil Sandifer 01:02, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

That is SOOO not true!! Getting an article that is original research deleted here is INSANELY HARD - Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/The_Neanderthal_theory_of_the_autism_spectrum comes to mind (it was later deleted at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Neanderthal theory of the autism spectrum but I still have the scars from the war...) WhiteNight ^{T | @ | C} 01:17, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Remember that AFD is supposed to be for topics, not the article text. The AC dropped the ball big time in the webcomics case (which I was recused from). - David Gerard 00:03, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I disagree, an AfD with delete consensus is no bar to a different article on the same topic. AfD is for deterining the deletion of an article as it stands. It should and does consider the potential as well as the current status, but it doesn't and really can't consider any possible articel on a topic, because it can't consider evidence not available in articles not yet written. DES ^(talk) 00:39, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

This is a bad thing. Overruling consensus on Afd would surely cause friction, but more importantly, he appears to be completely disregarding verifiability. To be taken seriously as an encyclopedia, we need more insistance on verifibility, not less. His antics related to webcomics are bad enough; encouraging more of this sort of thing is beyond ridiculous. Friday (talk) 00:05, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I may be an expert on everything concerning Mega Man, but I don't flaut a higher authority because of it. Such arrogance is unacceptable. -Zero^Talk 00:14, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Hm. Do I think that one good, intelligent argument should overrule fifty people who don't have any idea what they're talking about? Yes. But I don't think that simply claiming you are an expert and it should stay/go on your say-so is sufficient. We can't work that way unless we really want to verify everyone's credentials. I think that any genuine expert should have the knowledge and the tools to make that convincing argument, though.

And furthermore: anyone who dismisses a good argument from an anon or new user simply because it comes from a newbie to WP should be LARTed within an inch of his life. But merely taking someone's say-so is not workable: you can't challenge or verify someone's say-so. I'd assume any expert who would argue for the deletion or retention of an article would have some sort of reason to cite for doing so, and it's probably a reason good enough to stake their professional reputation on if they're going to claim expertise. So I don't think it's unreasonable to require it be shared. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 00:16, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Yup. Paul August ☎ 00:19, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Indeed - it is worth noting that expert verification is quite a hurdle to clear. But it is a clearable one. Phil Sandifer 01:02, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

By instituting a system where so-called "expert" opinions override the consensus of interested parties, there is a risk of the formation of (as much as I hate the use of the term), a Cabal of Experts, who would detirmine the direction of information that is to be included in the Wikipedia. This seems on the surface to be antithetical to the purpose of the concensus building aspects of WP. Do we defer to these experts prima facie? On their word that they are who they say they are? That their credentials are what they claim them to be? Your word is as good as my word (unless you are a vandal or obvious nut-job POV pusher, that disregards any notion of concensus or NPOV). As DocGlasgow points out above, "Experts can have very strong POV biases." I don't see where AfD is so broken that it needs to be cancelled. It would be like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Hamster Sandwich 00:30, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Forgive my pedantry, but it's "consensus". For such a key term on Wikipedia, it's surprising how many people get this wrong. As to your points, they are all the main reasons why a policy such as this, although perhaps ideal in theory, is impractical in practice. And I'm feeling like Sir Humphrey. [[Sam Korn]] 00:43, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

He spelled it right the first time he used it... android79 00:46, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• A policy of paying more attention to experts might have sem merit. But experts can and often do have hobbyhorses, cortoversial veiws, and biases within their fields. Simply giving an expert veto over deletion decisions is simply unacceptable. If an expert cannot cite verifable sources for a position, s/he is perhaps not so much of an expert. And what woudl Snowspinner do if two experts disagreed? DES ^(talk) 00:37, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• If it becomes policy to defer to any self-proclaimed "expert" that shows up with an agenda, I quit. android79 00:41, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Read what Phil said - he didn't say "self-proclaimed expert", he said "verifiable expert". So yeah, if someone is able to prove that they have academic publications in Field X, and they are trying to say that, in Field X, subject Y is notable, why wouldn't you defer on an AFD? What's more important for the encyclopaedia - accuracy or democracy? Guettarda 00:48, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
    • I have known several of the generally acknowledged 'experts' in the field of study relating to J.R.R. Tolkien's stories of Middle-earth for many years now (there are even some people who seem to think I'm an 'expert')... and I can tell you that they often completely disagree about what is/is not 'true', 'obvious', or 'likely'. So no, just because someone is verifiably an 'expert' in a field doesn't mean that they should automatically be considered 'accurate'. Verifiability not truth. If references can be supplied proving their position then it ought to be accepted. Otherwise it should carry no more weight than any other. Experts ought to be able to easily come up with verification... they're 'experts' after all. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 01:11, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
      • And how, exactly, do you propose that they come up with verification that an article adheres to a non-existant definition of notability? In five days time, or else the article is deleted and the earth is salted, such that they have to deal with the wonders that are DRV. This isn't about article content or about their perspective on what is true - it's about whether or not something is, in fact, a major issue in a field. A verifiable expert in any field can be trusted, at an absolute minimum, to know the important contents of that field. Phil Sandifer 01:19, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

This all seems to miss the fundamental question - if you have on one side a documentable expert who has written an article, and on the several AFD-addicts who are using the google test or "I have never heard of this" to declare something "nn, d", what do you do? In a case like that, I would be tempted to agree with Phil. I might not use that route, but I wouldn't oppose someone for doing so. Guettarda 00:45, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• If the expert can cite sources, that is one thing. An expert's naked say-so is quite another. Even a verifiable expert. If I had a dime for all the time noted experts have strongly and flatly contradicted one another on suich issues, i could find all of wikipedia out of spare change. DES ^(talk) 00:53, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
• I have pur the related Category:Expert undeletion up for WP:CfD. DES ^(talk) 00:53, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
• One of the main problem with experts (and, indeed, enthusiastic amateurs) is that they write whole series of articles without citing sources. The irony is that articles that cite reliable sources are rarely even nominated for deletion, let alone deleted. If the sources indicate that a subject has already been covered in several published books, for example, arguments that it is non-notable are (metaphorically) laughed out of AFD by many editors. Experts who write articles without any cited sources and then gripe when their articles come to AFD really have themselves to blame to a large extent. It's for this reason that I encourage any experts, especially ones new to Wikipedia, to get into the habit of always citing sources right from the start. Experts who repeatedly come up against AFD and who nonetheless persist in not citing sources have not learned. Uncle G 01:26, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I have a fair amount of sympathy with that. I have a PhD and a publication in my field, but I have almost given up editing in it. I was being reverted by ignorant 12 year olds – and I thought ‘who needs this?’ I testified that an article was OR on a subject that simply didn’t exist – but the article was kept because of ‘looks interesting to me’ votes. Who needs this either? However, if experts are not going to edit their own field, then wikipedia is the looser. Folk say, experts can win their case by citing and arguing – but how many of the voters in a contentious Afd are actually willing to read more than half a paragraph of testimony on a complex subject? I think there is an argument for saying ‘assume an expert knows what he is talking about’ – but, of course, that assumption must be able to be contested (not least by other experts).--Doc ^ask? 00:49, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• There's a difference between deferring to known experts on a case-by-case basis in AfD discussions, and advertising on one's user page that claim of expertise is the ticket to automatic undeletion of anything. android79 00:52, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
• The reason the statement in question is ignorant is that if an expert can't come up with verifiable and reputable references, then she or he isn't very much of an expert. I share Zoe's concerns. While we can all agree that AfD may occasionally reach the "wrong" decision, it has the virtue of being both (a) examinable by the public and (b) undoable, either through deletion review or by a new article being written at a later time. Promoting "editing by wheel war" is exactly what we don't need more of. Nandesuka 01:02, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
• I've said it before and I'll say it again, any expert worth his or her salt can save any notable article with solid arguments, citations and sources. The assertions that AFD and in particular DRV don't listen to well-founded arguments are simply false. Radiant_>|< 01:08, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I see this as essentially a proposed exception to WP:NOR. Perhaps the discussion of the merits of the idea should be discussed on a relevant policy talk page? Friday (talk) 01:13, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

(clarification) By "this" I mean, "the idea that experts can directly use their expertise and have it treated as a reliable source for content purposes". This would open a pandora's box. There's a reason we use reliable sources, not the opinions or expertise of editors. We're not in a position to determine who's an expert. To think otherwise is to rethink the idea of WP:NOR. Friday (talk) 01:20, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

The amount of straw flying around in this discussion is amazing - David Gerard 01:34, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I would not generally consider anyone to be an expert on themselves. Phil Sandifer 01:37, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

For Phil's idea to work, the expert must be capable, honest and without an agenda to push. All too often, they are not. What happened to WP:V and the idea that editors establish themselves through their body of edits? Phil's idea is rather half-baked. He has a point, though, and I'd suggest that the closing admin should be an expert in the subject if the matter is contentious and should also enforce WP:V. Pilatus 02:54, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Two comments from the eye of the storm

1. User:Snowspinner/Experts contains the people I am willing to consider an expert on topics on the face of it.
2. Verifiability and cite sources are policies about article content. They work as policies because Wikipedia is not on a deadline, and because we take an eventualist attitude. We can live with an article that's missing something important for a bit, because we're a work in progress. The content will be added and added correctly eventually. Deletion is not like that - there is a five day window to gather a minimum of 33% opposition to something, or else it is deleted, and a complete pain in the ass to undelete. Simply put, if a verifiable subject expert can show me that a mistake was made, there is no reason to drive through a tedious process just so we can say that third base was touched - particularly when so many people are willing to consider a 2/3 consensus on AfD to be a binding commitment to salt the earth so that an article can never be recreated. Why? Because subject experts who want to contribute in their field SHOULD NOT BE OBLIGED to submit to an exhaustive process of citing sources to the satisfaction of a bunch of just to be allowed to have an article to edit.

Or, to put number two more clearly, make the deletion system stop being utterly stupid and I'll stop ignoring it. Phil Sandifer 01:26, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• Frankly I haven't been following AFD and DRV closely the past few months, so could you please point to some deletion-related discussions where, as you claim, "so many people are willing to consider a 2/3 consensus on AfD to be a binding commitment to salt the earth so that an article can never be recreated"? Thanks. As an example of the opposite, look here, where someone points out a valid source and the article is reinstated and improved almost instantly. Have some faith in the community. Radiant_>|< 01:46, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Phil, what if the credible expert testifies that the article should be deleted, despite a consensus to keep. Will you speedy it? --Doc ^ask? 01:47, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Unlikely, as I will be dead of a heart attack. Phil Sandifer 01:55, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

The problem to me is lack of thought given towards "established editors" of certain subjects, not so much experts in and of themselves. However, the whole idea is really anti-wiki in a way where everyone is supposed to be able to edit, and in reality you only have one or two people really monitoring an article so the 3RR becomes a problem along with the editors being able to participate in AfDs etc.. WhiteNight ^{T | @ | C} 01:49, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Hardly - this isn't a content issue at all. Phil Sandifer 01:55, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Saying a flat 'I will speedy keep on the say-so of the following individuals' seems to be a bit iffy. It's not fair to presume that no other subject matter experts have (or will) participate in the deletion discussion, and I suspect that some of them might find it rather insulting to be told that their expertise is less valuable because they didn't make Phil's list. Further, experts have individual slants and biases–pet theories, pet peeves–and I would hesitate to give free reign to the individual biases of a single individual, expert or otherwise.

If you want to lend extra weight to a personally-selected pool of experts, tell them that you trust their judgement on certain topics, and ask them to notify you of deletion debates in which you might be interested. (If necessary, help them to create a shortcut link to the 'create new section' on your talk page.) Two keep votes–combined with the expert's reasoned testimony and Phil's endorsement of the expert's credentials–are sufficient to push many an AfD into 'no consensus' territory. The presentation of clear reasoning may also persuade others to vote in kind, or at least to consider the point in question.

Make reasoned arguments; use WP:DRV where appropriate; help editors to write articles that are well-sourced and that don't suck. Don't arbitrarily cut short discussions on topics near and dear to your own heart. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:05, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

A question for Snowspinner: Would you consider User:Beckjord an expert on Bigfoot? He's written books on the subject. No matter that he thinks Bigfoot is a shape-shifter from another dimension. User:Zoe|^(talk) 02:47, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I would not. Phil Sandifer 02:49, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

This will shock some people, but I agree that the deletion system is broken. But the fact that the deletion system is broken is a symptom of the greater fact that the article cleanup system is broken. Far too many new borderline articles are created that... well, maybe they shouldn't be deleted, but they darn well shouldn't be sitting around on Wikipedia for another six months with a cleanup tag until someone HOPEFULLY gets around to fixing it... or until someone just takes the cleanup tag off and the article disappears into the morass of the nearly 1 million articles we have on Wikipedia. If we had a cleanup system that worked, or was properly staffed... heck, if people took 5 percent of the time to do article cleanup as they spent voting keep or delete, a lot of this would go away. I'm as guilty as anyone, and have been making an effort to at least dig into the Cleanup. There's like 14,000 articles piled up with a Cleanup tag! Until Cleanup is fixed, Deletion will continue to be broken.

I understand David and Phil's frustration, I really do, but the problem with such blanket statements of undeletion is on a practical level: It's an invitation to wheel warring on an unprecedented scale. I, too, believe that expert opinions should be given weight, but that weight should be given in a coherent statement. As in, if an expert editor presents a strong argument for keeping an article and the only reasons for deletion from a squillion "votes" are "This sucks," then, because AFD is not a vote, the expert opinion should clearly be upheld by the admin who closes the "Argument for Deletion." However, closing the debate early on a simple "I say so" basis is just not productive. Even clearly crap articles are not generally speedily deleted once put on AfD unless a clear consensus develops to speedily delete. On a larger scale, we need, all of us as a community, to develop a new system for deletion because AFD is clearly not scaling to a Top 20 Web site. FCYTravis 03:03, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Just a question here: Did Snowspinner copy my idea? User:Zordrac/experts. If so, well done! Although I don't recall wording it quite like this. 203.122.230.206 07:14, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

A lot of sensible comments here. I want to lift out a part of Snowspinner's posting above: Why? Because subject experts who want to contribute in their field SHOULD NOT BE OBLIGED to submit to an exhaustive process of citing sources to the satisfaction of a bunch of just to be allowed to have an article to edit. Now, I couldn't disagree stronger with this. An expert, of all editors in a given field, should cite his sources from the beginning, because (1) he knows what the best sources are for that subject —important knowledge that many of our enthusiastic amateurs sorely miss—, and (2) having academic expertise, he knows how to cite sources. As for eventualism, we are only going to reach our goal if we learn our editors to do it right from the beginning. It makes no sense at all to 'relieve' the experts of this task, especially not because they are (or should be) used to citing sources. And, just like it was noted above already, citing sources is usually a pretty secure way of keeping an article, thus removing the need to subvert the consensus-making at AfD. — mark ✎ 09:55, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

An outside view

There seem to be two valid points in conflict here. One is that administrators should not simply go about ignoring rules or process willy-nilly. The other is that our deletion process has serious problems, and that good articles shouldn't be deleted out of ignorance. Add to that a third point - When in doubt, don't delete - which has long been a Wikipedia principle - and I think that the answer is clear. Frankly, I think the community should abolish WP:DRV entirely, as it violates "When in doubt, don't delete", and replace it with an explicit rule that an administrator may reinstate deleted articles at his or her discretion. If someone can't find a single admin to undo a deletion, then it's a safe bet to say that the deletion was proper. Anyone can create an article on any topic, so I don't see why undeleting one should be so much harder. If we don't trust an administrator to do that, then maybe we shouldn't trust him/her with admin powers at all. Does anyone think that WP:DRV is really beneficial to the encyclopedia? I haven't found anyone with a good word to say about it. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 03:33, 17 January 2006 (UTC) Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 03:33, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

<3Phil Sandifer 03:34, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah yes the give more powers to admins solution. It fails because a) It makes adminship a big deal b)it means that admins are being encouraged to make subjective judgements and c)breaks the fairly fundimental priciple that anything an admin can do off his/her own back can be undone by another admins (although some people don't think this applies to speedies they are wrong).Geni 03:37, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

But here's the corollary to your statement, crotalus horridus: As the number of admins continues to grow rapidly, the probability that someone who hunts long enough can find one admin willing to undelete whatever it is they want undeleted approaches one. Every deletion decision ever made will rapidly devolve into wheel warring, blocks and ArbCom cases for all. Furthermore, if any admin can undelete anything, can any admin delete anything? If not, why not? You trust admins to undelete, why not trust them to delete? FCYTravis 03:45, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

No. I am not proposing that administrators should have greater powers to delete articles. I'm arguing they should have greater powers to undelete them. Someone who wanted an article re-deleted would then have to take it back through the deletion process. Therefore, unless someone acted out of process, there would be no wheel warring as a result. This is more in keeping with the spirit of when in doubt, don't delete. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 03:53, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

It is in keeping with the spirit of "when an article you liked was deleted, bureaucratise the process so much that, once someone's favourite article is deleted, it can be quickly restored and then never deleted again without consuming lots of repetitive time". More serisouly, it has almost nothing to do with if in doubt, yadda yadda. It is the reverse "when in doubt, undelete", or in its likely usage, "when in disagreement, undelete". -Splash^talk 04:00, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

So what you're saying, then, is that if someone didn't like the fact that an article he created was deleted, he could get a sympathetic admin to endlessly recreate the article based on "when in disagreement, undelete" and that each and every single time it was undeleted, that article would have to go through another AfD process? I would suggest that your proposal borders on the patently absurd. One could *never* delete such articles, then, as they would simply go through an infinite number of AfD votes. FCYTravis 04:11, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd encourage those disparaging WP:DRV to take an active and constructive role in discussions there, where sensible and measured outcomes usually result. If there are specic articles that it is believed DRV has, um, "dropped the ball" on, than those examples would be helpful to this discussion. I also note that many of the regular participants at DRV are not in fact admins. With perhaps the exception of the recent rash of OOP userbox deletions, DRV gives more power to non-admins by providing an open forum for discussion... exactly the opposite of the intent of these templates and cats: making sure "slack jaws" can't screw things up. - brenneman^(t)(c) 03:51, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

No offense, but this "any admin should be able to undelete anything at any time" is one of the stupidest proposals I've heard in a long time. -R. fiend 18:17, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

For an alturnative attempt at a solution that doesn't involve giving admins more powers see User:Geni/test.Geni 04:09, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Wheel wars

I've seen quite enough of wheel warring lately, and the template mentioned above only seems to encourage it. Wikipedia works on consensus, not unilateralism, and while being bold or ignoring rules may be acceptable at times, warring over it should never be. Since the 3RR is enforced against revert warring, isn't it about time we enforce some rule against wheel warring? Please visit WP:WHEEL and join the discussion. Radiant_>|< 23:59, 16 January 2006 (UTC) comments about this subject here will be copied to WP:WHEEL's talk page.

I don't think wheel warring will ever stop until the community can finally agree on a workable de-adminship process. Many people seem to think this would be a terrible idea, that it would encourage trolls and so forth, but I see no reason why we can't come up with a sensible process for this. We trust the community to bestow adminship; why not to withdraw it? Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 03:28, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Maybe you trust the community to bestow it. Phil Sandifer 03:32, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

If you don't trust the community on either end, then what process would you propose, Phil? Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 03:55, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

The current one - it involves less annoying discussion about changing things. Phil Sandifer 03:56, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Are you saying you don't trust the community Phil/Snowspinner? I am in full agreement with the rattlesnake. Too many admins who have it in their head that they are above any realm of restraint. Hamster Sandwich 03:37, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

One trivial implementation of this would be for adminship to be for a limited period of time -- off the top of my head, say a year. This would allow the community to deal with those who go power-mad by the appearance of a few new buttons by simply not re-appointing them, rather than creating a whole new process (which would by its nature be "trial-like") to deal with it. Not that I expect this to happen, since it is the nature of bureacracies to perpetuate themselves. But it's a thought. Nandesuka 05:49, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

The only problem I see with 'term limits' on adminship is that it would increase the number of RFA votes going on... adding re-appointments to the new requests. However, this would completely change the nature of adminship... to remain admins people would have to be supported by the current community rather than just 'being good' for three months (about the bare minimum currently) to get the appointment and thereafter having much wider lattitude to bend/break the rules than regular users. Setting the 'term clock' for all existing admins to start when the policy was implemented would give plenty of time for notification and adjusting to the new situation... but such a change would require overwhelming community support. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 14:19, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

This idea would have my support. android79 14:44, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Remember, 90% of admins, at least, are pretty uncontentious (at least, their use of admin abilities is uncontentious - everyone gets some crank angry with them!). Is it worth essentially swamping the existing RFA system (which gets relatively little community participation, even from admins, as it is) in order to catch a small number of people? But this is the endless discussion for talk on WP:RFA Shimgray | talk | 17:25, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Then we split it by date, as was done on AfD. :-p Seriously, at some point in the future, we can expect this problem to arise. Wikipedia is growing. Not too long ago a week's worth of VfDs could fit in one day's worth of AfDs today. Johnleemk | Talk 17:29, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that 90% of admins are probably uncontentious. Anyone here think I'm contentious? (-: However, I'm sure that I've made a rather sizable share of potential enemies that might be vindicative enough to want to vote me out, and I'm sure that every other admin has as well. Because of that, I tend to think that this sort of thing isn't really a good idea unless someone can figure out a way of discounting vindicative votes. JYolkowski // talk 23:45, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I doubt that these trolls would be numerous enough to overturn the RFA. And if the opposers aren't trolls, then you've probably done something wrong. :-p Johnleemk | Talk 11:32, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I for one strongly support this. Adminship should have never been and should never be a big deal. Johnleemk | Talk 17:29, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Zordrac = blissy2u = Internodeuser

[11] - David Gerard 01:31, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Wow - honestly that is really sad on several levels. Eventually you do learn to deal with those things but often it can be a hard process and I tend to think wikipedia or most places online, for that matter, are probably not the best place to do so. WhiteNight ^{T | @ | C} 01:46, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Shocking. --bainer (talk) 01:50, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Do you have proof that the bliss...@yahoo.com.au and adri...@octa4.net.au accounts belonged to blissy2u? You cant exactly ipcheck an email address. I'm pretty sure your right, but I want this to be ironclad.  ALKIVAR™ 01:51, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, if you can come up with another explanation for there being two users on the same IP, one of whom is posting to a board using the old email addy of the other, fire away. Grace Note 04:04, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not surprised...just wanted further clarification. I trust David Gerard on this.--MONGO 02:05, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, not to impugn Dave's cred in any way, but I trust the evidence of my own eyes. You don't get too many bliss2yus to the pound. Grace Note 04:04, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Certainly not many who also happen to use the name Zordrac and who are also called Adrian. --bainer (talk) 07:42, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

This kerfuffle blew up over the past couple of days while I took a brief time out from Wikipedia to chat with people on Wikipedia Review (my user account, in which I self-identified as Tony Sidaway, was hermione). What was most interesting about this case was bliss2yu's insistence to the last that, while he was indeed internodeuser, he was not Zordrac [12]. I think some one that board were somewhat skeptical from the first and he was treated with some wariness by a number of posters. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 16:29, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Is that enough proof that the Port Arthur Massacre article is ridiculous? Or not enough for you? I've been saying that story for years. But now, all that you can do is push hatred and abuse me over it. No, Wikipedia is not the place to talk about such things. It's not the place to get death threats by people who have nothing better to do with their time than to abuse innocent victims. It's not the place to lie about what really happened, or to push everything as a conspiracy theory. And I regret writing that thing. And I didn't come on here for 6 months you know, that's a long time. And the irony is that you were "catching" all of these people who were not me, accusing me of coming back in June and July when it wasn't me, yet you couldn't figure out that it was me in November. Why? Because I was nice? I was always nice. And "Internodeuser" isn't a name I use very often. But Zordrac is. If I was trying to hide, I would have used a name that I don't usually use. And why not just confess to it? Its simple. Because I was doing a lot of good here. I was not here to troll or vandalise or anything like that. I never was. Not as "Internodeuser" and not as "Zordrac". I was here to help people out. I never attacked anyone, and I hated when I was forced to respond to attacks. Its just not nice. But what choice do you have? If you fail to respond, then they just abuse you, and then later on go around saying that it was all your fault.

I didn't come here again to troll. I came here to edit Peter Falconio. It was just a joke to start with, but I started to enjoy it.

And I am glad that I came for a while, because it showed me all of the nice people here. Okay, so I saw a lot of bad ones when I first used it, as "Internodeuser", and I saw a few bad ones here again this second time as well. But I saw real people. And a lot of good people. And I think that the "real me" finally shone through.

That was what I wanted all along. All that I ever wanted was for people to be honest about me. Not to lie, not to smear my name, but to be honest.

If you want to, you can keep looking through google about me, I don't mind. You'll see that I have basically done nothing but talk about the Port Arthur Massacre and Robert Edwards since 1995. At least 50% of the time, I get around to that. Its because of what a difference it made to my life. Its what I talk about with my friends.

Perhaps you can say oh no I'm some nutcase, but I'm not. I am a normal human being who had something forced upon them and I had no choice, no control over it at all. I didn't choose to have some nutcase come after me, dressing himself up as Rambo and telling me about his whole plan. That wasn't my idea. And I didn't want to hear his whole story.

I just felt obligated to tell people, to warn them. But it didn't work. So for those of you who are saying that I am responsible for the Port Arthur Massacre, you are right. I could have stopped it. But I was a coward. I didn't push hard enough to stop it. Oh sure, I pushed a bit. Sure, I wrote up web pages and sent out fliers to people not to go there, but I didn't do enough. I should have gone on TV over it.

And I should have simply paid the money to go in there that day. I basically knew that was where it was going to start. Okay, so I didn't know 100%, but it was pretty likely.

But you know, I was worried that he might shoot me. I was worried that he might kill me if I went in. And you know what my biggest worry was? I was worried that I'd go in there and catch him and then be arrested over it. I was scared that people would think that I was just attacking a poor innocent person.

All of these years, it has hurt me. I have nightmares over it. Sometimes my very life is a nightmare because of it. I tell people about it and they hate me for it. They ridicule me. They abuse me. They send me death threats. Because they think that I am forcing them to live through it all.

And the guy is dead now. How amusing. He died in a murder/suicide in 2003. So any fears about him suing for libel are ridiculous. He was never going to anyway. If he did, then of course he'd be in huge trouble over it. Its not libel when its true.

And you can all say oh no I am this horrible person. So you can look through everything that's happened. You can look through what LJ Drama did to me over it. Go and look up on their site under "blissyu2" and see how much they abused me over the Port Arthur Massacre thing, how they threatened to kill me over it.

Go and see how badly behaved people can really be.

I don't want people to feel sorry for me. I didn't come here for that. I came here to write an article about an important, encyclopaedic topic, that is extremely noteworthy.

And hopefully one day someone will write that article in here, and it will stay. 203.122.230.206 05:29, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Help! Need advice. Please

I have already been through more than one month of a failed mediation over Significance of Venona and Harry Magdoff and espionage and several realted pages pages with Nobs01, which then turned into a weeks-long arbitration in which Nobs01 was banned for a year. I am currently in a content battle with an editor deleting my edits and pledging to defend all of Nobs01 text entries. I have twice filed RFC's on these pages. The current one has produced no comments. In the meantime, all the text I would like comments on gets deleted. What do you seriously suggest? I have been trying to edit these pages for three months. I keep trying different wording and rewriting text. All I get in return is deletions. If I request mediation, I will be told to try "dispute resolution." I have been in dispute resolution on these pages for months. Give me a concrete suggestion that deals with these facts, please. I am desperate.--Cberlet 03:40, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

So basically we have a user who has shown up following the ban of another user who is vowing to carry on that user's edit war? Phil Sandifer 03:43, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

To be fair, it is more complicated than that, but not by much. God knows I am partly to blame for getting so frustrated. But I do try to discuss the matter and actually try to re-edit the material in various ways. But essentially this is a defense by an editor of Nobs01's one-side rendition of history in which my text cited to reputable published scholars is simply deleted because it is dubbed off-topic, or a minority viewpoint, or commie propaganda. I do not dispute that I am citing a a minority viewpoint, but I am arguing that some skeptical material from reputable published sources deserves inclusion. Here are some typical comments from Significance of Venona and Harry Magdoff and espionage (and I forgot to mention List of Americans in the Venona papers):

• I have all the time in the world to ensure you dont destroy all the hard work that Nobs has put into VENONA related articles. But I suppose it must really irk you that "Chip Berlet", respected author, writer and self described "right wing watchdog" is being outwitted and out argued by a 28 year old engineer, who takes break during modeling, to contribute to an encyclopedia. Busy indeed.

• you have attempted to cram Navasky's weak ass defense in every article related to this subject

• And just for the record, don’t you even for a moment doubt Navasky’s motivation sin this debate? I mean, how many individuals fingered over the past decade has “The Nation Magazine” had on its payroll at some time? At least a dozen or so. I swear, its like the left is suffering from some form of collective cognitive dissonance over the issue of Soviet cold war penetration in the US.

So this is basically a POV warrior defending Nobs01's edits. Nobs01 was banned for amazing personal attacks, not the edit war, but my experience during the mediation led me to believe that Nobs01 was not able to get beyond his own highly POV view of reality to allow any critical disagreement or complication of the issues. That's where we are again. Same outcome on the text pages. I dread the thought of going back into mediation over the same pages, but...what else is there?--Cberlet 04:18, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I mean absolutely no insult, but I would be inclined to believe, having also edited these articles that your accusations of others having a POV or that THEY are the only ones who are POV warriors, is a big stretch. I think there is a strong polarization there of politics and there was also evidence of suspicious information removal on associated articles that I commented on in the talk pages here:[13]. I'd be willing to make the articles conform completely with NPOV, but not if the current revert wars in all the related articles won't cease.--MONGO 04:31, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I am not in any way involved in "suspicious information removal." In a number of instances I have actually edited out of these articles text that I support in an effort to find a compromise. I have tried different wordings. I have added text that supports the other side of the dispute in an attempt to find NPOV. The editor who defends Nobs01's text simply reverts what I write. I do not for a moment claim that I do not have a POV on this dispute, but I really think it is unfair for anyone to imply that I am involved in "suspicious information removal," or that I only am reverting. Both of these claims are false. On all of these pages the overwhelming bulk of text reflects one specific POV. Attempts to edit the relatively small skeptical and critical sections get reverted.

Please recall that I spent over one month in a mediation process over these same pages which went in circles and revealed, at least to me, that Nobs01 was probably incapable of constructive collective editing. Despite this, I continued to engage in the mediation, until Nobs01 began an aggressive campaign of personal attacks that resulted in me filing an arbitration that resulted in his being banned for one year. (And there is evidence that Nobs01 briefly reappeared under a different name to edit some of these pages until being booted off).

Nobs01 introduced biased and sometimes factually flawed and exaggerated claims on scores of pages. His posting of claims that hundreds of Americans had been identified as "Soviet spies" by the "U.S. Government" was a fantastic hyberbolic exaggeration. Am I going to be cyberstalked across the project by a POV warrior who has pledged to defend Nob01's text--factual or not--fair or not--if I try to edit it to be accurate and NPOV? Do you want an encyclopedia where the majority view gets to stomp on the minority view; and where exaggerated and false claims get defended based on political POV backed by bullying? Or do you want a real encyclopedia that fairly explores disputes cited to reputable published sources? If I ask for mediation again, are admins going to take this issue seriously? Because after three months, including a month-long mediation, and a month-long arbitration, the text on these pages is still POV and exaggerated and sometimes not accurate--and being defended against edits. --Cberlet 15:15, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Mr. Berlet, I am not accusing you, (although it may have seemed that way), of removing the information in the articles that can be linked through those one day accounts. It just seemed spurious that Nobs had hardly been banned for a month when all these related articles that he worked on all go through an erasure of virtually every edit he did. I can't say who is biased, who is wrong or who is right with the evidence. I can offer you the opportunity to do a number of things. Your best bet is a Request for comment. When I stumbled onto the List of Americans in the Venona papers and saw that almost the entire article had been erased [14], so seeing it as vandalism, I reverted that back and returned the page to the earlier state. The other option is to document your findings and once again, draw up an Rfc and if that fails, arbitration. I recognize that you already went through that and obviously feel very exasperated by this new influx of disagreement. But you are editing articles that do have very polarizing viewpoints, and the cases supporting and or denying that these people are spies can be be expected to also have some bias in them either way. Surely you can see this to be true. I did see that you do not just revert and that you do make an effort to adapt or NPOV certain passages that I am sure you have a strong enough disagreement with that your normal human inclination would be to revert, so I applaud that. You may also want to seek out assistance through the Advocates who will possibly be able to help you if you do go through mediation. I would be glad to assist as well, although I am not a mediator, nor interested in becoming one.--MONGO 15:52, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

As I have stated time and time again, until I am blue in the face, that the material you insist on putting in the article, is simply not relevant and in some cases does not accurately reflect the opinion of the source you have cited. On the Magdoff article, you continue to use a reference who has not specifically spoken about the subject at hand. You justify the inclusion of the material on the basis of it “balancing” the article, but that really does not mean anything, if it is not relevant than it is not appropriate to include [15]. In another article you have used the same source, comments from Schrecker from 1998, to argue a different point, when as I have illustrated, the source no longer agrees with her 1998 statements [16]. As far as the allegations of stalking go, remember how many fingers are pointing back at you.

This page originated as a blacklist that falsely implied that the people on the list were Soviet espionage agents. I have only edited a tiny handful of pages with disclaimer material. I have been busy. There are many other pages I have not edited. I will get right on that important task. Thanks for reminding me [17]

Considering that many of the related pages have been recently vandalized by a pack of sockpuppets, I feel that my fears of the content being erased for sinister and underhanded motivations and the need for someone like myself to monitor these articles for such activities is more than justified. Knit Cap; on John Abt and Donald Hiss; Solid State on Jacob Golos, Zerber 252; Zerber 252 on Victor Perlo, Lud Ullman; Rebren20 on Harold Ware and Frank Coe; and PangRoh 894 on Lee Pressman and Maurice Halperin, and lastly, Poor Elijah on Charles Kramer.

One last thing, before I am painted with the guilt by association brush, let us not forget that Nobs was banned for his “conduct”, not his contributions. DTC 15:59, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

From my point of view as an outside observer to several articles he edited regularly, his content was also suspect at times. Katefan0^(scribble)/mrp 16:38, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps somewhere in the middle is the truth.--MONGO 16:43, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but Nobs was not banned for content, he was banned for conduct. My dispute with Berlet is one of content. DTC 17:44, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

A dispute in which TDC does not edit, but merely deletes and reverts in defense of the text produced by Nobs01. Please note that I have repeatedly asked TDC to use my user name. Does TDC agree to mediation on these pages?--Cberlet 18:27, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

We have discussed this many times before, the information you are attempting to put in every article has nothing to do with the specific topic. And yes, I agree to mediation. DTC 19:10, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Antaeus Feldspar

I know that I can't have a voice now, but I would like for this user to stop harassing and stalking people. When someone says to him that they don't want to talk to him, he should stop. He has a habit of following people around (myself included), writing to me, writing to other people I am talking to, leaving personal attacks galore, and general abuse. In my personal opinion, he should be permabanned over it, as it is beyond a joke, and its not just me that he has attacked. Go and have a look through my talk page history, and my user page history, and indeed through his contributions. I am sure that you will see that there is comprehensive evidence of his abuse. I had asked for him to leave me alone, but to date not a single person has even so much as had a word to him about it. It is not merely a matter of him lying about me. He is a significant harasser, and is destroying the community. I ask please for admins to deal with him before he destroys this project even more. Thank you. User:Zordrac 203.122.230.206 07:12, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like he's doing great - David Gerard 08:12, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I do, indeed, invite any and all interested parties to very closely examine the edit history of User talk:Zordrac, User talk:203.122.230.206 and other similar pages; you will see that what Zordrac is really asking for is the right to make malicious and knowingly false accusations against other users but to have it deemed "stalking" for those other users to defend themselves against his smear campaigns. I am collecting the evidence against him at User:Antaeus Feldspar/Zordrac, but I'll call attention to a particularly egregious example, namely the false claims he made against me at User:Zordrac/Poetlister: "08:16, 23 December 2005 User:Antaeus Feldspar, wrote to Zordrac supporting Lulu and implying that they both would stalk Zordrac until either he stopped trying to get Poetlister's ban reversed, or else was banned from Wikipedia. [18]" Of course, one only need to check the diff that Zordrac provided to see that it bears no resemblance whatever to the quite serious accusations he has levelled. Zordrac whines for sympathy, telling everyone "I had asked for him to leave me alone" but what he isn't mentioning is that he refuses to leave me alone, that he is continuing his malicious slander against me even now. -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:12, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

As I pointed out on his talk page when you brought this issue up, I believe (although I could certainly be mistaken) that permanent diff links are affected when page revisions are deleted. A check of the deletion log indicates that page revisions WERE deleted from User talk:Zordrac, so it is theoretically possible that the diff he linked to is not the one that he intended to. Then again, he did actively lie about his identity up until such point as compelling evidence was slammed under his nose, so I can't say whether or not he's doing that now. --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 23:51, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see, I didn't catch what you meant when you mentioned it there. Theoretically, then, yes, there could potentially have been two edits by me to User talk:Zordrac and a diff which pointed to one of those before the deletion-and-partial-restoration could, theoretically, have become a diff to the other afterwards. However, since the diff comes straight from User:Zordrac/Poetlister, and names a specific revision as its starting point, this means that there would have had to be two consecutive edits. Of those two edits, Zordrac would have had to have requested from Merovingian that Merovingian delete the very edit that Zordrac himself was providing diffs of as evidence of my wrongdoing. And -- this is possibly the least plausible part of all -- the edit would have had to reveal personal information about Zordrac, or presumably Merovingian would not have removed it -- but Zordrac, while going into great detail about all the nefarious things that I purportedly said in that edit, made no mention of such a serious offense. I hope everyone can see the implausibility of that story. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:09, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Update: I've checked with Merovingian. None of the edits that were removed were by me; ironically enough, they were actually about me -- mine was the personal information that someone was trying to reveal. -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:24, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Displaying another's image on one's user page

Perhaps this isn't a big deal, but I find it a bit disturbing. In general, I find it in poor taste to criticize other editors on one's user page, although one may do so if one wishes. However, on his user page, User:Anittas is displaying the photograph of User:Node ue, whom he has a history of conflict and perhaps harrassment (see the RfC's at the bottom of the user page). The photograph is not being in an overtly offensive manner: it is simply featured with the caption "Node ue". And obviously, since the photograph was released under the GDFL, Anittas is not breaking copyright rules by posting it. I know that users have wide latitude over their user space; do others find this sort of thing acceptable? — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:30, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but the question is not whether people find it acceptable, but whether I am allowed to have the photo on Wiki. If it isn't allowed, I want an official statement from people who have the authority to make such statements. --Anittas 06:35, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

These tend to be one and the same. If people (the community) finds something unacceptable, then you cannot do it. Guettarda 06:45, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

What is the procedure where the community decides these things? Are you holding votes or what? --Anittas 06:48, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

The procedure is to hold discussions such as this one. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:50, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

It's a personal attack. He's including the picture to upset another user. I find that unacceptable. Since when was it okay to bully other users, just because you find a new and creative way to do it? James James 06:47, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Prove it. --Anittas 06:48, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

He doesn't NEED to, this is not a Democracy, is a Jimbo-cracy. You don't have the same rights here as you have in "the real world". You don't have the same burden of proof. If you don't like it post a message in this guy's userpage. Sebastian Kessel ^Talk 16:35, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Anittas RFC 1, Anittas RFC 2: This strongly appears to me to be a continuing pattern of harrassment of Node ue by Anittas. Dragons flight 07:03, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Given that there is a history of conflict here, I think you need to make a case for why you need to display his pic on your user page. Guettarda 07:05, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, here it is: I like the photo. I think he is a handsome boy and I like the colours. The light-yellow colours go well with the rest of my page; just see the "Military history" box which is also of yellow colour. Also, I think the photo drags some attention to my userpage, which is what I wanted, because I like attention very much! --Anittas 07:08, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

It's harassment, pure and simple. A form of personal attack. You have an established history of harassing others and are on this page far too much. The pic needs to come down. You're testing the community's patience with your incessant harassment of fellow editors. FeloniousMonk 07:14, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

That's your personal opinion and interpretation and you have the right to hold such opinions. --Anittas 07:16, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

It's my experience that people who pose "prove it" in the face of allegations almost always know that they've done something wrong. Adrian Lamo · (talk) · (mail) · 07:20, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Anittas makes sense. You should stop looking at the picture as a picture of a person, but more like a decorative element. The colours of the picture balance the page pretty well and make it look peaceful. Lapinmies 07:28, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, they do! They make me more calm and focused. --Anittas 07:29, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Don't make the same mistake as Anittas does here and play cute with us. Our patience has limits. Annitas is on this page for harassing others far, far too often. FeloniousMonk 07:33, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Anittas' name pops up regularly after some harrassing behaviour or other, and this is yet another example of same. The issue is not the copyright status of the image, but Anittas' attitude towards other users. If he refuses to stop harrassing node_ue, or any other user, he should be blocked. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 07:39, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

After ignoring my warnings and those of others found here and at his talk page, I've issued a 24 hr block against Anittas for harassing an editor he's in a conflict with, and violating WP:POINT, WP:CIVIL. FeloniousMonk 07:38, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

That Anittas says, "Prove it," proves it to my satisfaction. Tom Harrison ^Talk 14:32, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. We don't need wikilawyering or harassment. It's not that hard to edit productively and be civil. - Taxman ^Talk 15:51, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Quite. There is no "right" to act like a troll on Wikipedia. Doing something rude for no particular reason, and then not fixing it when it's pointed out, is not something we ought to tolerate. -- SCZenz 16:43, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Tracking IP addresses of users and contacting their employers

For: Any and all administrators who care to comment

On one of the talk pages, Editor A tracked the IP address of Editor B and sent emails to Editor B's employer to report he was posting from a work p.c. and posted his full name (which he had no disclosed previously...he used a pen name as his signature).

Editor A then posted on the talk page the following:

"On the contrary, the vandalism is being propagated by the "sliver" breeders, mostly "<removed>" aka <removed> and posting from his WORK computer!!! Dave LastName (<removed>) is the manager at <CompanyName>, and his superiors are being informed about his Vandalism! I highly doubt that he is going to consider this very funny after his system is inspected".

Could you please comment on this. Is this a serious violation? What ramifications (re: Editor A's continued participation in Wiki) would you suggest would be appropriate for actions such as these? Thank you. MilesD. 14:00, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Actual details would be useful, but my guess would be that Editor A should be blocked unless there are mitigating circumstance. Guettarda 14:06, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

How would Editor A know the real name of Editor B? I assume you mean Editor B is an unregistered account, in which case, Editor B would not be operating under a pen name but an IP address. This incident seems rather farfetched. Disclaimer:I am not an admin nor do I pretend to be one. Prodego ^talk 14:11, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Nonetheless, editor A should be blocked. While this is not mentioned at WP:NLT, but if users are actively trying to get people fired or put in prison, that is still a serious problem. Zach ^{(Smack Back) Fair use policy} 14:40, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion, this is covered by Wikipedia:Harassment (--> Types of harassment --> Posting of personal information --> "Posting another person's personal information (legal name, home or workplace address, telephone number, email address, or other contact information, regardless of whether the information is actually correct) is almost always harassment. This is because it places the other person at unjustified and uninvited risk of harm in "the real world" or other media." Aecis^{Mr. Mojo risin'} 14:43, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Of course, if this happens (it would be hard to actually find such information) Aecis is correct. Disclaimer:I am not an admin nor do I pretend to be one. Prodego ^talk 19:22, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I have found the comment MilesD. was referring to. For privacy reasons, I won't disclose the name of the victim. I will only say that this comment was made by Tina M. Barber (talk · contribs) on Talk:Shiloh Shepherd Dog. I have accordingly left the {{Pinfo4}} template on her talk page. Aecis ^{Mr. Mojo risin'} 19:56, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Good job Aecis. Prodego ^talk 20:18, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

WoW and IP linked

The evidence is compelling that the latest WoW suspect Chili on circuit court of appeals (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log) (who I blocked indefinitely) also contributed as 169.157.198.116 (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log). Is this information of any use to anyone? --RobertG ♬ talk 14:56, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

And what about the permanently blocked Willy on Rims (talk · contribs)? Has he been added to the list of Willies? Aecis ^{Mr. Mojo risin'} 15:01, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Willy usually comes in on a proxy; test if you can set up to edit under it, and if so, we'll block it as an open proxy. Essjay ^{Talk • Contact} 18:07, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

When can we get our subpoena to check the logs of these proxies? Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (Be eudaimonic!) 20:12, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Most open proxies don't keep logs. --Carnildo 08:10, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

The Witch

Wyss (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is back as The_Witch (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Wilkes,_Wyss_and_Onefortyone#Proposed_remedies. Fred Bauder 19:15, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Has she broken the terms of her probation? Couldn't see any on a quick scan. —Matthew Brown (T:C) 19:25, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Jason Gastrich and User:WarriorScribe

Jason Gastrich (talk · contribs) WarriorScribe (talk · contribs)

They are engaging in several edit wars with Jason being pro-christian and Warrior being anti-jason. These users have a long history in NewsGroups and their conflict has spilled over onto Wikipedia. I have intervened for Louisiana Baptist University, but as I am now involved I need neutral admins to manage the other conflicts, perhaps start an RfC, and get this situation under control. Other users and anons (possible sockpuppets) are involved but aren't causing any serious issues. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 19:28, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Contributions needing attention

Piedras grandes (talk · contribs) has been adding "cleanup", "unverifiable", "hoax" and "speedy" tags to a whole slew of articles. While many of the articles need a lot of improvement, a lot of them are par for the course in Wikipedia - short, need references and expansion, but wikified and not really "cleanup" candidates. The "speedy" and "hoax" tags are more worrying - see, for example, the edit to Plant sexuality; when I asked him/her about it, s/he replied "So you're telling me plants run around behaving like people?--Piedras grandes 19:35, 17 January 2006 (UTC)", which suggests to me that s/he did not even glance at the article. I'm not quite sure how to proceed. Guettarda 19:43, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, of course they do. Feed me, Seymour. On a more serious note, I'd just revert the worst of them and explain why on this person's talk page. They probably just discovered the tags and think they're helping; I doubt this person is going to park himself on these articles and insist that Plant sexuality retain a {{hoax}} tag. Katefan0^(scribble)/mrp 19:45, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

It appears that the user was blocked for a week the say they started editing (Dec. 16), came back yesterday and seems to be making up for lost time. Not everything is bad, but they seem to need some oversight. Guettarda 20:02, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll watch after his contribs also, particularly since he's involving himself with Plant sexuality -- titillating! ;) Katefan0^(scribble)/mrp 20:04, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Has created {{Good}} and {{Bad}} and is using them to rank articles (albeit, on talk pages). On one hand, good to see someone getting the article ranking thing off the ground, on the other hand, this seems a bit overly WP:BOLD to me. Guettarda 20:13, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

This editor is also adding multiple (sometimes inappropriate) templates to articles, and frequently non-existant templates. We need to put the brakes on this before the entire WP is plastered with this stuff. One puppy's opinion. KillerChihuahua^?!? 20:15, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

(reduce) There seem to be 3 sets of Good and Bad: Template:Bad Article, Template:Bad, and User:Piedras_grandes/Bad; Good also on all three. Not sure how much of that was development. Would like to add, the Good kindof discourages improvement, and the Bad is horribly ugly. KillerChihuahua^?!? 20:21, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

The Good/Bad templates should probably go to TFD as duplicates of the efforts at WP:GA. Slambo (Speak) 20:23, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Great idea, except the additions are apparently random. Check edit history on Talk:Institut National des Appellations d'Origine. KillerChihuahua^?!? 20:28, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I've TfD'ed {{Good}} and {{Bad}}. I was going to do the same for {{Good Article}} and {{Bad Article}}, but they turned out to be nothing but transclusions of Good and Bad, so I speedied them. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 21:04, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Excellent. The random additions of these seems to have paused, so a little cleanup and a message on the user page and I think this might actually be more or less over for now. KillerChihuahua^?!? 21:15, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• Editor also cast both a support and an oppose vote, only one minute apart on this Rfa...and still has yet to explain, even though a request to do so was left on his/her talk page.--MONGO 21:23, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

  Update....editor explained, but has yet to correct vote one way or the other.--MONGO 21:38, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

If Piedras grandes (talk · contribs) isn't also OnwardsCS (talk · contribs), I'll eat my hat. User:OnwardsCS started editing yesterday and, very curiously, edited the exact same anti-abortion articles previously edited by User:Piedras grandes, up to and including recreating the previously-deleted-by-consensus {{Pro-life-stub}}. User:OnwardsCS was blocked yesterday for a 3RR violation on Stem Cell Research (one of the articles created last month by User:Piedras grandes). Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 21:33, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• Piedras grandes (talk · contribs) Update, back at it today. Anyone care to try to make some kind of meaningful contact, or help clean up the templatespam and odd edits? KillerChihuahua^?!? 20:38, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I didn't get a response to a message I added to his talk page, and he continued with the same actions. Lots of 'welcome' messages placed, including many on article talk pages and AfD discussions. I got one too at the bottom of my talk page. It's going to take some time to go round and remove any inappropriate such messages. BillC 22:58, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I' blocking for 3 hours for cleanup. Please let me know if I'm acting inappropriately but sheesh, several hundred yesterday and today, and about 6 valid edits in the lot? I've warned against nonsense, etc, and several editors have attempted communication. KillerChihuahua^?!? 23:06, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

During cleanup, also finding geo-stub changed to bio-stub, and Canada-poli-stub changed to sports-stub (both incorrectly.) KillerChihuahua^?!? 23:37, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

User:MARMOT - ArbComm

Can we unblock MARMOT so he can only edit in his arbcom case? That is a better option than banning him indefinitely. --MRMT 21:16, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I feel the matter regarding MARMOT should be taken to ArbCom rather than blocking him indefinitely. --MRMT 21:17, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Jimbo outranks the Arbitration Committee; they have no jurisdiction to hear the matter at this point without special permission from Jimbo. Once Jimbo bans someone, there is no appeal excpet to convince Jimbo to reverse himself. Essjay ^{Talk • Contact} 21:27, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone honestly believe that MRMT (talk · contribs), created about 1 hour ago, and already knowledgeable about MARMOT, Jimbo, ArbCom, banning and blocks is not a sockpuppet of a now hard-banned user? Shall we block him? -Splash^talk 22:32, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Way ahead of you. -- Essjay ^{Talk • Contact} 22:50, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Blocking over fair-use image disputes

The community's input would be appreciated at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Blocking_over_fair-use_image_disputes. Cheers, SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:36, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Bonaparte's sockpuppets on interwiki

I have a question. User:Bonaparte and his sockpupets have been banned indefinitely on the English Wikipedia for vote rigging. Does that apply on Wikipedia in other languages also? The same user has an account as mo:User:Fratele lui Bonaparte, il cunosti? (meaning "Bonaparte's brother, do you recognize him?).

Must be the same person by the style of writing on his user page and other places, but a checkuser might be in order. Anyway, does banning apply on other Wikipedias also? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:52, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Was there an Arb case I missed, or is this just a admin-imposed indef block? Admins certainly have no authority on other wikis, and I don't imagine for a moment that the ArbCom does, either. -Splash^talk 22:26, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

There's a discussion near the top of the page. Bonaparte was apparently using socks to vote on RfAs, and to evade 3RR. The socks were blocked indefinitely, and Bonaparte was blocked indefinitely pending discussion on what would be an appropriate block length. It seems that not many people wanted to see it shortened. --bainer (talk) 22:50, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Right, so it's an admin-only block. Then there's no question that it doesn't extend interwiki; most admins here are not admins on other wikis for a start. -Splash^talk 22:55, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Revealing personal information

About a month ago, Tina M. Barber (talk · contribs) revealed personal information (name, workplace and position held at that workplace) about another user, a registered wikipedian, as discussed above. This obviously needs to be deleted from the archives of wikipedia, and I have given her the chance to report it here. She hasn't done that in the few hours since I posted the {{Pinfo4}} template on her talk page, which couldn't be expected from her in such short notice. However, I don't want to wait any longer. She also claims to have told the other wikipedian's employer that he is using the company's computer and internet connection to edit wikipedia. What needs to be done about her? A block might be in order, although I'm not sure it still is an option a month after the offence. But if she needs to be blocked, for how long? 24 hours? 1 week? 1 month? Indefinitely? Aecis ^{Mr. Mojo risin'} 21:58, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

What's the point in blocking a month after the fact? Blocks are remedial, not punitive. However, WP:BP#Personal attacks which place users in danger is clear enough that a block may be imposed immediately such an attack is discovered; I rather suppose the policy has in mind that the block still be pertinent to the fact. -Splash^talk 22:29, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand; What remediation is ever provided by imposing a block after personal information has been posted? Surley blocks in these circumstances are, if not "punitive," at least meant to discourage the behavior. Tom Harrison ^Talk 23:37, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

A block will prevent the editor from adding the information again. The editor having not apparently done so, a block wouldn't be stopping anything. There is a case, sometimes, for 'electric fence' blocks, but there's really no case for much at all a month after the fact. -Splash^talk 23:39, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Tina M. Barber (talk · contribs) has edited wikipedia since I posted the warning on her talk page, so she must have seen the "You've got a new message" box. I presume she has and I presume she has viewed her talk page and seen the template. She has not requested the deletion of the edit from the archives, as instructed by the template ("If you have posted such information, please remove it immediately. Please then follow the link to this page and inform people there that the information was posted (but crucially, do not repost it on that page). An admin or developer can then remove the information from the archives of Wikipedia."), so I will do it on her behalf. The edit concerned is this one, the comment can currently be found here. Aecis ^{Mr. Mojo risin'} 13:27, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

User Lantern Cro has been blocked by a bot (page moves)

User:Lantern Cro has been blocked by a bot intended to block pagemove vandalism.

Please check the move log for this user and unblock if this was an error.

Please delete this message after the situation has been resolved.

This message was generated by the bot. -- Curps 21:59, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Proper block, Willy is active again. Aecis ^{Mr. Mojo risin'} 22:05, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually it's not Willy "himself", it's the North Carolina Vandal. Anything "cro" related ,"elitism", "beer", "Jake Remington", ad nauseum. He imitates Willy whenever he can get an account to age sufficiently. Antandrus (talk) 01:24, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Inappropriate page move protection by User:Radiant!

Radiant! (talk • contribs • blocks • protects • deletions • moves) recently has been moving Wikipedia:Avoid using meta-templates to Wikipedia:No meta-templates, a name that has not been proposed on the talk page and one that I specifically disagreed with. Regardless of what page name is best, and their are several alternate suggestions on the talk page by many users, what matters more is that Radiant! moved the page at 23:40, and then immediately protected it from page moves. -- Netoholic @ 23:51, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

On the talk page, Netoholic had proposed that "Avoid using meta-templates" be renamed to a stronger term, e.g. not using the word "avoid". Recently, I've done just that, making it "No meta-templates" (which also conforms nicely with other policy page names) and updated the many redirects. Netoholic is apparently angry with me (see Talk:Leet for the dispute) and has reverted this (breaking the redirects in the progress) on grounds that it "wasn't proposed on the talk page". Now 1) a good-faith rename needn't be discussed, and 2) he was the one that proposed this in the first place. Since he didn't respond to my question why, I've protected the page from moving for a short while, because moving back-and-forth is a bit pointless. Of course it's now in m:the wrong version. I'm just posting the notification here, this is verging on the WP:LAME. Radiant_>|< 23:54, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Please point to anywhere I said "No meta-templates" was good name (never have). And besides, I've obviously recently said I disagree with that name, and so have others. But really, how AT ALL does that warrant you page move warring then the PROTECTING the page? The first time I reverted your rename was on 1/16 before the discussion began about Leet. I didn't break any redirects, because you only just now changed them. It is your recent actions that seem to indicate bad-faith vindictiveness. -- Netoholic @ 00:04, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

At this point protection is warranted so that the various issues can be discussed. This morning I actually advocated re-writing the policy entirely because it currently defines "meta-templates" in a way which excludes 90% of the templates which are being held to fall under the policy and concentrates exclusively on 'meta' templates while those are really only one aspect of the real problems. There are alot of different ideas which need to be worked out. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 00:07, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Radiant!. Netoholic has just been making a real nuisance of himself all over this policy. If a page is moved a few times in quick succession, it seems reasonable to protect it from moves until consensus is achieved. I think most people working on that policy have almost exhausted their patience with Netoholic. --Gareth Hughes 00:09, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I endorse this block to sort it out in calm. Move wars are bad. Netoholic seems to quickly feel personally attacked by the slightest disagreement with him. --Adrian Buehlmann 00:16, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Did I get that right? Radiant! Gets into an edit war with Netoholic, and then Radiant! protects the page at his prefered version! Since the edit war is continuing, I have now reprotected the page. Sort it out the pair of you, please. --Doc ^ask? 00:19, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it needs full protection, or even move protection, as long as Radiant! respects the fact that he's currently the only one that wants that specific name. We've got many suggestions on talk, and even discussion about a page overhaul. It was just premature to move it, and of course, improper for Radiant! to protect it. -- Netoholic @ 00:29, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

The disagreement between Radiant and Netoholic emerged about Leet (a whole different page) and then went over to a move war on WP:AUM. WP:LAME indeed on both sides to varying degree. --Adrian Buehlmann 00:26, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah, but after Radiant! got involved with Leet, and I chastised him for inserting unsourced information, that he moved this page again today in an act I can only interpret as spite. He knows how to push people's buttons, for sure. -- Netoholic @ 00:29, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh please. You claim someone acting in bad faith against you every time someone pushes Save page.

Other admins, Netoholic is currently in violation of:

• His ArbCom ban (editing in both the Wikipedia: and Template: namespaces)
• WP:AUM (revert-warring templates)
• move-warring WP:AUM
• WP:CIV

Doesn't this warrant a block yet? — Omegatron 00:48, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I would say this warrants a block. But the question is what this would help. This is a wiki. We do have to learn how to integrate the good sides of Netoholic. And, believe it or not, the timining of the move that Radiant did on WP:AUM couldn't have barely be worser (in so far I must agree with Neto as per "knowing how to push Neto's button", the thing is this button is so prominent on Neto's surface that it takes an extreme amount of self control not to touch it). The tricky thing is that Netoholic has sound technical knowledge but cannot accept opposition to any of his edits. The worst thing Netoholic did in the past was at template:language where the people around that (Garzo and others) have clearly stated that they are about to implement WP:AUM but Netoholic constantly pushes his own "Netoholic way" of how to implement that. For Neto, speed of implementing WP:AUM seems to go over anything else. Maybe a block for a week or two would be in order, but do not expect that Neto will change his mind by that. This would at least give the people at template language time to implement their solution without interruption by Netoholic. Sorry for my long post but this Neto thing his very delicate. --Adrian Buehlmann 09:49, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Is it true that restrictions placed on Netoholic by ArbCom are actually in place?

2.1) Netoholic is banned from editing in the Wikipeedia and template namespaces for twelve months, and restricted to one revert per page per day. This remedy is suspended while the mentorship in remedy 3 is in effect, and may be cancelled if the mentors consider the mentorship has been successful. The twelve months is counted from the date of the arbitration committee decision.

Passed 5 to 0 at 22:40, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

This remedy was suspended while Netoholic was under mentorship. However, the update clearly states that the mentorship failed and the above ban is in effect. There is no notice to say otherwise, so I believe that Netoholic has been in contravention of this ban since July. I would like clear opinion on this statement, as this user has been particularly rude and disruptive of late and there seems to have been no remedy for his actions. --Gareth Hughes 12:15, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

• It is a somewhat complex situation. Yes, he is banned from Wikipedia and Template namespaces, and that is technically in force ever since the mentorship failed. About amonth ago he made a request on RFAr that this ban be lifted. The ArbCom has not responded to that, except for a short remark by Raul654 that "several arbitrators (myself and David Gerard in particular) have expressed approval of what Netoholic has been doing vis-a-vis killing metatemplates and possibly creating some sort of exception for that." The point is really that Neto is doing a good job on templates, but doing it in an overly abrasive way. Also, he's been doing some things not related to templates (e.g. Leet) that are something less than a good job.
  • The easiest solution would be to simply enforce the ban as imposed, until and unless the ArbCom sees fit to change that.
  • A more productive solution would be to allow him to continue to do good work on templates, but have someone watch him to for instance impose a zero-revert rule and a personal attack parole. That would be somewhat akin to his earlier mentorship. However, it is quite possible that such a watcher would find himself between a rock and a hard place.
  • And of course the third solution would be to ignore it as we have now, and hope the incivility doesn't get out of hand.
• Radiant_>|< 12:39, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I will unblock instantly if anyone blocks Netoholic over this. He's enforcing an oft-disregarded policy and taking the time to do it properly, and a majority of members of the arbitration committee have given him their explicit consent to do so - preventing this sort of activity was not what anyone had in mind with the original ban. Trying to bring this here is a blatant way of trying to override Wikipedia policy by having the messenger banned, and that simply will not stand. Ambi 15:30, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

If you are interested I can provide you with a lot of edits which can clearly not be referred to as "He's enforcing an oft-disregarded policy". I would rather say he is often enforcing his way to implement WP:AUM, ignoring other ideas and threatening people with his edit warring and wikilawyering. It seems to me you are applying here WP:IAR, but this at a very high cost. By the way, we do not need Netoholic to implement WP:AUM. He is not the only one who does and is able to implement it. --Adrian Buehlmann 21:19, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Newest example: [19]. Others on request. --Adrian Buehlmann 09:14, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Which actions of Netoholic has the ArbCom explicity given their consent to? I'm not questioning the truth of your statement, but I am interested in exactly what the ArbCom consented to. Carbonite | Talk 15:36, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I find Ambi's comment unhelpful. It gives Netoholic blanket approval to be as disruptive as he likes. The key word is enforcement: it is not Netoholic's job to enforce any policy. In fact, giving a user who has a history of uncivil conduct such powers is bound to cause problems. If the ArbCom are serious about lifting the ban, they should do so on the relevant page. The consensus here is growing that we need tools to control Netoholic's consistent incivility. Giving him unblockable status in this way will make the situation worse: he already seems to think he can do anything. --Gareth Hughes 15:58, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

• Ambi, please read my previous post again and what I said about a more productive solution? While Neto is certainly working on an oft-disregarded policy, there is substantial doubt on whether he is doing it properly. If you don't believe me, check his contribs log for the last few days and count the amount of revert wars and personal attacks. There has been a request by him on the RFAr page to rescind his probation for over a month now, that only a single arbiter has responded to. It is a longstanding tradition that good edits do not by themselves excuse bad edits, and if in upholding one policy (AUM) he is breaking several others (CIV/NPA/AGF, WP:POINT and the spirit of 3RR) he is not doing a good job. Radiant_>|< 16:38, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Ambi, please read through the relevant discussions, the ArbCom, and Netoholic's actions before making such statements. Wheel warring isn't helpful.

Netoholic is enforcing his interpretation of WP:AUM, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he's doing it correctly or in a way that the developers would approve of. If you read WP:AUM and Jamesday's comments again, you'll see that constant editing of templates is just as bad for server load as templates within templates, and Netoholic's constant revert warring of templates is actually a violation of WP:AUM.

preventing this sort of activity was not what anyone had in mind with the original ban.

Actually, it is. "Netoholic was arguably completely technically correct — but he interacted so negatively with others that he actually convinced people he was not." In spite of him being correct about templates, he was banned by the ArbCom because of his behavior, which hasn't improved a bit.

Trying to bring this here is a blatant way of trying to override Wikipedia policy by having the messenger banned, and that simply will not stand.

This has nothing to do with the developer-mandated policy. It has to do with his behavior, which hasn't changed at all since the ban or mentorship. We can handle the policy without his "help". No one appointed him as the enforcer of WP:AUM. (And if they did, he's doing a bad job at it, anyway; ignoring the parts that are inconvenient for him.) — Omegatron 17:05, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

It's really disappointing to see my efforts being mischaracterized like this. I have recieved several compliments on my template conversions, and in fact, that conversion has inspired many creative uses for templates. In the months that my ban was fully in force, I stayed away, happily. I was drawn back by people contacting me about templates, and specifically the abominations that are the "conditional templates". Unfortunately, because of the nature of how wide-spread my work is in template-land, I have a much higher chance of running into the occasional cliques and OWNers. I can do nothing more than provide the alternative and point to the justification (WP:AUM). Often, I will try convincing them for a few days, even providing fully working replacements for them, and then leave it be for a few days. Everyone speaking negatively of me in this thread (except Radiant!, oddly) is someome that has had one of their templates challenged by me. I am still "completely technically correct", but that just makes egos bruised even more because they think I'm implying, by fixing or challenging their use of templates, that they've done bad work. All I want is to do is make things better. -- Netoholic @ 17:41, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Everyone speaking negatively of me in this thread (except Radiant!, oddly) is someome that has had one of their templates challenged by me.

And me.

All I want is to do is make things better.

How many times are you going to say that without acting on it? You must be aware of the problems many many editors have with your behavior, so why do you persist in it? Do you seriously believe that you're doing the right thing when everyone tells you that you're not? Do you just enjoy pissing people off? Your behavior is not justified by this or any other policy. — Omegatron 19:58, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

No, you too. I don't have problems with "many many editors", only a couple quite vocal ones who've decided I'm ruining their wikilife by trying to make their templates better. How can you say "everyone" tells me I'm not doing the right thing when at least 4 arbitrators in just the last week have concurred that I'm doing the right thing? My behavior has been exemplary, and my patience has been abundant. For months, Omegatron, you have had a specific agenda against me, one that borders on harassment. You and I never interact any more, so really shouldn't have any comment. Yet, when someone mentions my name, you join right in and flame the shit out of me, just like always. -- Netoholic @ 20:12, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Template:Prettytable?? The one where I agreed that it was unnecessary and helped turn it into a css class? — Omegatron 03:08, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

• Maybe you don't have a problem with "many many editors" but you do seem to have a problem with most editors you interact with. Apparently everyone that has had one of their templates challenged by you is someone that speaks negatively of you. The pattern is pretty obvious. Radiant_>|< 20:28, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

• You've got your logic reversed... the people here complaining have had there templates challenged by me. I make a ton of edits in the template space, of which the smallest fraction turn into problems. When "standardisers working in good faith clash with those working on articles", it's probably impossible to expect that every interaction will work out perfectly. I do try and respect the aims of those others, and try to present alternatives in good faith. What's happening here, especially with Garzo, Omegatron, and Adrian Buehlmann, is a pile on attack. They see weakness in an adversary, and go for it. I don't want anyone to think, for one second, that their very vocal presence represents the entirety of my experience here on Wikipedia. -- Netoholic @ 20:54, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

• Maybe you can point people to some examples of where your work has been appreciated (and note here that just because nobody noticed your unilateral changes and didn't complain doesn't mean it met with approval). And in any event, it's your behavior and attitude when you are confronted with objections that really convinces me you shouldn't be enforcing WP:AUM (let alone violating the ArbCom ban against you). Instead of working with people (or accepting that they don't like your "solutions"), you accuse them of being WP:OWNers and/or cliques (see above), when in fact it's more likely they're actually a consensus. I also like your underhanded tactic of forcing the issue with people by nominating meta-templates they rely upon at WP:TFD (see: Template:Language). So you couldn't convince them at their templates talk page, so let's try and screw them over entirely by pulling the rug out from underneath them. Bravo! *rollseyes* —Locke Cole • t • c 09:49, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

• Netoholic and I don't agree on alot of things (like... say, which way is 'up'), but his hard work has certainly been appreciated by many people. I recall seeing thanks for his work on the 'warbox' (now 'Infobox Military campaign' or something like that), 'Infobox City', something with dog breeds, and several others... just from what I've seen in floating around the same areas. No, compromise and dealing with conflict aren't his strongest suits, but where those issues don't arise he has done a tremendous amount of very beneficial work. His conversion of the 'taxobox' template was a major accomplishment that is now being used extensively. The 'pulling the rug out' analogy isn't inaccurate, but it is usually possible to be standing by with a new rug for the nice people and little harm done. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 19:57, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I've not really interacted with Netoholic that much during this meta template brou-ha-ha, but I have done so a little. I find the user's attitude to be unhelpful, unnecessarily confrontational, and prone to unilateral actions without so much as letting people know what is going on. A prime example of this is Template:Ship table. It was previously a hodge-podge of template code, extremely complicated and prone to breaking if people did not follow complex instructions exactly. I then switched it over to the IF and then QIF templates because they were an elegant solution to the problem of optional rows. This, of course, is part of the series of actions that have provoked howls from the devs about server load. A few days ago I was alerted by another member of the Wikiproject Ships that Netoholic had unilaterally declared my template to be deprecated due to the crusade against meta templates. Netoholic had also developed a 'replacement' that used the CSS trick for hiding rows. Other users had tried to turn Ship table into a version without QIF by using the CSS trick and had nearly succeeded. There were three or four examples of QIF that needing expunging. When I found out what was going on I got rid of the last examples of QIF from the template since the really wanted functionality, ie hidden optional rows in a table, is now available in a way that does not overload the servers. I did this in a manner which did not break existing tables using the template at all. If I could do that in less than an hour why did Netoholic not post a message on my talk page about the possible solutions to the meta template situation? Why did Netoholic not work with me to fix the Ship table template? Why was it someone else who alerted me to what was going on? It is because Netoholic is behaving like a bull in a china shop and is consequently being very disruptive to Wikipedia's smooth running. I see no reason for relaxing the ArbCom ruling, and if it has been relaxed it should go back into effect fully. The negative contributions of Netoholic to Wikipedia are vastly outweighing the positive at the moment. David Newton 01:15, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

It is clear that a number of users find Netoholic difficult to work with, particularly when working on templates. It is also clear that ArbCom has found against Netoholic and has issued a ban against editing templates. The revoking of this ban has not been clearly set out. --Gareth Hughes 00:24, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Ravenflight block evasion

User:Ravenflight was blocked under the 3RR. The same person has created User:Unrulywitch and User:Lupinespirit to evade the block. —Ashley Y 00:05, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Now also User:Rivethead28. —Ashley Y 00:30, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

The party is happening at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Robin_Artisson, which is getting a lot of input from brand new users, such as the above. Jkelly 00:31, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Also User:Jontelpo William M. Connolley 18:24, 18 January 2006 (UTC).

Defacing User:Bonaparte page

Some users keep defacing the User:Bonaparte by putting the template indefblockeduser on top of it and/or blanking the content. I think the template belongs to the talk page and not up to us to modify the content of his User page. I suggest to remove the template and protect his User page while he is blocked. abakharev 00:12, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

The way at least I think is the proper way to do it is to put it on both pages (I have added it to his talk page) but not to create a new userpage if one doesn't already exist. Jtkiefer^{T</font> | C | @} ---- 00:38, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

• He is a permablocked user. So that template is useful. Radiant_>|< 00:40, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 03:00, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Page too large!

I just had an edit conflict and it turned out this page is 492 kb in size. Whoa. And that is with Cryptic's botwork to archive it when needed. Maybe we should think of a way to reduce this page size? Radiant_>|< 00:40, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

WP:AN/Deletion wars, WP:AN/Deletion wars/Wheel wars/Sjkakalle blocked Tony again, WP:AN/Snowspinner sucks, WP:AN/No he doesn't, WP:AN/Zordrac, what else do we need? - David Gerard 12:59, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Well we have a separate page for 3RR. Is there any other common incident that can be split off into it's own subpage of WP:AN? -- Francs2000 00:42, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps a "Requests for admin assistance" for the straightforward requests by non-admins here (AFD, socks, threats), and not admins seeking discussion/advice from others? Dmcdevit·t 01:05, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I vote we redirect the whole thing to /dev/null. Mackensen (talk) 00:45, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Well clearly we need to have fewer incidents. I vote that everyone just get along for the next 72 hours and it should all clear up on it own.  :-) Dragons flight 00:50, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I've made Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive65 but I can't seem to find the right template so that it shows up at the top. Mackensen (talk) 00:55, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. Mackensen (talk) 01:01, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps a seperate page for socks? (I almost started typing qwerty words while switched to a Dvorak layout. dr, 'gacby!!! — Ilyanep (Talk) 01:07, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Additional note: we're still at 203 kb :( — Ilyanep (Talk) 01:08, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Hey, that 300kb tasted pretty bad (hence the burp)! Mackensen (talk) 01:12, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

(2 ecs) I've always wondered about this - in other Wikipedias, such as nl (Dutch), they have an admin only mailing list where they can discuss matters. (Of course, they have less than 100 administrators.) Would it be possible for the developers to code a page that only administrators could view (sort of like viewing deleted pages), so that we could have two noticeboards, one for longer discussions, and another for administrator-only discussions where we could discuss things that non-admins shouldn't be seeing, or simple straightforward requests by non-admins who could post there? (One example I can think of is when several people asked Curps for his bot's algorithm, but he couldn't because the vandals could simple read it off this page.) Thoughts on this? Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:10, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, there is a way to hide pages to certain groups of users, but it involves changing the site preferences here. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 01:19, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I have some reservations about this idea--while there are legitimate uses, admin aristocracy is to be avoided. — Phil Welch Are you a fan of the band Rush? 01:33, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

NO MAILING LISTS. Discussions about the wiki or the users should always be kept on wiki. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 02:22, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Bear in mind that wikien-l has reasonably heavy traffic, and its existence isn't contentious. The idea of a closed list is not good, though. Shimgray | talk | 19:55, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I would support an administrator use only page, but i see no reason for it to be hidden. Simply making it editable only be admins should be perfectly sufficient, and thats easily accomplished by using hte current protect flags. That way legit non-admins can still watch whats going on. We dont want a "back room" around here, right? -Lanoitarus _^(talk) .:. 07:08, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Sockpuppets sounds like it could be a good way to split off some potential kilobytes. Any others? -- Francs2000 01:16, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Created. Mackensen (talk) 01:40, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Content disputes that should be posted elsewhere anyway? --GraemeL ^(talk) 01:18, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/The same old song and dance once again? -- Mackensen (talk) 01:19, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Er... I don't know about you two but I was being serious... -- Francs2000 01:25, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

So was I, to an extant. A lot of space gets taken up fighting the same issues over and over. That's really not what the page is for. And I agree that a separate sockpuppet section is a good idea, but isn't that also something the 3RR page needs? Mackensen (talk) 01:27, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

• We have a Sockpuppet board, Kelly created it last week. I think it's Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser (not to be confused with the formerly-existent board to request checkuser rights). It may be useful to split between notices about admins (e.g. "omg rouge!!!!one") and notices for admins. Or something. It would also help if we were a bit more stern in removing posts that don't belong here. Or simply have a page per day, we're pretty close to that now, anyway. Radiant_>|< 01:41, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

  Bother, and here I'd just finished fiddling with the templates. Mackensen (talk) 01:43, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

  I don't know...I like the idea of a seperate page for socks (which I ignore anyways ;)) — Ilyanep (Talk) 05:19, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

  And yet will be on my watchlist — Ilyanep (Talk) 05:20, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

• The "about admins" vs "for admins" seems to make sense to me... -Lanoitarus _^(talk) .:. 07:10, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

• I see that Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Sockpuppets was created but now redirects to Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser. But not all sock puppet issues are handled by requesting Chekuser or reporting its results, whoch is pretty much the sole purpose of the latter page. I suggest that Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Sockpuppets be un-redirected, and be the palce to reprot suspected sock activity, and to debate wheter known socks are or are not abusive, and what actions to take (blocks, and if so for how long, etc) while the requests for checkuser page stays strictly as a request for soemone with checkuser rights to act, and a palce for such people to report the results, or to give reasons for declining to act. DES ^(talk) 16:23, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
• Allow me to also sugest the creation of Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Unblock requests where requests for removal of inappropriate blocks could be posted -- idealy we could figure out a way for the msg that a blocked user gets to offer a chance to post a request on this page, as in case the blockign admin is off-line or otherwise not availabel by email. This could also be the place for people who dispute the length or propriity of a block to discuss the matter and get soem sort of geoup approval before removing or reducing a block, as has been discussed here before. DES ^(talk) 16:23, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
• I am willing to creat the above two pages, but I don't want to do that unless soem other people agree that they would be worthwhile. DES ^(talk) 16:23, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I second DES's remarks about WP:AN/SOCK. Rather than "unblock requests", it should be "complaints about admins" (or something like that) to also deal with quibbles about improper deletions or protections. However, it may in fact be more useful to merge AN and ANI together (since the distinction is far from clear) and replace that with a page per day (Wikipedia:Admin noticeboard/2006 february 19 etc), with WP:AN redirecting to the current one. This would also make archiving easy. Radiant_>|< 16:41, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
• Please take a quick look at Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard#Shape and size of AN/ANI. Radiant_>|< 23:00, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

• I vote for zen master and Gibraltarian having their own pages myself. ;-) --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 12:10, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
• Personally, I don't like the idea of a page that non-admins cannot edit, for several reasons. First, the issues are often about a non-admin and certainly that person should be able to address the issues. Second, there are long-term editors who are just as policy-savvy as some admins and making a page smaller is no valid reason for preventing an editor from commenting on an issue. Finally, I think that it would be a drastic solution with minimal effect since I don't see that many comments from non-admins. I agree that the page needs to be smaller (one of my comments was deleted yesterday after an apparent edit conflict caused another editor to cut and paste an entire section), but not at the cost of preventing non-admins from commenting. Remember, being an admin is supposed to be "no big deal". -- DS1953 ^talk 14:16, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Tony Sidaway

I have blocked Tony Sidaway for 24 hours for twice disruptivly undeleting SuperOffice. If a newbie had made this type of recreation he would almost certainly be blocked after a single warning, and I think that an admin should know better. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:27, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

For the lazy: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/SuperOffice, log, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tally (accounting), log, WP:DRV#SuperOffice - brenneman^(t)(c) 08:34, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

You, sir, have balls. I admire that, and congratulate you for finally taking action against one of Wikipedia's worst wheelwarriors. — Phil Welch Are you a fan of the band Rush? 08:31, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Alright, Doc glasgow has unblocked Tony. As long as Tony does not continue the path of unilateral undeletion I will not reblock. Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:54, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I unblocked, not because I agree with Tony (or disagreed with the block), but because Tony promised not to undelete the articles again. As blocks are preventative not punative, the block was simply unneccessary at that point. --Doc ^ask? 10:06, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Apparently "will not undelete the articles" doesn't preclude "re-writing the articles from scratch". They're both back. Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 11:27, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

While I disapprove of the undeletion (disclaimer: I "voted" to delete both articles), I don't fault Tony for recreating the articles. I view it as a good faith effort to make the articles worthy for inclusion. Johnleemk | Talk 11:29, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Both articles when deleted by R Fiend and by Sjakkalle were worthy of inclusion or had been made worthy of inclusion by me. Indeed I notice that the deleted version of SuperOffice was considerably better than the stub I created. Accordingly I'll restore the history and revert to the better version. I hope nobody is going to have hysterics over this. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:06, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, second thoughts, that could be interpreted as undeletion of the articles. Perhaps not. what a pantomime! --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:07, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

"could" be interpreted as an undeletion of the articles? How could it be interpreted any other way? Johntex\^talk 19:07, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

It will be noted that sjakkalle's accusation is false. There was no wheel warring, I was in communication with the redeleter and resolved the matter amicably. sjakkalle came along some hours later when we'd both forgotten about the thing, decided unilaterally that I was wheel warring and blocked me, and worse, deleted the two articles.

I have produced rewrites of the articles (which were both about major companies in their field). Do not lose these ones. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:41, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I will of course continue reserve and uphold the right and duty, which all administrators have, to summarily undelete good articles that are deleted through a broken process, and to exercise this at all times in the interests of the encyclopedia and against the needless and damaging pursuit of broken processes. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:45, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Nobody has the right to summarily undelete or delete anything we want to. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:47, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Well not stuff we want to, but obviously bad deletions should of course be rectified. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:02, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

if by broken processes you mean AFD then Expect to find youself in front of arbcom in extreamly short order if you follow this course.Geni 11:48, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

• Ah, it's the weekly wheel war again. Note that what Tony considers "being in communication with the redeleter" apparently consists of simply telling him to not do that again ([20]). I would point out the Admin accountability poll, where so far 35 users (including Tony) have stated that admins should be held more accountable, and 38 users have suggested that wheel warring is unacceptable, with Tony and a sockpuppet as the sole dissenters. Radiant_>|< 12:14, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

• Also unacceptable are admins protecting a page when they are in an edit-war (see above). Pots and kettles you know... --Doc ^ask? 12:20, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
• It made me laught to see Tony disagreed with "Wheel warring is an inappropriate use of admin powers" in that poll. Seriously though, when all is said and done, Tony is right, that article should not have been deleted. Martin 12:31, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Tony, I would like to know what you consider broken - the AfD process in general, how it was conducted in these two instances, and/or its outcome (i.e. deletion of the two articles)... Thx. AvB ÷ talk 12:41, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Seems to work quite well most of the time. Struck out here. Happens. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:59, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

That argument would carry more weight had these actually been taken to DRV prior and the closure been endorsed. I notice that there was ongoing discussion involving these bulk nominations, and opportunity for a measured outcome. But choosing to act in this manner, you've created disruption, and the appearance is that you've done so for that very purpose. - brenneman^(t)(c) 14:14, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't see the point in wasting time over it. Both articles were obviously keepers. My actions made both articles available to the editing processs, to the encyclopedia (in case, you know, someone actually decided they wanted to read it), and to the deletion process, if anyone wanted to try it again. r-fiend and I settled the matter of his redeletion amicably and the articles, considerably expanded in the case of the Tally one, were a credit to the encyclopedia. To describe that as disruption is wrong. Sjakkalle's good faith action, some four hours later, in blocking me for what he perceived as ongoing disruption, was wrong. At most, it could be said that my actions disrupted an ongoing wrongful action of witholding two perfectly good articles from the encyclopedia. This of course is an admirable object to strive for. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:43, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the info, Tony. FWIW, I think these deletions did not improve Wikipedia, so I guess I have to agree with you here. AvB ÷ talk 18:51, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

The "point" in "wasting time over it" is to maintain harmony with other editors. I happen to think you're in the right here, but so what? You have to deal with reality, and reality is, you're wasting far more time and effort fighting this fight than you would have spent researching and writing good articles on these subjects in your own userspace and offering them to WP:DRV as new, inclusion-worthy versions of the articles in question. Do you want to win a pissing contest, or write an encyclopedia? — Phil Welch Are you a fan of the band Rush? 18:53, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Don't we have a name for editors who always choose the path of most resistance, and then chortle over the ensuing chaos? - brenneman^(t)(c) 02:27, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't see how this applies. For one thing, Tony did not choose the path of least resistance, given the amount of resistance to this action. Secondly, if Tony did choose the path of least resistance, i.e. rewriting the article in his own userspace and offering it to DRV, chaos wouldn't ensue. Harmony would. Chaos is only ensuing because Tony's disregarding it, not because he's avoiding it. — Phil Welch Are you a fan of the band Rush? 02:33, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Um, he said path of most resistance, not least... Hermione1980 02:36, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

The problem I have here is that Tony should know better. The vote was for delete, Tony. If you had a problem with that, you could've taken it up at DR instead of acting unilaterally after deciding that the articles were "good for the encyclopedia". Sorry man, but that's not your call. It's why we have AfD and DR. It's the latest in a long line of incidents where Tony seems to ignore consensus and does his own thing without discussion. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 12:08, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

When the vfd was consensus delete, undeleting and recreating unilaterally is clear abuse of process and administrator tools. <Y>Action of this type wheel wars causes. Grave danger.</Y> No decisions like this are so urgent that it can't wait until there is consensus to have the article undeleted. Send it for review, don't wheel war. - Taxman ^Talk 18:07, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

If I may add, this sort of unilateral, disruptive behaviour causes true harm in the loss of confidence experienced by editors who spend time trying to work within and conform to a system they already know is far from perfect, but stick with anyway because of the wider benefits of creating this encyclopedia (and so on). Wyss 18:18, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

User Edbon3000

The other day, a few of us mentioned User:Edbon3000 as a Filipino user adding a lot of articles (and unnecessary categories) that need a lot of cleanup and may not be verifiable or noteworthy (and he's not responding to anything on his talk page). Update: he added a comment in Category talk:List of Filipina Actress saying he may be adding thousands of new articles. Someone may want to try to contact him in Spanish to get him on the right page before he blindly floods that area of Wikipedia with stuff that will all need to be deleted. —Wknight94 (talk) 12:18, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

AOL trolls

A troll in the AOL 152. range is being a jerk creating vandal talkpages (e.g. Talk:/PENIS!!!!!!!! TEH LOLZ!!!!!/PENIS!!!!!!!! TEH LOLZ!!!!!/PENIS!!!!!!!! TEH LOLZ!!!!!/PENIS!!!!!!!! TEH LOLZ!!!!!/PENIS!!!!!!!! TEH LOLZ!!!!!/PENIS!!!!!!!! TEH LOLZ!!!!!/PENIS!!!!!!!! TEH LOLZ!!!!!). Any possibility for a short term range block or contact of AOL to stop it? Sjakkalle (Check!) 13:11, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah well, I've range blocked the entire 152. series for 15 minutes. Sjakkalle (Check!) 13:13, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

New Catholic Alliance of Wikipedia-like vote stacking

There's an upcoming merge/delete vote on Islamofascism (term) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) proposed by BrandonYusufToropov. He among with most of the people he is contacting are members of Wikipedia:WikiProject Islam:The Muslim Guild - this is very alike to the "WikiProject Catholic Alliance of Wikipedia" that was being deleted for this kind of thing going on - it is segregation of those of a particular religion (Muslims) into a WikiProject from the main one that is open to anyone (Wikipedia:WikiProject Islam), seemingly for organizing POV edits.

I've no idea what to be done as it looks like the damage has been done now. BYT has said that "if this vote fails I'll not bring the issue up anymore" (the article's been previously voted for deletion twice and failed both) so he's calling a number of pro-Islam (most Muslims) editors to assist him in swaying the vote to assist his POV:

• BrandonYusufToropov (userpage • talk • page moves • block user • block log):

1. Calling Irishpunktom (talk) for vote stacking...
2. Calling Farhansher (talk) for vote stacking...
3. Calling Striver (talk) for vote stacking...
4. Calling Zora (talk) for vote stacking...
5. Calling Yuber (talk) for vote stacking...
6. Calling SlimVirgin (talk) for vote stacking...
7. Calling Mustaqbal (talk) for vote stacking...
8. Calling Street_Scholar (talk) for vote stacking...
9. Calling Lajjadda (talk) for vote stacking...

Examples of similar behaviour, attempts at vote stacking on Talk:Islamist terrorism#Merge

• BrandonYusufToropov:
  • Vote stacking for Talk:The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism (book)
    • Calling Irishpunktom (talk) for vote stacking...
    • Calling JuanMuslim (talk) for vote stacking...
    • Calling Anonymous_editor (talk) for vote stacking...

• Farhansher (who will doubtless be arriving soon):

1. Calling Irishpunktom (talk) for vote stacking...
2. Calling BrandonYusufToropov (talk) for vote stacking...
3. Calling FayssalF (talk) for vote stacking...
4. Calling Yuber (talk) for vote stacking...
5. Calling Zora (talk) for vote stacking...
6. Calling JuanMuslim (talk) for vote stacking...
7. Calling SlimVirgin (talk) for vote stacking...
8. Calling Anonymous_editor (talk) for vote stacking...
9. Calling Grenavitar (talk) for vote stacking...
10. Calling -Ril- (talk) for vote stacking...
11. Calling Pepsidrinka (talk) for vote stacking... --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 13:55, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

While this notification is quite bizarre coming from someone who vigorously defended other people's right to do this, I would support a 24-hour block for disruption for this. Ambi 15:24, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok, this is offtopic, but I didn't do that: I supported userboxes for personal views, but I never said I supported using them for the wrong reasons.

In fact here, unlike with the now-closed-down WikiProject Catholic Alliance of Wikipedia where userboxes were used to find those with the same religion for votestacking, userboxes were not even required in this case as the editors know which ones are of the "right" religion to contact as they're listed on the main page, and most of them know each other already.

I supported userboxes, but not abuse of userboxes: I understand that POV userboxes may produce a risk of people finding people for votestacking, but WikiProjects like this (Wikipedia:WikiProject Islam:The Muslim Guild as opposed to Wikipedia:WikiProject Islam) and groups of personal friends doing talk page vote-canvassing achieves exactly the same thing.

People do this all the censored time. Any contentious AfD, merge request, move request, RfA, whatever—anywhere there's a poll with strong opinions on either side—you'll find at least one user rallying users they think will be sympathetic to their side. Is this a good thing? No, obviously not, but singling out one person who's just the latest example of a long-running problem isn't fair either. —Charles P.  (Mirv) 15:49, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Is there any concern about inconsistency of treatment between The Muslim Guild and the Catholic Alliance? Tom Harrison ^Talk 16:01, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

None of these were brought up within the guild, nor where they part of Guild work. A Wikipedian made people aware of a vote in a subject to which they believed we would like to vote in and be aware of. Maybe this was Vote Stacking, but it has nothing to do with the Guild, and I can show you at least one member of the Arbitration Committee partaking in the very same behaviour.--Irishpunktom\^talk 16:11, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

So the closing admin on this takes stock of the arguments instead of the votes, gets bitched out on DRV, has their call reversed, it goes through a second AfD, is speedy kept/deleted, a wheel war breaks out, and the issue settles itself. We have a perfectly workable process for this. Phil Sandifer 16:08, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Why don't we just have a random number generator to handle AfD? It'll probably be just as consistent... [[Sam Korn]] 16:12, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I endorse this suggestion. Guettarda 16:20, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with informing people of things they might be inetersted in. The way to deal any unfairness is to inform more people. I do wonder why it's okay to have a Muslim Guild but not a Catholic Alliance. Tom Harrison ^Talk 16:42, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

That's misleading - this isn't about informing people to get additional input. It's about informing people to get specific input that helps the case you want to make. The intention is not to positively contribute to the discussion - it's to win at some imagined game of nomic. Phil Sandifer 16:46, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, this is easily the strangest thing I've seen this week. If I'm within a hundred yards of being blocked for disruption, could somebody please

• a) point me toward the policy that says I can't discuss articles of interest with Wikipedians of my choosing (I'll certainly obey it if it exists), and
• b) bring the same proceedings, under the same rule, against User:IronDuke, who has been engaging in precisely the same activity, regarding precisely the same article? [21], etc. BYT 19:33, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Erm..while I don't exactly think Brandon should be dong this (a note at the project talk page would be sufficent, happens rather often at WP:WHO [and others, I'm sure]), a block is not necessary, in my opionin. So, Brandon, since people obviously don't think this is a good idea, can you promise not to do it in the future (and leave a note at the project talk page, should you see fit)? Does that sound good?--Sean|Black 20:36, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, of course. This kind of message is a very common practice among many many many other users, by the way (and in the present case I do have in mind the messages of User:IronDuke [[22]). I honestly did not realize this was a breach of wiki-etiquette. I will not do it in the future. Scout's honor. BYT 21:52, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I took a day and half long wikibreak to deal with some increasing RL issues. i dropped theball here and I'm sorry. Suffice to say BYT did this in good faith, but poor judgement, and MSK seems to have ignored my request for excessive civility and shutting the hell up with accusing everyone. I was handling this, dropped the ball, but I'm back on it.--Tznkai 21:07, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Just for the record ...

[23]

[24]

[25]

[26]

[27]

[28]

[29]

BYT 00:41, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Segregation? There are plenty of non-Muslim members in the Muslim guild. This again concerns interest area, not "point of view", as I believe the Guild (of which I declare myself a member of) dedicates itself to being civil and as NPOV as possible. Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (Be eudaimonic!) 02:42, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure how to respond to the above. Let me first say that I find BYT's virtual wiki-stalking of me either very flattering or very creepy, I'm not altogether certain which. Let me also say that if urging people to vote (without a even a specific recommendation) is a violation of etiquette, then I have done so and apologize. However, after having looked at the Catholic Alliance thingie, I am not and have never been a part of any organization or cabal on WP (or anywhere else), formally or informally (unlike, I gather BYT, who is/was a member of such a cabal). The people that I contacted had all voted on the issue previously, and the vast majority of them I do not know and don't wish to know and have had no previous contact with (and not all of whom voted with me). If, even with the above caveats in mind, this is still a violation of something or other, please let me know. Ironically, the idea to do this came from BYT. I've only myself to blame. IronDuke 02:54, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Fair use violation?

The Neoconservatism page has recently been undergoing an edit dispute in which I believe there is a fair use violation. User:Jacrosse repeatedly inserts a very substantial block of text from an article by a Mr. Raimondo under the heading "Left-wing roots of Neoconservative organizations?". Reading the fair use page, it seems quite clear that such a large unparaphrased excerpt goes well beyond the limits of fair use. Unfortunately, I have been unsuccessful in my attempts to get the user participating on the talk page, and to get the user to understand why violation of fair use opens Wikipedia up to legal liability. Protecting the page does no good, as once the protection was removed, the fair use violation content was immediately re-inserted by Jacrosse. I would very much appreciate the help of other administrators in resolving this fair use incident. —thames 14:42, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

• I would agree that three paragraphs goes well beyond any concievable bounds of fair use. -Lanoitarus _^(talk) .:. 17:25, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
  • It would be a conflict of interest for me to protect the page or block him from editing. Can you, or another editor, discuss the problem with Jacrosse? —thames 18:43, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I can't specifically say if it violates fair use laws since, I've seen many scholarly articles quote things that seemed about that long... but, I can say that it's a bad idea for any encyclopedia to be making quotes that long. gren グレン ^? 21:03, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Any help would be appreciated.—thames 22:08, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and once again removed the copyright violation material with a notice to see Wikipedia:Copyright#Using_copyrighted_work_from_others, and yet another request to paraphrase/rewrite the material before being re-inserted into the article. If User:Jacrosse re-inserts the copyvio material once again, I think a temporary banning might be in order, as per Wikipedia:Blocking_policy#Copyright_infringement_and_plagiarism. Does that sound reasonable, given the number of times the user has been warned? —thames 14:49, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Jacrosse re-inserted the copyvio material, without an edit summary or note on the talk page. It wasn't rewritten or paraphrased, and there's no indication that he obtained the author's permission. I've left a note on his talk page. If I don't receive a satisfactory response, I'd like to proceed with the temporary block.—thames 18:03, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and blocked User:Jacrosse for 24 hours after he re-inserted the copyvio material, and reverted another user's compromise edit to restore the copyvio material a second time after being warned. See User_talk:Jacrosse#Blocked. —thames 21:51, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

IanDavies

Repeated incivility, personal attacks, accusations of "bullying" see User talk:IanDavies, sections LSHTM and Personal attacks. "Personal attacks" is only available through History now, as he's removed it with the summary "revert bullying by small dog" - I guess we have Benapgar to thank for the new trend in referring anything an Admin does that you don't like as "bullying", although I fail to see how 4 diffs of his posts is bullying. There's a good bit more, but basically I would like a non-involved admin to take a look and see if anything can be done. He's not happy about the sources for an article, started an edit war, I was pulled in and stated they look fine to me and to stop the edit war. He has given no specifics on content he feels may be inaccurate, although he has been asked repeatedly to do so. I suggested if he still had an issue, to try WP:DR or put it on Article Rfc. He seems to have confused Article Rfc with User Rfc, and taken that as a "threat". He also directly implied the other editor of the page is a "spotty little network zit". If someone would explain to him the difference between article Rfc and user Rfc, and between personal attacks and rants about Admins, I would be grateful. It may be helpful to also view his contribs to my page, the article talk page, and the page of User:Lshtm as well. A mention of WP:CIVIL might help. KillerChihuahua^?!? 15:45, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't have time to look at the context but how is "cease" a personal attack? Secretlondon 15:47, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

It isn't, that's the point. KillerChihuahua^?!? 15:48, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Bethefawn

Could someone else please take a look at Bethefawn (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and help figure what to do with him? I don't see any indication he's other than pure trouble. From what he's posted on his talk page, a total block might be the best idea. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 17:38, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

• This person just emailed me this:

You will blank my user page (or replace the information contained within it) immediately, or face the very serious consequences. You have illegally barred me from removing personal information from the internet. I am very concerned that vicious people will commit hate crimes against me for my sexual preferences, and I certainly don't want to give them a helping hand in finding where I live. REMOVE THE INFORMATION.

This is a very peculiar case. This editor came to my attention when, for some reason or another, he cast a vote for me in the ArbCom election; I noticed he didn't have suffrage and called it to his attention. I was the only vote he cast. Weird. And making threats (see the talk page history) while also giving his real name on his user page: also weird. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 18:15, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I came here to say that I've blocked Bethefawn indefinitely for trolling, encyclopedic uselessness, and threats, please see both her/his userpage histories and also anon edits from 128.223.208.70 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). Feel free to watch my pages for vandalism. Bishonen | talk 18:17, 18 January 2006 (UTC).

I've deleted the personal info.[30] Bishonen | talk 18:21, 18 January 2006 (UTC).

Good. He continued with another lovely missive: Fix the problem. Or I devote 15 minutes a day to making you unhappy, for the rest of your life. I didn't want to make anyone have to work so hard trying to get themselves arrested. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 18:42, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

UK Internet for Learning

I finally got a response to my email asking that they do something about the continual vandalism from their IP. Although I had included links in my initial email, the response was, "Please could you forward all details regarding each of the vandalism attempts. On receipt of this, the matter will be given our fullest attention." I have responded with several links to contribution pages and to discussions on this page concerning the vandalism from ifl. User:Zoe|^(talk) 19:18, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks very much! Demi ^T/_C 20:33, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Roitr and puppets blocked indefinitely

I've blocked User:Roitr and User:Tt1 indefinitely for consistent edit warring and 3RR violations, as these accounts as well as anonymous accounts on Comparative military ranks of World War II and Ranks and insignia of the Schutzstaffel. User:Tt1 violated 3RR as an anonymous user (IPs were blocked by User:Voice of All) and I initially blocked that account for 24 hours for being the puppetmaster. He then returned as User:Roitr to evade the block and I immediately applied the smackdown and blocked both indefinitely. Not sure if any other puppets are in the wings. Comparative military ranks of World War II was sprotected and I'm considering upgrading to full protection as well as protecting Ranks and insignia of the Schutzstaffel. howcheng {chat} 19:44, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Maoririder, yet again

Maoririder (talk · contribs), who ostensibly "lost his password" some time ago, has apparently created a new account: LEAVEMETHEHELLALONEDAVID (talk · contribs). I've no idea of Maori's status, whether he's blocked, on probation, under mentorship, doing community service, or whathaveyou, but this is an inappropriate username, at the very least. android79 20:23, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Note also FragileFrigateBird (talk · contribs). Shimgray | talk | 21:08, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Threatened with blocking and repeated deletion of talk page comments

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Islamofascism_(term)?diff=35723869&oldid=35723493

User talk:Mistress Selina Kyle#Civility on Talk:Islamofascism --70.86.34.194 21:24, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Mistress Selina Kyle

I've blocked her for disruptions and personal attacks. Will give evidence in a moment, but I'd like this in public before I get accused of impropriety--Tznkai 21:26, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Sigh. Katefan0^(scribble)/mrp 21:28, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Home honey, I'm hi! El_C 00:24, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Evidence

• Aggreement to avoid personal attacks, commentary, etc, and to their removal [31]
• First occurance of an accusation This was removed assuming unwise but good faith edits. [32]
• Continuation but distinctly more personal incidence ofthe first [33]
• First [34] restoration of comments
• My warning[35]
• Second restoration [36], this may have occured before she could see the warning but
• Third edit and accusation[37], this occured after she had opportunity to see her warning.

--Tznkai 21:38, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Related

• Wikipedia:Administrators noticeboard/Incidents#New_Catholic_Alliance_of_Wikipedia-like_vote_stacking
• Talk:Islamofascism

Discussion

I'm not surprised.--Sean|Black 21:40, 18 January

I entered into the conflict on Islamofascism after seeing an incident on WP:AN/I where MSK complained about a supposed consnesnus. I came in, set up ground rules, and demanded they were followed. They were also agreed to. I unfortuantly, had a bit of RL life come up and hit me upside the head, and I looked away for abit. For that I appologize. This may or may not have effected my judgemnt, so I submit this for full disclosure.--Tznkai 21:43, 18 January 2006 (UTC) 2006 (UTC)

I think I may extend my block as MSK's response [38] is less than hopefull--Tznkai 21:46, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. This is the sort of response that leaves me going "*facepalm*". MSK doesn't seem to be a troll as such, but she is presently way too hotheaded - David Gerard 22:45, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I think you went a bit over the top. I wish MSK wouldn't SHOUT so much, but I can't see much evidence of policy breach on her part. Could all users brave enough to be involved in this dispute please remember WP:POINT. Physchim62 (talk) 22:36, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

agree with Physchim62. I'm not sure about the block.--Alhutch 22:43, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

My concern here is, ignoring for a moment using policy rubrics, she's poisoined the well, and disrupted the project. She could easly have stated that "I do not think this voting procedure is legitimate" or "I disagree.". The point of policy is to protect the project from disruption. This was clearly irellivant and she was unwilling to stop using the discussion page to discuss editors. That to me is a violation of WP:NOT (Wikipedia is not a discussion board, WP:CIV states that any kind of rudeness (and poisoning the well is very rude) isn't acceptable. WP:NPA not only says repeated accusations (religious bias and vote stacking) is bad, it noticibly doesn't give a damn about the truth value of the accsations. In fact it states that you should "Comment on content, not on the contributor". Not only this but she had already agreeed to the removal of such comments.--Tznkai 22:46, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

All the same, I can't see that your action here has lowered the temperature at all; more the opposite as far as MSK is concerned! I came accross this on WP:AN, and I find it somewhat ironic that malber (talk · contribs) should complain about MSK shortly after removing a warning about NPA from his/her own talk page... sorry, that is attacking the editor, not the content... Physchim62 (talk) 22:53, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

We're here to discuss editor action, this isn't an article's talk page. I don't know about malber's complaints, and I don't relaly care all that much to be honest. Blocking MSK certainly improved the tone of the discussion on Talk:Islamofascism and She's got a whole 24 hours to calm down. In the meantime, the discussion can procede without her parciular brand of disrpution, and a pleasant side effect of any other conflicts she was involved in have a more time for calm thought.--Tznkai 22:58, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

As an outsider, it seems MSK is perpetually breaking the fundamental policy of Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia. Users who help the encyclopaedia more than they disrupt it - we want (and with the minimum of disruption, of course:) ); users who cause more disruption than good they do, we do not want. Full stop. Whatever the reason for this is irrelevant - and I'm afraid that from what I've seen it's clear that MSK is in the latter category of users, jguk 23:10, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I wish the notice would include mention of which diff is alleged to violate which policy. It seems that the second diff presented in the evidence is what started the process of blankings and warnings that led to a block. In the second diff, MSK posted, "Void, this section started by BYT to attempt to bypass consensus (especially regarding the vote stacking made by him for getting a false consensus): As you were already told by the admin here previously, get it listed on Articles for Deletion or Articles for Merging.. You already know about this yet you seem to be trying to ignore it.." (italics mine) I fail to see how this merited removal from the Talk page in the first place. Please enlighten me? Johntex\^talk 02:54, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

One, It was incorrect. Two, it was a direct personal comment to BYT. Three, said comment was poisoning the well, something she was explicitly told and agreed not to do. Four, I did not remove that specificly, I removed both the second and third pullet points at once. I was not super concerned with the first, but them together I was dissapointed with. I assumed at first the first comment was irksome but made in good faith. Successive edits proved that this was a going to be a problem.--Tznkai 03:35, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

"pullet points" Are those like McNuggets? FeloniousMonk 04:05, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Hello Tznkai, thanks for your explanation. I must say however, that I still don't understand what made it OK to remove this post. You say it was incorrect - but factual disputes are not a justification for removal. Neither is making a "personal comment", unless you are alleging it constituted a "personal attack". I see no record MSK agreed not to make personal comments, the diff you provided above about here agreement seems to me to be in regard to conduct on a RfC, if one was to be opened on the limited question of whether to merge the article. And finally, it seems to me from this diff that you did remove this bullet by itself, before the second and third bullet points even existed. Since the second and third bullet points had not even been made yet, it seems that they are irrelevant in justifying the removal of the first bullet point. Unless I am still missing something, it seems to me that their is nothing in this first bullet point by MSK that violated any agreement that she made, that constitutes a personal attack, or that in any other way merits removal from the Talk page. While I certainly disagree with a lot of MSK's behaviour, I don't think we help things by what I will characterize as an over-reation to her first bullet point. Johntex\^talk 17:15, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Its a fuzzy logic situation. No one thing is enough to put me at the point of blocking here, its my feeling that the collection of all of these actions showed her unwillingness to remain cooperative, civil, and productive. Remember, article RfCs take place on the article's talk page. It does seem you are correct that I removed it seperatly, and that is a fault of my memory. I do maintain however that the message was innappropriate, if not a blockable offense on its own. Article talk pages are no place for accusations against single editors. There was a clear violation of good faith. " You already know about this yet you seem to be trying to ignore it" and " Void, this section started by BYT to attempt to bypass consensus (especially regarding the vote stacking made by him for getting a false consensus):" combined with the bad faith of the previous sentance suggested a personal attack. " WP:NPA lists that accusitory comments, especially those made in bad faith (also see WP:CIV, WP:AGF are innapropriate. They certainly no place on a user page. I made it very clear I had no patience for such comments, and I used my discretion. The edits were never deleted, they were moved to history. They never should have been made in the first place. MSK had several opportunities, and was invited and then demanded to replace them with civil productive discourse. She chose not to, and instead stand up and down screaming about her right to be nasty. Fuzzy logic kicks in and says that she needs a break from wikipedia, and wikipedia needs a break from her.--Tznkai 17:59, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I may have used the term fuzzy logic here incorrectly. I meant that there is no one thing that merits blocking, but the collection of them all does.--Tznkai 18:02, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

If you are going to be placing blocks without any specific policy basis you don't want to first be removing the user's vote, editing their talk page comments, threatening them, et cetera. Once you find yourself taking debatable actions (and removing someone's vote should always be 'debatable') you're going to want someone else to do any blocking which might be required. As to 'accusatory comments'... I didn't see similarly aggressive actions being taken towards the 'sock-puppetry' accusations being levelled at MSK by BYT there. At that, once you stretch the policies that far... haven't you made more than a few 'accusatory comments' yourself here? --CBD _☎ ^✉ 00:54, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with what CBD said. I don't find her comments about the motives of another user particularly wonderful, but I also don't find your response to it particularly well thought out either. You shouldn't remove her comment, that's a contentious and controversial action. If you disagree with the factual accuracy of her comment, then refute it with the truth, but don't remove it. To her that's just going to look like you're trying to censor her, which is ver upsetting. I don't think her comment about BYT was a personal attack, but it also wasn't neccessarily conducive to the discussion. On her part, I find it's best to provide a diff or something with the relevant quote if you're going to assert that another user feels a certain way. Either way, I don't think blocking was the way to go here. Ëvilphoenix ^Burn! 03:43, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

As for removing comments, I know I'm in a minority here, but I do that under the auspices of adminstrative and editorial discrestion, as suggested by WP:RPA. Furthermore, those comments should not exist because wikipedia is not a message board, it is not a battle ground, it is not a sniping area, it is an enyclopedia. The fact that we have all agreed to is that MSK's comments were determinental to the discussion, and to the construction and development of the encylopedia (see WP:NOT, WP:CIV and for kicks, WP:IAR).

Furthemore, MSK had several avenues open to her. My talk page, AN/I, AN, RfC, getting her favorite adminstrator to intervene, etc. Comments directed at a user's conduct belong on AN, AN/I, AN/3RR, RfC, RfAr, and user talk pages. That is, as far as I recall, the conclusive and exhaustive list. There is no policy that even suggests that MSK has the right to poison the well, disrupt civil discussion, or accuse BYT of sockpuppetry and vote stacking on the article talk page. She was invited explicitly to restate her objection in any number of ways. She chose not to.

Finally, and perhaps most tellingly, when warned of a block, she decided to flout it. Instead of going here on AN/I, responding on my talk page, or other dispute resolution processes, she decided continue adding off topic comments on the article talk page. These were never censored as they remain in the talk page history, and I even left a link to my removal of them. She had many options, and she chose uncivil disruption.--Tznkai 04:08, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

1. - The "sockpuppet accusations" thing: For a start, that was in a completely different conversation that took place several days before (the 16th) you started vandalizing the talk page by deleting other peoples' comments and so had nothing to do with this at all. Secondly, See 24.34.154.167 (talk · contribs) - I placed the notice on the pages after finding this out, at the time both the IP's user and talk pages were redlinks and it wasn't clear at all that it was BYT editing anonymously. What happened was after BYT talked about moving the page he used the anonymous IP to make the changes and as the message about it being him on Talk:Islamofascism (term) didn't appear until a few minutes after his anonymous changes and it looked like he was trying to hide the fact that it was him. Digging deeper and looking at the contributions (it seems he's used the IP quite a few times in the past, while not letting anyone know it's him), it was clear it was him, but it was very suspicious behaviour.
2. - Comments were "detrimental to the development of an encyclopedia"? This is POV-pushing. Drawing attention to vote-stacking is not "detrimental", and actually helps avoid the complete bias of consenus that BYT was aiming to achieve by mass-spamming talk pages of Muslim editors to 'come help us on this vote'. In fact, admin Demi did very much the same in a TfD discussion: [39] and similar to you, I deleted it as I thought it was irrelevant to the discussion at the time: I was then reverted and blocked for "deleting other peoples' comments". It's sickening, the double-standards here.
3. "Warned of a block" - The fact is that you had no authority to block me as I did not do anything blockworthy/against policy. I did not make personal attacks, I was perfectly civil, all I did was bring attention to the fact that very dubious behaviour was going on with regards to the vote.
4. "These were never censored as they remain in the talk page history, and I even left a link to my removal of them." - The fact remains that you deleted them and so they disappeared from the page. That's censoring comments. The fact that they were in the history is irrelevant: When people read comments they look at the current version, not every change in the edit history. Also, it seems you're trying to fudge the facts here: You only left a link to my deleted comments a few minutes AFTER the third deletion of my vote and comment[40], so you can hardly claim that I was making "disruption": The fact is before you had blocked me you repeatedly deleted my comments and did not make any link to them, censoring any message you didn't agree with from the talk page.
5. There was no way linking to the administrators' noticeboard about a real thing going on - the diffs made it a fact not an "accusation" - is a "personal attack" and so would qualify under WP:RPA, but even then you still kept deleting anything I said, even after I made it clear to you that I didn't want you to keep deleting my comments.[41] --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 12:06, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I first arrived on the dispute after seeing your notice on WP:AN (or was it AN/I?), and subsequent complaints. I told you then to cool down and take it easy. You had been throwing around bad faith accusations and vitrol from the moment I was aware of the dispute forward. Immediatly after I came there, I protected the article, asked what was going on, and set up ground rules. Ground rules you eventually agreed to. Furthermore, my actions are well supported by the simple fact that policy dictates that this is an enyclopedia. There is no free speech, there is no right to poison the well, there is no right to link to AN/I on article talk pages on something that isn't relivant/ is accusatory. Article talk pages are for discussing the article. Occasionally, it can be used for frequent editors on that page to slap each other on the back. These are things that foster good relations and a better encylopedia. Mean nasty, spite comments, accusations of vote statckin and the like do not.

I removed no comments before I was aware of the article. I set the ground rules from the time I was adjucating the dispute to the time forward. You don't like it, call for mediation, RFC, another admin, etc. These were all great outs. In fact however, you agreed to it.

Starting from the top then: 1. User conduct including sockpuppetry has certain channels. None of them are article talk pages.

2. You are making an assumptions on someone else's character, one that you hold and I've yet to see compelling consensus or evidence for. (see, the nice thing here, is if other people think so, I get overuled. Other people include people who aren't you. Other admins, experianed wikipedians, and people who don't care about islam realted articles are preferable). Also, this is not a votes for deletion. I have no idea what Demi did or didn't do other than Demi has not said a word on the relevant talk page. Very little of what you did here was constructive, as I have pointed out time and time again, and so have other editors on this subject.

3. You accused an editor of compromised integrity. Furthermore you linked it to religious bais. Furthermore you dragged in another admin's words that were only slightly relelvant. Then you used an article's talk page to poison the well and advertise a section on AN/I. To quote the blocking policy "Sysops may, at their judgement, block IP addresses or usernames that disrupt the normal functioning of Wikipedia.". I believe strongly that no matter what we argue about the specific wordking of WP:RPA WP:NPA WP:NOT and WP:CIV, this block falls well within my discretion and judgement that you were disrupting wikipedia, and you would continue to do so in increasingly dsiruptive ways without a cooldown period. Again, we must remind ourselves that you had several avenues of response, instead you escalated on the article talk page. You in fact did bring the block upon yourself, as you had lots of avenues to prevent it from happening, including complaining to a sympathetic adminstrator. There are a few around who are more than willing to overrule me, or better yet, talk to me politely.

4. You misunderstand. Syops have the technical ability to completely remove edits from history, or so I've been lead to believe. I removed the comments with a polite note for you to refactor them. I even left the convient little oppose vote. I signed that I was refactoring them. If people give a damn about what you said, they are welcome to look. It wasn't until you couldn't refactor that I linked the removed comments. This is true. I always gave you plenty of opportunity to improve instead of revert.

5. Poisoning the well! The AN/I section was your reporting. It was about user conduct. Just because it happened to be here on AN/I doesn't mean it was legitimate to insert into any conversation, let alone an article talk page. Personal attacks may infact be true. This does not mean they are constructive or helpful on article talk pages in any way. don't do them. If you want to say the vote shouldn't be carred out, say. "I don't think the vote should be carried out because there has been advertising on this vote." You don't even have to say who. People will ask, you can respond, nicely. In the meantime you leave a polite note on the relevant editor's talk page and say. "Please don't do this, its considered bad wikkiquette". As you see above BYT did not know, and has been informed. WP:AGF isn't policy, but its still a good idea as a way to make sure you follow basic CIV and EQ.

Lets review. You made accusations assuming bad faith. You singled out a single editor. You used an article talk page. You had several opportunities to refactor your comments. You agreed to avoid personal commentary (article RfCs take place on talk pages so you don't get any wiggle room here), including a specific warning against poisoning the well. You discarded several better avenues (User talk, AN, AN/I, IRC, E-mail, etc.) to discuss my actions and my block warning. Your opposition vote was based solely on accusations of vote stacking, or atleast thats all you wrote. You had several better ways of saying this (as outlined above). You have disrupted wikipedia based both fair readings of the letter of WP:NPA WP:CIV and WP:NOT, and while those are disputable, (as other admins have above) the spirit of the three supports my reading nicley. WP:BP states that "Sysops may, at their judgement, block IP addresses or usernames that disrupt the normal functioning of Wikipedia.". Finally, Wikipedia is an enyclopedia, and a sysop's job is to protect that enyclopedia. There is no doubt in my mind that you were making the discussion increasingly worse, as I outlined above.--Tznkai 17:20, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Sockpuppets

Tiksustoo, Autumnleaf, Robsmommy, Grroin, Aloodum, and Aboutoxfordstudent are all sockpuppets. And took part in the first Aladin AFD. User: Jayjg reported on it on User: Peter_S.' talk page. I thought I'd let you know. I feel a bit used and conneed but I still feel that current article has factual info backed up by reference. Whether that info warrants an article remains to be seen. Whatever happens, please block the sockpuppets. Cheers. Englishrose 23:58, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Hey, weren't you the one calling people delusional paranoids for pointing that out in the first place? Looks like you owe several editors apologies... DreamGuy 03:44, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Erm...you were claiming that around 20 people were sockpuppets. There's a massive difference between 6 and 20. I think your the one who owes people apologies, all those you acussed of being sockpuppets (including me) that clearly weren't. Englishrose 12:59, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Condemned(band)

This user appears to be a sock of User:Led-zep and seems to have been created in an attempt to get around the deletion of the Condemned(band) articel. No contrivuutions ahve as yet been made, and if it really were for the band per se it would fall undewr the rule against shared accounts. Background can be found under User talk:Led-zep and my talk page, and the deleion histroy of Condemned(band). As this user does not seem to be reactign well to my comments, perahsp someone else can expalin matters to him. Should this user page be deleted, and/or this user blocked? I have done neither. DES ^(talk) 00:20, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

User_talk:Condemned(band) should be deleted, in my opinion, because we're not a web hosting service. -- SCZenz 00:51, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Posting personal information about a user

Hi, I'm an editor on the Shiloh Shepherd Dog site. This is my first experience with Wiki. This is currently an article in dispute. My signature is a "pen name" - MilesD. Following one of my posts a post was made with the following remark:

[snip] or whoever you are, you should read Ms. Barber's replies on the Shiloh Community Forums. Boy, does she have a big one ready for you! 70.35.67.56 03:33, 7 January 2006 (UTC)Aslan

No where on Wiki is the name [snip] mentioned, as this is a private name I do not wish to share. Apparently, poster "Aslan" tracked my IP address on Wiki to another outside e-group I belong to (where I use my name) and then posted it on Wiki.

Can an administrator do something to help stop this person from posting my personal information and threatening me? Also, I think this "Aslan" may be a sock puppet for user Tina Barber or possibly TrillHill as this has been done before with another user, when Tina Barber contacted his supervisor to advise he had posted from his work pc to Wiki.

Any help you can provide is most appreciated. Thank you very much. 69.173.135.114 03:18, 19 January 2006 (UTC) MilesD.

Names snipped by -Will Beback 04:14, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

You wouldn't have this problem if you registered an account since it would hide your IP address. As to what you can do now I have no idea. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 21:53, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

@Jtkiefer: This user has an account, User:MilesD..

@MilesD.: I have searched the talk page and its archives for the comment, but I can't find it. Could you provide a link to the edit, so that it can be deleted and the user warned?

Aecis ^{Mr. Mojo risin'} 11:13, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism of Talk:Japan

Someone just dumped 9,360,681 bytes of data into the Japan talk page. Since I can't think of a rant about Japan that would fill 9MB of text, I think it is same to assume it was vandalism. The problem is that I cannot revert the change, when I attempt to access the talk page I receive the following error:

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 52428800 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 10597086 bytes) in

/usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/Parser.php on line '301

Please forward this along to a developer or someone who can resolve this problem if WP:ANI is not the appropriate place to report this. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 04:48, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

• The page has been corrected by Malo and the offending IP address has been blocked. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 04:51, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

  There are over 127 million people in Japan. If you devoted three words to complaining about each of them individually, you would have 1.78 gigabytes of text ranting about Japan. (It must be stated that such an accomplishment would probably be greater than Wikipedia, since compiling even cursory complaints about each individual in Japan would undoubtedly be very difficult.) — Phil Welch Are you a fan of the band Rush? 04:55, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

  LOL. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 04:57, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

• I caught a vandal doing the same thing to France about a week ago (overflowing the server with excessively long text). Isn't there something that can be done on the server side to truncate these overflows? Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 06:22, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Several hundred KB is the largest a page should ever get IMO. Is there a reason why a limit to page size cannot be set? — TheKMan^talk 08:41, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Because size limitations are a global variable... to limit posts to 300k for example would limit image upload size to 300k as well.  ALKIVAR™ 18:56, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
      • Oh, so there isn't a way to differentiate between media and text namespaces. Is Crotalus horridus' idea the only possibility to prevent such errors? — TheKMan^talk 19:25, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Harassment by User:PatCheng and his anonymous IPs

It would be a good idea as a preface to this posting to mention that there was a previous incident which involved both myself and this user, who has made a habit of vandalizing and egregiously insulting other users. My first contact with him was when he vandalized my user page. He followed me around various articles I would edit, as you can see if you glance through my edit histories (mostly during September) as well as the following:

• 211.30.205.254 - Look at early September.
• 202.147.110.6
• 203.222.154.162
• 211.30.215.91

He has edited a wide variety of articles (video games, sci-fi, and so forth) but the contentious lies in political-related topics, including the pages of Vietnam War, Fidel Castro, National Endowment for Democracy, Anti-Chinese sentiment, Americofascism, Anti-communism, Cult of personality, The Epoch Times, and so on. I was in some cases involved in prior or ongoing disputes with other editors, who actually attempted to resolve a specific issue rather than simply follow around my contributions and undo them. He would add on reverts to the pile of others in an attempt to compound my problems. It came to the point where I was having to revert a set of a dozen articles once a day or more, simply because of this one user.

Regrettably, Rama decided that I was being "disruptive" in not having properly discussed my issues with this user pertaining to one particular article ("Anti-Chinese sentiment") and blocked me for 24 hours (though the block remained for longer). I posted a defense of my actions (mentioned at the top) on ANI to (largely) deafening silence. While I had accumulated a couple thousand edits by this point, the fetishization of ritual Wikipedian processes made it so that editing with what little time I had was fruitless as any small point of contention (literally including a change of one word) could lead to weeks' worth of involvement which I could not spare. And in the midst of this there are administrators who choose to moderate the worthiness of editors' individual content disputes, further frustrating meaningful involvement by any but the most time-possessive and fiercely determined editors.

I decided to dabble a little bit in Wikipedia again on New Year's Day, moving an article in which the name itself featured in a previous dispute. I made a small number of minor edits in the coming days, including at Peekskill Riots, which was changed in a few hours. On the 10th of January I reverted this change and edited four separate articles: Raúl Rivero, National Endowment for Democracy, Opposition to Fidel Castro, and Alpha 66. Within a period of four minutes, this user made the following (consecutive) edits:

• 02:58, January 12, 2006 (hist) (diff) Peekskill Riots
• 02:58, January 12, 2006 (hist) (diff) Raúl Rivero (NPOV)
• 02:55, January 12, 2006 (hist) (diff) National Endowment for Democracy
• 02:54, January 12, 2006 (hist) (diff) Alpha 66 [42]

Another seven minutes later came this move of "No Gun Ri incident" to "No Gun Ri massacre" from "PatCheng". PatCheng's first two edits were complaints to Evilphoenix and Rama about me on November 1. Other than three reverts the account lay dormant until January, where on the first he trolled a talk page pertaining to a talk show. Next was this 3:05 revert move on No Gun Ri.

• 03:05, January 12, 2006 (hist) (diff) m No Gun Ri incident (moved No Gun Ri incident to No Gun Ri massacre)
• 23:10, January 1, 2006 (hist) (diff) Talk:The Apprentice 4
• 23:56, November 2, 2005 (hist) (diff) m Human rights in Cuba
• 23:55, November 2, 2005 (hist) (diff) Fidel Castro (NPOV)
• 22:33, November 1, 2005 (hist) (diff) Fidel Castro (TDC, please don't remove sections and blackwash the contents)
• 02:02, November 1, 2005 (hist) (diff) User talk:Rama
• 01:58, November 1, 2005 (hist) (diff) User talk:Evilphoenix

I now have to defend my edits on such articles as Lucheng, Islam Karimov, and Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front. In two of these cases I changed only one word. [43] [44]

The "No Gun Ri incident/massacre" title dispute was resolved with other editors and with no input from this user. Although he saw fit to edit this page with his anon IPs once it was merged back into No Gun Ri, when I moved a related article, "Robert Bateman (American)", to "Robert Bateman (historian)" and changed "Robert Bateman" to reflect this, "PatCheng" was the one who decided to edit Robert Bateman-related pages. [45].

These occurrences often give to other editors the impression that a bizarre edit war is being waged over a trivial issue. This was the case with National Endowment for Democracy. User:Macho had this to say in his edit:

this edit war is silly

I responded thusly on his talk page:

Every edit war that this particular anon decided to engage in (practically anything I edit) is silly. I don't make it a habit of attempting to justify myself in detail, routinely, and repeatedly, to a "wikistalker".

The anon chimed in with the following:

You can STFU TJive. I simply chose to clean up your messy pro-American propaganda, and will continue to do so.

This user apparently has appointed himself parole officer and cleanser of my foul edits. I must answer to him in any and every case. This has culminated in constant and systematic reverts you could almost set your watch to, which continue to this day:

• 02:21, January 19, 2006 (hist) (diff) Peekskill Riots
• 02:20, January 19, 2006 (hist) (diff) Islam Karimov (top)
• 02:19, January 19, 2006 (hist) (diff) Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (top)
• 02:18, January 19, 2006 (hist) (diff) Lucheng (top)
• 01:49, January 19, 2006 (hist) (diff) No Gun Ri (rv vandalism)
• 01:48, January 19, 2006 (hist) (diff) Peekskill Riots
• 01:46, January 19, 2006 (hist) (diff) Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front
• 01:41, January 19, 2006 (hist) (diff) Islam Karimov
• 01:38, January 19, 2006 (hist) (diff) Lucheng [46] --TJive 07:22, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

In a possibly-related matter, I had previously added User:PatCheng to Wikipedia:Requests for CheckUser #CantStandYa (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log). I think the chance of it being one of that editor's sock is slim, but there was some activity which made me wonder. -Will Beback 08:10, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

He skulked around until he could avoid the boundaries of 3RR and reverted them once again. [47] [48] [49] Now apparently he plans to game the system every night, since every time I initiate reverts I will be one down. --TJive 10:09, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Now he has deleted comments of mine on a talk page. --TJive 05:08, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Request some page move help

User:ManiacK just went on a page move spree, wasnt vandalism (just wrong), I've got to sign off now, could someone start moving it all back. Martin 10:55, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Fixed now. Martin 12:05, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

user:66.225.168.39

66.225.168.39 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Please consider blocking this IP. Is vandalizing WP pages. Has been warned without success. --Adrian Buehlmann 11:16, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Only has 4 contributions, last edit 06.24 UTC. Your request comes 5 hours later. Also has only received second level warning. Secretlondon 11:34, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Libellous edit on Bertie Ahern

Can someone delete this blatantly libellous edit from the article history? I've already reverted it and warned the user in question. Thanks. Demiurge 14:28, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

done  ALKIVAR™ 19:03, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Indefinite block of 142.150.160.0/24 - Dicky Robert vandal

I've indefinitely blocked 142.150.160.0/24 (a range at the University of Toronto) to block the Dicky Robert vandal. UofT Computer Security Administration has advised me that this is an "area of the University where user authentication is not required". They are continuing to investigate, but a CheckUser of this range (thanks for that feature, Brion) shows basically nothing but DickyRobert vandalism; we lose little by blocking it. And it's better than blocking 142.150.0.0/16 like we did earlier. :) Kelly Martin (talk) 15:40, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I've now unblocked based on communications with UofT Computer Security Administration. Please report any inappropriate activity to me directly. Kelly Martin (talk) 18:17, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Blocking LivesinSupercunt'sAttic

LivesinSupercunt'sAttic (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) says right there on the user page that the account was created for vandalsim, I've just speedied Supercunt king which certainly fits the bill. Quite likely a sock of LivesinMom'sBasement (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (created Supercunt but given the offensiuve username it is probably not worth the effort of finding out. Indef blocked (my first!) please let me know if that was right or wrong. Oh, somsoen else did the same at about the same time! Looks like it was OK then. Comments welcome anyway. - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 15:33, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, good blocks. [[Sam Korn]] 15:34, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Another sockpuppet of User:Zephram Stark

Zephram Stark (talk · contribs) is back again, this time as Peace Inside (talk · contribs). See the previous sockpuppets here. Peace Inside registered less than a day after the previous incarnation (Pandora Rodriguez (talk · contribs)) was blocked and has all of Zephram's calling cards (accusation of admin abuse, despotism, long diatribes). Also, made a joke [50] about recognizing User:MONGO, who Zephram interacted with as another of his sockpuppets, Peter McConaughey (talk · contribs). He's been stalking my edits and generally making a nuisance of himself. I requested a CheckUser about two days ago, but there's a sizable backlog at Wikipedia:Requests for CheckUser. FWIW, I've never had a false positive in identifying Zephram's sockpuppets. Any objections to blocking this sockpuppet?

Pssst... what about Rudolf_Nixon (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)? --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 17:37, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I was considering waiting until Zephram jumped to the Rudolf Nixon account after Peace Inside is blocked, but sure, I have no problem with blocking both sockpuppets at the same time. Although there's only a few edits from Rudolf Nixon, I've no doubt that he was created as a "backup" sockpuppet. Carbonite | Talk 17:41, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I can't see how this isn't Zephram. Block away, Carbonite. [[Sam Korn]] 17:43, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

This edit of his really made me laugh. There is little doubt in my mind. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 17:44, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, both have been blocked. I imagine it will be a few days before the next one is identified. Some people... ;) Carbonite | Talk 17:55, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

IAAL

I've just blocked IAAL (talk · contribs) because of his edits to Tron (hacker). This guy has also been causing problems over at de. related to the court case they are going through at the moment. His listing of de. admins as "responsible for damages" is a problem, and his additions to the article seem pure trouble-making. I'm told that he is not a lawyer, and has also been sending abusive emails to admins involved in this matter. I've got to run off-line now, but would welcome review. Please also see his talk page for my message to him. -- sannse (talk) 17:56, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Knew this was coming... doesnt surprise me in the least, he's apparently been a pest over on the de wiki as well.  ALKIVAR™ 19:10, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Is that a permanent block...? if not, please? He only came here to make legal threats, trick naive admins into following along without due process, and making a bunch of ridiculous complaints on this one topic. He serves no useful purpose here. DreamGuy 03:39, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

It was a month, which I thought would be long enough to let the Tron stuff calm down a bit - but if he returns and repeats, I'd be happy with an indefinite -- sannse (talk) 13:20, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Semi-protection of featured articles

It is generally understood that we do not full-protect articles while they are being featured on Wikipedia. Leithp recently contacted me regarding the Hero of Ukraine page, which I've semi-protected due it being vandalised constantly for the past 16 hours by anonymous editors. Semi-protection is nowhere near as prohibitive as full protection, and I believe that allowing this page to be vandalised such as this is a disservice to both Wikipedia and our readers. I wanted to bring this to the attention of WP:ANI for a broader discussion; it is reasonable to semi-protect featured articles? Hall Monitor 19:32, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah, you beat me to it. My thoughts on this are that today's FA is generally a showcase for Wikipedia, and so accessibility should be a priority (I seem to remember Raul654 having a template to this effect), but if I'm in a minority I'm content to leave it. Leithp 19:35, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with this. Semi-protection is no different to full protection here, as almost everyone who uses the main page for coming into Wikipedia is anonymous. For the reasons why protection of the FA at all is not appreciated, I can't say it as well as Raul can. [[Sam Korn]] 19:37, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

And almost everyone who has edited Hero of Ukraine anonymously in the past 16 hours is a vandal. Actually, I have yet to find a non-vandal edit. Semi-protection is very different than full protection, it allows non-administrators to edit. Hall Monitor 19:39, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

It is no different in this case. The people at whom the protection would have been targetted would have certainly been the newest users, not the non-admin old-timers. [[Sam Korn]] 19:42, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Of course most edits are vandalism, it is our most visible article ATM. But what type of example does it show people? Oh, here's an article on the encyclopedia anyone can edit... you can't edit it though. -Greg Asche (talk) 19:43, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Probably a better example than when someone wants to learn more about the subject, clicks it, and sees nothing but "YOUR MOM!!! MY MOM!!! HIS MOM!!! HER MOM!!! THEIR MOM!!! IT'S MOM!!! OUR MOM!!! YOUR MOM!!!" [51]. Just my opinion, but that sends the worst kind of message about what Wikipedia is. --W.marsh 20:07, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Just because you asked, here's one and I'm sure if I looked I could find a few more. Leithp 19:44, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

No, not just most, but nearly all anonymous edits to this article have been vandalism. To say that anyone can't edit is misleading, we allow registration to any user and do not even require so much as an email address. My concern is that we are turning away readers (who may later become valuable editors) as a result of presenting them with a piece of trash every 2 minutes. Hall Monitor 19:46, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Semi protection requires having been registered for four days. [[Sam Korn]] 19:48, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

And we allow people to register, we don't make them register to edit. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 19:49, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

"Wikipedia, the encyclopedia anyone can edit". Kim Bruning 19:52, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

You didn't see the asterisk? "Wikipedia, the encyclopedia anyone* can edit" - * - Only registered users with edits across 100 articles and created after the last 6% of any other users may edit a featured article, and even then you may be blocked from editing either intentionally or unintentionally. Subject to laws in florida and surrounding territory. NO WARRANTIES EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED!!  :) WhiteNight ^{T | @ | C} 20:16, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Because of the time constraints here, the article only has a few hours to go as today's FA, I'd like to come to a decision quickly. Can we agree to unprotect it and have a general policy discussion about whether S-protection is appropriate for today's FA? Leithp 19:54, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, since the concensus is that this article should be subject to vandalism while it is at featured status, I will unprotect it now while this is being discussed. Best regards, Hall Monitor 19:58, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

So, anyone fancy a sweepstake on how long until the first anon vandal edit? I'm going for 20:15. Leithp

20:32, not even close. Leithp 20:37, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

[52] Wait, were we playing by Price is Right rules? Hall Monitor 21:07, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

No, we do not protect the main page featured articles - not semi-protection and not full protection - for reasons I explain here. Raul654 20:42, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

This needs to be discussed first. Semi-protection is a new and helpful feature to Wikipedia, you do not have authority to unilaterally decide this. Hall Monitor 21:07, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I've been the main author of several front-page articles, and two of them (including Butter, just a few days ago) were very heavily vandalized. I was very active in fighting off the vandalism, as were a number of other good people. It was a stressful, busy day. Even if semi-protection would make it a lot less stressful, it would still be the absolute wrong thing to do. The vast majority of readers are anons; featured articles showcase what's best and unique about Wikipedia; that includes editability.

But you know what? Semi-protection wouldn't even make it much less stressful. Clear vandalism is easy to deal with. Roll it back. Tired of doing it? Someone else will usually take care of it too - good vandal hunters do tend to keep an eye on the TFA. The stress comes from the small flood of well-intentioned edits that are awkwardly written, or a little POV, or unreferenced... and semi-protection won't help there. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 22:01, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

As the creator of the article, I noticed only one-three good edits by annons. I seen an annon fix some of my grammar, I seen an annon provide the article's first interwiki link: to KA (Georgian) and some other interwiki links. I do not mind the article being unleashed to the world for 24 hours without any kind of protection: articles like this will rarely get touched except by me or other people who work on UA-related articles (the same with Hero of Belarus, which I also created). Zach ^{(Smack Back) Fair use policy} 00:25, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't have a big problem with semi-protection. Partially because I don't hold any "wiki" ideology... just what allows a big group like us to write a decent encyclopedia. Maximize exposure and minimize the negative aspects of that exposure. For anonymous IPs on these we usually get grammar edits and interwiki. I think anonymous editing is more important to interwiki links since I'd have an account on about 13 different wikis if I did counted everywhere I've done an interwiki. While it's on the main page I don't have a big problem with semiprotection... it's just damage reduction. Like, the reason why there's a case around the Mona Lisa. ~_~ gren グレン ^? 00:54, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

The last I checked, the Louvre doesn't want you painting on any of their pieces (featured or not)... so I'm not sure I trust the analogy. The anon who makes a grammar edit today (or even a bad test edit) might be tomorrow's great editor; we had better have a really exceptional reason if we're going to turn them away from the main article at the front gate. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 03:35, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Please note that while vandalism is vandalism is vandalism, not all vandalism is malicious. Often people find it hard to believe we allow anyone to edit, and not everyone's first edit contributes positively to Wikipedia. I think it's a bad idea to semi-protect the featured article of the day as per Raul. Featured article should exemplify everything about Wikipedia, including our wiki philosophy of allowing anyone to edit. Johnleemk | Talk 08:49, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

User:195.93.21.10 blocked but still editing

The above user is blocked (apparently - by User:Cyberjunkie for 48 hours from 01:53 19.01.2006) but continues to make the same edits for which he was blocked on Australian English. Natgoo 20:33, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

See [53]. [[Sam Korn]] 20:42, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

It's an AOL proxy (cache-los-aa10.proxy.aol.com). I added {{AOL}} to the talk page. --GraemeL ^(talk) 20:50, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Disrespect of community opinion from an admin

Jimbo just closed the CFD on Category:Living people against 88% delete — three times. ZOMG DISRESPECT FOR TEH COMMUNITY!! I fully expect some idiot to block him for "disruption" - David Gerard 21:36, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

-) The issue here, if we want to wax philosophical for a moment, is the knee jerk taking of things to CfD (or AfD) lacking any sort of discussion. The category was created this morning by Danny and amost immediately placed on CfD, and then a bunch of votes came pouring in with absolutely zero acknowledgement of the reasons the category was created in the first place.

Thoughtful consensus requires us to elevated reasoned slow discussion over kneejerk proceduralism.--Jimbo Wales 22:14, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

ROTFL. Ok. I've had my laugh for the day. You had me going for a moment. I was about to edit with an instinctive "That's no Admin, that's the boss" type response, until I looked again at who the comment was from. Good one. :) - TexasAndroid 22:18, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, blocked. You just spend that time thinkihng about what consensus means, OK? --Celestianpower ^háblame 22:20, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Simple; it's a crap idea. If you want something like this, I could make a list in minutes of articles that have a birth category but no death category, that way we won't have to go to the effort of adding another category to multiple 100,000 articles, and wont have the extra category clogging up our already over categorised articles. Martin 22:25, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Lots of dead people don't have a death date - David Gerard 22:28, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Another positive side effect. We can add them. Martin 22:30, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Hey, ANI gets far to full, can we take any content debate elsewhere (like [54]). Comment on the process if you like. Me, I think the debate is somewhat over. --Doc ^ask? 22:32, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Also, lots of people don't have a birth date either... but we can definitely say if they're alive. Shimgray | talk | 22:37, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

How many have this new category though? I think possibly a lot less. Martin 22:40, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

This diff comment is priceless. [55] Hall Monitor 22:31, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

is this a test to see if we have any guts? If we blindly follow like sheep and start categorizing under Living people, do we fail that test?--Alhutch 22:53, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

If I assume good faith on that comment, it comes out remarkably dumb. So I'll assume you're being subtly witty - David Gerard 23:05, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

please disregard my comment.--Alhutch 00:11, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

What is with people's antipathy towards this? This feels to me like people rebelling because their precious community isn't quite as important as they thought. Don't worry, you don't have to categorise anything if you don't want to. [[Sam Korn]] 23:00, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I have yet to hear rationaly how having these in a category will make wikipedia better in any way. The idea that it helps to NPOV them is not based in reality. It will just waste the time of good editors. Martin 23:07, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

This is simply another examle of an fair-to-average idea that, since it wasn't explained or discussed with the "community" first, goes over like a lead zeppelin. Smashing dissent is bad, but "knee-jerk" reactions can often be avoided by a little prose beforehand. Was this talked about on the pump or signpost before its creation? As to the actual cat, it's poorly executed, but an ok concept. We shouldn't be using categories for meta-data, but having a tag of some description that allows us to identify articles that are potential "problems" is good sense. This category actually worked. While mocking it for being the dumbest thing ever (prior to its purpose being explained on IRC) I looked at the only article in the category at that time. Here's the result: [56]. Is there some reason that we are all thumbs when it comes to this sort of change? - brenneman^(t)(c) 23:38, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Discussing is fine, but a wiki doesn't require people to make an argument for creation. Remember the all-important phrase: If in doubt, don't delete. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 02:39, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

The idea has been kicked around on wikien-l before, in the post-Seigenthaler debate; I recognised it when it was announced, certainly. Shimgray | talk | 00:09, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

wikien-l != wikipedia - brenneman^(t)(c) 01:19, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

agree.--Alhutch 01:25, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Once again those of us not on wikien-l or IRC are left behind. -- nae'blis _(talk) 03:12, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

You are not prohibited from joining. [[Sam Korn]] 13:41, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

It appears this is not in fact the case, and a lot gets decided there. WP:ANI isn't all of Wikipedia either. - David Gerard 14:28, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

• This is evil! We should all immediately join the pileup lynchmob vote here! This is vital for the Wiki!Radiant_>|< 01:34, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Jimbo is right. David is right. If the procedures are so moribund that they're needlessly killing good stuff, we should rely on administrators to use their brains and look behind the numbers. Any administrator should feel proud to refuse to delete an article or other organizational component of the encyclopedia if he isn't happy that an argument has been made for its deletion. The article can always be deleted another day if it's really so bad. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 02:36, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

But the procedure being moribund should not be an excuse for revert wars or wheel wars. As you said yourself, use your brains (and I would add, instead of your admin tools). Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:09, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I see no evidence of wheel warring here. In fact I see no deletions or undeletions at all on this category. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 07:57, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

This is all a bit besides the point, but don't you think it is a bit of a stretch to jump from "Jimbo's word is law" to "Any andmin can do whatever he pleases, as long as he's called Tony" (which, with all due respect, seems to be your opinion on a lot of things lately) ? -- Ferkelparade π 13:57, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

How on earth did we get 88% delete on a necessary maintainence category? Was there confusion about what it was for? -- SCZenz 02:48, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Err, yes? That's exactly the problem. It wasn't clear what this was for, it wasn't widely discussed, and in the absence of that, asking for it to be deleted wasn't unreasonable. Looking back at ads on the wiki, then on to user boxes, and now this, it begins to appear that someone is trying to make a point. In every one of these cases, having some modicum of respect for the peons and taking a week or two to talk about it and explain it first would have been the smart thing to do. Why are things continuing to be done the hardest way possible, followed by cheers from some quarters of "Hooray for us! Stick it to 'em!" ?? - brenneman^(t)(c) 02:58, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Asking for clarification would have been even less unreasonable. [[Sam Korn]] 13:45, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

The reasons they gave for keeping the category were adbrupt and unclear - that and the fact that someone (in this case jimbo himself) blanked the page several times throughout the debate... plus the "delete voters" had several rather valid points either way they were hard to ignore. WhiteNight ^{T | @ | C} 02:57, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Clucking and shaking your heard about this won't do. Just use your head. Categories and articles should not be needlessly deleted. Take note of the clear message and act accordingly. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 08:00, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Again and again I ask: Why chose the most disruptive method? It's all very well to say the first ten or fifteen times "why waste time with the process, I'll just do the right thing". Eventually it must become clear that more time will be wasted by acting unilaterally. At that point, if the disruptive behavior continues, surely reasonable people can ask, "Is there some other motivation"?
brenneman^(t)(c) 08:07, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

As a matter of fact in this case nothing was deleted, and no discontinuity occurred. A few people who couldn't imagine that a category of living people could serve a useful purpose in the wake of the Seigenthaler affair came away disappointed that they didn't get to watch another category go into the memory hole, but I'm sure they'll get over it. The use of the word "disruption" here is somewhat wide of the mark.

As for your continual personal sniping, surely you recognise that Jimbo Wales and Tony Sidaway are two quite separate individuals inhabiting different continents and with quite distinct opinions, that he cannot be held responsible for my actions and I cannot be held responsible for his. Speculation that we may have a common motive for choosing a course of action of which you, personally, may disapprove and believe to be disruptive is isn't really going to help. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 10:14, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I see a different message than Tony sees: When Jimbo speaks, listen.

What the situation looks like to me (from the history; I was not involved) is that the category was nominated, and Jimbo said stop. He was ignored; that was inappropriate, regardless of what objections were used to justify it. Every contributor is free to disagree with Jimbo, but they are not free to act in defiance of his authority. To make matters worse, when the vote was continued in defiance of his request that the discussion be moved, he clarified himself that the vote was to end immediately, and was ignored a second time. If that was not disrespectful enough, when he closed the CfD, he was reverted. At that point, a less patient individual would have blocked the reverter and dared anyone to think about overturning it, but he did not do that.

It is unfortunate that this situation happened, but it is an opportunity for all of us to remember that Jimbo is the boss. When he gives orders, it is our obligation to abide by them. We are free to voice our concerns and objections, and to refuse to participate in them, but we may not act in defiance to them. In this situation, if individuals object to the category, do as you are asked and voice your objections on the talk page. If the matter is not settled to your satisfaction, then decline to participate: don't add articles to the category, and don't watch the articles in the category. But, do not act in open defiance by insisting on deleting the category; to do so is disrespectful to Jimbo, without whom we would not have this project, and is disruptive to the orderly function of the site. It has been argued that discussions such as this CfD are the operation of the rules and processes that keep the site running; however, continuing this particular CfD in opposition to Jimbo's direct orders is a disruption of the most central rule to the orderly function of Wikipedia: The final decision on any matter is reserved to Jimbo, and there is no appeal of his decision. When we forget that, then we have forgotten that which is most central to Wikipedia. Essjay ^{Talk • Contact} 08:22, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

No one is the boss of human knowledge. Jimbo's intervention here should be heeded, moreso than the intervention of any other user, but ultimately Jimbo has no real authority here. The only legal or moral power Jimbo has is to temporarily force us to relocate it to a server he doesn't control. I respect Jimbo a great deal—more than almost any other living human—and I agree we should listen to Jimbo and respect his wishes. But Wikipedia is not an autocracy and Jimbo is not the benevolent dictator of human knowledge. He makes no attempt to be, either—he said so himself on C-SPAN a few months ago, and this is one of the prime reasons he is worthy of our respect. — Phil Welch Are you a fan of the band Rush? 08:38, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Being a somewhat frequenter from the C2 and MeatBall wikis I see sort of where he is coming from on the CfD thing... basically that all they are is a content management system available to the public. In reality though they are terrible discussion mechanisms due to interface problems etc., plus wikis at least originally were never designed to deal with spam and if someone wanted a page they generally got it. Oh, and in the name of wikis everywhere, I just deleted the category, because I think, at the very least in its current incarnation is really bad idea - which I think may result in good discussion (for everyone except myself, of course :)). To be honest I sort of envy the nastigrams Zoe gets, so here's to some of them on my talk page! (As well as an RfC, RfAr, Immediate de-adminship what have you). At the least it is an interesting experiment and I can say that I had real BALLS! WhiteNight ^{T | @ | C} 09:25, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Whatever Jimbo thinks, but this category is teh dumbest thing ever. In fact, every category that could contain >100,000 articles is pretty dumb.  Grue  09:28, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree, that category sucks. Jimbo controls Wikipedia and what he says has to be done, but that doesn't make this category any less stupid. cookiecaper (talk / contribs) 09:43, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Er, I am a bit divided here. THere are two very good arguments on both sides. For deletion: The category is ridiculous and will most certainly be horridly overpopulated if kept. For inclusion: Jimbo disagrees with the previous argument and he has the power to issue decrees. I see that RN deleted the category, since that is contrary to Jimbo's clearly expressed will I have decided to restore it. Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:39, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Does he though? I can't off hand recall the board vote that gave him such powers. Incerdentaly how are the fench and german versions of this going down?Geni 09:45, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, he can. As I understand it, Jimbo controlls 60% of the board seats; he has one, and Michael Davis and Tim Shell were appointed by him, as will be thier successors when they leave the Board. Two memebers (Angela and Anthere) are elected. Essjay ^{Talk • Contact} 10:19, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

How does appointing members mean you control them? They do not have to vote the same way as Jimbo. cookiecaper (talk / contribs) 11:05, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I've got reservations about this category (although I'm willing to be convinced), but I agree with Essjay. Of course, no one is 'the boss of human knowledge', so you are entitled to take your human knowledge and fork off. Actually, in the end, for better and for worse, Wikipedia is an autocracy. Thankfully, the autocrat appears willing to have a discussion - so go discuss it with him. --Doc ^ask? 09:56, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Imho, the category is stupid, but if Jimbo likes it, let him have it (is this a category designed for a sort of "Living People patrol", because vandalism to LP is considered more harmful? You still need people agreeing with this, and doing it, Siegenthaler or no Siegenthaler). We have lots of stupid categories, and while there are reasons to walk away from Wikipedia in a huff, this is not one. (We could have a template "deleted but for the grace of Jimbo" or something but maybe that would be disruptive). dab (ᛏ) 10:44, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, that's slightly inaccurate. Tim and Michael rarely vote on Board issues, and Jimbo has undertaken never to vote against Angela and Anthere when they agree. [[Sam Korn]] 13:45, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

So what...it's one thing in a million...Wikipedia is not paper! It's good to be the king!--MONGO 10:57, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Stupidly alrge numbers of catigories don't look too good in certian skins.Geni 12:33, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

well, if 88% of people are going to refuse to use it, it'll just sit there gathering dust... dab (ᛏ) 13:29, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I have a feeling that number is exaggerated by the number of people who can't wait to rebel against any kind of wiki authority. [[Sam Korn]] 14:04, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Can I rebel against the tyranny of the majority?--Doc ^ask? 14:12, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Editing of 202.180.83.6

I'm unsure if I am reporting this in the right place...forgive me. This anonymous user has apparently created his/her own web site attacking another Wikipedia user (User:Jason Gastrich). The anonymous user repeatedly placed the link to his attack site on several articles (Biblical inerrancy, Inconsistencies in the Bible, The Skeptic's Annotated Bible, Internal consistency and the Bible, possibly others), where I repeatedly removed these links as inappropriate (also pointing to WP:NPA).

The user then changed his personal site to another address and attempted again to link these articles; I removed the link and referred the user to WP:SPAM.

The user has ignored my pleas. The user was also blocked at one point for other violations (I am unsure of the nature of these violations). I would request that an administrator or two or three take a look at these concerns. Thanks...KHM03 01:37, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

• I'm seeing double. Inconsistencies in the Bible, Internal consistency and the Bible. Which of these is a POV fork of which? Anyone care to merge to clean up the redundancy? Radiant_>|< 02:20, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Fighterforfreedom2

I would to call Fighterforfreedom2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) to your attention. This is an obvious sockpuppet of Fighterforfreedom (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), blocked by Zoe. It is being used solely to harrass Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters in an extremely offensive manner. Thanks. Chick Bowen 02:16, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I have indefinitely blocked Fighterforfreedom2 as a sockpuppet of Fighterforfreedom. Tom Harrison ^Talk 03:22, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

User:JosephBarillari

Looking over the Procreation article I got quite a shock because according to Joseph, "The Catholic Church, for instance, proscribes intercourse without procreative intent in which artificial birth control is employed (see Humanae Vitae)"....hmmm that seems in direct contradiction to my Catechism. I believe this user ought to be blocked for a fortnight. Chooserr 03:43, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Have you been editing your catechism? Jkelly 04:00, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Jkelly,

He is in otherwords saying, The Catholic Church believes that intercourse (sex) without the intent to concieve children is right. That's the only way I see it, and if that's not the correct interpretation I must be helluva thick. Maybe it needs a re-write. Chooserr 04:09, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Chooserr, you don't get to block someone for an edit they made a year ago. Nice try.--SarekOfVulcan 04:02, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Sarek,

Why not? I'd think misleading people like this for a whole year would be much graver than for a day, week, or even Month. Don't you think so? Is my logic faulty? Chooserr 04:09, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

And besides, intercourse with procreative intent that uses birth control is... umm....--SarekOfVulcan 04:04, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

...proscribed by the Catholic church. Chooserr, the catechism isn't a wiki. Jkelly 04:05, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Probably, but also counterproductive. :-)--SarekOfVulcan 04:12, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

No it is not, but deliberately misleading Catholics isn't the wikipedia I know. Chooserr 04:10, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Just in case anyone else is unclear on their vocabulary here: From wiktionary

Proscribe: Transitive verb

1. to forbid or prohibit something

2. to denounce something

3. to banish or exclude someone

I imagine you are thinking "prescribe"? —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 04:10, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I was wrong. I admit it. I believed prosribe meant to support. I am sorry. But I do think that maybe a rewrite might be helpful, so no further mistakes are made. Chooserr 04:13, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking of prescribe... Sorry again. Chooserr 04:14, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

An honest mistake. Move along, nothing to see here. (I've reworded to "forbids" in the article, since it probably would be confusing to others as well.) —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 04:23, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

The vocabulary was an honest mistake. Calling for banning a user for an edit a year ago, when the user wasn't even the last editor on the article, may fall under a different category.--SarekOfVulcan 04:32, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't doubt that to Chooserr it seemed as nefarious an edit (even if all that time ago) as the long-unnoticed Seigenthaler libel. His call for a ban was in good-faith, if misplaced for several reasons. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 04:39, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Problems with an anonymous user, "Mono development platform" page.

This is a plea for help, copied from the Talk:Mono_development_platform:

Title: Edits from DotGnu advocates.

Over the past few days an intensive campaign from an anonymous user logging in from a variety of 83.237.* IP addresses has engaged in the following activities:

• The user has engaged on a mission to label Mono as "proprietary open source". He created a page for this oxymoron, and then linked the Mono article and the reference to Mono on the .NET article to it.
• Mono is dual licensed software available under commercial and open source terms which bothers him.
• He refuses to discuss on the talk page, despite the fact that the article text actually has a number of notices placed by another editor requesting that he engages in a discussion in the talk pages.
• Instead of discussing on the talk pages, he resorted to removing my comments from the talk pages where I address this issue.
• He re-introuces the expression or deletes my comments on the talk page using the "Restore objective information".
• We know he reads the discussion page, because he edited the page and removed things he did not like, but refuses to discuss his edits.

The user is associated with a competing project to Mono and has decided to promote the agenda of the competing project on the Wikipedia.

Maybe it is time to call for arbitration. --User:Miguel.de.Icaza

I concur. scot 03:22, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

This is some extra information that is not contained in the original Talk page:

• It is not possible to discuss with the user, as he removes any comments that document his behavior from the Talk:Mono development platform page.
• The list of IPs he has posted from includes: 83.237.11.151, 83.237.11.92, 83.237.60.5, 83.237.11.226, 83.237.11.152, 83.237.242.2, 83.237.108.102, 85.140.83.108, 83.237.108.242, 83.237.242.94. All of these IPs seem to be from a pool for an ISP: mtu.ru, mtu-net.ru.
• The "revert war" has been going on since November, I only noticed it today.
• I suspected the user was a dotgnu developer, who goes by the "krokas" irc name from googling the IP addresses. In the User_talk:Kesla he identified himself as that person.

I would like to add that the user has so far made no attempt at actually improving the content of the Mono development platform page, but I will let the admins judge for themselves User:Miguel.de.Icaza Sorry, forgot to sign, am new: Miguel.de.Icaza

• Err, are you the Miguel de Icaza? Or have you just co-opted his name for your username? android79 04:07, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

yes, am that Miguel (miguel@novell.com, miguel@gnome.org), feel free to email.

• BTW, you can automagically insert your signature with four tildes: ~~~~. android79 04:18, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Miguel de Icaza attacks me

Hi, I'm editing the wikipedia page on Mono. User Miguel.de.Icaza is always attacking me and he calls me a DotGNU advocate. He cannot be objective at all. It is like if Bill Gates would edit the wikipedia page on Windows. Can anyone limit his access to edit the wikipedia page on Mono, so that his limit to edit he page is limited to *strictly factual*?

My contact email is : krokas@email.su -- krokas

Unless you stop removing comments from Talk:Mono development platform, there really isn't much to talk about. If you cannot engage in dialogue with someone there is no way to resolve your dispute. Removing comments is against Wikipedia policies, and it could lead to you losing your editing privileges. Rhobite 04:54, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

User Miguel.de.Icaza tells absolutely wrong things about me that are false. Wikipedia is not his blog and he tells non-sense. He has written false things about me in the Talk|page, and they look to have the only purpose to not allow me add my opinion, as he didn't address me. And if an opinion of anyone is different to the opinion of User Miguel.de.Icaza it doesn't mean to be a wrong one. Very indicative is that user Kesla did agree with the existence of the term. And User Miguel.de.Icaza only attacked me about the frase "Portable .NET doesn't have any problem with patents" by saying to copy/past his email to User Kesla in the Wikipedia page. Only then he started to attack me because of the term "proprietary open source", which in fact does exist, and which was used on the wikipedia page already for 2 months, before user Miguel.de.Icaza didn't start his attack to me.

Additional Instantnood and Huaiwei Ban(s???)

List of airlines is now added to their ban list per my notice to both:

I've banned you both from this article, it is quite obvious it is in order, you both continue to revert each other with comments being made in edit summaries instead of where they belong -- on the talk page. You haven't posted anything here in over two weeks yet continue to revert each other, hence, I'm banning you both from editing this one. --Wgfinley 05:24, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Harassment - Jonah Ayers/Biff Rose

This user, Jonah Ayers (talk · contribs), along with possible sock puppet Maslow (talk · contribs), seems to be creating articles about non-notable people for the sole purpose of harassment, in retaliation for administrative work connected to his editing. Two editors report having received menacing phone calls, apparently from Ayers. I ask whether the recent creations are possibly speedy deletions candidates. Ayers, with Category:Wikipedia:Suspected sockpuppets of Jonah Ayers, is engaging in unacceptable and disruptive behavior. Is this blatant enough or do we have to go to the ArbCom to get relief from his mischief? -Will Beback 10:01, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

How has he got their phone numbers? Secretlondon 11:57, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

He has their names. -Will Beback 15:59, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

And I might add, on one occasion he posted a phone number with a request that people call to harass an editor. [57] (The actual info has been deleted). -Will Beback 16:42, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Laptopbomber (Contribs)

I've blocked Laptopbomber (talk · contribs) 31h for personal attacks after a warning. However, he seems to think that he's being unfairly targetted (look at his contribs first before you say anything). Since I have to go offline now, I request another admin to look the case over and, if they find in their judgment a block to be harsh, to unblock and explain. However, his persistent want of making attacks against fuddlemark cannot be condoned. NSLE _(T+C) 11:03, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I think 31 hours is fair. Secretlondon 11:43, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

So do I. This user has basically started editing wikipedia today (two minor edits prior to today, both in November), and immediately began a crusade against User:MarkGallagher. He needs to be told that this is not done, and a 31 hour block seems like a fair way to do this. Aecis ^{Mr. Mojo risin'} 13:54, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Aladin (magician)

Not sure if this is the right place for it, but I'd like to have other admins' input on it. A huge revert war is going on right now, with both sides claiming consensus and/or the recent AfD I closed favours their position. I'm tempted to block DreamGuy or protect the page, but I won't do either for now (unless someone violates the 3RR). Johnleemk | Talk 12:58, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I would have called that afd as delete. The strongest argument in favour of keeping was that he was an advisor to the cabinet - he was actually vice chair of a Greater London Authority working group. No-one is arguing that the working group is worthy of an article.. There's been a sockpuppet check which indicated vote stacking previously. I think we are being used for PR purposes. Secretlondon 13:24, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

• • Can I just point out that firstly none of the sockpuppets took part in the 2nd AFD. Only 4 sockpuppets took part in the first AFD and the result was 19-5, thus without sockpuppets it would have been 15-5. However, I understand that some of the comments by the sockpuppets could have possibly influenced peoples minds…although it was vigorously pointed out that there were sockpuppets in it by Peter_S. and DreamGuy, thus people were less likely to be influenced by them as they were made aware. There’s also a TV show about aladin’s daughter and family on the National Geographic Channel called Running For Freedom: Roxanna's Story and he’s been on a radio station called The Family Tech Show. So it’s not just like he’s been the vice chair of a Greater London Authority working group. However, I do believe that aladin was originally over hyped and this has lead to the articles contravestoy. Englishrose 13:39, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

• Quite possibly. In the meantime, I've protected the page to put a stop to the edit war. Radiant_>|< 13:26, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Also, on closer examination, DreamGuy has broken the 3RR on this one, so I've blocked him. Other people have also reverted to DreamGuy's version, so this may not actually obviate the need for protection. Radiant_>|< 13:35, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Maybe I'm not counting straight but I don't see a 3RR violation there. Could you clarify? :) - Haukur 14:02, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
      • [58], [59], [60], [61], [62]. Five reverts by Dream Guy, within 24 hours. Radiant_>|< 14:44, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
        • Looks like 36 or 48 hours to me. Johnleemk | Talk 14:47, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
        • Indeed, this is not a 3RR violation. Radiant, would you oppose an unblock? android79 14:53, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
          • Indeed, this is not a 3RR violation. However, I stand by the opinion that this is excessive reverting. Thus, I should have said "blocked for revert warring" rather than "blocked for 3RR". If people are of the opinion that making a number of sequential reverts is perfectly fine as long as one sticks to the letter of policy and makes exactly three reverts per day, they should probably unblock. Radiant_>|< 14:58, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
            • I see no evidence that exactly three reverts were made per day, and it takes more than one party to revert war, but only one editor has been blocked in this case. I need to take a closer look. android79 15:00, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
              • It was DreamGuy vs. everyone else. DreamGuy was the only person redirecting it to Aladdin, everyone else was reverting it back. You can't defend him this time. Englishrose 16:09, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
                • If one editor is reverting, and a group of other editors opposes this by also reverting, both sides are engaging in a revert war. There was discussion ongoing on the talk page; either side could have stopped reverting at any time. The page is protected now; I see no need to block one party, effectively halting the discussion, when there is no longer any way for the revert war to continue. android79 17:10, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the 3RR doesn't imply a right to revert three times a day. It's the reverting without waiting for consensus to emerge that is the disruptive behavior. I'll say this till I'm blue in the face, there are few edits so urgently needed that they can't wait until consensus emerges. - Taxman ^Talk 16:34, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Fry Mumia

Hi, I just tried to create a page entitled Fry Mumia to describe the cultural phenomenen of the Free Mumia movement and the political reaction the phrase has elicted from others. The article was just created yesterday, and has not had a chance to be properly edited, as it came under almost instantaneous attack by Mumia supporters. Could you please add some sort of tag or do something else to allow the article to mature. Much too early to delete. Now I know what it means to be "bitten" as a newcomer on Wikipedia. Thanks. Morton devonshire 16:44, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Does it exist or is it just a witty tshirt? It looks like a POV article in any case - how could it be expanded?Secretlondon 16:49, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

The point of the article is the cultural movement of Free Mumia and the cultural backlash, not the t-shirt. Morton devonshire 16:51, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Here's something to think about - FRY MUMIA is a response to FREE MUMIA, right? Do we have an article on FREE MUMIA? Then why should we have one on FRY MUMIA? Something to think about. --Golbez 17:04, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm sad, I thought I came up with FRY MUMIA all on my own back in 1998. :( Anyway, this chap has a persecution complex [63] [64]. Let's try not to justify his whinging too much. --Golbez 16:58, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Whinging? Just let the article mature, or is that too much to ask? Morton devonshire 17:00, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Why not just add a para to the Mumia article? If it were to be an actual article it would be called something like Conservative responses to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal protests which doesn't seem to be worthy of its own articleSecretlondon 17:02, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

The backlash to Mumia activism could be covered in Mumia Abu-Jamal or a spinoff article. I don't think the current Mumia article covers the opposition to "Free Mumia" enough. However, an article about a little-known T-shirt slogan is not the proper way to cover this movement. The article provides no evidence that this is a notable rallying cry for anti-Mumia activists. Rhobite 17:03, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Tried to add a reference to the main article, but it was removed by the Mumia-protection-society. No chance to actually edit the article, as it keeps getting vandalized with tags, etc. Why not give the article a chance to mature? Morton devonshire 17:05, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Repeating that plea won't get you anywhere. And you didn't just add a single reference to it, you linked to an article you just made, without equal due to "Free Mumia." It's a minor slogan to respond to a less minor slogan, and neither deserve articles. Why do we have to give your article a chance to mature, if there's more to add, add to it, but the consensus seems to be that there is nothing more to add. (Also, the pic you put in the article has no source info) --Golbez 17:08, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

The consensus is manufactured sockpuppetry. Morton devonshire 17:12, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

If you think that it's not remotely possible that so many people think that such an article is inappropriate, why should we take you seriously? --Golbez 17:17, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't take you seriously, because I think you are all the same person. Morton devonshire 17:22, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Well I know I'm not.. Seriously - we're writing an encyclopedia which means references etc. I'm not in the US but I can't imagine that there wouldn't be a backlash to Free Mumia campaigns. Our aim is Neutral Point of View which means we document both sides, as an independent observer. Secretlondon 17:29, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Oops, there goes that last tiny bit of credibility... Carbonite | Talk 17:26, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Finally, I now have a list!  : ) Morton devonshire 17:28, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

"Tried to add a reference to the main article, but it was removed by the Mumia-protection-society" - this is pretty much a textbook example of POV forking. Guettarda 17:30, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Secret, would you help edit the article. I don't want it to be my article, I just want to have an article discussing the cultural phenomenen of the FM movement and the cultural backlash. Could use many editors. I invite all of the naysayers here to edit the article. Thanks. Morton devonshire 17:34, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I just did - I removed links about "Free Mumia", since this is an article about "Fry Mumia". All of this should be merged into the Mumia article with a single sentence or two - no more. --Golbez 17:37, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I invite all to contribute to the article. The purpose of the article is to describe the Free Mumia movement as a cultural phenomenen, rather than to discuss the case for or against the man, and rather than the narrow issue of a Fry Mumia t-shirt (which is just an expression of the phenomenen, not the subject itself -- I probably picked the wrong article title). For some, the movement has taken on much larger issues than the man himself, and that's worth exploring and describing. Have at it! Thanks. Morton devonshire 17:46, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Lewes Priory School administrators vs. students

Per conversation on Talk:Lewes Priory School, I was wondering about some policy precedent. Briefly, a content dispute ensued when an administrator of the school found the Wikipedia page about the school and changed it to conform to the "school's views". Users IDing themselves as students of the school changed it back. Protection was enacted and discussion went to the talk page. The problem is that somehow the school admin has found out which students are the contributors on the Wikipedia. Due to the admin's tone in the past, I am concerned that some sort of harrassment or coercion may occur. Thoughts on precedent or further action? — Scm83x ^talk 17:32, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Harrassment of Wikipedians by other Wikipedians should result in the harrassers being blocked from editing. User:Zoe|^(talk) 17:51, 20 January 2006 (UTC)