Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
This page is for urgent incidents or chronic, intractable behavioral problems. Before posting: Read these tips for dealing with incivility If the issue concerns a specific user, try discussing it with them on their talk page Try dispute resolution Just want an admin? Contact a recently active admin directly. Be brief and include diffs demonstrating the problem Do not report breaches of personal information on this highly visible page – instead go to Requests for oversight. When starting a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page; pinging is not enough. You may use {{subst:ANI-notice}} ~~~~ to do so. Closed discussions are usually not archived for at least 24 hours. Routine matters might be archived more quickly; complex or controversial matters should remain longer. Sections inactive for 72 hours are archived automatically by Lowercase sigmabot III. Editors unable to edit here are sent to the /Non-autoconfirmed posts subpage. (archives, search)
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Legal threat User:Real77

Contentious and difficult user is making legal threats.[1] It's not clear from WP:Legal what I do now, tag it, what? KP Botany 06:29, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I found the template to tag the user, but other than that, what, if anything. Is there a notice board for this? "If Wikpedia is not going to play ball with 3rd aprty verifable issues then this shall be referred to lawyers as an individual has the right to control his or her reptutation and,name and likeness through themselves or third parties." KP Botany 06:34, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

This be the place. There's no NLT noticeboard, thankfully! Keep us posted on his response. El_C 06:39, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

User has been blocked indefinitely (or until they agree to not make any more legal threats). Someone should probably go over Anna Wilding and cleanup any unsourced statements, as this is the article the user appears to have a problem with (though from what I can tell, they want to add content, not remove). --- RockMFR 07:03, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

More eyes on the article could not hurt, however there are a group of excellent Wikipedia editors who are already attempting to clean up the article. Real77 claims to be working for Anna Wilding but is doing nothing but trashing the article's talk page and making the article as ugly as possible. My concern at this point is that because he claims to be working for Ms. Wilding, he is making her look awful with his edits, particularly his talk page ranting which is largely incomprehensible. This sounds reasonable, though, blocking until a user agrees to not make any more legal threats. Thanks. KP Botany 07:20, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

There is no response from the user. However, another editor quit editing because of nasty and potentially threatening (legal) comments to him. Without Real77 around a small handful of those who have weathered the nastiness have removed the poofunery, the bad grammar, the horrid punctuation, the fluff, and the poor English, so the article looks halfway decent. In light of what has happened, most of the article has been tagged for fact checking and all sources will be individually verified. Thanks. KP Botany 21:41, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Legal threat by Anna Wilding's representatives

It appears that Ms. Wilding has attempted to pressure others into publishing her resume and self-publicity.[2] She filed some complaint against the New Zealand Press Council for failing to publish her photos and press release. At this point I ask that administrators consider reblocking both User:Real77 and User:Tonyx123 who are both working for Ms. Wilding, from editing Wikipedia. Real77 issued a legal threat, was blocked, agreed not to issue any more, so his block was removed--as seemed appropriate. However, in light of the fact that it appears Ms. Wilding filed a formal complaint against another entity for failing to do what she is attempting to manipulate Wikipedia into doing, namely publish her publicity materials and resume, I think blocking these users might be appropriate. Deleting the article about her might be appropriate also. KP Botany 03:39, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

PS, In spite of saying he would not issue any more legal threats Real77 calls an editor's edits to the Anna Wilding article defamatory.[3] I don't think that his behaviour is something ordinary Wikipedia editors should be dealing with. KP Botany 03:41, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

My bad, he wasn't unblocked, I forget he can edit his own user page while blocked. Sorry! I suggest he not be unblocked, then. KP Botany 03:56, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

• The legal threats have really gotten out of hand. I have also received numerous harassing e-mails and phone calls from Anna Wilding herself. I originally suggested to her that to shore up some of the lack of credible sources I do an interview with her for Wikinews; this offer to help her has suddenly become, in her mind that I am trying to "blackmail" (her words) an interview out of her. I have barely edited the article. I only came across it because I photographed her at the Spiderman 3 premiere. I have sent her my own "cease and desist" letter and copied her attorney on it. They are completely in the wrong here, both Wikipedia-wise and legally; I'm not sure how to proceed from here, but days ago I removed myself from assisting Anna Wilding and the article in any way. --David Shankbone 14:44, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Do they realize they are more likely to get her article deleted as a not notable actress then to get her preferred version out there? --Rocksanddirt 20:44, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Can we get this sock puppet of Real77 blocked? User:66.65.119.19[4] I don't feel threatened, but it's boring. KP Botany 02:28, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes. --Alvestrand 02:46, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. KP Botany 03:51, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

And this one, please. 121.72.12.98[5] KP Botany 14:04, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

That one isn't a sockpuppet, that IP is from New Zealand. Given the single edit, I don't think it needs blocking unless and until it becomes a problem. — Timotab ^{Timothy (not Tim dagnabbit!)} 17:02, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Timothy has the time to check, thanks. KP Botany 03:34, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Blocked troll

I blocked Hexadecimale (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). I am sure this is an alternate account being used for trolling - if not a banned user then an inappropriate sock. I don't think it's a coincidence that his edits consist largely of asking what the problem could possibly be with antisocialmedia.net Guy (Help!) 21:32, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

• Endorse. Alarm bells, quacking, etc as Guy suggests. Not Good. ➔ This is REDVEЯS 21:39, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

• Ditto Concerniokw (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). More eyes on that arbitration case, please, it's clearly always going to be a troll magnet. Guy (Help!) 17:55, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

• Um. Placing indefinite blocks prior to either account doing anything significantly wrong doesn't seem quite kosher to me. Do they look vaguely 'sockish'? Sure. And? We don't block all alternate accounts indefinitely. Only those of users who are banned or which are being used in disruptive ways. Asking questions you don't like is not disruptive. The Concerniokw account, quite frankly, made a good point about the fact that we have an article on Wikipedia Watch which links to that site despite it clearly falling under any of the definitions of unlinkable 'attack site' being pushed. Your removal of that point from the ArbCom case and indefinite blocking of him hardly seems equitable given your obvious partisanship on the subject. As an involved party you should have gotten someone else to place the blocks - if any justification for such could be found in the WP:BLOCK policy. --CBD 18:37, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

• Agree with CBD. Removing comments and blocking users for "trolling" when they simply raise valid points in a debate seems like an improper thing to do, particularly when the admin who does it is one involved in the same debate in a partisan manner. However, those accounts do look suspicious, given that they came out of nowhere to comment in a contentious RFAr case; this, however, is not automatically wrongdoing. Given that at least one person has already suggested that I be banned for my comments in that debate, I could easily understand why an active, non-banned editor might want to contribute to that discussion using a hard-to-trace sockpuppet account rather than his/her main Wikipedia identity. *Dan T.* 18:49, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

So can I. And if I were to do so I would either email the arbs or make a note that it's an alternate account on the user page. Which neither of these did. As it happens they turn out to be parts of a sock farm - which is hardly a surprise. Guy (Help!) 22:23, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

• Endorse. Checks out to be the same person as several other previous sockpuppets, probably by a banned user. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 22:12, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Not surprised, thanks for checking, though. Guy (Help!) 22:21, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

• Yeah, under these circumstances I think the block was clearly appropriate. We don't need these particular waters muddied further by obvious socks with axes to grind. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 22:14, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

• Endorse. Concur with Matthew Brown on this one. User is definitely sockpuppeteer. Cary Bass ^demandez 22:17, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

• Endorse. Agree with sockpuppeteer finding. I have replied to CBD's comments on user_talk:Concerniokw to say that no admin should unblock this account without consulting with a CU first (preferably Morven, Cary, or myself since we investigated). CBD, I'd suggest you consider removing your comments completely at this point, unless you already have. It would help the situation and I'd greatly appreciate it. ++Lar: t/c 04:03, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

• I'll add a comment based on the new information, but I'm not sure why you ask me to remove the previous statements. I said it, I'll stand by it rather than hide it away... nor do I think I was wrong. As I said above, it always seemed plausible that these were sockpuppets... but in the absence of any actual wrongdoing or checkuser to confirm past disruption the blocks were (at that time) inappropriate. We should never be indefinitely blocking people on suspicion alone. Also, I note that all of the above refer to 'the user' (singular) and 'Concerniokw'. Has the 'Hexadecimale' account also been found to have engaged in past disruption by checkuser? He claims to be an innocent new user who is willing to just leave the discussion - and you haven't posted the same warning to admins on his page as you did the Concerniokw page. This may just be an oversight and there is certainly reason to suspect sockpuppetry there as well, but again... without checkuser confirmation it is just suspicion and no reason to block. --CBD 11:08, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

• Genuinely new users do not make their first edits to contentious arbitration casdesm, and certainly not in support of assertions which are made only by those attempting to create mischief. Guy (Help!) 11:40, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

"...in support of assertions which are made only by those attempting to create mischief." See... that's what sets my bias meter going. Other than Concerniokw that 'assertion', that Wikipedia Watch contains a link to the site, has been made in the arbitration case by AnonEMouse, Alecmconroy, and Dtobias. I see no reason to believe that any of them did so "to create mischief". They did so because it is a highly significant point. We link to a relevant web page, despite it clearly being an 'attack site', because we're an encyclopedia... not the morality police. There has been an over-abundance of assumption of bad faith, as in your statement above, against those who oppose the BADSITES philosophy... which further illustrates why blocks based on suspicion are bad practice. Wait for the evidence and then block with that as the stated grounds. --CBD 13:52, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The assertion regarding Wikipedia Watch has been repeatedly made by people pressing for links to and an article on Wikipedia Review. And as far as I can tell these are pretty much the only people making this argument. Coupled with the first edits being to an RFAr, and we have a sockpuppet. People who want to submit evidence anonymously or privately can do so by email; in a debate such as this I think we have a need to know who is making a given argument because of the number of trolls hanging around the margins of the attack sites and the number of banned users posting to them. Guy (Help!) 17:51, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

A concern about potential ageism

SqueakBox (talk · contribs) removed the word "feelings" on the Child sexuality article, stating that "rm feelings as unsourced and because children precisely do not have the emotional maturity to have sexual feelings". I reverted it, asking how he knows this (as he is not a child himself). He then reverted me and while I don't have a problem with someone reverting an edit I made that for example violated Wikipedia policy, I don't think it is right when he says "dont are-add unsouirced material go source it otherwise yopur edit is unaccept" [sic! notice the spelling]. The word "feelings" does not need a reference, and I said so, and to say that children cannot feel sexual feelings is ageistic. I don't want to add my own POV to this, but I should say that as a person, I know this, because it has not even been so much as three years since I have been legally a child. I don't want to pit my POV against his; all I want is a solution that makes as many people happy as possible. —  $PЯINGεrαgђ  03:16, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

This strikes me as a content issue that can be addressed in the ordinary editing process. Detail your views and concerns on the talkpage and look for input from other editors to achieve consensus on agreeable NPOV language. I don't see anything requiring admin action at this time (although you've certainly drawn attention to the issue), and I don't think a question of ageism really is involved. Newyorkbrad 03:24, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, the talk page sounds good enough, except that he used it in the only way I don't like to see it used, that is, as a substitute for talking to me on my page. Also, I would agree with you about ageism being or not being involved, but it seems that by persisting SqueakBox has come across as that way. I'm not saying he is, but he has seemed to be. —  $PЯINGεrαgђ  03:35, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

The tips in WP:DR might be helpful as well. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 04:05, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

What is it that you'd like an admin to do, specifically? El_C 04:26, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to note that SqueakBox can be a difficult editor to work with. He is convinced that he is fighting the good fight on Wikipedia by carefully monitoring pedophilia-related articles. Undoubtedly, that monitoring has to be done and it certainly isn't an easy task. SB is very passionate about it. That being said, he frequently fails to assume good faith, escalates conflict into edit wars, routinely reverts with unnecessary "rv trolling" edit summaries, is prone, as in the present case, to impose his point of view on an article. More troubling, he's very quick to label people disagreeing with him as supporters of pro-pedophile activists (see [6] or User_talk:SqueakBox/history for an extensive list of examples). He has been warned (and blocked) repeatedly for personal attacks and revert warring without much change in his behavior. Of course, he's been here for a while and has done a lot of good work but there's an ongoing pattern here that needs to be addressed and probably would have been addressed a long time ago were admins less wary of getting the "oh so you are against protecting the wiki from pedophiles?". Pascal.Tesson 05:28, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually to claim children are capable of sexual maturity is simply (a) not true and (b) has nothing to do with ageism, not quite sure what Pascal's outbusrt is about but there si nothing wrong with this eduit summary whereas it was Springer's insistence on re-adding unosurced material that was the problem here, and anyway alleged ageism isnt like rascism etc esp with young people as they just have to be patient. And assuming good faith in articles plagued by months of proven sock-pupopetry actually is not required by our policies ansd perhaps admins would do better to attend to that rathert han the god faith activities of myself. What needs addressing is a pro-pedophile clique,. not my behaviour in battling them though that has nothing to do with this case either. I gave a reasonable edit summary, Sproiinger didnt like being told he had to source so came here and Pascal, for reasons that are baffling, decided to attack me here. Nothing for admins to see here, SqueakBox 14:46, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

You are in fact demonstrating what I'm concerned about. First of all, you should stay cool and assume good faith even when dealing with articles that are plagued by problems. Yes, there are many socks on these articles but Springeragh is not one of them as far as I know and he deserves respect. Secondly, your edit summary was "rm feelings as unsourced and because children precisely do not have the emotional maturity to have sexual feelings" which, ironically, indicates classical POV editing. Clearly, child sexuality as a scholarly subject tries to understand sexuality in children in the widest possible sense and the study of sexual feelings in children is part of that subject though I am sure there's debate as to what should be considered sexual feeling in children. But here you are saying: "children are capable of sexual maturity is simply not true". This is a) your point of view and b) has nothing to do whatsoever with the inclusion of the word "feelings". You are once again rewriting the article so that it fits your views on child sexuality and, in the face of criticism, deflecting the discussion to a purported pro-pedophile clique. Your fight against that clique does not give you special rights here. Pascal.Tesson 16:19, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

This debate does not belong here. WP:ANI is not dispute resolution. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 16:48, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Agreed - Squeakbox overreacted but this is a simple editing dispute. WilyD 16:52, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

When I made the comment Springer wasnt involved and what I did was to remove unsourced material which is clearly allowed by policy and then expressed my opinion as to why, which is exactly what I should have done. Springer then created a spurious ageism complaint. I never made any statements about Springer being a sock nor implied them. You may disagree with me, Pascal, but do not criticise me for removing disputed, unsourced material, your implication that that is wrong shows a poor understanding of policy and policy implementation for an admin, SqueakBox 17:29, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the information, Pascal.Tesson, I appreciate it. SqueakBox—I know that you never said I was a sock; why do you bring that up? Also it is not exactly, um, good faith (sorry) to say that Pascal.Tesson has or shows a poor understanding of policy. It could border on a personal attack depending on who reads it although I do not consider it one myself. J.smith, I'm sorry I worded it so as to sound like a request for dispute resolution; I did not intend for it to not fit here. —  $PЯINGεrαgђ  01:02, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

It wasnt me who brought up the sock issue. I wasnt commenting on Pascal but on his comments re our policies and his apparent thinking you cant remove unsourced material (a belief of his I have come up against before when he opposed my removal of unourced living people from the now deleted rape category). We are duty bounmd to remove unsourced material wherever we find it in the main psace and policy backs that so its odd to see an admin here saying exactly the opposite. If there is dispute resolution needed I would guess it would be between Pascal and I, SqueakBox 01:15, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Squeak, do you even believe what you're writing? You know full well what I told you about that category and it has nothing to do with the removal of unsourced material. Stop dragging me through the mud and maybe just maybe consider that you may be wrong to claim that the lead sentence of the article Child sexuality which was "Child sexuality refers to sexual feelings, behavior and development in children" has to be sourced. Pascal.Tesson 01:46, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Of course I believe what I am writing, and I take RS very seriously, it says when a fact is in doubt it needs sourcing. I am not trying to drag you throught he mud, indeed was under the impression you were doing so with me. The conflict between Springer and I re this is now resoved, SqueakBox 19:16, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Let's try to keep the flare-ups to a minimum. SqueakBox may be a difficult editor to work with, but so am I, and as we know like forces repel and opposite forces attract. I proposed on SqueakBox's talk page that we put a reference (not a source, as you will see) after the word "feelings", &c. &c. but you can read it there and I'm not going to copy+paste the whole thing here. —  $PЯINGεrαgђ  17:34, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Daddy Kindsoul has violated his revert parole

Under Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Deathrocker User: Daddy Kindsoul was limited to one revert per day, 2 per week and 3 per month per article. In the past week (September 10-17) he has reverted the NOFX page three times.[7][8][9] Hoponpop69 02:18, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I took a look at this. The three reverts above are just over one week. However, it appears that if you look at the 8th to the 11th, there's three clear reverts. That he is still reverting on the 17th shows that this is an ongoing problem. He's well past his fifth block so I am blocking for one year. --Yamla 02:58, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm ... I'm not 100% sure about this. The user certainly has a very troubling record, but some of these reverts seem to be replacing removals of allegedly sourced information, so I can understand why the user might have thought they were acceptable (see also the discussion of Hoponpop's editing higher on this page). I'd also be interested in whether this user's edits in areas other than rock music have been problematic; if not, a topic ban might be better for the encyclopedia than a full-fledged one-year block (although I recognize the arbitration enforcement provision is not formulated that way). Newyorkbrad 03:13, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

• The reverts that appear to be replacing removals of allegedly sourced content, was either reverts to what had already been sourced, or were sources that had nothing to do with what they were supposed to compliment. Here's an example[10]:

"The band is known as one of the most popular in the skate punk genre and has influenced much of the Warped Tour Californian pop punk scene of the 1990s and early 2000s."

If you follow that source it links to a page which makes no mention of the Warped Tour or the Californian pop punk scene. Hoponpop69 03:21, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Daddy Kindsoul (talk · contribs) claims that his revert patrol was for one year only. I can find no reference to any such limit and he has previously been informed of that. He also repeatedly violated his restrictions during the year and has received numerous prior blocks under his earlier account name. However, if ARBCOM did intend for this to be one year and if that has now expired, my one year block would clearly be excessive and should be lifted. I can find no evidence that this is true. Apart from that, I have nothing really to add to what Hoponpop69 wrote above. --Yamla 13:50, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Deathrocker has previously used the "it was only for one year" argument, which is without foundation. He gets into these disputes over subjective characterization of bands; is one band "mallcore" or "heavy metal", is another band "punk" or "skate punk." He seems incapable of using even rudimentary forms of content dispute resolution such as RFC or third opinion, and reverts to his own opinion of the band's subgenre, sometimes replacing someone else's sources with his own, sometimes replacing sources with assertions. There are additional reports about him in the archives of WP:AE. He can sometimes go for a long time without breaking parole and he does not seem to be rude or uncivil about it, so I'm not sure he should be driven off entirely. Thatcher131 14:26, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Not to mention a persistent habit of calling content disputes "vandalism." Thatcher131 14:28, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

And his persistant habit of labeling anyone in a dispute with him as trolls. Hoponpop69 15:06, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I have requested clarification on whether the arbcom sanction has already expired in this case. See here. Additionally, I listed the specific violation of revert parole on the user's talk page. --Yamla 15:31, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I've posted some comments on User talk:Daddy Kindsoul. Thatcher's input is helpful and confirms my supposition that a topic ban might be as useful as an all-out block in this case. Newyorkbrad 21:34, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I have no objection to a topic ban. --Yamla 14:29, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I enacted one of the blocks on the old Deathrocker account earlier this year. I was later concerned that the name change was a means of hiding the block log. I actually don't know how to access the Deathrocker block log, as it wasn't carried forward and it doesn't show up on the redirect. (A dev problem that really should be fixed.) In any case, even six odd months ago, this editor had a massive revert rapsheet and was on very thin ice. A topic ban may be little different than a full ban because I don't know that the person edits much outside of music. Or a topic ban may merely move the problem to some other area. Further, there's clearly deceptive behaviour at work, such as claiming the Arb case had an expiry date. When I dealt with him/her it was archiving warnings on talk and edit summaries wrongly labelled "vandalism" that were at issue.

Support full year ban. Marskell 14:52, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• Deathrocker's block log Thatcher131 15:02, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

user:ElinorD reverting on SlimVirgin's talk page

I'm done with this before I get into trouble. Can someone take a look at this? user:ElinorD reverted, I restored, three times each, with not the nicest edit summaries. Seem's to me user:ElinorD is out of bounds, but I'll leave it to you. Jd2718 02:37, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

From what I can tell, ElinorD is removing a comment because she thinks SV would want it that way. I ask - why not just let SV do it? It doesn't appear to be blatant trolling, so maybe we should just let it be and SV can take care of it herself. The Behnam 02:48, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Just let it be. There's no need to keep that sort of aggressive talk page edit. It's clearly meant to be hurtful and it's not like Nathan has ever made a big secret of what he thought of SV. No good can come out of that message or revert wars about it. Pascal.Tesson 02:52, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) To be blunt, I believe you are the one out of line, in this instance. You are enabling harassment (that is, unwanted contact), in my opinion. SlimVirgin specifically and clearly indicated she did not want that user to post on her talk page.[11] At the least, it would be simply polite to respect her wishes, and those enforcing them, in this regard. Vassyana 02:54, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Deus ex machina :-) Tintin 02:57, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

(ec)I personally thought your message was quite trollish given the circumstances and I think it would be best if you simply left Slim Virgin alone. Your edit warring over restoring the message only adds to the appearance of trolling. Please just leave Slim Virgin alone. I'm sure if she's interested in your (or Nathan's) opinions about her, she will contact you herself. Sarah 02:58, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Also, by restoring someone's message 3 times, you're effectively engaging in 3RR by proxy. Slim Virgin has made is clear that she doesn't want that person posting on her talk page, please accept that. Your edit warring is really inappropriate behaviour and unnecessary disruption. Sarah 03:04, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Well she removed it herself, but for more general trends, should it be possible to 'ban' a user from a talk page like that? As talk pages are important to communication between users, and oftentimes communication such as concerns and constructive criticism is the most important type of communication (since it seeks to address a perceived problem), I don't think that there should be any semi-formal 'ban' such as the type ElinorD was acting upon. Sure, SV can plug her ears and scream so as to not hear criticism, but let's not make talk page censorship a legitimate and justified duty of other editors. The Behnam 03:05, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

ElinorD is not out of bounds. Sometimes people need to separate their Wikipedia lives from their real ones--SV is not a currently active editor, provoking her to force her to have to edit unappreciated trolls on her talk page is not necessary. If ElinorD thinks she is being forced to do this out of duty, I'm sure she can complain for herself. In fact, I know she can. KP Botany 03:07, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

(ec)If a person is posting trollish, taunting and unnecessary messages, I have no problems with an editor asking that person not to post on their talk page unless it is relating to article content. I myself have asked an editor not to post on my talk page under similar circumstances and I know of someone else who has as well. I have no problems whatsoever with what Elinor has been doing given the circumstances. Further, I know Elinor very well and I am certain she would not be doing that if she were not certain that she was abiding by Slim's wishes. Sarah 03:12, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm just concerned about this 'banning' becoming a legitimate practice. I know that recently I was attempting to contact an editor constructively about problems I was seeing with his conduct, and every message (all different ones, mind you) were removed. Of course, he is free to do that, but he had also declared that I 'no longer contact him', but I could see no other way of attempting to address the issues without attempting to discuss with him. There are higher DR processes, but they aren't designed to be the 'next step up' when a user just doesn't want to address his misconduct. Yet, if I am not 'allowed' to contact at the talk page (meaning that I am treated like a wrong-doer for trying after he declares a 'ban'), it becomes impossible for me to address the misconduct further, effectively killing any path of action that would resolve the conduct issues (as I don't consider ignoring the problem to be a solution when it comes to misconduct). The Behnam 03:28, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

We cannot "force" users to listen to you. If they're intent on removing talk page messages, as is their due, without any response and tell you to desist, then you should respect their wishes. Edit warring over someone's talk page is pointless, especially since they've made it clear they don't want your comments, and will remove them when they see it. Continuing to edit pages under such circumstances accomplishes nothing, and it simply provocative. --Haemo 03:37, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not talking about 'edit warring', as in restoring the same message or warning over again. Rather, different messages. The other guy should be free to remove whatever, but the declaration of a 'ban' should not be made to affect the poster. The Behnam 03:40, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

If a user reacts badly to you and you see genuine problems with their behaviour, perhaps you should ask someone else to intervene? Perhaps an admin? Sometimes people just react badly to someone for no obviously apparent reason and it is more constructive to leave the intervention to someone otherwise uninvolved. Sarah 03:45, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I suppose that's a possibility, but what I am trying to address is whether declared user page 'bans' can be treated as legitimate (as in 'actionable') such that any further attempt to communicate is actually seen as misconduct on the poster's part. Note that I don't refer to edit warring the same message - that's well-established obnoxiousness. What I don't see is why an editor should be made immune from communication because he doesn't like it, so he declares a 'ban' and whines if the other user doesn't consider the 'ban' legitimate or reasonable at all. Should it be required that such a 'ban' be respected? If so, then there should be a more accessible DR process to move to if the problem is indeed legitimate, so as to prevent such a 'ban' from effectively silencing any attempt to address the misconduct. The Behnam 03:53, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) I would generally say use some sense and address it on a case-by-case basis. I don't think it's a controversial notion that if someone asks you to leave them alone, you should. What good is going to be achieved by continuing to post to a user who has expressed the desire to be left alone by you? Regardless of whether your posts on their talk page have merit or not, continuing to post will only serve to rile them up and inflame the situation. If a user is behaving in a problematic fashion, it's not very difficult to ask another editor or a sysop to have a word with them. I think you're blowing the possibilities way out of proportion here. Vassyana 04:08, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Benham, I don't think the self-declared "bans" are legitimate in terms of policy, I just think that if a person gets upset and asks a specific editor to stop posting on their talk page, we should simply be nice people and respect that. I cannot think of any circumstances where one particular editor is the only editor on this project who can address an issue with an editor and surely if the editor reacts unfavorably to someone they've had bad interaction with, someone else, possibly an administrator, should be asked to take over. I don't think this should be a big deal. Obviously, if the person begins declaring every person who posts on their talk page is unwelcome, we shouldn't have to abide by it but that's where common sense comes in. In terms of the original message, Slim has asked that person not to comment on her talk page, he ignores this and continues, his messages are repeatedly restored while Slim is busy off-project and ElinorD, who is in regular contact with Slim and fully aware of her wishes, steps in and removes them. I don't a see a problem with this. The OP refused to accept this and revert warred to the point of 3RR, forcing Slim to return to remove the messages herself. This I see a problem with. There's nothing wrong with being nice to each other and showing some basic respect for people's wishes. Sarah 04:36, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Agreed...sure would be nice if people who have a beef with someone wouldn't post snide commentary on talkpages, especially after they have been asked to not do so.--MONGO 04:39, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. I often throw temper tantrums and request users to stay the fuck away from my talk page. It's the one thing no administrator has yet had a beef with me about. SlimVirgin should be accorded at least the same courtesy as I have been accorded. KP Botany 05:16, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I fully endorse Elinor's reverts of the provocative and taunting comments. It is deplorable that my good-natured edit on Slim's talk page precipitated the crapfest. If I had been able to foresee these developments, I would have probably expressed my sympathy with Slim's predicament by e-mail rather than drawing unwelcome attention to her talk page. --Ghirla^-трёп- 10:30, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

(ec) Actually, it can be against policy, if you keep it up; if someone asks you to stop bothering them, and you continue to do so, you are harassing them - and that is against policy, as is edit warring. Find something to do besides bother SV. Category:All pages needing cleanup could probably keep you busy and get your mind off of whatever you want to pester Slim with. KillerChihuahua^?!? 10:34, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

In these sorts of situations, many people repeat statement like "No one owns their talk page" or "No one has a right to prevent a certain person from commenting on their talk page". And that's true, so far as it goes -- but it's beside the point. If someone asks me not to comment on their talk page, I don't do it, simply because I don't want to violate WP:DICK. Nobody owns Slim's talk page -- not Elinor, not Jd, not Nathan, and not even Slim -- but Elinor was being kind, Nathan was being trollish, and Jd was, well, mistaken. Think: if you're going to revert someone, do you really want it to be to reinsert rudeness? Lets use our edits to make this a more friendly and welcoming place. All the best, – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 12:37, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, Quadell. I thought I was right, but saw it was going in a bad direction. Your comments are helpful. Jd2718 21:46, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

• JD2718: Thank you for bringing NathanLee's trolling to our attention, we will review his other comments and see if there is a pattern that needs addressing. Guy (Help!) 22:54, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

GFDL Revocation

Something to keep an eye on. Origins and architecture of the Taj Mahal. Navou ^banter 10:20, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

As I've explained to Navou - I'm happy to have the article userfied if he prefers - the article is overlong, verbose, still missing various sections and diagrams, contains errors and I won't be around to maintain it for the forseable future. I don't want to revoke GFDL, but I don't want to leave it in mainspace in its current condition. --Joopercoopers 10:35, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

You can't revoke the GFDL, by editing here, you agree that all your contributions will be released under the GFDL, so once you release something, then that is that I am affraid. Ryan Postlethwaite 10:37, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but the article is notable, verifiable, and does not merit deletion in the CSD criteria. If you are worried about the article, remember other editors can help and no article is perfect. GFDL makes the article free to everyone. --D_arkF_alls ^talk 10:39, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I've blocked User:Joopercoopers for a 3RR violation on the page for continuously readding the speedy tag. Ryan Postlethwaite 10:42, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Joopercoopers promised to cease revert warring and engage in productive discussion. I'm all for giving him a chance to explain his position. --Ghirla^-трёп- 10:50, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

You cannot revert a user and then block him for 3RR violation. Please do not use your administrative powers in a manner that drives people away from the project. From what I see on the article, Joopercoopers did a great job. Please unblock him immediately. Trying to reason with him would have been a better course of action. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 10:59, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Excuse me? I reverted his edit that broke the 3RR!!! He was acting disruptively so I blocked, he's promised not to revert again, so I unblocked. Ryan Postlethwaite 11:02, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

(editconf) Calm down. Administrators are not supposed to use admin tools while being involve in disputes. Reverting another user amounts to getting oneself "involved". Joopers seemed easy to convince, didn't he? This is exactly how new and established users get disenchanted with the project. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 11:07, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I see your point, I commented above, for that I appologise. Still, the revert was based on the 3RR being broken, nothing to do with the substance of Joopers edit. As DF says below, it's all sorted now anyway. Ryan Postlethwaite 11:10, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The incident is finished and done, so let's not fret over past actions please? --D_arkF_alls ^talk 11:05, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm unblocked, thanks Ryan, I'd lost count, hands up, no hard feelings, a warning might have been nice though I'm no troll etc. I was in the middle of trying to get an explanation here, I just wanted a few questions answering. I'm not trying to revoke GFDL or anything of the sort

1. If I can't have the page deleted because, as ryan contends, this means I'm not the sole author, why can't I move it to userspace?
2. What is the purpose of CSD7, if not to empower me to make this kind of decision?
3. I had a number of pages deleted yesterday, in userspace and also in the userspace of my legit sock mcginnly, with no problems; they were all in various states of completion, but nobody batted an eyelid - this article is admittedly a little more complete, but where's the line, is there a line, isn't GFDL applicable to articles in all states of completion and namespaces?--Joopercoopers 11:10, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

• Joopers appealed to me to delete the article under criterion G7, so I did. WP:SPEEDY is official policy, and I just reread it. Check. Bishonen | talk 11:42, 18 September 2007 (UTC).

Yes, please read the policy. G7 specifically states "page's only substantial content was added by its author." That's absolutely the case here. CSD is official policy. Nowhere does it say he has to be the "sole author" of the article. We must respect the author's wish here. I don't know why anyone has a problem with this. Bishonen was correct in deleting this. --Aude (talk) 11:49, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Please re-read it again. The speedy criterion G7 does not apply to encyclopedic articles with extensive references. Once author posts content on a page, he releases his text into GFDL, which is irrevocable. Please undo your deletion. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 11:50, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

(ec) It's always been my impression that G7 allowed deletion on user request, not that it made it mandatory. If other editors find a page useful, it will typically be kept. Following a user's request on G7, unless in cases where a page is obvious crap anyway, is entirely a matter on courtesy. Whenever editors who wanted to leave the project have tried to get their work deleted, we've always told them they can't, as far as I'm aware. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:52, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely! I have undeleted the page. Glory to GFDL! — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 11:54, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:SPEEDY and G7 says nothing about encyclopedic content or extensive references. Please quote where exactly the page says that. --Aude (talk) 12:02, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Good luck when the inaccuracies break out like a rash in the "Times of India", I was thinking about the credibility of the project. I'll leave it in admin hands for a decision. --Joopercoopers 11:57, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Retaining good editors seems to be an increasing problem. I know that Joopercoopers is annoyed with the bickering that goes on here. Sorry to say, but this incident exemplifies that. WP:COMMON should apply here and being courteous to each other. G7 is a courtesy, which we should respect. --Aude (talk) 11:59, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

• Wheel warring me, are you, Nick? :-( Criterion G7 for speedy deletion reads in full: "Author requests deletion, if requested in good faith, and provided the page's only substantial content was added by its author. If the author blanks the page, this can be taken as a deletion request." What is it you're asking me to read besides that? Maybe you're the one who needs to re-read the policy. This is not an author leaving the project in dudgeon and trying to take back his contribution. His request is in good faith because he's aware of inaccuracies and other problems in the article. Sure it looks good; but he's in a position to know it's not (or not yet). Nick, you shouldn't have done that without discussing it with me first (just how urgent was it?) in the sense of giving me a realistic chance to respond and explain before you threw an inappropriate application of GFDL in my face and ignored the speedy policy. Undo your undeletion, please. Bishonen | talk 12:05, 18 September 2007 (UTC).

• Nick - please quote where exactly on WP:SPEEDY it says G7 "does not apply to encyclopedic articles with extensive references." Bishonen is correct here. The page needs to be deleted. G7 is official policy and must be respected here. --Aude (talk) 12:08, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

(EC)I believe that we have a serious precedent here, and two apparently conflicting policies. I do acknowledge that CSD G7, as stated, does give Bishonen the mandate to delete the page, but it's quite arguable whether an admin is obliged to obey G7, and further arguable that it was the intended spirit of the rule. I don't recall that we had an encyclopedic and valuable contents deleted under G7. As a compromise, can we have this discussion moved elsewhere, possibly to Wikipedia:Deletion review (in which case, {{drv}} can be placed on the page to preserve the underlying history, at least temporarily), and/or further to Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion? Duja► 12:12, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

And, to wikilawyer a bit, WP:CSD states that "Where reasonable doubt exists, discussion using another method under the deletion policy should occur instead." I'd certainly count good-faith concerns of Nick, Fut. Perf, Ryan and myself under "reasonable doubt". Duja► 12:17, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, maybe I was out of line when I deleted the page History of Banff National Park, which I had worked on. It was a subarticle of a topic/article I was working on, had references. But, I felt it no longer fit, wouldn't take care of it, didn't want to work on it further at the time, etc. I stuck a prod tag on it, no one objected, and then it was deleted. Nonetheless, it was encyclopedic and had references. I suppose, I could have just speedied it or put a speedy tag on it. It's important to be able to delete stuff like that. --Aude (talk) 12:18, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

It's his article, not mine. If the author is unsatisfied and wishes to later repost the article after having improved it in userspace, there is no problem with this. Joopercoopers is fine editor, and I'm a great fan of editorial discretion. Moreschi ^Talk 12:31, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I've sent the issue to deletion review. Regards, Navou ^banter 12:42, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

(EC)Except that he stated that he's leaving, and probably will not work on it anymore. We normaly userfy substandard articles to let them reach the the minimum, not generally good articles which have flaws. If it becomes userfied in that manner, no one will ever improve it. There is an ethical and political question indeed, but so far we did not allow anyone who left to revoke and undo his contributions; this case is different only because it conflicts with G7. Duja► 12:45, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Bishonen was following G7 to the letter. The policy does not draw a line between userspace and mainspace deletions. If people are unhappy about this, they are welcome to suggest changes to the policy, but, until there is consensus to adjust the wording, the page needs to be deleted. --Ghirla^-трёп- 12:46, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The policy may not be able to draw these lines, but folks coupled with ignore all rules can most definitely draw the line where policy fails to make the distinction. Regards, Navou ^banter 13:00, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

IAR is there to improve the encyclopedia. Will it really harm us to have the improved version after a (hopefully brief) wait, as Joopercoopers has promised? On the contrary, I view this as a benefit. Moreschi ^Talk 13:02, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:IAR allows use to be flexible with rules, so as to be courteous to our fellow editors. In this case, WP:SPEEDY is clear, and IAR is not needed. --Aude (talk) 13:03, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Deleting an article under G7 when the text is good is somewhat futile, because any other person can use the same text (with attribution) to start the article again. The text is GFDL whether or not the article is deleted. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:24, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Note: The wording of G7 used to state, "Author requests deletion. Any page for which deletion is requested by the original author, provided the page's only substantial content was added by its author and was mistakenly created. If the author blanks the page, this can be taken as a deletion request. Note: Please check the page history to make sure there is only a single author."

This is likely the reason for the beliefs stated by some that it was meant to apply only to things with a "single author" and only to things which were "mistakenly created". That said... way too much focus on the letter of the 'rules'. In terms of general principles it would seem courteous to accept Joopercoopers' desire that his incomplete work not be displayed... but equally it would seem that anyone who wished to continue that work should be allowed to do so. GFDL does apply... even to the deleted content. If Joopercoopers returns and wants to continue his work or if anyone else wishes to do so it should be undeleted and go on its merry way. G7 exists as an easy way of getting rid of material which no one wants to keep. If that isn't the case then undeletion and further edits are perfectly appropriate. --CBD 13:23, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

• I agree with Future Perfect that just because we can speedily delete a page does not mean that we should delete it. As near as I can tell, the encyclopedia has a lot worse articles than this one; while it's incomplete, it will be fixed eventually. I'd say it's a loss for wikipedia to remove it, and I'd suggest that if the article in question were taken to AFD, it would result in a strong consensus to "keep". >Radiant< 13:29, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Good luck on your FAC thing at the mo Radiant, I fully endorse any attempt to improve content over 'style'. Similarly, I'd appreciate a decision in favour of 'editor' over 'content'. Give a man a fish, he eats for a day etc......--Joopercoopers 13:32, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

DRV closed, valid CSD G7. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 14:06, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

• I think that a bad move, ^demon, because there is an ongoing discussion and it is far from clear that policy requires deletion as opposed to merely allowing it. I hope we can avoid a wheel war on this page. Sam Blacketer 14:11, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
• Please do not extend wheel wars by cutting discussion short. The DRV had been started after several rounds of deletions and undeletions, and clearly was the appropriate venue for the discussion. Kusma (talk) 14:40, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
• I'm happy the article was undeleted. It looks like a superior quality article even without the edits that Joopercoopers was planning on making. I look forward to seeing the improved version. -- Samir 00:31, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

User:Pitythafoo - allegedly disruptive and insulting

I am not sure if I am reporting this to the right place - please tell me if I am. A most unforunate incident has occurred between User:Pitythafoo and myself. Pity began their editing career at The Age of Reason by removing some material on Michael Moore. As I spend most of my time at this article reverting removals of this material by vandals, I assumed Pitythafoo was a vandal as well. I may have been in error. Pitythafoo kept on editing. When I realized they might not be a vandal, I left a message on their talk page, asking them to cease making substantial edits to the page so that we could agree on the changes needed. When this did not deter them and I saw some very questionable edits being made - edits that dramatically changed the meaning of sentences to their opposites and edits that would render the citations meaningless - I started posting warnings on Pitythafoo's user page. I also posted a message on the article's talk page. I also requested semi-protection for the page until the problem could be resolved (it has been granted). Pitythafoo has finally started engaging in conversation (after the final block warning was left on their talk page - it was inexplicably deleted by a later editor). However, they do not seem interested in editing the article productively and keep attacking myself (the primary editor of the article) and accusing the article of being POV. They have not provided any specifics on this front, however. Moreover, they have changed editors' comments on the talk page, even the GA review, even after being told that we don't do that at wikipedia. Please temporarily ban Pitythafoo - I think that is what is appropriate, right? (Pitythafoo also seems to have started contributing under the IP address ). I am not faultless in this mess, but I do feel that Pitythafoo is not attempting to learn the ways of wikipedia or consensus-building. (I have never done anything like this before. Please inform me of any beaucratic lapses.) Thanks. Awadewit | talk 10:41, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Seems like it's a simple content dispute. The article is protected, and conversation is ongoing on the talk page. A block now would seem punitive. --Onorem♠Dil 11:08, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

There is no real content dispute going on. Pitythafoo is not providing any constructive criticism or examples of problems with the article. Awadewit | talk 11:19, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

This is a simple content dispute as Onorem describes it. Awadewit monitors the page extremely closely and refuses to allow any edits to it. This is evident in Awadewits strongly worded threats to me that took place over the 30 minutes I spent making small edits to the page. The page is not neutral and has an undertone (that is obvious to anyone who has read The Age of Reason) that is subversive and underhanded in its attempt to overlook very important major facets of the book and associate it with completely unrelated extremely controversial figures.

Awadewit has been completely dishonest and misleading about this situation. Awadewit has has made harsh threats then deleted them. Awadewit has very inappropriately and vengefully publicly listed my IP address (on this page, which i have deleted)despite the fact that I started signed all my postings afters it was explained to my that I should do so and how to do it. Please ban Awadewit for inappropriately listing my IP address. Awadewit has lied about me changing comments/GA edits after being asked no to do so--I simply changed a neutrality rating to "nay", because of my naivety in this process. I simply was under the impression that the neutrality rating was an open forum for anyone to adjust. After it was brought to my attention that this was not appropriate I apologized and have not done it since. Awadewit is clearly slandering me in an attempt to protect his/her article and prevent me from ever making any edits to it. This is extremely inappropriate, and unethical. Please ban Awadewit from making further slanderous and dishonest postings about me.Pitythafoo 18:38, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

As it is clear that Awadewit calls any and all edits that he/she deems unfavorable, "vandalism", please block Awadewit from editing this article and reinstate my editing ability on the article.Pitythafoo 19:16, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

This article on the The Age of Reason is based on the work of major Paine scholars, such as historian Eric Foner. As I have repeatedly told Pitythafoo, I am willing to listen to criticisms regarding the failings of the article in terms of WP:V, WP:ATT, etc. Where does this article not represent the main lines of Paine scholarship?

Pitythafoo did not make innocuous changes to the page (there is a list on Talk:The Age of Reason of their changes linked to the diffs - they deleted entire sections and changed the meaning of sentences so as to make the citations meaningless and the intended meanings completely different. Also, they deleted Paine's own words.

Pitythafoo simply keeps reiterating that this article is "subversive" and "underhanded" but they have not demonstrated how - that is why this is not a content dispute.

The focus of the article is not to associate the AR with Michael Moore as Pitythefoo seems to be asserting - there is one sentence regarding him at the end of of the lead and the end of the article. Another editor who became involved yesterday asked for more sources - I provided them. I also removed Moore's picture. That issue has been resolved.

I began leaving calm messages and only escalated when Pitythafoo did not respond and kept making substantial changes. I have never lied and never deleted anything. Pitythafoo does not quite understand how wikipedia works - which is fine - but they do not seem interested in learning. Also, anyone can see their IP address when it is added by the program (I saw it on the talk page to the article and the editing history). I was simply trying to identify them to administrators. Pitythafoo - anyone can see your IP address in the page history - despite your attempts to erase it.

• Exactly--Awdewit saw my IP in the editing history because I edited my comments while, unknowingly, logged out. I IMMEDIATELY logged in within minutes and added my signature. Awadewit had to go into the history to find my IP address which Awadewit then posted here. It is obvoius that Awadewit has malicious intentions. Please ban Awadewit from deleting other user's edits of the "The Age of Reason" article and from attempting to slander and/or publicly post my IP address.Pitythafoo 21:31, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

• Pitythafoo, you don't seem to quite understand. When you were logged off and signed your post on the talk page or the bot signed for you, it signed with your IP address. Anyone can see that. Also, anyone can read the history page. I was not slandering you - I was pointing out to the administrators that that IP address was the same person as User:Pitythafoo. Identifying posters is not malicious - it is informational. Awadewit | talk 22:53, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Pitythafoo did indeed change the GA review of another editor - see this diff. I did not realize they thought it was an "open forum" and I am not trying to slander them. To me, it looked like they were changing the review of another editor. Awadewit | talk 19:42, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The Age of Reason consists of two parts--the first, written without access to a bible for reference and the second, which is a revision of the first edition. Paine rewrote The Age of Reason specifically for the purpose of citing specific passages in the bible which contain verifiable fallacies and extreme incongruence. 93% of the second version is spent outlining such problems with the bible. 93% ! This can be verified by merely looking at a copy of the book. I tried to add information pertaining to this to the Wiki article and Awadewit repeatedly deleted it, calling it, "the minutiae of Paine's Biblical analysis" and claiming that it is irrelevant! Shouldn't a Wiki article include a neutral description of what accounts for 93% of Paine's own writings?!Pitythafoo 21:04, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The article on The Age of Reason (a work composed of three parts, not two) is written in accordance with WP:V, WP:ATT, WP:NPOV, WP:OR, etc. It is based on the work of major Paine scholars. Any major scholarship that is missing should obviously be included and any inaccurate representations of that scholarship should obviously be fixed. I would gladly work with Pitythafoo to fix those. However, they have not provided any sources for their claims. All of this is explained in detail at the article's talk page. Thanks. Awadewit | talk 22:50, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Revert warring on Philip Bradbourn

Ground Potato (talk · contribs), a SPA continues to violate the 3RR rule on Philip Bradbourn after he has been advised and warned accordingly. [12] --Tikiwont 15:48, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Ray gillespie (talk · contribs) has right now also reached the fence, and I've warned him. --Tikiwont 15:59, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I have blocked Ground Potato (talk · contribs) for 24 hours. My impression is that his edit can be reverted without incurring any three revert rule problems under WP:BLP. Sam Blacketer 16:29, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, I agree with respect to Gound Potato's latest edits and for users in general. Ray gillespie, however, has expanded this otherwise unsourced article vastly and happily with his own text from a party website [13] and some of his reverts amount rather to establishing his preferred version of an incident where each party selectively reported as fact one of two reported quotes mentioned in the source. [14]. So i would not want to establish anything here that may be understood as an 'entitlement' to revert per WP:BLP to a WP:COI version. --Tikiwont 11:59, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

User:Radiant!'s editing behaviour

Over the course of the last two weeks a great deal of sound and fury (most of it signifying nothing) has occurred at the WP:MOS. The proximate issue has been the inclusion of a gender-neutral advisement and the ultimate discussion is over the relative weight accorded the MoS itself.

OK, that's only meant for background; I'm here to talk about neither gender neutral language nor the MoS. Rather, there are serious issues with User:Radiant!'s behaviour that I think deserve scrutiny. So let's just imagine we're talking about Spoo, and not get lost in em dash diversions:

1. The reverting. Over the course of a week Radiant! has been repeatedly removing the GNL section, over the heads of multiple editors, including at least two other admins. After ringing up three in 24 over 17th/18th, he appears to have backed off.[15] "...wherein indeed various people including me could be viewed as disruptive" is a touch misleading because it was basically lone gun reverting on his part.
2. Moving the Wikipedia:Manual of Style to Wikipedia:Style [16] without discussion on the corresponding talk page. Truly weird. Having been told by people that it was rude and poor form, [17] [18] Radiant is still insisting: "Sam - I fail to see how renaming a single page can be considered disruptive by any stretch of the word."[19] This is an editor into his third year and a long time admin—I find the attitude frankly worrisome. (I thought we had move protect for a reason) When I pointed out that the page has had the title for approximately six years he called my response "shrubbery."
3. Lastly (and this is the one that ultimately prompts my posting here) Radiant has taken to a) placing archive tags around comments he doesn't like[20][21] and b) refactoring talk pages to suit his weight in a dispute.[22] After I reverted the refactoring in last link, he did it again.[23] The archive tags are just childish but refactoring a talk page to alter meaning is just not on. More importantly, Radiant ought to know that. Now, he might say "well, I wanted to compartmentalize that response" but it's still deceptive.

As a last point, practically every criticism presented to Radiant is greeted with a mention of WP:KETTLE or WP:NPA. Real show-stoppers. Taken individually, perhaps these behaviours could be ignored. Taken in sum, I see a very troublesome pattern. Marskell 15:54, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

There's always a healthy level of sparring at the WP:MOS, but since Radiant! has arrived the quality of discussion has really deteriorated. I'm not saying that was his intent, but that's definitely been the result. I actually agree with Radiant! on most of the issues in question, but his attitude and behavior have made compromise nearly impossible. I've tried to appeal to Radiant!'s calmer side, as have many other editors. But edits like this are incredibly unhelpful, and only exacerbate the situation, and nobody on the other side is doing anything comparable to this. Everyone seems willing to work on these issues, but Radiant!'s disruptive and unilateral behavior is making the compromise I'd like to see slip further and further away. When moving the MOS (which seemed like a deliberate provocation to me, going behind people's backs to "get a clueful response," implying the participants at MOS lacked "clue") Radiant! also reformatted Template:Style-guideline to remove language referencing the MOS. This was never mentioned at the MOS talk page and caused all sorts of templature errors. Even though the errors were mentioned, and objections to the move raised, Radiant! reverted to the broken version of the template. --JayHenry 16:53, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Radiant! has been discussing issues outside of the fora where they should be discussed rather consistently now. [24] The latest example is this page move of WP:MOS with no discussion at the talk page of MOS, rather at WP:AN, and in spite of no consensus at AN. [25] These are not admin noticeboard issues. On the one hand, Radiant! has expressed that the "clueful" responses are from admins [26] (discounting the need to discuss with other editors on relevant talk pages), but reviewing User talk:Radiant!, it doesn't appear that Radiant! is heeding other admins or engaging in talk with them either. With Radiant! spreading the fire around and refactoring talk pages, it's hard to get to the bottom of Radiant!'s concern about something as trivial as dashes or resolve these issues on talk. It's strange that Radiant! asked other admins to watch the page move, while never mentioning or discussing the move on the relevant talk page. [27] [28] [29] The appearance is that Radiant! believes non-admins have no input of relevance. On a personal level, I'm worried: Radiant! has always been regarded as a good editor. It's painful to watch this sort of conduct unfold since my first response to what I thought was an innocent query on my talk page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:08, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I let User:Radiant! know about this thread. -- Flyguy649 ^talk _contribs 17:06, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if I could charaterise Radiant!'s actions as having any sort of bad intent, but they are highly confusing, and in many cases (such as lone-wolf edit warring over the GNL section, or the refactoring of talk pages) impolite. I'm just thrown by the whole series of unfortunate events. SamBC(talk) 17:09, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

What is the point of this being here on the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents? Is this a Request for Comment? What administrative action do you wish to see performed? If you are raising general behavioral problems, then a Request for Comment might suit you better, and lessen the amount of grousing needed in this section. Mahalo. --Ali'i 18:00, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I had thought of that. As the above indicates, there's clearly behaviour worth talking about but user conduct RfCs are cumbersome and can be awfully drawn out. I consider AN/I a step you might take before an RfC. Advice to user: consider your behaviour. If that can be achieved amicably and quickly, this is the better forum. Marskell 18:17, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The name of the Manual of Style violates the Manual of Style; it also encourages the deplorable tendency to treat that insufficiently thought-out mass of whims as though it descended from heaven. Radiant! was bold, after significant discussion at WP:AN; she was reverted; the thing to do now is to discuss, not waste ANI's time on this groundless complaint. (Mass of whims? Yes. One major stylistic decision is now being defended on the grounds that "my liberal arts electives insisted on one method at college; so I'll get back at them by insisting that Wikipedians use the other one." (This is a paraphrase of a much longer rant; but it's all in the diff.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:07, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, the previous discussion was indeed largely favorable to Radiant's suggestions; the opposition consisting largely of somewhat heated complaints by Marskell himself. I last saw this tone in those who claimed that Esperanza was indispensible to WP. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:15, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Diversion. (An expected one.) We're not talking about Manual of Style v. Style (perhaps it's good, perhaps bad—not the point). We're talking about: disruptive reverts; refactoring talk pages; the really weird decision to insert archive tags into active discussions; flaming header insertions; and moving long-established titles without discussion on the talk page in question. In short, we're talking about admin Radiant's editing behaviour—the page in question isn't the fundamental issue. Marskell 20:31, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Let's see. Responding to your first complaint is now a diversion? Then please strike it. As for the rest of this:

• Radiant reverted an addition which she profoundly disagrees, denying it has consensus; this resulted in altering the language to remove a sentence which she reads as a mandate for GNL. That's how consensus-building is supposed to work.
• Radiant put a divbox about personal attacks by Tony, and comments on editor's actions by Sandy (and called them, arguably, a flame-war). So what? Some editors would have removed them.
• And your last complaint is the move, again. Radiant was bold, and was reverted. Your complaint is an appeal to a non-existent, bureaucratic, proceedural issue; there is no requirement to go to WP:RM if there appears to be consensus for a move. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:11, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

• The thing is, there is no consensus for this move anywhere. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 22:12, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
• Whoah, where did the mention of WP:RM come from? I think the talk page in question was WT:MOS, the talk page for the actual page that was moved. Elsewhise, your first point is fine, apart from the fact that she kept removing the version that no-one seemed to actually raise objection to on talk, whilst relabelling a supplementary document a proposal when no-one was suggesting that it should become a policy or guideline. This appears to have been resolved, but took more time and effort than it should have done to do so. No explanation was given as to the reason for the archive-boxes, and there does not appear to be any general agreement that they were personal attacks. I think that covers your points. SamBC(talk) 22:23, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

• • Actually she did object to the version she removed, quite strongly; so did I, until some concessions were made. As for the divboxed comments, look at the diffs. All of them contain personal comments (a couple with a small amount of other material); some are personal attacks. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:37, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:BOLD: "Although it is generally fine to be bold in updating articles, it is easier to cause problems in other namespaces by editing without due care. The admonition "but do not be reckless" is especially important in other namespaces. Being bold in updating or creating categories and templates can have far reaching consequences. This is because category changes – and even more so template changes – can affect a large number of pages with a single edit." This has changed since I last read it, but the general point has been there for some time. Sorry, we're not passing this off with a nod to BOLD.

And placing the archive tag around postings that were minutes old is childish and insulting. I mean really Pma, it's fine to defend your friend, but you look silly arguing in favour of silly practices. There were no personal attacks from Tony to speak of, incidentally.

But this isn't accomplishing much. I'd just like some indication from Radiant that these editing behaviours won't continue. Marskell 09:17, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I have some comments to make, but not here. This should be an RFC. Carcharoth 09:10, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree. If this were an RFC, I might comment, but I see no point in doing so here. A Musing 20:17, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Radiant! hasn't edited since the thread started, so we can wait. Marskell 09:19, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

From a sysop, such as Radiant, editors expect an ability and willingness to calm tempers, settle disputes, ensure that normal procedures are observed, and be a good citizen as a model to all. But she has displayed the very opposite of these behaviours in the past several weeks; as a result, WP has become a struggle and a drain on time and energy. I'm sorry if I've not handled her with greater diplomacy during this time; however, I do note that when I offered an olive branch, it was rebuffed as ingenuous. I'm willing to believe that she's a respected WPian, and hope that things will settle so that we can all contribute in the relatively calm environment that pertained before things came off the rails. Tony (talk) 14:35, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I think Radiant is waging a good-faith campaign to roll back instruction creep, generally to good effect. The result is a lot of disgruntled process wonks and a few genuinely confused people (because the disputes seem to spread everywhere). I'd suggest a WikiProject:Processcruft, but that would be processcruft... Guy (Help!) 17:47, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Process wonk? Moi? Surprised—at the accusation, and that you would sanction such poor editing behaviour. Marskell 18:47, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

What to do about DominvsVobiscvm?

DominvsVobiscvm (talk · contribs) seems to be an inveterate revert-warrior. Last month it was at Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami, but since that page has been protected, he's moved to Roman Catholic sex abuse cases. I tried protecting the page for three days, but in that time he never discussed the situation on the talk page; he merely pointed out an unrelated mistake an editor on the other side of the revert war had made in a comment. The other people involved (there are about three or four editors of the page who agree that Dom's additions to the article are inappropriate) have explained in great detail on the talk page why they consider his additions inappropriate, and why they're removing them, but he just reverts. Since keeping the page protected wasn't achieving any discussion, I unprotected it again, and the revert warring started back up. I blocked him for 24 hours for 3RR, but he was silent during his block, and when it expired he just came back and starting reverting again. I'm tempted to block him again, but I'm starting to think the only thing that will stop him revert-warring is to block him permanently. Ideas/suggestions? —Angr 15:59, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, you explain to me why it's okay for everyone else to revert my edits, but I can't do likewise. Either you block everyone from editing, or you let me do it as much as anyone.DominvsVobiscvm 16:05, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Because when there are four or five people active on an article, and all but one of them agree on what belongs there, that's CONSENSUS. When the one person who disagrees stubbornly reverts to his preferred version, and refuses to even discuss it on the talk page, it's unacceptable and disruptive. —Angr 16:23, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

<Morbo>WIKIPEDIA DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY!</Morbo> If you're being told by four editors that your edits are unwelcome and they are backed by a sound reasoning, drop the shovel and get out of the hole you've already dug. Continuing like this usually ends in a block. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v Kacheek!)} 20:01, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

He is stuck in his POV and unable to reliquish it. What gets me is I'm pretty sure that not only is the meterial he is trying to insert unverifiable, I am now pretty sure that what the detractors are saying is not correct either, which is different. That is, even if unverifiable, they could still be accurate. I doubt that their claims are. They are just too ridiculous. Ironically, the material is perhaps an embarrassment to the writers of the RC sex abuse cases who may actually have a POV (hate Catholics), but are relatively careful about getting documentation. It spoils their article, I think because the claims are preposterous on their face. Dominvs is unable to perceive this. I do understand why Wikipedia is reluctant to block anyone permanently, but unless Dominvs can be physically/software restricted to non-Catholic articles he will need to be permanently blocked. I had hoped to avoid this, but I see no alternative. He is not a child that is going to "grow/mature" out of the rut that he is in.

Another idea: how about a "bot" to track him and revert his edits automatically to certain, or maybe all, Catholic articles. And, no, I don't know how to write a bot!  :) Anyway, this would allow him to continue editing, should he care to, other Wikipedia articles. It would avoid having to block him completely. Student7 20:15, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Dear Admins, I am a newcomer to editing Wikipedia. I think Wikipedia has good policies but if those policies are not enforced, it makes the entire project and everyone's hard work go down the drain. Please enforce your policies and do whatever it is that admins do to remove the factually incorrect and Wikipolicy violating material that is locked on the page Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami under the section entitled Church Scandals that was submitted by DominvsVobiscvm (talk · contribs). This material has been locked on that page for over a month. We have engaged in discussion at length. Please do something to stop DominvsVobiscvm (talk · contribs) from adding this material that a clear consensus of editors has rejected on every page he is trying to add it. We are trying to make the pages factually correct and reliable sources of information, DominvsVobiscvm (talk · contribs) is trying to make them propaganda for a cruel purpose. NancyHeise 01:36, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I am in agreement with the other editors regarding removal of material submitted by DominvsVobiscvm (talk · contribs). I have dissected his submission and given reasons why it should not be on Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami, or Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami, or John Favalora. My dissection and rejection of his submission can be found on the discussion pages of all three of these sites and I give references to bolster my reasons for rejection. DominvsVobiscvm (talk · contribs) did not respond to my talk but it was agreed to by other editors with no rejections. He continued reverting the article even though consensus showed no support for his submission. Editors are not able to build good articles on these three sites because we have all spent all of our time and energy fighting DominvsVobiscvm. Please block his material or he himself. We can not do our job until admins enforce the rules. Thanks, StacyyW 13:09, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I also agree with the comments above about the inappropriate material being inserted by DominvsVobiscvm (talk · contribs). The fundamental problem is that his entries tend to be a combination of POV, unsupported, unreferenced, irrelevant edits and presented in a way that mischaracterizes. The equally frustrating problem is that he disregards other editors' comments, ignores consensus, and prefers to engage in edit wars that have resulted in numerous warnings and blocks. Looking at the edit histories, other editors have been quite patient and reasonable, asking for comments, inviting discussion, imploring adherence to wiki policiy, etc. The inevitable conlcusion that many have now come to is that DominvsVobiscvm has an agenda he is trying to promote, and wants to do as much damage as he can before he is stopped. --Anietor 14:59, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

User:Reneeholle

user has removed the tag requested for opinion of other user's also has removed a request for citation for Hindi meaning of a word,[30] citation is not as per WP:RS Sahaj without useing talk page Rushmi 16:47, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Rushmi posted an RFC tag in the wrong place (second time he's done this -- here's the diff of the first, which an admin fixed).

One other editor corrected Rushmi's editing here and I added a reference here per WP:SPS. I noted both on the talk page, here and here.

--Renee 17:20, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

What exactly are you asking administrators to do? This sounds like something that requires dispute resolution, which this noticeboard is not a part of. Natalie 13:15, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Bot shutdown required

SmackBot is inserting references sections in the portal namespace. In most cases, this is undesirable, and SmackBot does not respect reversions of its actions, but persists in making the change, see [31]. Maintainer Rich Farmborough has put a msg at the top of his talk page to say that he will be away for weeks or months, and the shutoff button can only be operated by admins. Separa 17:18, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

See log here. Separa 17:19, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure that it's undesirable? Without the bot's edits, there are footnote links that don't link anywhere; the footnotes should probably be removed. --ais523 17:22, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree - why add references, if you don't want them displaying? — iridescent (talk to me!) 17:24, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The note doesn't say that at all. It says I will be away over the coming weeks and months - I will not be running the bot when I am away. The shut-off can be operated by anyone apart from IP's and new users. Ais523 is correct the footnote should be removed, along with the new insertion, if required, there should not be footnote links that go nowhere.Rich Farmbrough, 17:30 18 September 2007 (GMT).

I've re-added the reflist. Having references / footnotes without any way to display them can be very confusing, especially to new users. I'm not sure why, but, I've seen this in a couple cases, for some reason, a few people out there, like having articles with no way to display the references... (BTW: There were almost 17,000 such articles earlier this month, before Rich put time into getting SmackBot to work my list...) SQL^{(Query Me!)} 19:49, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

What I do in cases like this is to consider whether footnotes are needed. If it is a talk page, for example, I just put tags around the reference. Makes it much easier to activate it again if needed, and better than removing them. Carcharoth 10:12, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

The issue has apparently been resolved; however, I'll add one more comment here because people seem to have misconceptions about what portals are. The portals are essentially subject-specific versions of the front page. They are updated less often, but they follow more or less the same format. The rest is really quite straightforward:

• the community has decided not to include references on the front page; instead, they are included in the articles themselves, whereof the front page merely presents summaries; this is a sound decision on the part of the community - the front page is intended as a taster to encourage people to delve deeper into topics if they wish
• if there were references remaining on the front page, they would be removed; certainly, nobody in their right mind would insert a reference *section*
• the same applies without limitation to all portals I have ever seen, which includes most featured portals (yes, we have a lot of portals, some on obscure topics, and many quite poorly maintained...)

I hope we can all agree on these points and continue improving Wikipedia.

Separa 14:20, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I know what a portal is; the question remains of why there were <ref> tags in the portal in the first place. References may look bad in a summary designed for a portal, but having reference numbers that don't do anything is equally useless, and they should probably be removed from the portals. Maybe the bot should have been configured to remove the references rather than create a section for them, but if it's being given obviously incorrect data, you can't expect it to act in a sensible way. --ais523 14:26, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Nazism

In the article Nazism, the User:EliasAlucard, for example here and the User:Mitsos, for example here repeatedly make an edit which results in a) the insertion of a direct (that is, in the form of a primary source) Hitler-quote b) the insertion of a direct (primary source) Goebbels-quote. In my, and other editors opinion, unmediated direct quotes, in which criminals explain their world-view, should not be used as a primary source. Since EliasAlucard and Mitsos don't respond to this argument on Talk:Nazism#Sentence_about_Sparta_removed, I request either to fully protect Nazism (in a version without the quotes) for a certain time (say some weeks), or to ban EliasAlucard and Mitsos from editing the article. --Schwalker 18:07, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I have successfully protected The Wrong Version for a period of 1 week, or until you can achieve some kind of consensus on the talk page. I'm a long period of edit warring, by multiple editors. And, no, I'm not getting involved in your content dispute — I'll protect the page in the state its found. --Haemo 18:44, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I see EliasAlucard replying to you three times on the talkpage you mention. This looks like a simple content dispute to me - IMO, brief quotes from leading members of a political party are perfectly valid in an article about that party's ideology (there are multiple quotes from Dick Cheney et al on Neoconservatism). Whether it belongs in the main article, or the separate Nazi eugenics article, seems to be the matter under debate. Personally, I agree with you as otherwise it's a content fork, but there are at least valid arguments for having it on the main page, and agree with protecting it to stop you all revert-warring over this.

I don't think there's any merit at all in the "Please don't give nazis a stage by quoting them" argument, incidentally; Wikipedia is not censored, and primary sources are perfectly legitimate when they're a simple statement of fact along the lines of "X believed this; here's a quote of him saying so". — iridescent (talk to me!) 18:48, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I honestly don't know what Schwalker's problem is, but he seems to have NPOV-issues as far as this topic goes. He removed the quote becase he thought the website was some kind of anonymous blog. I subsequently provided two other websites, one of which is a governmental one, where the quote is listed, which to me, complies with WP:RS. Why Schwalker wants the quote removed, is totally beyond me, but banning me from editing the article when I've done nothing wrong, seems like a very severe approach. Look, it's a Hitler quote, all right? If you can disprove this quote's validity, then it has nothing to do in the article (perhaps it should be in Adolf Hitler's Wikiquote misquoted section). However, so far, you haven't proven jackshit (excuse my French) as far as this quote being false goes. Why are you opposed to include this quote in the article? I just don't get it. — EliasAlucard|Talk 22:55 18 Sept, 2007 (UTC)

Hallo iridescent,

Dick Cheney is not a racist as far as I know. There seems to be only one quote of him in the arcticle Neoconservatism#1990s, which isn't sourced at all. Thus, since it steems from neither a primary nor a secondary nor a tertiary source, in my opinion the Cheney quote it is no good precedent for the Nazism article.

No, whether to put the H.quote on Nazism or Nazi eugenics is not the main matter of debate I had tried to discuss on Talk:Nazism#Sentence_about_Sparta_removed.

The process by which the now blocked version of Nazism has been created seems to be as follows: Hitler writes a book in 1928, which is kept secret, and first (incidentially illegaly) published in 1961 in an obscure translation, which in turn is cited by some anonymous blogger on wikipedia (to support an anachronist interpretation of Sparta, as user:Tazmaniacs has pointed out). Or, G. writes a booklet, which is published in 1932, which is translated into English by some anonymous, this translation is cited by some anonymous blogger on Wikipedia. As a result, since there is no critical historian or renowned instance with a real world name in between, Wikipedia is written by G. and H without any critical control. On the other hand, the victims of the racist and eugenics policy don't get an equal chance to spread their opinion about nazism. We can't expect that this process will result in a NPOV article.

--Schwalker 11:45, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not exist to spread anyone's opinion about anything, merely to report on it. We have an article about Adolph Hitler not because anyone wants to spread his opinion or spread hating Hitler or anything - we have an article on Hitler because he is notable. Similarly, we have articles on many victims of racist and eugencist policies, but again, not because we are intending to spread any kind of message. We have articles on Elie Wiesel, Anne Frank, Carrie Buck, ad inifinitum, because these people are notable. The victims of racism and eugenics don't get to spread their opinion because no one gets to spread their opinion. This is an encyclopedia, not an inspirational tract. Natalie 13:21, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Apart of the problems arising from the indiscriminate use of primary sources (see WP:PSTS), User:Elias has not respected the standard way of citing sources: "Say where you got it" and please do not modify it. The "source" advanced by Elias was not "Hitler, Adolf (1961). Hitler's Secret Book (1961)", as he claimed, but Dónal P O'Mathúna in "Human dignity in the Nazi era: implications for contemporary bioethics", published in BMC Med Ethics 2006; on-line on March 14, 2006), who cites Hitler. Mathúna's citation does not say that Hitler said that Sparta was the first National-Socialist State, but: "Sparta must be regarded as the first völkisch state." Finally, there is an undue weight problem arising from the insertion of this quote in this small subsection. Tazmaniacs 13:43, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Pardon me for pointing this out but of all the things you could fight about on that talk page this is the best you could do? Seriously, this is not a major issue. The Sparta thing is not at all an important part of Nazism as an ideology (which I presume we can agree is the actual topic of the article). To fight about this to the point where protection is needed is just way out of proportion with the actual dispute here. EconomicsGuy 14:59, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Violetriga use of admin tools in a dispute

There is a dispute at Wikipedia:Article message boxes over the redesign of these boxes. I placed a disputed policy tag on the project page. Other users then edit warred over it, so the page was protected by AzaToth.[32] User:Violetriga has been heavily involved in the dispute, but unprotected the project page, in agreement with those on her side of the dispute.[33] I pointed out to Violetriga that this was an inappropriate use of admin tools and asked her to revert. She didn't but responded, "That's a bit silly really."[34] There is still a dispute over the guideline, and there is still a dispute over the disputed tag, which has been removed again and which I have restored. Violetriga has agreed the guideline is disputed.[35] I would be grateful if the week-long protection could be restored. It would be a good thing to have a pause for discussion and wider editor involvement at this point. Also Violetriga should be cautioned not to use admin tools when she is an involved editor. Tyrenius 19:13, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Though I'm marginally involved in this "dispute," it's my opinion that Violetriga acted in good faith and didn't intend to abuse his / her admin tools, s/he simply wanted to allow editing to the article with the agreement that the disputed tag would remain. --MZMcBride 19:23, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Give it a rest, man. This really isn't a dispute at all. From what I see, people are getting along and we're discussing even more great ideas on how to format these templates. There's no fire here, not anymore. -- Ned Scott 19:29, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any dispute. I see a discussion. --Haemo 19:30, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Was Violet an edit warrior in the dispute? FunPika 19:41, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I see lots of dispute. But the {{disputed}} tag means there's a dispute over whether or not the page should be a guideline. Disputes over how to change the page don't warrant a disputed tag, or else nearly every guideline and policy in Wikipedia would have one.

Equazcion • argue/contribs • 19:54, 09/18/2007

The dispute is about the content and the recent changes, basically over most of what is on the page. Tyrenius 20:30, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

As a participant in discussion on Wikipedia:Article message boxes, I concur with MZMcBride that Violetriga acted in good faith. What I wonder is, what would she have to gain from the page being unprotected? "Don't use your admin tools in a dispute you're involved with" doesn't mean you can never use your buttons on any page you happen to edit regularly. I think she unprotected because (a) it was a short and silly edit war that (b) was unlikely to repeat itself, and (c) because of the many changes involved in the article message box standardization project, it's more beneficial to open the page to editing than to leave it protected. szyslak 19:58, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I really don't see the point in trying to make trouble in this way. You seem to ignore the fact that I agreed that the tag should remain and specifically said so when I unprotected the page. violet/riga (t) 20:04, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Try as I might, I'm really struggling to see anything that be even faintly construed as a potentially dubious use of any sort of buttons. Moreoever "ZOMG Violetriga is evil sysop" threads at ANI are getting just a tad tiresome. Moreschi ^Talk 20:26, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm tired of "ZOMG [insert admin here] is an [evil/abusive/corrupt] sysop" threads in general. In fact, your comment has inspired a new WP:RAUL law: "In any discussion on WP:AN or WP:ANI about how someone is an evil/abusive/corrupt/immoral sysop, the odds that the admin in question is indeed evil, abusive, corrupt or immoral are about 1 in 100,000." szyslak 20:45, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Please avoid strawman arguments. There is no mention of evil. Then presumably you have no objection if I reprotect the page as an involved editor. Tyrenius 20:32, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Of course I do, that would be wheel warring! No, not seriously. Actually, I think we should all wheel war a bit more and talk a bit less. Not enough actually gets done on this wiki. Moreschi ^Talk 20:49, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

That was not a straw man argument. This indeed began as a "Violetriga is a bad sysop" thread, whether one uses the word "evil" or not. szyslak 20:45, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

It did not. It merely addressed one action. Tyrenius 00:59, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

My first accusation of being a rouge/evil/abusive admin was six months before I was given the admin bit. For a month or so earlier this year (I was doing image deletions, natch) my day wasn't complete without at least one shrieking mental pointing out how I was rouge/evil/abusive and should be hung/drawn/quartered forthwith. Therefore, when I see thread like this here, I'm sorry, but my first thought is not "OMG!!!!!!! ROUGE ADMIN!! STOP EVERYTHING!". It's "oh, another mentalist, perhaps his/her contribs need to be examined more closely". I doubt I'm alone in this (well, perhaps the language, but not the sentiment) and I think we might need a note somewhere to say to the specials who pitch up here "Administrators will examine the edits of all who are involved and your own edits may therefore be considered". ➔ This is REDVEЯS 20:58, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

You are heavily involved and not in a position to make an objective judgement. That should be left to an univolved admin. As it happens, as soon as the page was unprotected, the dispute tag was removed again. Tyrenius 20:30, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I was not involved in the presence (or lack thereof) of the tag, which is the main thing here. Please go and try and come up with something constructive in our discussions rather than going on about this nothingness. violet/riga (t) 20:37, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Given the fact that the tag wasn't removed again until more than fourteen hours after the page was unprotected, I can no longer assume that you're acting in good faith. —David Levy 23:34, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Violetriga did not remove the dispute tag. He/she just unprotected the page so we could continue to improve it. So Tyrenius, you are pointing fingers in the wrong direction. Personally I was very surprised that AzaToth protected the page after the dispute tag had only been removed twice. It wasn't like the page was heavily vandalised or something. The one who have done several strange things as an admin in this case is AzaToth, but that is another story. And previous to that I was also surprised that the box at the top of the page was changed from "how-to guide" to "guideline" this early. Don't we have a box for "suggested guideline" or so? And of course, if some say they dispute the guide then of course it is disputed. Although it seems to be a very small but very vocal group who do the disputing. So though I was/am involved in formulating and implementing this guide I agree that for the time being it should have the dispute box on top but that the page should be unprotected. (Even thought I was pretty satisfied with that version so the protection was more beneficial to us who is for this guide than the disputers I think.) By the way, the dispute box itself doesn't hinder our work so it really doesn't disturb.

--David Göthberg 20:37, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

{{proposed}}, yes. That probably would've been a better way to go.

Equazcion • argue/contribs • 20:51, 09/18/2007

In fact, it was tagged as {{proposed}} until just a few days ago. But the changes have been implemented without mass edit warring on the templates between supporters and opponents of the change, so I don't think it's still "proposed". szyslak 20:55, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Outside Opinion: Well I am not involved in this dispute at all nor have I edited the page. IMHO I do not see gross abuse of the tools here. Though I'm not in favor of undoing protections without some discussion with the protecting admin (especially when a page has been protected so recently)...I still do not see how the unprotection is going to be drastically harmful at this point? The only significant dispute to date is the actual use of the dispute tag on the page. Its not like the entire guideline is being worked around or hacked away by multiple editors. The visual design is just being discussed and tweaked. <humor>Its not like we are having editors warring over whether a circle instead of a box should be used for the tags</humor>. All that there is to this matters is that it might have been more considerate for Violetriga to propose the unprotection first.¤~Persian Poet Gal ^(talk) 20:56, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Just as a point of information, some discussion did take place here: Wikipedia_talk:Article_message_boxes#Protection.3F before the unprotection. -Chunky Rice 21:23, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

To Szyslak: In order for something to become a guideline, consensus needs to be explicitly shown on its talk page; not inferred from a mere lack of opposition to its effects elsewhere.

Equazcion • argue/contribs • 01:04, 09/19/2007

As TheDJ points out below, {{ambox}} isn't going away anytime soon. The essence of the guideline is "article message boxes are standardized now". I'd still support tagging it as proposed if there were serious opposition to the concept of standardization. No, opponents have been focusing on its implementation. szyslak 21:09, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Quoth Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines, "a guideline is any page that: (1) recommends actions that editors should either take or avoid; and (2) reflects consensus." There is no requirement that said consensus be established via a particular forum. —David Levy 01:12, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

That's some good quothing. You're right in a policy sense. But in a practical sense, for this particular case, I really don't think a lack of opposition should have signified a consensus. Besides which, there is now a fair amount of opposition, so maybe this should be kicked back to a proposal until the talk page settles down. It's a bit insane right now.

Equazcion • argue/contribs • 01:52, 09/19/2007

I wasn't addressing the issue of whether or not consensus exists in this case. I was addressing the claim that "in order for something to become a guideline, consensus needs to be explicitly shown on its talk page."

I will, however, note that I'm not seeing opposition from all that many users. I'm seeing a small number of extremely vocal opponents. —David Levy 03:29, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Basically, {{ambox}} is not gonna disappear anymore. People will probably fight forever over the designs, but what else is new. I saw proper discussion on the talk page, and no movement in the large to undo all the work. When i removed the disputed tag, i did this with the editsummary: Even Reinis said: "Please note that what's being disputed is the design, not the standardization as such.") Reinis being one of the most vocal anti-AMB people. Really i don't see why this is a disputed guideline. It's a guideline under active discussion at most. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:26, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Violetriga and I have not always seen eye-to-eye, but I'm utterly disgusted by Tyrenius' absurd accusation of impropriety. At this point, I'm convinced that Tyrenius is not interested in actually discussing the relevant issues in good faith (and instead seeks to wear down opponents by making as much noise and stirring up as much trouble as possible). —David Levy 23:34, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The undesirable tendency of dedicated member of this project to OWN it and adopt a tactic of attacking any critics has been pointed out more than once on the project talk page. There are valid concerns about the nature of this design and the the haste of its implementation, which will have an effect throughout the whole of wikipedia. Tyrenius 00:58, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

How does that pertain to your unfounded accusation against Violetriga? —David Levy 01:01, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

It pertains to your comment immediately preceding it, as I'm sure you realise. You might like to check this out. Tyrenius 01:42, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

My comment pertained to your accusation of impropriety on the part of Violetriga. I obviously don't expect you to agree with my assessment that it's unfounded, but your reply has absolutely nothing to do Violetriga's unprotection of the page. The alleged haste with which the change was carried out and rudeness of its proponents are not germane to the discussion.

Incidentally, I'm waiting for you to explain why you claimed that the dispute tag was removed "as soon as the page was unprotected." —David Levy 03:29, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Your comment obviously extended beyond this thread to the project, where you have made similar negative comments about editors who question the change, as has Violetriga. However, it does serve to illuminate the background to my complaint. It was a 7 day protection, and the template was removed 14 hours after unprotection. Tyrenius 04:57, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

1. I'm not a member of the project. I discovered its existence and briefly commented shortly before the new design was implemented. I am, however, satisfied with the overall result, and I believe that much of your conduct has been ridiculous. I say this not because you've questioned the change, but because you've been discourteous, disruptive and even dishonest.

2. Please quote the "similar negative comments" that I've made about other editors.

3. Yes, the tag was removed more than fourteen hours after the protection was lifted. So why did you claim that it was removed "as soon as the page was unprotected"?

As for the seven-day duration, I certainly hope that you aren't suggesting that this was set in stone (even if the dispute that led to the protection was seemingly resolved). —David Levy 07:40, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Internet Coffee Phone -- concerted attack

Earlier this afternoon, User:Eskimoscott posted an article called Internet Coffee Phone, which was a call for vandalism -- the article urged users to insert the phrase "Internet Coffee Phone" into random articles. Although I immediately deleted the article, there have been at least 2 users conducting such vandalism since then: User:220.239.145.179 and User:Junaide. All of these users are now blocked, but keep an eye out for this and immediately block any other user who does this. Thanks, NawlinWiki 19:36, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

User:152.33.66.64 - I'm not an admin, can someone do the honours? — iridescent (talk to me!) 19:40, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

User:71.99.154.98 was another. Already blocked though. --Onorem♠Dil 19:41, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Also User:Chadrod123 - and someone needs to keep a close eye on the ICP Campaign article, which probably needs to be reverted to the legit version & protected — iridescent (talk to me!) 19:42, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Image:Internet Coffee Phone.jpg, too — iridescent (talk to me!) 19:44, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Another one. WATP ^(talk) • _(contribs) 19:50, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Blocked Mr.Z-man 19:53, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

• I've semiprotected ICP Campaign. -- Flyguy649 ^talk _contribs 19:52, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

• Note -- the four anon IPs so far are totally unrelated (they are from Australia, England, New Port Richey FL, and Elon College in North Carolina. NawlinWiki 19:54, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
  • A tribute to the global brotherhood Wikipedia brings... — iridescent (talk to me!) 19:58, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

User:24.231.74.76 - 4 times, all reverted — iridescent (talk to me!) 20:01, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

User:152.42.162.112 - this is starting to get tedious... — iridescent (talk to me!) 20:11, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Apparently this was started at 4chan. See this unreliable source. NawlinWiki 21:05, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I've added the word to Lupin's bad word list. Can anyone check to make sure I did so correctly?¤~Persian Poet Gal ^(talk) 21:18, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Groan. More 4chan shit. While we're at it, could you add "So I Herd You Liek Mudkips" [sic] to that list? Mudskipper and List of Pokémon (241-260) have also been under constant 4chan attack because of this meme, and both are semi'd currently (right after a two-week full-prot). -Jéské ^{(v^_^v Kacheek!)} 22:24, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

"[Mm]udkip[sz]" in regex speak, I think. Will ^(talk) 22:32, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Since Lupin's tool is case insensitive, I've added "you li(ke|ek) mudkip(s|z)", which should cover it. Confusing Manifestation 23:22, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Throw in User:68.40.24.68, though only once. --Calton | Talk 23:26, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

24 hours; I'm not taking chances with this meme. --Haemo 23:29, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Being as a fair number of the concerted attacks on wikipedia appear to be coming from 4chan, why are they allowed to have an article here? I mean yeah, okay 'Encyclopedia of everything' and all that, but it kind of strikes me as ironic that they can cause chaos like this and we still have an article on them. HalfShadow 23:35, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

It's not like removing someone's article is a form of punishment. 4chan is a notable website, and so it warrants a virtual encyclopedia page. Keeping 4chan's article would just mean that they are notable/encyclopedic/???, not that they aren't troublesome. You Can't Review Me!!! 23:42, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The main reason 4chan is notable is because of all the controversies surrounding it and some of its unruly users (thankfully they still mainly edit Wikipedia with IPs). We have articles on Wikipedia critics, too, IIRC. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v Kacheek!)} 23:51, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Completely useless sidenote: We're ranked way higher than 4chan on the so-called unreliable source above. You Can't Review Me!!! 00:08, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

User:Hgielyakk, two edits. I reverted both. —BurnDownBabylon 23:38, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, isn't that why we don't have an article on ED? StaticElectric 07:59, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Nope. ED just dosn't pass notability guidelines. Attention was brought to it by a campaign of harassment from a few ED members however. We can't just delete articles on subjects we don't like... else we wouldn't have an article on hitler and homework. :) ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 08:14, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Apparently, this is an ongoing thing... I just removed 5 by User:74.97.159.164. SQL^{(Query Me!)} 08:21, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Uh-oh. I've found this phrase in about 100 articles so far :( working on it.... SQL^{(Query Me!)} 08:36, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Cleaned out almost 100 articles. here's a good way to find them. SQL^{(Query Me!)} 08:56, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

SqueakBox

Can something please be done about User:SqueakBox? He's deleted sourced information from articles before based solely on WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Now he's made another edit to Axl Rose (previously he had deleted information from the article as 'unsourced', blithely ignoring text with footnotes and checkable online sources) with a very threatening edit summary, [36] claiming that the editors who work on the page are "abusive," threatening "mediation and RfC" if anyone reverts his edit, etc. Frankly this user's behavior is on the verge of abusive, seems to violate both WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA and is disruptive, and I don't think he should be allowed to try to strong-arm other editors this way. DanielEng 21:00, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

• SqueakBox is a reasonable guy, he is pretty hot on WP:BLP but undoubtedly not averse to a civil discussion about things. Bold, revert, discuss - try the third of these now. Especially since it looks to me as if he's right, the category is not for the purpose for which it's apparently being used. Guy (Help!) 21:05, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I actually agree with Squeakbox that the cat appeared to be inappropriate to the article, so I don't have a problem with its deletion at all. I do' have a problem with threats and personal attacks against other editors as he made in his edit summary. In my past dealings with him I have found him to be stubborn, unreasonable and capable of disruptive edits...a while back he was trying to tweak admin guidelines to suit his purposes. DanielEng 21:10, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

It's a bit over the top, but mediation or an RfC would be a reasonable dispute resolution path for this conflict. -Chunky Rice 21:13, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I should point out that there was no edit war going on here. If there had been, mediation might be an option. Threatening it when one makes their first edit to specific content is completely out of line. DanielEng 21:30, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The child abuse victim category that was disputed is now deleted and thius re-insertion of a wrong category was not acceptable. This is the second time in 2 days I have been reported here for things that dont require admin intervention. Why? I notice Dan making generalisations about me that are basically a PA, and without diffs to back himself up, SqueakBox 21:20, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

My name is Daniel. Not Dan. As I said on my comment to you on your Talk Page, deleting the cat would have been fine. When the previously debated cat was removed by consensus, that was cool and nobody questioned it. Pointing out the cat was being used out of context would have been fine, since the editors tending to the page (including myself) obviously hadn't caught it. Leaving a threatening edit summary saying "My edit! Revert and I'm RfCing you!" was not. I should point out that there was no edit war happening; this was the first time he came in and deleted that cat, and nobody had objected. As to my "generalizations," exhibit A, Squeakbox deleting stuff from a Wiki-wide admin guideline page based solely on his personal opinion: [37] exhibit B, Squeakbox claiming material is "unsourced and not in text," when in fact it was cited and in the first paragraph, he just couldn't be bothered to read it? [38]DanielEng 21:27, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Put down the Spider-Man suit and step away from the Reichstag. This does not require admin intervention, and it can probably be solved by stopping the huffing and puffing and actually engaging in discussion. I've blocked SqueakBox before now for other things, but he has consistently impressed me with his self-awareness and philosophical attitude. Try actually being nice about things, and I'm sure it will pay dividends. Guy (Help!) 22:47, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm generally very nice, but I've dealt with Squeakbox before, and he tends to tune out whatever is said to him if he doesn't agree with it. I'm going to take your advice here on leaving the Reichstag behind (LOL) and stay as far away from this editor as I can, but really...I'm not the first editor who has brought Squeakbox up to ANI. IMHO ignoring this sort of behavior just lets him think it's acceptable to continue to carry on this way.DanielEng 04:00, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Well there was nothing wrong with being bold on the deletion guide for admin page, that is why we have an edit button, if I had edit warred over that point it would have been different thought he policy clearly is a violation of one of our pillars, do no harm. Axl stating he belioeved he was sexually molested by his father is not enough reason to include him in the cat (now deleted as inappropriate for obvious reasons) and indeed without firm evidence shopuld be removed as outing his father based on hearsay so again your claim that I hadnt read the Rose article is another mistaken allegation on your part. You seem to have a bee in your bonnet about me which concerns me, and because of my attempting to impose BLP policy and thus do no harm, and that concerns me more. Your claim that admins have specail editing priovileges [39] shows a popor understanding of how things work here, it doesnt work like that. So what exactly do you want tdone about me, Daniel? SqueakBox 21:38, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Except that a) the admin guideline page very clearly stated that any changes made should be done with consensus. In addition, if you recall, you told me yourself you had read the Rose article and "couldn't find" the information,[40] so you are changing your story here. Not to mention that if you had read the source given, you would have noticed that Rose's father is DEAD, so there is no BLP vio involved. DanielEng 21:45, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

And pray what adnmin intervention is needed here? If Rose's father ids dead or alo=ibve makes no difference to our duty to respect thim and not publish gossip allegations about him that are unproven. And indeed I did read the article and could find no relaible source that he had suffered child sexual abuse. Consensus is suggested but an edit button does leave one free to edit and I was using my judgenment based on consdiderable experience of both lif and wikipedia, and no one even reverted for 3 days. it appears you are greasping for straws with which to attack me because you feel angry but please do not use me as a scapegoat for your anger. thanks, SqueakBox 21:59, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

You don't know me, and I'm not angry, I'm annoyed. So now we don't believe survivors of abuse when they say they've been abused? It's not gossip, it's from the man's mouth, and it's clearly said in the article "Rose stated..." ie, it's presented as his belief and not fact. Seeing as he's gone public in the interviews, in songs, onstage and elsewhere, and other abuse Rose suffered has been corroborated by outside sources (again, if you read the RS article you WOULD have seen that), it's obviously something true to him. In addition, you never brought any of this up when you deleted the cat, did you? No, you just said "unsourced" (which wasn't true, since there were citations there) and "not in text" (which it was, and I notice you've conveniently ignored the diff where you said you couldn't find it and had to be handheld to find the lines in the text). In addition, in regards to the Admin Guidelines, you know as well as I do that it was not a regular Wiki article. When a page explicitly says that you are to have to have consensus to make changes, but you don't have consensus and you edit on your own opinion, you're out of line. You're not an expert "on life and experience" any more than anyone else on Wiki.DanielEng 03:59, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this is a content dispute. --Haemo 22:04, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually it isnt even that as Daniel agrees the cat should have been removed, SqueakBox 22:10, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Wait, so SqueakBox's edit is agreeable, but the edit summary is not ... ok. I'm a bit confused. SqueakBox may have had a "threatening" edit summary, but it is a threat of action within Wikipedia's dispute resolution processes. That is a perfectly acceptable threat. Then an RfC would come, and we would all comment, and you and SqueakBox would know what the consensus of the community is. Isn't that a good thing? If there were even a content dispute in the first place... --Iamunknown 22:26, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that is what I am saying. The edit summary was not even a threat against me, because I didn't add the cat. It was a blanket strong-arm tactic and threat leveled against anyone who would be editing the page, and it was added, again, on his first edit of that cat, not after an edit war. I don't think Squeakbox or any other editor has the right to come onto a page and say "if you don't do it my way, you're being abusive and I'm RfCing you," especially when nobody had disagreed with him, nobody'd said anything on the Talk Page for the article, nothing.

RfC and mediation are wonderful tools, but shouldn't they be the last resort step in an edit conflict, not a preliminary measure taken by an editor who just wants to make sure things go his way? DanielEng 03:59, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

For the record, I think that SqueakBox is not "a reasonable guy [...] undoubtedly not averse to a civil discussion". He was on personal attack parole for a year, got blocked twice in the process, was blocked repeatedly for 3RR violations, routinely accuses people standing in his way of having a pedophile agenda [41] [42] [43], of being trolls [44] [45], he routinely uses the "I know Wikipedia better than you so please shut up now" argument [46] [47]. Pascal.Tesson 22:41, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Assuming I am not reasonable is a PA, and from you who has launched so many PA's against me this is becoming totally unacceptable. You should strikle your statement as you have no evidence to back it. people who have been subject to arbcom rulings are not exempt from our NPA policy and your following me arounfd harrassing me is utterly unaceptable, and based on your obvious anger that your beloeved rape victims category got deleted. please either modify your behaviour or seek dispute resultion, ie mediation because IMO your own behaviour re me has been appalling for some time now. Just because you are an admin does not give you the right to claim that I am not a good faith user, especailly when nobody agrees with you, SqueakBox 00:27, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Indeed it strikes me that having seen your complaint rejected here you that are raking any old mud to besmirch my character because you have taken a personal dislike to me and this is not acceptable, SqueakBox 00:45, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

My beloved rape victims category? I got a chuckle out of that one... I stand by the statement I made above and as you may have noticed it is full of very recent diffs showing that you're prone to wild accusations and there are many more in your talk history. I can't say I'm really surprised that you would try and write me off as some kind of rape-loving pervert or whatever it is you had in mind when you wrote the above. Please, look at the diffs I provided. They are mine, not yours. Ask yourself: "would I consider this acceptable editing if it was someone else's work?" Ask yourself, why are editors constantly bringing me to the 3RR noticeboard and to ANI? Why did a number of admins warn be about unacceptable behavior? Why did Morven ask me once again to tone it down and stop labeling everyone a crypto-pedophile? Why did he ask me to stop insinuating I have the ArbCom's support? Go back in your archives and look at what I told you about the rape victims category. I said "send it to AfD, don't depopulate it out of process" and added "I understand (though I probably don't quite share) your concerns about how appropriate this category is but in any case, this is something that should be properly debated". In other words, I said respect your fellow editors or don't expect respect from them. Pascal.Tesson 04:23, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. DanielEng 04:43, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• Pascal, SqueakBox has strong feelings and can be provoked. Same here. But as I say, it has been my invariable experience with him that reason is met with reason. He's open about his biases and views, at least. Guy (Help!) 17:43, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I am criticized twice in this page for giving honest edit summaries. Would you rather I didn't give edit summaries at all? I was under the impression that honest edit summaries are good. And, of course, removing unsourced rape victims claims is absolutely necessary under outr BLP policies, nothing ot do withe whether the cat should have been deleted (I didnt cfd it). I should not be criticised for enforcing our policies just because someone else doesn't like our policies, and thinks that not removing the work of other editors is more important. Enforcing our BLP policies will always create enemies but BLP is more important because it is about the way we treat living beings, and we must treat their right to accuracy and privacy as much higher than we do the work here of our editors. Generally being involved in conflicts can be a good sign of putting wikipedia first and of getting the job done, all the ebst editors have similar histories, and all get a hard time from others too but that is the wikipedia way. I have asked Pascal for mediation and he has iognorede the request but his continuous attacks against me does need dispute resolition and if he wont let me edit wikipedia in peace then dipute resxolution will habvve to happen. This is the admin who blocks people while his email is disabled and who expected me to know he was an admin when he was not in the admin list and has no email availabaility, then gave me a hard time for not knowing he was an admin so Ithis is clearly not a situation where I am at fault and he isnt, SqueakBox 18:52, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that the problem with the edit summary as noted was probably misinterpretation. It wasn't your most eloquent, and was open to some misinterpretation I think, but no I don't think it was anything like bad enough to justify dragging up here. Guy (Help!) 21:26, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

205.202.240.144 (shared) vandalizing

IP 205.202.240.144 (shared IP) has been vandalizing pages for almost a year, and has been blocked more than once. The IP vandalized the page on Ernie Chambers three times, even after being warned since January 2006 at User talk:205.202.240.144, and blocked on and off since March 2007. Needless to say, this IP needs to be blocked. --Piroteknix 21:26, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

It's a fairly broad range of pages that have been vandalised. Semi-protection won't help. Sheffield Steel^talk_stalk 21:35, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if it's a middle school computer lab or library or what, but the vandal(s) don't seem very mature, saying Chambers was born to alien parents and Lois and Peter Griffin, and that he was born on 23/23/2323. --Piroteknix 23:40, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

User Calton

Why does [48] this behavior continue to be allowed? I was blocked for harassing Calton a few days ago, and I freely admit that I was, but I am just so frustrated at the way he is continually allowed to abuse editors, and administrators, on occasion. Why isn't he at least reprimanded, or told to be civil? 66.35.127.0 21:41, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

He didn't abuse you, he told you what Wikipedia's policies are. He wasn't overly nice to you, but as you freely admit you don't deserve the kindness of Wikipedia's volunteer contributors, who are actually spending their free time writing an encyclopedia rather than harassing others and filing bogus complaints. If you can't handle frank and sometimes rough talk then frankly you should be contributing to the Tellytubbies Wikia. 81.86.235.169 21:54, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

That link didn't take you to any type of abuse that Calton gave to me. It takes you to an example (one of many) of Calton abusing someone who has been a long-time, productive editor at Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.35.127.0 (talk) 21:57, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

It's not that bad. It's barely even incivil. If you have a problem with his behavior, then I suggest you discuss it with him, or file a request for comment. This oblique "look at this edit" nonsense is totally unproductive. --Haemo 22:08, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I apologize, I've never made a link before, I didn't give you as much information as I intended. How about this [49] So if he only breaks the rules a "little" bit, that is ok? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.35.127.0 (talk) 22:13, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Without commenting on anyone's conduct, I second Haemo's recommendation that concerned editors engage Calton in discussion or file a request for comment. The messages regularly left here pointing administrators to a single edit by Calton are, at best unhelpful, as nothing has ever come of them and, at worst, disruptive, whether intentionally or not. ("Disruptive" is not a characterisation of any individual editors, but a general comment on the effect these types of messages have to this noticeboard.) --Iamunknown 22:39, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

• Nothing to see here, move along now. Guy (Help!) 22:40, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

It is not my intention to be disruptive, so I will make one more comment in this particular discussion then quiet down for the moment. It would seem to me that if messages are being regularly left here about Calton's behavior, that should be a red flag. But if your point is that people are reporting them only one at a time, then I will solve that problem. Here...[50], [51], [52], [53], [54], [55], [56], [57], [58]. That's only going back to September 5th. Several of these were to users who were confused about something and were just looking for help and/or clarification. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.35.127.0 (talk) 00:14, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Nothing wrong with any of those, as far as I can see. Carcharoth 09:49, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I see nothing there that requires admin action. --Fredrick day 09:53, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

User evading block

A user recently admitted he was a sockpuppet of an indef. blocked user [59]. Cheers,JetLover (Report a mistake) 22:19, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

User:Mhgraham77

Would somebody please block Mhgraham77 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) for repeated BLP violations at Cecil O. Samuelson? Several editors have explained to him/her why their repeated assertions that their college president is a fascist and making comparisons to Hitler are not correct, but he/she keeps re-adding them. I posted this at WP:AIV but it's still sitting there. Corvus cornix 22:25, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Continued personal attack after return from block

Per this ANI complaint, User:Iwazaki was warned by admin Lexicon and subsequently based on this personal attack was blocked for 48 hours. The block was upheld by admin Haemo. After the return from his block he accuses me of being a Sock of Wikrama who is User:Wikramadithya. (see here).

In his edit summary he wrote

(reply to wikrama).

His older accusation that I am user Wikramadithya is here. Hence this is continuation of his Harassment of me. Thanks Taprobanus 22:39, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Just a note, but there is a request for comment currently open on Lexicon for the block outlined in this discussion. --Haemo

It was closed. Thanks Taprobanus 22:54, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Anyways, as an outside user who knows nothing about the whole underlying editorial issue here, it's clear that User:Iwazaki's problem is that he doesn't appear to understand, or care, that making accusations about another editor is productive, and can be incivil. The above charge of sockpuppetry is one example, but when I reviewed the previous block, it was clear that not only did he see nothing wrong about making claims that another users has "racist" off-Wiki affiliations, but that he was indeed correct to do so. This is not an isolated incident on his part. He perhaps best puts his views in this edit or this exchange, where he explains that since he believes his accusations of bias in other people, both on and off-Wiki, are accurate that he is free to make them. Now, I could really care less about his views of an author, but the same opinion he routinely extends to other editors. It's incivil, and disruptive. He doesn't appear to have learned anything from his block, and will probably continue attacking other users until something serious happens. --Haemo 23:13, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

10-year old gives real name

A new user, Mgeller234 (talk · contribs), has just written his autobiography on Wikipedia. I moved it to his userspace, but after doing that, I noticed that he claims to be 10 years old, and gives out what appears to be his real name and his probable city of residence. Please advise on what to do. Should his userpage be deleted? Aecis^Brievenbus 00:07, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Two things, delete the page and the restore all but the diff in which he hadds the personal information. Then email oversight and tell them about it. at WP:OVERSIGHT. --JodyB _{yak, yak, yak} 00:09, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, this needs to be deleted and oversighted ASAP. --Haemo 00:10, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I understand the concern, but what is the policy basis for this? And where is the line? If a 15 year old puts personal information on their user page, is that allowable? 17? 18? Just curious. -Chunky Rice 00:11, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Such measures are based on Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Protecting children's privacy#Final_decision. Aecis^Brievenbus 00:17, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I have, out of precaution, edited out the personal information, but I will delete and contact oversight. Thanks for the quick response. Aecis^Brievenbus 00:12, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I absolutely support the decision to delete the material per privacy concerns. User pages have no robot restrictions and are prone to be archived in a flash, even by convention-abiding robots. — xDanielx ^T/_C 05:20, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

User:Blaxthos

The user Blaxthos inserted this threat into my talk page without any context. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AArzel&diff=158790970&oldid=157720709

I am getting quite tired of his personal threats against me, and ask for some assistance in dealing with this individual. Arzel 00:22, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

You didn't get a personal threat, you got a generic warning. Judging from Blaxthos' edit history, the warning was related to your comment on Talk:Fox News Channel, specifically the bit about "Anyphil, who appears to disagree out of spite." I can see how this is taken to constitute a personal attack. Aecis^Brievenbus 00:28, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

It may be in response to that, but where does he get off making veiled threats against me for supposedly "policy shopping" and Andyphil accusing me of "Spurious attempts to remove information" when I had made no comments for over a week in an attempt to reasses the situation. I tried to respond civily, and was instantly threatened, and that was no generic warning from him to me. His essay on Policy Shopping was written specifically in response to me. Arzel 00:57, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, you could work on trying harder at being civil. If the best you can do is saying someone "appears to disagree out of spite", then I don't think you're sufficiently cool to be walking back into a heated situation. --Haemo 02:14, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the situation at the Foxnews talk page has reached a point where everyone has seemingly forgot to assume good faith. There is entirely too much comments on contributors and their motives, and not enough discussion of the arguments being raised, and the responses to these arguments. Everyone could use some work on keeping cool. Ramsquire ^{(throw me a line)} 17:47, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Image adding question

User:156.34.60.230 is adding pictures (like this edit here [60]) of actors, in tiny versions, to film articles cast lists (muchlike IMDb has been doing for awhile). I am bringing this here so that admins can decide whether this is okay or not. If it is okay then no problem, but, if it isn't then I know that it is easier for you to rollback multiple edits then it is for me. Also, I am not sure what warning one would give in this situation. Thanks ahead of time for your attention to this situation. MarnetteD | Talk 00:52, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd suggest not doing that. For one reason, the pictures he included are actually non-free pictures which should be used sparingly. Second, I'm pretty sure the vast majority of the images we do have are not going to shrink very well. Third, I can't even begin the imagine the excess server load for something so meaningless in the end. Maybe a simple note on their talk page, telling them at least the non-free images part (they need to be used sparingly). However, (and I hope to speak for everyone) new ideas are always welcome. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 04:43, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Legal Action for editing a post

Hello.

My concern is involving the article...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballymena_Academy

I was advised to come to come here regarding my problem. An edit in the article has threatened legal action for those that edit the page. The edit was made by a user called "Firsfron". The reason I want to edit the page was because I believe the article is biased. But I am afraid that if I edit, I might have "legal action" against me. A statement in the article said...

"[It should be noted that any edits of this page can and will be traced to the user's IP address. Prompt legal action will be taken.]"

I do not belief this is fair and I think it's a "bully tactic" by certain people to get the article the way they want it. I suspect that it may have been added by the school as a way of making itself sound better, or as a way of deterring vandalism. Either way, I would like help with this issue and thank you in advance.

RPGary 01:12, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

For the record, that was added by an editor who was not logged in, not Firsfron. (See diff.) At any rate, I have removed it. Feel free to edit the article constructively. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 01:16, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a strict no legal threats policy. If you are ever threatened on Wikipedia by another user for legal reasons (or about any threat for that matter) please report it here. Mr.Z-man 02:09, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Further, the claim that It should be noted that any edits of this page can and will be traced to the user's IP address. Prompt legal action will be taken would come under the rubric of "horseshit". -- Hoary 02:44, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Not necessarily. There are several other types of shit it could be. HalfShadow 02:50, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Note that it was 91.125.121.25 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) who made the legal threat, not Firsfron. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 04:13, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

My thanks to Bbatsell for clearing up who made the legal threat (it was an IP) and to Nwwaew for notifying me of this discussion, which I had missed. Firsfron of Ronchester 06:10, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

User:JJJ999

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2007 September 18#World Public Speaking Championship

This user has referred to a comment I made with the response, "Stronger delete recommended for lying". I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, suggesting that he might be intimating that the article was a hoax. His reponse was ""The Author"? No, we're talking about you. Did you or did you not post the misleading/false number of 148,000 hits for this page? And if so, why should your vote be taken seriously, it appears to be blatantly false..." When I admonished him against that type of attack, his response was "I stand by my question. And you may refer it to the mods. Your response also indicates you are attempting the "shout loudly" variety or rebuttal. If you don't answer it'll be me asking the Mods about conduct for lying anyway, so feel free to draw it to their attention. Now, you claim here the following: "Notable in the world of college and high school debating. It's found more often under "Toastmasters", where the championship returns 148,000+ ghits Mandsford 12:10, 18 September 2007 (UTC) " I observe, upon 3 google searches of the relevant terms that it produces 278, 1 and 200 hits accordingly, and ask you where you got the 148,000 from, and if you either made it up, or lied. Unless my google is broken these seem to be the 2 possibilities. If either is true, it seems like we shouldn't take your vote seriously, and I will put that to the mods too.JJJ999 00:16, 19 September 2007 (UTC)"

Now, I recognize that we sometimes get carried away in a debate, but I've never seen anyone get called a liar. I don't appreciate that type of attack. Mandsford 01:22, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• what a comical complaint. You flat out posted a number which you have not, despite several requests from me, ever explained how you came up with this number (I'd take a link to the google search if you're wondering), and you refused to back down from it. Your latest claim, that you used different terms, still only comes up with 2170 hits. [61] So, what to we have? A guy who initially posted false numbers, was asked were he got them, and told he was wrong or lying, spent a while dodging and refusing to admit the numbers were wrong, and who has once again posted clearly inaccurate information in his subsequent "explanation" of his conduct. Have fun with that. JJJ999 01:33, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
  • While you're actually overstating the number of hits (you need to go to the last page to get the number of Ghits), IMO you need to assume good faith - everyone makes mistakes. A search without the quote marks brings up what at first glance looks like 132,000 hits (albeit actually 772), which is much closer to the number claimed — iridescent (talk to me!) 01:39, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
  • (ec) ***Querying without any quotes[62] gives me 133,000 results which is relatively close to his stated results. It seems more logical that he queried without quotes (and perhaps some slight variation on wording) which is a common mistake. You need to review WP:AGF and WP:NPA. Your initial post failed in both regards. It is fine to question someone's comments, but immediately calling them a liar is not. -- JLaTondre 01:42, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• There seems to be something very odd going on here and a possible COI - User:JJJ999's first edit was to create an article on a debating society, and virtually all the rest of their edit history has been to prod/AfD articles on other debating societies & their members, sometimes in a way bordering on a personal attack - see this for example — iridescent (talk to me!) 01:52, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• Oh, and posting to AfD debates under a false name yesterday. Something is definitely going on here — iridescent (talk to me!) 01:56, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• No, he changed his name from Jembot99 to JJJ999[63]. However, he has engaged in canvassing with multiple requests to people who had recommended deletion on a previous nomination (just a couple of the many examples: [64] & [65]). -- JLaTondre 02:01, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• Someone may also want to look through Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Christopher_Erskine and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Erik Eastaugh (2nd nomination) for potentially escalating heated discussions. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 02:04, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• (4 Edit conflicts...)Canvassing also appears to be going on a lot SQL^{(Query Me!)} 02:06, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• • • The irony of being accused of bad faith while warning someone about AGF. Gold. The accusation of "canvassing" in a forum designed for it is also amusing. I have no claim on those people, asking them to give their opinion on my recent deletion noms sounds fine, some even went against me on one (Erskine) but for (Eastaugh). I invited everyone on the former to the latter too, and vice versa. It is also silly to assume other people don't ask others their opinions. You can call it bad faith, but I have yet to hear one satisfactory explanation of why his conduct was not deceptive, and I don't believe a poster with his record of edits would have made such a mistake innocently, certainly not the 2nd or 3rd time down the road. I can't prove his intention, but then one could never call anyone a liar... also dispute my edits are all debating, but even if they were it'd make sense to focus on something I knew a bit about.JJJ999 02:08, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

It may "sound fine", but it is against Wikipedia's guidelines, for many reasons. You can read more at the appropriate page. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 02:17, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• And what "canvassing" it was... it included exhortations like "I have renominated this for deletion. I notice you voted against last time. If you have any views one way or another, please post them. It appears like it will be a clear deletion anyway. Cheers." and "Notice you voted for deletion last time, I have renominated it. If you have any comments of this deletion, or any of the other debating ones I have made, please feel free to give input on them. JJJ999 03:27, 18 September 2007 (UTC)" and "so if you could ask objective people to look this over and give their thoughts, this page can be decided on sooner rather than later". Man, can you feel the push voting? On the other hand I'm certain some of the people voting keep to some of the gratuitous articles I have mentioned are undoubtably friends, but hey, as long as it's done by e-mail, rather than an open request for objective assessment from someone...JJJ999 02:25, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Google

Slightly off-topic, but we need some good instruction somewhere on how to use and interpret a Google search, including

• use quotes in your search
• don't be deceived by a low number of Ghits at the end of the search: it gives the number of distinct pages from the first 1,000 hits only,[66][67] not the actual number of distinct pages, and so can only be used with searches which have only less than (or slightly more than) 1,000 results to begin with
• do not look at what national version of Google someone uses (google.com, google.be, google.de, ...), since they all give basically the same results (excluding China perhaps). Almost everytime Google hits are discussed, people make errors in interpretation (including myself, probably).
• Do not quiblle about slight changes in numbers returned, Google searches are rarely identical on different tries (althouygh the numbers should obviously be close to one another). Fram 09:46, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

As to point 3, looking at national versions of Google and checking off "pages from country" can skew the results greatly. Try and search for NRL in Google Canada and Google Australia and the results are similiar. But check off "pages from country" gives (Google Canada and Google Australia) very different results. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 11:30, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

True, but I thought that was obvious. All my comments were about a standard Google search. Google news can also give completely different results depending on your country. Fram 14:36, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Alternatively, we could follow WP:GHITS and step away from using the Google test altogether, instead focusing on the contents of search results. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 17:28, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, if Google returned 3 results, all of them reliable sources that's more important than a million GHits. --Haemo 18:33, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Personal attack

ILike2BAnonymous called me Idiotic here, I request that an admin give this user an appropriate blocking for violating WP:NPA.Cholga^talK! 03:35, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Are you a "that?" It seems that he was referring to your comment, and while I'd suggest that he be a tad more civil about it from now on, a block is not needed here. The Behnam 03:55, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

He called me ignorant too, and said i was obsessed with feces, and he also called me idiotic on another page, how about that?Cholga^talK! 05:11, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm no admin but you'll probably need to post diffs for those last couple of claims there too.

Equazcion • argue/contribs • 05:14, 09/19/2007

Yes... diffs please. Don't expect other people to go fishing for you. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 07:33, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism on Liberty University

Two of our experienced users have decided that it would be funny to include an "article" from Radar (magazine) on the Liberty University article in which Radar calls Liberty the "worst Christian university". The same Radar "article" also has categories for "Worst Party School" and "Worst Trust-Fund-Baby College". The article is obviously not serious, yet two experienced users feel that this article should be right alongside reporting of the Barron's Educational Series and U.S. News & World Report rankings of Liberty. Strangely, nobody feels it is worth including this "article" in Michigan State University, Bennington College, Cornell University, Virginia Military Institute, Texas Woman's University, or any of the other schools mentioned. Because one of the involved users is an administrator, I'm bringing it here. This behavior is unacceptable. --B 05:15, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

To be frank, what Nascentatheist is doing on the article is disruptive. Radar is a satirical magazine that should not be taken seriously, and the inclusion of such a link on the section titled "Academics and rankings" is downright misleading and sets a negative view of the University. --D_arkF_alls ^talk 09:11, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

It's certainly not vandalism. If I were interested enough to be editing the article, I think I'd agree with you rather than with Nascentatheist and FeloniousMonk that it doesn't belong in the article. But I don't see the need for any admin intervention. Felonious hasn't used his tools: he's just there at that article as an ordinary editor, disagreeing with another ordinary editor. ElinorD (talk) 09:47, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, after my restoration of the reference was most recently removed, and not being one to argue incessantly about these things - having no interest in an edit war - I simply put my last commentary on the talk page and have decided to leave it to those who want to argue. I did not restore the link again. I've stated the facts as I understand them here, and I'm done with the article and the "controversy." When a Christian admin wants to turn the issue into "us vs. them" or "Christians vs. unbelievers" or "haters" of things Christian, I'm done with the discussion and the subject. I have already moved on. The only reason I'm bothering to respond here is due to a notice put on "my" Wikipedia user talk page. I believe that the link is valid for the reasons I've stated; but I'm also not interested in arguing or winning arguments. I have better things to do and more important things to worry about. I would hope that's true for all of us. Thank you. - Nascentatheist 10:30, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Speaking as an uninvolved admin, there certainly seems to be a lot of POV editing going on from both sides, and I think that both the Christians and atheists editing the article need to take a step back and evaluate, in objective terms, whether the source belongs in the article. (Possibly it would be better suited to an "in popular culture" section than in the formal rankings paragraph, but that's just a suggestion.) However, looking at the article history, neither side has violated 3RR and there has been no deliberate disruption, so I don't see that any outside administrative action is necessary at this time. I recommend a request for comment to get broader input into this dispute, or alternatively informal mediation. Walton^One 11:10, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Walton offers good advice. I am concerned however that an admin would add that into an article in the first place. No need to argue about whether its vandalism or not but it shouldn't have been placed there. --JodyB _{yak, yak, yak} 11:32, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

3RR violations, personal attacks and block evasion

User Jun kaneko was blocked today for a 3RR violation at Visual kei. He has previously broken the rule several times, once at the same article[68] and at least twice at Skin (Japanese band).[69][70] These edits were still IP based, but are consistent in agenda, MO and origin (Adelaide, South Australia, according to WHOIS). The user's editing is characterized by a general disregard of consensus and his talk page conduct by a severe lack of civility,[71] [72] with personal attacks reaching four-letter-word level.[73] Jun kaneko is currently evading his 3RR block via IP based edits at Talk:Visual kei, including further personal attacks.[74] - Cyrus XIII 07:12, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Undid revision ... by User:X per User:Y

"Undid revision ... by User:X per User:Y" is the edit summary of many of User: Karl Meier's reverts. What makes at least a set of such reverts unacceptable is that this user has made zero contributions to the talk pages of those articles. In the following, I have selected some of his reverts from Sep and late Aug that have such edit summaries & are made to the articles that he has had no activity on their talk pages. That is, I have excluded reverts that either include some explanation, or are made to the articles that Karl has at least one edit to their talk pages.

[75], [76], [77], [78], [79], [80], [81], [82], [83], [84], [85], [86], [87], [88], [89], [90], [91] [92].

I'd like to see Karl joining the discussions on the disputes he decides to involve himself through reverting. --Aminz 09:19, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

The above mean that I agree with the comments that has already been made on the discussion page and/or in edit summaries, and there is nothing wrong with that, especially when things has been explained to you over and over again by other editors. Your endless circle discussions that is meant to simply make people become tried and give up is well-known, and so your harassments on various noticeboards. I find it interesting that Aminz is posting this behind my back, and without notifying me. -- Karl Meier 10:34, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

And what admin intervention is required here? Natalie 13:36, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

What Aminz would like to see if of course that an Admin somehow warn me not to oppose his and his opinionated friends biased editing or support the efforts of anyone else that does. Biased editing works best without opposition. -- Karl Meier 15:11, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Karl, AGF. But really, perhaps the two of you would benefit from some from dispute resolution, which is down the hall. Natalie 15:35, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I didn't say Karl should not revert me or others, but if he does, I'd like to see him on the talk pages. In most of the above cases, he seems to agree with a certain user. I can understand that a user at times completely agrees with another user but this is happening too often in Karl's case. As I indicated above, all I'd like to see is a more active talk page participation of Karl himself.

Karl, sorry for forgetting to let you know about this. Good that you yourself saw this very soon :) --Aminz 19:42, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Aminz, when things has been explained to you or one of your similarly opinionated brothers (and I can also name a few that you are agreeing with a bit too often), then I do not believe that there is always a reason for me repeat what has already been said. Sometimes I and other editors might simply refer to the explanations that has already been made. That shouldn't be a problem. ...Oh and you where just "forgetting" to notify me? Well, that explain everything. :) -- Karl Meier 20:21, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Karl, you should follow the wikipedia rules such as WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA and WP:AFG. Yes, it is odd that you help reverting a certain user over a number of articles you have not edited their talk page & when that user changes his edit, you too change it in exactly the same way. It is odd at least. --Aminz 20:42, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• Normally I'd agree, but here those reverts look to me to be sound, within the limits of my knowledge of the subject. Someone appears to be trying to advance an agenda. Guy (Help!) 17:38, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

JzG, would you please let me know what that agenda is? Also, if you are knowledgeable in these topics, please help us with the content disputes. Since the eventual consensus in some of the above cases was in disagreement with the reverts, and you think the reverts are sound, you might be able to help us maintaining the neutrality by posting your arguments on the relevant talk page. Consensus can always change. --Aminz 19:42, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Check user

Resolved

Sorry if this is a bad place for this... Could someone check a user's contributions? I'm at work right now and saw that User:Manlover changed the image on the Silvia Saint article. I didn't need to scroll down much to see that the image shouldn't be on the page. But I'd like to see that it gets deleted since it's obviously going to be a copyvio. I'd edit the image description page myself but as I said, I'm at work. I'd rather not have that up if the wrong person walks by... See Special:Contributions/Manlover. Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 09:56, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Urrrgghhh... The image has been deleted, and I'm considering a block or severe reprimand for the user. Wikipedia is not censored, I know... but this is too far. --D_arkF_alls ^talk 10:00, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Warned for uploading disruptive images --D_arkF_alls ^talk 10:02, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for that and thanks to whoever did delete it. Dismas|^(talk) 10:23, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Marking this as resolved... --D_arkF_alls ^talk 10:27, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

User:Mikerussell and interactions with other users including User:Lar

User:Lar and I agree that there should be an entry on this incident on this Admin Incident board. I will keep it short. I post now, before the article AfD ends so it doesn't seem I am a poor loser. User:Lar wrote on my user page a comment in regards to my manner of approaching the Afd for the above article on Monday [93]. I responded politely, but honestly on his Talk page. I have never had any contact with him before this comment. I responded and explained why I removed the comment from my Talk page here- [94]. Immediatly upon reading my response he threatens with blocking or other type of punitive action here -[95]. I then responded finally here [[96]]. This admin now has additional material on his Talk page that may provide info but I have no idea why he includes sinebot reverts when I date and sign all my posts anyway, and that day my Sign button was sticking for some reason, so reverting these things have nothing to do with the debate. Moreover, he seems to be saying my actions led to User:Loodog quitting wikipedia which is just factually wrong, since he had his User page unchanged prior to the issue. Obviously when a heated AfD is started and the nominator User:Will Beback states in his first paragraph that the contributor and not the content is the reason the article should be deleted, and I am the editor he refers to, heated personalizing of issues is likely to result. But I really find the above named admin is flaming the fires, choosing sides, if you will, taking personal shots by "not naming names" on the AfD itself and in general trying to label me as a problem contributor based solely on this one issue/debate. Personally adminship to me means you are not allowed to use the position to inforce personal policing. --Mikerussell 11:28, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

For reference: Lar (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), Mikerussell (talk · contribs · count · logs · page moves · block log) ... It is my considered view that the behaviour of Mikerussell in the AfD Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tourism in metropolitan Detroit was disruptive, and continued to be disruptive even after being counseled about it. (I can provide diffs if necessary, but I recommend just reading the AfD, just about every post he made has at least one issue with it) Note that as of yet, Mikerussell has not actually been blocked. Rather, he has been counseled by several users that his approach in this deletion discussion is at best, not effective. The series of diffs on my user talk page demonstrate that he has repeatedly removed that counsel in a dismissive way (characterising a neutral notice of an AfD as "unpleasant" is not collegial in my view). Users are always welcome to do just that, to remove things from their own talk pages, but after some number of warnings that do not result in a change in disruptive behaviour, further action may be justified. Pointing that out, which is what I did, is not a threat. I never threaten, and I don't think my pointing things out is in any way shape or form out of line. I think there are a lot of mischaracterisations by Mikerussell in the above about the sequence of events, about whether his responses are polite, about who did what in this AfD, etc, and in particular about why the AfD is heated... the heat there is coming entirely, or almost entirely, from Mikerussell and Thomas Paine1776 (talk · contribs · count · logs · page moves · block log), who seem to be exhibiting some WP:OWN at best. Note that I have changed the title of this section as I think the focus ought to be on Mikerussell's interaction pattern (he introduced nothing about my interaction with any other users) in this matter. I don't necessarily see him as a problem contributor, overall, (although his contribution history suggests past minor dustups), just that he may have lost perspective about this particular thing, and would benefit from some outside voices commenting about it. This is not a major deal, and I don't think any blocks are warranted at this point if Mikerussell gets the point that his approach needs changing and the disruption needs to stop. As always I encourage and welcome review of my actions, which is why I encouraged Mike to bring this here. Sorry for the longwindedness :) ++Lar: t/c 15:44, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

(after ec)I'm not sure I understand fully what is going on but from the diffs I looked at, Lar seemed to be trying to give you some reasonable advice and warnings and you were being repeatedly snarky. In my personal experience, Lar is not a person known for "flaming the fires" or "choosing sides", so perhaps you could provide some evidence supporting those allegations. Sarah 15:47, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• Sounds to me as if Mike got a bit carried away with advocacy for a pet article. He's been around for over two years, I'm surprised he fell into this trap. Maybe he doesn't go near the cesspit of AfD often, I don't know. Anyway, if Mike is content to live and learn (especially about canvassing) and he and Lar can shake hands and agree to differ I don't see why this would be a lasting problem. Guy (Help!) 17:33, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• I don't have time now to go into details, but I believe the canvassing in this matter was done by another editor, user:Thomas Paine1776. What I got from Mikerussell were wild accusatians and negative personal remarks (the worst of which he had the good sense to go back and refactor). To the extent that AfD is a cesspit, it is due to reactions like his. In any case, the editor has made valuable contributions and this does seem out of character, so if there's no future repetition then we needn't worry about it further. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 17:41, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree the canvassing was done by Thomas. There may have been some suggesting and encouragement going back and forth, hard to say. I actually knew it at the time of my initial message, and I may not have been clear about that. But the wild accusations being flung in the AfD well predated any canvassing. I agree with Will, that if a word to the wise is sufficient, that will be that. I certainly bear no animus, and am willing to gloss over the misstatements. I merely want Mike not to disrupt things, and my read of everyone else's comments is that we all want the same thing in that. ++Lar: t/c 19:29, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Having reviewed the communications, it seems to me that Mikerussell may be suffering from a malaise that strikes all editors here sometimes. I see absolutely nothing wrong in Lar's actions. --John 20:25, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this page.

This thread is not going anywhere or generating any productive discussion. Ghirla, if you don't like this thread, then why is trying to close it grossly incivil? You can suggest sanctions over at WP:CSN.

Continuous accusations of bad faith

I happened to notice article Moderated nuclear explosion, and as anonymous editor on talk page claimed it's possibly WP:HOAX as the term results in 0 google hits and claiming he is an expert on the area and that the article is factually incorrect. He/she tried to mark it for speedy deletion, but this was found inappropriate and AFD was recommended instead. As far as I know anonymous editors cannot start AFD process (can't create pages), I decided to help him/her out and started AFD myself. Because of my quite unclear connection with ongoing conflict surrounding Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Digwuren. I am being continuously accused of nominating the article in bad faith.

My nomination was done in good faith:

• The article subject has only one reference which is NOT connected to the topic being discussed. Thus failing WP:V.
• The title of article does not produce any google hits, is not mentioned in any nuclear science journals, etc. Thus failing WP:NN or WP:OR.
• Several suggestions of (googleable) terms in form of "(some word with similar meaning to moderated) nuclear explosion" have been made, but so far none of the results match with the topic discussed in article.
• The article is probably factually incorrect.

This behaviour is disruptive to wikipedia where real consensus needs to be found about the fate of the article by leading attention away from the article itself to the possible conflict between editors. User:Suva User_talk:Suva 12:12, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Exactly what are you asking administrators to do? --ElKevbo 12:27, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure, I am not an administrator, so I don't know what or if they can do anything. I am just tired of personal attacks and my faith being doubted every time I accidentally meet with one of the people related to the named RFAR case. User:Suva User_talk:Suva 12:42, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

How about a block, indefinite but to be lifted immediately upon display of remorse, to prevent further violations of WP:CIV? Baseless accusations are, after all, grossly uncivil. 泥紅蓮_凸凹箱 13:36, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Digwuren and Suva, please stop trolling, at least pending the arbitration. If you need to attract attention to your umpteenth attack on pages authored by User:Petri Krohn, I suggest you use appropriate venues for this activity. WP:ANI is hardly the place. Either you leave Petri alone, or the adminsitrators may wish to review the history of your interactions with this editor in terms of WP:STALK. It is remarkable that you don't "happen to notice" and nominate for deletion articles by editors other than your long-standing opponent. I also find your new signatures highly annoying. Let me remind you that they may be refactored by any editor who finds them deliberately misleading or disruptive. --User:Ghirlandajo^{User_talk:Ghirlandajo} 14:57, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

This is not true. I have nominated several articles for deletion. Many more for speedy deletion and I have instructed many people how to nominate articles for deletion on IRC. User:Suva User_talk:Suva 15:02, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Refactoring non-Latin sigs. Requests for comments is thataway. Digwuren and Suva, kindly explain the purpose of hiding behind such sigs, and of bringing this non-admin issue here. Don't fuck with ANI or you'll be pagebanned from it. Bishonen | talk 16:53, 19 September 2007 (UTC).

There is no rule against non-Latin in sigs. Their sigs link to their userpages, and your reaction (both here and in edit summaries) was highly uncivil. You also missed another one (User:Ghirlandajo, odd that you complained when you yourself use cyrillic characters in your own sig) --Random832 17:21, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

"There is no rule against it" is the all-time Bad Answer.© Please don't wikilawyer. Bishonen | talk 18:43, 19 September 2007 (UTC).

Your grasping at straws is obvious. Don't bother. 泥紅蓮_凸凹箱 22:35, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

In fact, let's refrain from expressing ourselves at all in our sigs. On second thought, that a mistake. But still... Random832 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 17:25, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikilawyering, sig guidelines, and inappropriate ANI reports aside...lets calm down here. Its a bit harsh to accuse people of using this board inappropriately as f-ing around with it Bishonen. AGF doesn't hurt every once in awhile and there is certainly a better way to say it than hot remark like that.¤~Persian Poet Gal ^(talk) 18:54, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Afraid not. The time for a hot remark had just arrived as the best possible way of saying it, after me trying to assume good faith from Digwuren and Suva till I was blue in the face, as you would know if you knew anything about the situation you're commenting on, Persian Poet Gal. Bishonen | talk 20:13, 19 September 2007 (UTC).

If a signature contains, in a prominent position, a link to a User: or User Talk: page, and does not contain anywhere any links to User or User Talk pages belonging to any other user, it cannot reasonably be characterized as "hiding" anything, no matter what the text of those links is or what alphabet that text is in. I don't call PPG's sig fraud because she's not User:¤~Persian Poet Gal (or, even, [[User:<font face="comic sans ms"><font color="purple"><i><b>¤~Persian Poet Gal</b></i></font></font>]]). I don't accuse Ghirlandajo of "hiding" because he's not User:Ghirla or User:-трёп-. Putting aside any assumptions of good, bad, or any other kind of faith; when an accusation is simply factually not true and you know it, I think that goes over a line. No matter how improper the post itself may have been, nitpicking at their sigs is unproductive. —Random832 20:45, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, I don't understand the point of your comments here. Sometimes it pays to familiarize oneself with the underlying dispute before rushing to comment. Suva and Digwuren changed their signatures immediately before popping up on this noticeboard, apparently with a view to obfuscating their identities. Unlike mine, their signatures are utterly devoid of reason. If you believe that I'm trying to obfuscate my identity, or that people are confused by my signature (there have been no complaints for a year), or that people are unable to distinguish Ghirla and Ghirlandajo... actually, I'm not going to spell it out for you. You should make your point clear yourself. --Ghirla^-трёп- 22:02, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Making more nonsensical accusations? Suva has been spelt his signature in Cyrillic for about a week by now, I think. I changed mine to Kanji two days ago, well before you had even shown up at that AFD, and used it at [97], for example. I'm expecting your apology and (still) remorse. 泥紅蓮_凸凹箱 22:34, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

That is EXACTLY why I started this thread. Ghirla, please don't make baseless accusations. I changed the signature quite long time ago, possibly the first occurence is here[98]. As you can see LONG before, I came to this board. It is unrelated to you, Petri or whoever else on wikipedia. Also I explained my signature change before to someone. You tell other people to investigate things, but have you? Anyways fight over signatures if you want, I am not interested in this. Владимир И. Сува Чего? 22:22, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't follow these discussions, and you know that. You and Digwuren have been active this week primarily on IRC, discussing your ArbCom ad nauseum, raving about "logs read in loghouses", "guys who roll vobla into pravda and drink vodka", etc., as well as agitating for Petri's article to be deleted. Now you are back to the old tactic of spawning meaningless threads on this page. That does not impress me at all. --Ghirla^-трёп- 22:49, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

User:Ghirla seems to be a redirect to User:Ghirlandajo. I remember somewhere that someone got slapped for redirecting an userpage, but if my signature is so big deal I can possibly make a redirect at User:Владимир И. Сува. Владимир И. Сува Чего? 21:03, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Frankly I am shocked and appalled at Bishonen's outburst here. Is civility and assumption of good faith optional for admins? I think an apology to the community is in order here. --Martintg 21:13, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Your day for being easily shocked and appalled, is it, Martin? And here was I thinking you were used to that kind of thing. I'm afraid I don't do the prissy "f-ing" spelling, if that's what you're after. Bishonen | talk 21:47, 19 September 2007 (UTC).

AGF presumes no indication of bad faith - and as one of the parties is in Arbitration, and Bishonen mentions some past history of which the community at large (and PPG in specific) may be completely unaware, I'd suggest not bringing up AGF. It is all too often used to attack experienced editors who are trying to deal with problem editors and trolls. I personally don't ever AGF Jason Gastrich any more, for example, and I make no apologies for it. He's lied and sockpuppeted his way across Wikipedia for years. I'm not implying this situation is anything like Gastrich, mind you - merely saying that AGF is not permanent license to play the innocent and cry wolf. KillerChihuahua^?!? 21:41, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

While I support your position regarding WP:AGF depending no no evidence to the contrary -- and have made this very point before myself --, you shouldn't put your trust into Bishonen here. Consider, for example, the above-referred ArbCom case, which has now waited for Irpen, who requested it, to present a case for more than a month. The history Bishonen is hinting at is not of "problem editing" or "trolling"; it's about a cabal -- which she supports -- being upset about accurate historiography of Soviet Union, whilst everybody should know that in fact, USSR was a worker's paradise with milk streams and porridge mountains, and ice-cold toilet seats made out of pure gold. Being unable to refute the facts, the so-called Cartel USSR Forever! -- whose associate member Bishonen appears to be -- has tried to portray the opposition as "troublemakers" for months. Not much progress, I must say. 泥紅蓮_凸凹箱 22:54, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand what's wrong with my signature. I am not hiding anywhere. As my signature has my name in it, although with cyrillic letters. The fact that I preferred to write my name in cyrillic letters doesn't mean I should be stalked and harrassed when I am trying to build an encyclopedia. User:Suva talk 18:32, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

You're not being stalked nor harassed that I see; I see a strongly worded admonishment against using something other than your username as your sig. If you believe you are being stalked or harassed, please provide a diff - in fact, for stalking and harassment you'll need more than one diff. I am quite certain Bishonen isn't stalking or harassing anyone, so who are you saying is stalking and/or harassing you? KillerChihuahua^?!? 21:41, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Is it not harassment when, pretty much whatever Suva does, Ghirlandajo jumps at it and yells "Bad faith! Bad faith!"? 泥紅蓮_凸凹箱 22:54, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Side note: as I have noted on the article talk page and AFD page, though the current article Petri wrote is not entirely accurate, there is some historical background (google on 'atomic bomb "uranium hydride"'; see Operation Upshot-Knothole tests Ruth and Ray, or Upshot Knothole at the nuclearweaponarchive.org website). I can AGF on the confusion (if you're not in the field you don't know what terms to look for, on this specific one), and the article is a pretty bad muddle right now, but there is some actual physics behind it. Georgewilliamherbert 20:32, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I suspect you might have fallen victim of the Barnum effect. Simply put; you're looking at a nonsensical article, trying to make sense of it, and your mind has eventually drawn up an image of a somewhat reasonable article whose connection to the actual article is merely the use of common keywords.

However, it also means you're probably able to create a better article. Please, go ahead -- that's what encyclopædia-writing is all about. 泥紅蓮_凸凹箱 22:54, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't know anything about physics, so no vote from me. What I do see is a term mentioned in a wide range of scholarly publications and nominated for deletion on the basis of WP:NOR. The quality of an article about a notable phenomenon is not a reason to delete it instead of improving. It is the background for this AfD that alarms me. Petri nominated for deletion several articles by Suva and Dig, and they ended up by being deleted. Now these guys go through Petri's contributions and nominate them for deletion, seemingly on a random basis, and advertise their deletion request on this noticeboard, after modifying their sigs to something incomprehensible. Is it productive or civil? I believe the answer is obvious. --Ghirla^-трёп- 22:38, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

If you see the randomness, what makes you think that it's a result of systematic "going through his contributions"? You're contradicting yourself. 泥紅蓮_凸凹箱 22:54, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

As someone else noted in moving the article back, contained nuclear explosion is usually used to describe underground testing; moderated nuclear explosion describes slow (moderated) neutron fission reactions rather than fast neutron ones. They're unrelated terms. Georgewilliamherbert 22:49, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. 泥紅蓮_凸凹箱 22:57, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Side note: If there is any way to ban Suva and Digwuren from this noticeboard, the idea is not unwelcome. The noticeboard has already seen several dozen threads initiated by either with the sole purpose of trolling or harrassing their opponents (primarily me and Petri Krohn). Unlike AfD and IRC (where the campaign continues unabated), it is well within the means of the community to put an end to new attacks on this page. --Ghirla^-трёп- 22:13, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this page.

IP 212.127.96.230 single use for spam linking a vanity OR site

Resolved

Not the most problematic editor in the world, but 212.127.96.230 seems to be weekly spamming to link a site which lacks notability. e.g. [99] and [100]. Seems to be almost a single use account for this purpose. Has had a couple of warnings on the talk page. As not a contributor, perhaps it is time for a block? Spenny 13:02, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• I've given him 3 weeks off and a talk page message explaining that he can request unblocking when he's read the block message. Given the, uh, spaced-out nature of his edits, three weeks ought to catch the next one and provide a cluestick tap. ➔ This is REDVEЯS 18:29, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

User:DonnEdwards and defrag utilities AfDs

This user DonnEdwards (talk · contribs) "cunningly" deletes AfD messages on pages with ongoing AfD discussions by commenting the message out, as here [101] and here [102]. I have warned him, but should be watched out. 131.111.8.104 15:33, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Follow-up: He appears to have stopped now. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 17:26, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• Hmmm. Donn seems a bit single-minded about this subject, and I think we cite his reviews in some places don't we? Is there a potential COI here? I don't know, it may be completely kosher, but it does look a bit odd. Guy (Help!) 17:29, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• As an aside, I blanked his user page due to a spammy blog post there... Same with talkpage... SQL^{(Query Me!)} 20:53, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

User:Mikkalai

Would somebody else please speak to this admin. I'm giving up. (He has me in his "killfile"). Aside from his tendency to revert other admin's actions without attempting to contact them, he's shockingly uncivil. [103] [104] I get the sense he feels the rules are for others. Thanks. -- But|seriously|folks  16:20, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• Mikka is a grumpy old bastard, just like me, but I find him OK. What did you do to get killfiled? Guy (Help!) 17:27, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Tried to settle him down after the first F Bomb, cited above. -- But|seriously|folks  17:41, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

User:BigGunn22

Resolved

User:BigGunn22 has moved article, University of Florida multiple times to unrelated titles. Could an admin please take a look and deal with it accordingly. Thanks. Tbo ¹⁵⁷(talk) (review) 16:28, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Have fun fixing the redirects and deleting all of the nonsense. Corvus cornix 16:30, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response. Tbo ¹⁵⁷(talk) (review) 16:31, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

User:Eurominuteman

User:Eurominuteman has violated the 3RR, he has posted copyrighted material, and engaged in edit warring. Numerous editors have, in good faith, tried to engage with User:Eurominuteman on issues of content, but he/she has only responded with disruptive behavior. A previous block for threatening another editor with legal action was lifted when he/she retracted the threat, but it is now clear that he/she only retracted the statement in order to get back to disruptive editing on the translation page. Thanks for looking into this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Maxschmelling (talk • contribs) 17:12, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I left a message warning him. Being difficult to work with isn't the same as personal attacks, and I didn't see anything obviously block-worthy there. Report and 3RR violations to WP:AN/3RR. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 17:41, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Turkey

Not so much an incident, as the VoABot II bot reverting my removal of around 10k from the article as vandalism. Here's the dif: [[105]]. Any help is appreciated. Thanks! Hiberniantears 17:22, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• Yeah it doesn't seem the bot is malfunctioning. However, you removed quite a bit. Was this mostly an uncontroversial removal? I'm searching the talk page and I can't find a post yet about considered to removing 10k's worth or reducing (has it been discussed in the past?). But if its all peachy keen, I'll see if I can help!¤~Persian Poet Gal ^(talk) 17:29, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I used the admin rollback button on it ... we can see if that keeps. I assume/hope it knows better than to revert admins. ;) --B 17:30, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok ... it reverted me ... I'll protect the page, revert it, then unprotect. --B 17:31, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Wow I guess the bot is being naughty.¤~Persian Poet Gal ^(talk) 17:32, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Bad Robot!! -- Flyguy649 ^talk _contribs 17:33, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. My edits are on the level, but the page tends to be the source of a lot of controversy. I removed some images, and consolidated the history section, leaving in place links to the articles that discuss the removed sections (i.e. all pre-Ottoman history, and most of the Ottoman materials as well). This was only to make the page load faster, as it had grown rather large with images, and redundant text. Hiberniantears 17:35, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I protected it at pretty much the same time Flyguy649 re-re-reverted the bot. I let it sit for a couple of minutes and then unprotected. It should be fine now. --B 17:35, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Admins should never be reverted, that means the list is out of date or the checking is bad. Working on it atm. Voice-of-All 20:14, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Fixed[106]. The admin list fell out of date. Voice-of-All 20:17, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism against a vandal-fighter

I've been doing a lot of vandalism-fighting recently - undoing, warning on user talk pages, then posting to WP:AIV if appropriate. Now it seems to have provoked a reaction by some vandal. He vandalized my own talk page. I treated it just like any other vandalism - undid, then put a uw-vandalism2 warning on the vandal's talk page. My question is should I do anything else in a case like this? Sbowers3 18:08, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

No, for vandalism like this, that is sufficient, though we do have {{uw-tpv}} warnings if you wish to be specific. If the vandalism contained personal attacks, you would want to give a stronger warning or report directly to AIV for extremely serious attacks. Its somewhat expected that you will anger some people when you revert their vandalism. If it becomes a serious problem, you can request protection of your user/talk pages at WP:RFPP. Mr.Z-man 18:14, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Treat it like a badge of honour - by doing all the right things, you pissed off someone who was trying to piss off others and they proved that you managed it. Well done! ➔ This is REDVEЯS 18:39, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Yup. It's inevitable. Guy (Help!) 21:22, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Socking on Plastic pressure pipe systems

Resolved

 – MastCell got 'im. ➔ This is REDVEЯS 18:32, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

User:Sandhurstman is a new account who has made no other edits except to the above named article, and has made the same edit today as the indef-banned Grumpyrob did here back in July. Could an admin block him? MSJapan 18:10, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

What is it about this article that brings out the socks? Pipes! PVC pipes! -- Flyguy649 ^talk _contribs 18:34, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Copyvio

Hi, 67.168.217.5 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) continues adding material taken from IMDB to the Departed article (Here is one diff, check his contribs for more [107]). I warned him about it on his talkpage, but he continues adding it. Could an admin look into this? Sasha Callahan 18:24, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Blunt and effective final warning by Irishguy appears to have worked - 15 minutes of silence so far. Shout if the IP comes back again. ➔ This is REDVEЯS 18:35, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

If you click on WHOIS, you'll find this user is from Portland, Oregon [108]. Nathantillett (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) says he's from Portland, Oregon on his talk page, and he removed the discussion on copyright info from the article's talkpage [109] and restored the same information to the article that 67.168.217.5 added [110], both edits coming after Irish's warning to 67.168. Sasha Callahan 19:03, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

User talk:66.93.254.200

Could somebody take a look at the history of this page and take whatever action is deemed necessary? I'm on vacation and don't have the time or patience to deal with it right now, but I've previously blocked one user involved in the debate. Accusations of vandalism and harassment are still flying, and DavidCharlesII (talk · contribs) may need a permanent vacation. Thanks, - auburnpilot talk 19:06, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I'll wade into this morass. --Haemo 19:26, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Having the first edit on this talk page, it became part of my Watchlist including the fight. I don't think any measures should be taken against Zsero, who apparently got involved as a vandal fighter reverting the blanking of that talk page but is now taking it a little too personally. DavidCharles, in contrast, has few edits, used sockpuppetry and personal attacks and seems to harass Zsero (see User talk:Zsero) for restoring the edits. Sciurinæ 19:41, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Apparent sock of User:Joehazelton

It appears that TEAMCrocko (talk · contribs) is another sock of the indef-blocked sockpuppeteer Joehazelton (talk · contribs), with the same kind of POINTy disuption at the Tammy Duckworth and Peter Roskam articles. If someone wants to administer the quack test, that would be great, otherwise I can file a checkuser. Thanks! Videmus Omnia ^Talk 19:23, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I will keep this short... BE NICE To me and I'm nice to you. IF you are not nice, nether will I. TEAMCrocko 19:31, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

(ec, posting anyway for the record):Maybe you can begin by "being nice". First off, by not abusing the AGF policy yourself as you have admitted to doing (here). Where you have as much as admitted to making disingenuous arguments over the better part of a day (wasting my time, and others') in order to push your POV for Peter Roskam, thus violating Wp:disrupt. That you have done so as a (former?) staffer for Roskam's campaign puts you in violation of WP:COI. And since I don't believe that you were arguing in good faith (link again, for clarity) to keep Tammy Duckworth's personal info in her article (against her reasonable request) -I don't believe you when you say you've been watching wikipedia and not editing yourself. You have made more than one comment that indicates you are probably a previous editor (here and here). You included a wikilink in your very first edit summary, which new users don't typically do (link here). When gently asked about your unusual edit habits (for a newbie) you don't deny, but deflect (links here and here, where you "admit nothing"]). Most unusual for someone wrongly accused. So, "be nice", yes! But that doesn't mean so much coming from someone, while claiming to be a 2 day old editor, has managed thus far to demonstrate himself (at the very least) to be a POV pushing, single purpose account with a COI who uses disingenuous arguments as "a lever" in editing an article about his (old?) boss. And, I note that, after being warned by Crockspot, TEAMCrocko deleted information at Dennis Hastert to make a point. . .yep clearly TEAMCrocko is here to help the project. I would wish you happy editing, but your "beginning" here seems to be down a contentious and presumably short path. R. Baley 19:52, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

It's abundantly clear based on TeamCrocko's comments that he is both the incarnation of a previous user and here to do battle for a cause. User:Crockspot has also expressed concern of the closeness of TC's username to his (though he hasn't expressed support for a block). As everyone but TC seems to agree that he's a sock, I feel that we've indulged TC's behavior enough and I'm blocking per the duck test and WP:USERNAME. Gamaliel (Angry Mastodon! Run!) 19:46, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Alientraveller

Alientraveller (talk · contribs) is engaging in general incivility and personal attacks directed against me. Examples:

1. "don't be argumentative" when I informed the user (using a template warning) about a disputed fair-use rationale.
2. "why you argumentative", where user blanks my fair-use dispute.
3. "fair use hound"
4. "insufferable fair use curs"
5. "you are annoying me", "you will continue to just be a nuisance"

I have asked the user to be civil and to refrain from personal attacks but these attacks continue.[111][112] Alientraveller claims on his or her user page to suffer from Asperger syndrome which may possibly be complicating this matter somewhat. Can someone please take a look at this situation and do whatever is necessary? I think any further comments from me will simply inflame this user further. --Yamla 19:58, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

"how rude, how silent, how ignorant you were". In an effort to further disengage, I will not post any further examples of incivility or personal attacks unless they are significantly worse. --Yamla 20:31, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I've asked Alientraveller to also disengage, with the idea that some time can pass and we can try some sort of mediation. I've deliberately not whacked Alientraveller for the quotes above, as that would seem to pour petrol on an already stoked fire. A few deep breaths on both sides and we'll come back to this tomorrow. Okay? ➔ This is REDVEЯS 20:56, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Great, thanks. For the record, it is clear that Alientraveller has contributed very productively to the Wikipedia and almost certainly has resulted in more articles reaching good-article or featured-article status than I have. --Yamla 21:01, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Josh Gibson Page

I am simply looking into someone helping us at the Josh Gibson page find some kind of reasonable solution. We tried to file for an RFC but that hasn't seemed to help. The page was protected and that doesnt seem to help. I tried to ask around for help, but I believe that is canvassing. We have 2 administrators looking into this, but we are at a stalemate. Is there anything anyone can do to help? YoSoyGuapo 20:26, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

User:Burgz33

Based on this edit and the other charming ones by the same anon, could the block on Burgz33 be extended to indefinite? Corvus cornix 20:53, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd endorse that. However, I don't think he's going to care, since he's using dynamic IPs to evade it anyways. --Haemo 21:01, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Malfunctioning bot: User:^demonBot2. Shut off appropriate?

In Sudden_infant_death_syndrome demonbot2 replaced a {{unreferenced|section|date=June 2007}} with {{refimprove|section|date=June 2007}} leaving the comment "(removing {{unreferenced}} if contains at least one reference, replacing with {{refimprove}})". However, there were no references in that section (not then, not now). I theorize that it's ignoring the "|section" part of the unreferenced tag, which means it refers to just the section, not to the entire article. It seems to be performing a few substitutions per minute, so mistakes are probably mounting, although I'm not sure how frequent the use of "|section" is within {{unreferenced}}; maybe it's a recent alternative to {{unreferencedsection}}. -Agyle 21:21, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I've stopped my bot for the time being. Can we get a list of every article it messed up on? I've made 968 edits and 1514 pages. 73000+ to check. Any insight from others? ^demon^{[omg plz]} 21:25, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

It got Bushidō. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v Kacheek!)} 21:34, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

That was quick...I was just leaving a msg on demonbot2, but I'll leave the discussion here. :) I'm no admin, but as a suggestion, if ignoring "section" was the problem, then it seems like if you modify it to pay attention to that, then it would be as easy to have it change "unreferenced|section" to "refimprove|section" as it would be to reverse it and change "refimprove|section" to "unreferenced|section." And in that case, you could just re-run the bot on the same articles it was already run on. That avoids needing a list of the articles it messed up on - the bot would correct any incorrectly tagged sections, and leave the correct ones alone. -Agyle 21:38, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Admin repetitively reverting double redirect fixes

Page history is full of reverts by the same admin. The admin is repetitively reverting to a version at which a redirect points to a redirect.

Admin also blocked User:Computer that was properly fixed the double redirect in a manner as explained in Wikipedia:Double redirects. The admin block itself was reversed in less than 30 minutes. The approved bot operates perfectly fine and is doing what it was given permission for.

I was not going to bring this here but the admin is continuing the behaviour despite warnings not just by me but also by a fellow admin.

-- Cat ^chi? 21:22, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Looks to me like this matter was talked out on his talk page.--Atlan (talk) 21:29, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Yep, one for WP:LAME. Now resolved, the block of User:Computer was inappropriate, GDonato (talk) 21:30, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah ok then, that wasn't very clear to me. Sorry for the bother then. :) -- Cat ^chi? 21:35, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

WikiSpaceboy

I just talked to him on Eragon wiki. He says he didn't do it: [113]. Cheers,JetLover (Report a mistake) 22:30, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Alpinist

Alpinist (talk · contribs) has been editing Simon Wessely in a tendentious fashion, resulting in an edit war and protection of the page. He has made numerous personal attacks on Talk:Simon Wessely as well as legal and physical threats on my talk page. JFW | T@lk 22:30, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I've already warned him twice for same, and I'm inclined to meet the next such outburst with a block. Diffs I noted were [114] (as 88.108.70.119) and [115]. His stated goal on Wikipedia appears to be to "intellectually terrorize" neurologists. On a related note, I was about to post here for advice - having come across User:Alpinist's home page, I was surprised to discover a rafter full of barnstars (as his behavior seemed distinctly below barnstar-level). It appears he's awarded himself the barnstars by cut-and-pasting those awarded to User:Jfdwolff onto his userpage (though he did bother to rub out JFW's name and insert his own). This is, at best, childish and misleading. I'm inclined to remove the barnstars, but before monkeying with others' userspace I prefer to run it through here for feedback. MastCell ^Talk 22:55, 19 September 2007 (UTC)