Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive677

Emmanuelm and 1RR on Israel, Palestine, and the United Nations

I would like to raise what looks to me like a violation of 1RR by Emmanuelm (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) on Israel, Palestine, and the United Nations: [1] and [2]. Since the editor has a previous block for exactly this type of violation, I assume no prior warning is necessary. I posted about this earlier on AE [3] but a few of the regulars there are not active and there has been no sign of it being seen/noticed. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 07:32, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

You can ask him to self revert. Sean.hoyland - talk 07:48, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

My understanding of the 3RR and 1RR is that it applies to one particular text or source in an article. My two edits above are on different subjects in this article: (1) Bayefski on Dugard and (2) Canadians + Costea on Costea. These three sources were deleted by two editors (Nomo and User:Passionless) without discussion. Also, my understanding is that the intent of these rules is to protect the work of editors. With these edits, I am not undoing someone's work, I am protecting this work from being undone without discussion. I use WP:NPOV#Achieving neutrality for guidance. Finally, we are here talking about the worthiness of particular sources, a matter that should be discussed in the talk page of the article. A discussion topic already exist on Canadians & Costea on Costea; Passionless as so far not commented on his/her deletion. I just created another for Bayefski on Dugard. I trust Nomo will come discuss his/her deletion there. Emmanuelm (talk) 14:02, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Emmanuelm: I am not going to block you for a 1RR violation at this time, but your interpretation of the rule is incorrect. This is the wording of the rule: "An editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Violations of the 3RR rule normally attract blocks of at least 24 hours. Any appearance of gaming the system by reverting a fourth time just outside the 24-hour slot is likely to be treated as a 3RR violation. See below for exemptions." (emphasis mine) 1RR simply replaces all "three"s with "one". NW (Talk) 21:39, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. Emmanuelm (talk) 03:42, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

List of Living supercentenarians

After two rounds of reverts on this page about living people, I've placed this plea on the article talk page, and linked to it on User:NickOrnstein's talk page.

Louis Epstein's Oldest Human Beings page, hosted at www.recordholders.org, is not a WP:RS. It's specifically disallowed in the notability and sourcing guidance at the World's Oldest People WikiProject. Please view it. It starts with a disclaimer and proceeds to selling books before the first item on the list even appears. But when I replace it with actual reliable sources, I'm reverted. Twice. Nick has re-reinserted it and I'm not going to play that game. But admin assistance is definitely required. David in DC (talk) 22:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Non-admin comment: Eligibility for this list is predicated by WP:BLP, and one reliable source for that is Guinness World Records, an annual publication, and updatable by reliable news reports, which tend to be fairly quick off the mark in these matters. You don't necessarily need Admin input here unless it descends into a real edit war, but this noticeboard exists for this very purpose. If you end up in a revert war beyond WP:BRD, there are other noticeboards. Rodhullandemu 23:00, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Notified NickOrnstein. This whole longevity topic is the subject of a recent ArbCom case. It has descended into an edit war. A review of the edit history of the article will, I think, persuade an Admin that intervention is necessary. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong.David in DC (talk) 23:05, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

 Deferred to WP:AE Arbitration Enforcement is the proper forum The Resident Anthropologist (Talk + contribs) 23:54, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

OK. David in DC (talk) 03:36, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Offer you some popcorn nom nom nom The Resident Anthropologist (Talk / contribs) 04:19, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

User:Darwinek refuses to stop renaming articles contrary to policy of WP:DIACRITICS

User:Darwinek has been persistently using diacritics to rename and move hundreds of biographical articles (see his edit history for February 26, 2011[4]). He is doing so even when the use of modified letters is not required in the names of the persons. This issue has been raised with Darwinek on his talk page. I have asked him to seek consensus for his moves, and I have also referred to WP:DIACRITICS which explains the wiki-policy as follows: “The use of modified letters (such as accents or other diacritics) in article titles is neither encouraged nor discouraged; when deciding between versions of a name which differ in the use or non-use of modified letters, follow the general usage in English reliable sources (for example other encyclopedias and reference works)." Darwinek has continued his actions to rename and move biographical articles on a massive scale, and has refused to follow my direction that he first verify that the use of such modified letters is required, and he has refused to provide English reliable sources to justify such moves. I am requesting administrative action to prevent him from continuing to make such disruptive article moves. Dolovis (talk) 21:59, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

What's "disruptive" about improving Wikipedia? Eastern European languages use diacritics, so it is inaccurate to not use them in an article title if that is the name of the person in question. Please use some common sense, as Darwinek is doing by ignoring that rule in order to improve Wikipedia. GiantSnowman 22:16, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Agree with Giant Snowman. Noting wrong with using diacritics. My personal opinion is that we should use them, rather than being lazy and not using them. We have the technology... Mjroots (talk) 22:23, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

WP:RETAIN would seem to apply here. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:30, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

If it is the generally used name of the person in question there would be no problem, but such usage must be verifiable. Darwinek is moving articles even when it is not required. It appears to me that his edits are WP:POINT. Why does Wikipedia have WP:DIACRITICS as policy if it cannot be referred to when controversial edits are being made? It clearly states that the use of modified letters should follow the general usage as shown in English reliable sources. If Darwinek was to provide reliable English sources to verify that such spelling is generally used for the person, then I would not have raised this as an issue. Dolovis (talk) 22:37, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

User:Darwinek is just correcting the names into their correct spelling in their native language, something that has been allways donne for all non-English speaking countries biographies. There are only some few exceptions when the article is not named as the correct name of the person in question is (Exemple: Preki) but those are exceptions, and it has been positive for WP to have dedicated editors like Darwinek that go around correcting the spelling of the foreign biographies. FkpCascais (talk) 22:44, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

This is the English-language Wikipedia, not the multiple-language Wikipedia. GoodDay (talk) 23:08, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, I can´t find anything regarding Czech names (which is the case here) but there is a list of cases where there is a set of transliteration rules of namings from other languages, and many of them use diacritics without a problem. See for exemple other Slavic languages (from same family as Czech) here (Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Cyrillic)) and most of them are transliterated into latin alphabet using diacritics, instead to an English latin alphabet. FkpCascais (talk) 23:20, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Cyrillic), "If a name or word has a conventional English spelling, that is used." All of the hundreds of renamed articles have a conventional English spelling. Lets follow the established policy and only use diacritics when required. Dolovis (talk) 00:15, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Per WP:DIACRITICS - "the use of modified letters (such as accents or other diacritics) in article titles is neither encouraged nor discouraged." What actually is the issue here? GiantSnowman 00:41, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

WP:Diacritics also says, "Beware of over-dramatising these issues". I think that is exactly what has happened here. LadyofShalott 00:41, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

So if an editor were to "correct" hundreds of articles to their English generally used spelling, then that would be a none issue? And if another user were to suggest that such renaming was controversial he would be shut-down as "over-dramatising the issue? Dolovis (talk) 03:07, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I beleave LadyofShalott advice has much to do with the fact that both of you are well intentioned, so instead of seeking for admin punishment for the eventual guilties here, this is more a case for a pleasent discussion. However, it is a real discussion that should take place and my only question is if there is some other more convenient place for it to take place, somewhere where other involved editors would notece it and could express their views on this subject as well. Perhaps Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography? However, this is only a sugestion. FkpCascais (talk) 03:35, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

(ec) I first encountered this on Karel Capek (or Karel Čapek) - here it is not really an issue of language, but of font. In the case of further eastern slavic languages then yes, using cyrillics would cause a problem. Many of the Czech and Polish names etc. are really no different, Karel Capek and Karel Čapek are both as recognisable as the other, and the EB also uses the name with diacritics.

As for other languages let us consider some: German diactric usage seems interchangeable in BLPs, though we do have the problem that many German place names are transcribed, such as Nuremberg (Nürnberg); French, such as the writers Raymond Léopold Bruckberger, Frédéric Cathala, Raphaël Fejtö, Émile Bernard are among the many French names which use diacritics in the EN wiki.

We have to accept WP:COMMON and WP:RETAIN, or at least unless there is a consensus for change. I appreciate that the U.S., Australian and N.Z. opinion may be different (as with other English speakers), but as part of Europe we in the UK are perhaps more tolerant of such usage.

Most importantly though, is the fact that editors will probably not have those fonts on their systems. This would be a major problem for them to retain consistency.

I think that only titles that are the same letters in the English common usage and sourced from the three mentioned encyclopaedias should be allowed to be changed, and only after consensus if it is less than 50:50 +/- 5 in common usage - I accept Čapek as he is a special case re RUR and meets all my criteria, although I do not think using the diacritics throughout the article are so uncontroversial. It is usually enough, such as the Nuremburg article, to simply list the "correct" usage, and not to use them throughout the article. Chaosdruid (talk) 03:39, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Part of my concern over the article moves made by User:Darwinek is that most of his moves could not be made if he were not an Admin. This appears to be a misuse of his Admin powers. A "non-special" editor would need to make a move request, and wait for a consensus, before the move may or may not be approved. But with Darwinek's Admin powers he just bulldozes ahead to move hundreds of article as he, in his unilateral and sole unfettered discretion, sees fit. He also appears to not give a hoot about whether or not his article moves are controversial as he has continued, unabated, to rename and move articles on a massive scale even during the period of time that we are discussing this issue here. Dolovis (talk) 04:06, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Are the articles move protected? If they are not, then any editor could indeed move them the same way. The vast majority of articles do not require an admin to move them. LadyofShalott 04:48, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

He is generally moving the articles over pre-existing redirects (a violation of WP:DONTFIXIT?), which is not a move that can be made without Admin powers. Dolovis (talk) 05:06, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Any user can move an article over an ordinary redirect. If the redirect has been edited, then they need to request that the redirect be deleted under CSD G6. There's no misuse of admin powers here. --Carnildo (talk) 07:21, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I guess the question for me is whether it is beneficial to move these articles at all. It's been noted that the guideline neither favours nor disfavours a format, so a mass move like this does smack of one individual pushing their viewpoint around something where I do not believe there is consensus for one format over the other. I think the moves were good faith, but were also unnecessary. And to admit my bias, I am in the camp that opposes diacritics in most cases. Resolute 04:30, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Agreed: we are the English-language Wikipedia, and English does not use diacritics. Words that are borrowed from other languages and are taken into English lose their diacritics if the have them (for instance, "naive"). If they retain their diacritics, they're recognized as foreign terms. If a person or thing has a common English name, such as Karel Capek, we use that name. To mass-move articles that have been existing happily without diacritics without discussion is wrong, and if admin powers were used to do so, that is an abuse. I hope that the move has stopped, at least, while this discussion is going on. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:05, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

That spelling of "naive" is a prime example of what I meant earlier. The correct spelling is "naïve" (the "i" is in both syllables - nai-ive). Other words frequently misspelled include hôtel and depôt. Mjroots (talk) 05:55, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, you are mistaken, English does not have such marks, and "naive" has been taken into English, losing the mark. To use it as naïve, one would have to mark it as a foreigh word, which is generally done with italics. Such usage was justified at one time, but now that the word has been assimilated into English, to use it in this manner is pedantic. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:45, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

While your points about assimiliation of words into English are true, I don't see how they apply. It looks like that many (if not most) of the moves involve people that do not have common English names. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 08:37, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Not a single move, but hundreds of them, and yes they are on-going - even during this discussion. Dolovis (talk) 05:09, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it looks as if the moves continued for 2 1/2 hours after your notification of the AN/I discussion. That's very bad form. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:29, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps there should be a 'freeze' on the moving of those bio articles-in-question, until this is settled. GoodDay (talk) 05:17, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I have placed a comment to that effect on Darwinek's talk page. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:42, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

First of all, User:Dolovis should be grateful somebody actually took his time to correct his creations, which were all poorly referenced, often without basic categories, information (like birth date) and even without {{DEFAULTSORT:}}. Some of these articles also mistakenly presented nationality of some hockey players. Slovaks were labelled as Czechs, Czechs as Slovaks, Slovaks as Canadians etc. All of these articles had wrong names. That user, who created them, should be grateful a native Wikipedian came across and helped fix/improve the basic issues - categories, birth information, interwikis, {{DEFAULTSORT:}} and yes, correct Czech/Slovak names.

Second of all, it is absolutely atrocious how still, in 2011, some mostly North American users continue to ignore that English Wikipedia is not "English", but multi-national. It is atrocious how they did not notice that use of diacritics on EN Wiki is a common use, which can be seen by non-problematic use in tens of thousands articles here. The fact that the current use is not represented properly in written rules does not change anything. Czech, Slovak, Polish, Lithuanian, Latvian, Hungarian, Romanian, Turkish, Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, Bosnian, Spanish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Danish and much more names are rendered here in their correct, original form. De-diacriticized redirect should also follow and in vast majority of cases does. I myself are creating these redirects coming across some articles, so other users could access them more easily. Argument that "most users couldn't write these characters" doesn't hold water. There are various national WikiProjects and many native Wikipedians from all countries who can help. Also, if somebody did not notice yet, the text editor offers an extended list of special characters. - Darwinek (talk) 11:10, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I would point out that "WP:DIACRITICS" is a very poor statement of Wikipedia's actual practice - inspection of actual practice and of past discussions reveals quite clearly that we do use diacritics, and wish to continue doing so, in most cases even if a majority of English sources happens not to use them (unless English usage is particularly strong, as with Zurich, or e.g. the subjeDarwinekct is a naturalized Brit/American). The reason WP:DIACRITICS is worded as it is is that a few people with an aversion to diacritics revert any attempt to make it describe practice more accurately. In deciding these questions, I suggest we ignore that "guideline" completely and follow actual practice, which in cases like this is most definitely to use the original diacritics.--Kotniski (talk) 12:13, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Also pointing out that despite title of this thread, WP:DIACRITICS is not policy, but a naming convention. As it says, treat with common sense. Mjroots (talk) 12:35, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

• Comment Numerous diacritis are English characters: coöperation, reëducation, über, raison d´être, soupçon, naïve, déjà-vu, jalapeño, crême brulée, papier-mâché, omertà, and many others. ^walk victor falk ^talk 13:51, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
• Reply Comment Victor Falk is mistaken. The Oxford English Dictionary shows that all of the above listed examples are properly spelled without the use any modified letters or diacritics. Dolovis (talk) 14:50, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

As a veteran of the old Dio debates from WP:HOCKEY, I recommend that both sides of this argument 'restrain' from claiming their version of spellings are 'correct'. Such a claim only agravates the other side & heats up disputes. GoodDay (talk) 15:10, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

• Note: to all those who say that "English doesn't use diacritics" - may I point out such people as Phylicia Rashād, Zoë Wanamaker, Chloë Sevigny - especially relevant as they are all names... GiantSnowman 15:14, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Agree. Whether or not written-English uses diacritics is not relevant to this ANI. This discussion is about the massive article moves being made by Darwinek, who has been abusing his Admin powers to POV-push is concept of "correct" names for hundreds of biographical articles. Dolovis (talk) 15:39, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Well no, it is relevant. Your very first post opened with "User:Darwinek has been persistently using diacritics to rename and move hundreds of biographical articles", so it's obviously an issue for you. Darwinek is not moving pages to 'wrong' titles; he is moving them to 'different' titles. And as stated above, by numerous different editors, he is not abusing any admin powers. It's not POV to move Page A to Title B when that is the correct a reasonable alternative spelling of the name! GiantSnowman 15:57, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Again, I request that 'both sides' refrain from claiming this verson or that version of words/names are correct or wrong. GoodDay (talk) 16:02, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, I've made myself more neutral. GiantSnowman 16:08, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Darwinek himself identifies the moves he is making (by his edit summary) as the "correct name" in the renaming that he has been, and continues to do[5] as we hold this discussion. By inference he is claiming that the generally used English spelling is wrong. And to take your point, if the pages are being moved to "a reasonable alternative spelling" what is the point of that when a redirect has already been established for such alternative spelling? WP:RETAIN applies and so does WP:DONTFIXIT, the spirit of both has been violated - so yes, Darwinek has expressed this to be a POV issue. Dolovis (talk) 18:25, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

He shouldn't be making such claims. Particulary while this is being resolved. GoodDay (talk) 18:27, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree that Darwinek continuing to claim what he is doing is "correct" while there is an on-going discussion about such moves is not proper behaviour. GiantSnowman 18:29, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

They are indeed "correct" according to established Wikipedia precedent and practice. We don't need a new debate(well all right, debate maybe, but not a ban on carrying on doing what we currently do) about this issue every time one individual comes along and makes a fuss about it. Dolovis should accept that while his position is perfectly acceptable in terms of correct English, Wikipedians have decided (for good reasons) to do things a different way, which is also perfectly acceptable in terms of correct English, and is felt to make for a better encyclopedia.--Kotniski (talk) 20:37, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Again, I request that both sides refrain from claiming correctness. As seen at past debates at WP:HOCKEY, such stated claims only stoke the fires. GoodDay (talk) 20:39, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Claims that only one style of English is correct are unwarranted; but claims that one side is "correctly" following established Wikipedia practice seem perfectly justified. Consensus can change; but one individual's loud objections provide no reason to suppose it is about to.--Kotniski (talk) 20:43, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I really think that if User:Darwinek wants to make a lot of changes that are in direct contradiction to the current consensus at WP:DIACRITIC, then he is definitely very much in the wrong for doing so without first discussing it there and seeking consensus for his desired change in the guidelines. Has he even articulated clearly what change he wants to make to the guidelines? Surely he doesn't think that all articles about international subjects should be in their original letters? That would make searching for Asian people and places more or less impossible for most of our users. To sum up: It appears that he has stopped for now, and that is good. If he were to continue, I'd be happy to block him. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 20:53, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Most of Asian languages do not use Latin alphabet. Anyways, if you would block me, it would constitute a misuse of your admin powers and you would be most probably stripped of your admin rights. Especially when you are well known from past debates as siding with one camp on this issue. - Darwinek (talk) 21:05, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Wow. I don't remember ever getting involved with a disagreement regarding diacritical markings before, so I'll just say this nice and clearly: making large numbers of page moves is something you do with consensus. If you go back to making page moves in this way, make sure you can provide a link to the conversation where a clear consensus supporting that is established. Editing without consensus is disruptive, and it is something that admins will block for. If you are right, you don't have to be mean. Just establish clearly with other users that this is what will be best for Wikipedia and its readers. If you make another diacritical-related page move without a clear consensus, I will block you from editing Wikipedia. Your threat of my loss of admin powers is not very scary to me, since it isn't likely to happen, but still not very polite or helpful. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 21:13, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Hang on, you're an admin? I apologize for threatening to unilaterally block you; I didn't look closely at your user page, and just assumed from the page moves that you were a newer user. Now I'm very puzzled about why you'd be making page-moves without consensus especially to titles that will be more difficult to search for, but I won't block you without opening a discussion and getting a clear consensus from other admins. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 21:26, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Whyever not? When I violated 7RR on Harry Potter 7 part 1 the day after I saw it, I insisted on getting the same block any other editor would have gotten. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:30, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I get that... but I, personally, feel icky about blocking an admin without some specific discussion, except in very obvious cases. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 21:35, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of the correctness of this particular action, I do think that WP:DIACRITICS is in need of some attention. Aside from the fact that it's not really much of a guideline at all (otherwise this discussion would be only half as long), it approaches the matter with too much simplicity. For example, in my second language, ä and ö are not merely letters with diacritics, but distinct letters in their own right that happen to look like letters with diacritics. This is the case to such an extent that ä and ö appear in completely different parts of the dictionary than a and o. In the ASCII/7-bit world, when these characters were not available on most computers, making the distinction was so important that it was preferred to re-use existing punctuation characters for these letters altogether rather than be grossly incorrect and just use a and o. WP:DIACRITICS fails to capture this type of distinction. I realize that this would be more helpful on the guideline's talk page, but I do think it is relevant to this discussion as well. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 21:32, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I think it's important to remember that the main purpose of an article title is to help people find the article they are interested in reading, and to make the article readable. Is a title that few people will search for and some people can't view really the best choice? Since this is the English Wikipedia, using the name that English-speakers are most likely to know a subject by seems to make sense, and is consistent with the WP:MOS guidelines for other subjects (like those much-warred-over place names, for example). -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 21:35, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Of course. Regarding the "find" part: that's why we have redirects in Category:Redirects from titles without diacritics. Favonian (talk) 21:46, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I suppose that's where redirects become useful; and in any case, I'm mostly thinking of names where there isn't a common English name (the Karel Capek example has already been hashed out above). I also keep hearing the argument of "what about the readers who can't read these characters?", and I'm genuinely curious to hear what percentage of readers actually fall into that category. In my experience it hasn't been a problem since the mid-'90s, and that's even taking into account the expected technology adoption delay of readers in less-fortunate regions. Maybe a helpful operator can tell us via user-agent analysis how many readers are using OSes that can't at least handle ISO 8859-1. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 21:54, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I need to remmber all that this discussion regarding diacritics is exclusively for people´s names, not any foreign words, things, organisations, or whatever. Orange Suede Sofa made a good point regarding the letters with diacritics not being just the simple version of the same letter, but rather a completely different letter in some cases, or an accent on other. I already had exemples where a letter with diacritics made a disambiguation from another word with same letters but without diacritics. Also, different diacritics (or their abscence) in words may mean completely different things. And obviously they sound different: for instance Capek would sound "Tsapek" and Čapek would sound "Tchapek". Not here, but there are cases where Capek could exist, and I had that case in the past (the disambiguation episode I mentioned) and I´ll bring it into this discussion if I get to find it. However, I have a question that may or not be of interess for this: how names with diacritics written in British, American, Aussy, or any other English-speaking countries passports, ID´s or any other official documents? For exemple, if some Czek guy named Čapek gets American passport, how would his name be written in the same? FkpCascais (talk) 22:28, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm a little confused about why there is confusion here. I thought that our policy, on pretty much everything, is "follow the sources." In that case, isn't this a simple issue of looking at what the English language sources use, on average, giving preference to those sources that are more "encyclopedic", like other encyclopedias and scholarly papers, over newpspapers, etc.? In other words, if the name regularly used in English language sources has no diacritics, then neither should or article title, and vice versa? These seems to me to parallel the principle we use on geographic names, like how our article is found at Florence, not Firenze. Qwyrxian (talk) 01:17, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

On the other hand you can see mass graves in Goražde, go to Swedish sounas in Malmö or drink beer in České Budějovice, all these exemples of cities. The problem is that this entire question started around sportsman biographies, that pretty much most of them lack encyclopedic sources, and usually are sourced trough sports or information (news) websites. Saying that we should follow the sources can be quite tricky on this because many times even they fail to be consistent in their use, or not, of diacritics for people´s names. FkpCascais (talk) 03:02, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

"Follow the sources" is a fine policy to live by. We should have it tattooed under our eyelids.

However, the devil is in the detail. Two parties can be quite convinced that they each have the "correct" name when each has a different source in mind. And when dealing with foreign-language subjects, it's common to find that few of the sources are in English. If you're writing an article about a Latvian poet and incredibly all 100 sources were English, no problem. But what if 90 of the sources are Latvian and 10 are English? Should we stick to the English-language minority even though they're more distant from the poet? What about 99:1? Of 100:0? In fact there are plenty of notable subjects out there with zero English-language sources (I've probably written articles on a couple of them) since the GNG rightly makes no language requirements; should we leave these article nameless until it's mentioned in the Anglosphere, or should we commit the cardinal sin of OR by translating the name, or should we just use an accurate name offered by existing sources?

Not long ago I created an article on an organisation with a non-English letter in its name; I choked down my personal feelings on the subject and copied the policy-mandated, non-accented name used by a sole anglophone source, even though the vast majority of sources were local and had an accented name. Shortly afterwards somebody else came along and moved the article to the accurate, diacritical-laden, but non-English spelling. Ho hum. bobrayner (talk) 03:15, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Not to mention the case when you have a number of English language sources, some using diacritics, some not, for same person name. FkpCascais (talk) 03:37, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

If only it were possible to divide the Bio articles into categories, like Poets, Librarians, Politicans etc etc. Each category sources would likely be mostly dios or mostly non-dios - then go from there. However, I'm not certain if this is possible. GoodDay (talk) 03:43, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

For ice hockey players (as is the situation in this ANI) sources are easy to find. Virtually every professional player will be listed on the following three well-used and reliable hockey stat sites. For example, listing for Tomas Nadasdi (moved by Darwinek to “Tomáš Nádašdi') is found at:

• Tomas Nadasdi career statistics at EliteProspects.com
• Tomas Nadasdi profile at Eurohockey.com
• Tomas Nadasdi career statistics at The Internet Hockey Database

The first two are European sites, the third is American. None of these listings use diacritics for that player. But evenso, Darwinek still “corrected” that player's name to Tomáš Nádašdi. Such a move is not justified by the sources, and that is just one example of what has been repeated in hundreds of BLP article moves. Dolovis (talk) 04:15, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

In general, if the moves are to names which don't appear in sources, that would be a Very Bad Thing. However, I can't help but notice that there are other sources using "Tomáš Nádašdi" which you did not mention, in which case I would consider any breach of naming policy (ie. that names should be chosen from a certain subset of sources) to be rather less serious than the problem of mass moves without consensus. bobrayner (talk) 05:20, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

The single link to the one non-English site that uses modified letters[6] was placed by Darwinek only after I insisted that he support his moves with English-language reliable sources. His earlier moves were unsourced. Apparently Darwinek was not able to find an English-language source using diacritics for that player, but that did not stop him from making the move. The point I was trying to make by using the above example is that English-language spelling is the generally used form for all of the player's names and that my assertion is supported by reliable English-language sources (for which I listed three sources which will universally cover all such articles). Established policy says that English-language sources are preferred over foreign-language sources. And in the situation of these moves, the generally used form of the names is written without diacritics. The moves are not proper. And done in-mass, without a consensus, and over the objection of another user, and even while this ANI going on, is unjustifiable. Dolovis (talk) 15:08, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

• Comment I got into a minor disagreement about this a while back at Talk:Elian_Gonzalez_affair#Name_of_article. My view is still basically what I said there: do what the most careful and high-quality English-language sources do. Kurt Gödel would look completely wrong without the diaresis, but Karl Friedrich Gauß can be written Gauss with no problems. In general, go with the practices of academic sources over those of newspapers, as they tend to practice more care and precision, partly as a matter of not being on such tight deadlines and partly because they are in the business of being fussy about accuracy (like we should be). In uncertain cases, use the diacritics.
• That said, don't do mass moves or mass anything without consensus. That is disruptive and should result in blocks if not stopped once people start objecting.
• Also, biographical subjects about whom there is little or no English-language sourcing should probably not be article subjects in English Wikipedia. For example, if there's only Latvian-language sourcing, try writing about them in Latvian Wikipedia (lv:) instead of here. lvwiki has only 33k articles and is in much greater need of new articles than enwiki, which is frankly bloated. Remember our goal is to give every child in the world an encyclopedia in his or her own language. Some of us are stuck contributing in English because it's what we know, but those who can edit in Latvian are (IMO) would help the project much more by expanding lvwiki, than by cramming yet more obscure info into enwiki. 71.141.88.54 (talk) 09:39, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
  • On the contrary: while most of the info on the English language Wikipedia can be found elsewhere as well, the best added value it has is the introduction of subjects which are notable somewhere else, but which didn't have info available in English yet. The goal should be to have the same articles in all language versions of Wikipedia eventually. Utopic, obviously, but not something to be discouraged at all. Fram (talk) 08:16, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
    • I would very strongly oppose any move to restrict the creation of articles on foreign-language subjects; it's totally incompatible with CSB. This is an encyclopædia, not a project to document only the anglosphere. The GNG only mentions foreign subject to the extent that it welcomes foreign sources; WP:RS does not exclude or devalue foreign sources; WP:FIVE mentions neither nationality nor language, and rightly so. To discard encyclopædic contributions because a different project is deficient is the worst kind of OTHERSTUFF argument. Also, as Fram suggests, non-English subjects are is an area where wikipedia can add most value, because it presents information which the average reader would find much harder to access elsewhere. bobrayner (talk) 17:07, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• @FisherQueen - to be honest I think that your comment should be the opposite in reality, an admin should be held to the same standards as any other editor, and maybe even higher standards ("They are expected to observe a high standard of conduct"). What you said in fact shows preferential treatment for admins over editors in general, something which can only be a bad thing. Chaosdruid (talk) 10:47, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Diacritics don't mean anything to one who understands & reads 'only' english. Truly, they're distractions, if anything. The usage of them, seems only to satisfy nationalist pride of editors from areas that use them. GoodDay (talk) 17:19, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

This was extremely uncivil comment, which showed clearly one thing - complete misunderstanding of Wikipedia's global appeal and lack of basic human tolerance. - Darwinek (talk) 18:40, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

A comment that was scratched out, btw. GoodDay (talk) 18:45, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Darwinek has been doing something that many dedicated wikipedians do for a long time. We may discuss if the practice was is in accord with all WP policies, or not, but the fact is that in sports biographies, that was being donne by most for a long time. Now, I think some users want to seek sanctions to Darwinek while I personally think that Darwinek being sanctioned want solve a single thing. I think this is not the best place for this discussion. We need to include in this discussion editors from biographies, linguistics and probably sports projects, at least. We should move this discussion to some of this places. FkpCascais (talk) 21:09, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

In agreement, this ANI-report has morphed into a debate about the usage/non-usage of diacritics on English Wikipedia. -- GoodDay (talk) 23:49, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

It should be about the mass moves; what to do about diacritics case-by-case is a side issue. 71.141.88.54 (talk) 10:42, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd agree; there are two separate issues here. One issue concerns diacritics (which I personally welcome in the name of encyclopædic accuracy, but opinions differ on this point, of course). The other issue concerns mass moves even after somebody complained - I think that's a Bad Thing. bobrayner (talk) 13:37, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

SirEpicBob / MrArticleWizard et al.

Looks like we got another long-term abuse case. This guy's M.O. is to steal other user's drafts and move them into mainspace as if they were his own, which causes other good faithed users to do mistaken histmerges. He just keeps creating more and more socks, (SPI). One user already had enough and decided to leave Wikipedia in frustration over it. Just recently he even tried to Impersonate another user. I think we need to make users aware somehow that this guy's on the prowl, and to have them report it to an admin immediately if they see someone has moved their article drafts out of their userspace and/or copied their userapges or editnotices. -- œ^™ 17:48, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I've seen some of this guy's work come up at WP:SCV and seen him defending the content as his own. How do we notify users of this problem? Do you know if the attribution issues he's created have been cleaned up? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:39, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Well I was thinking, since it seems to be mostly drafts that he's swiping maybe we could add a note or something to WP:MADEDRAFT, but I don't know if it's worth it just yet, we'll see if he continues. We've had a couple users in #wikipedia-en-help complain about this too so now that we're aware it's the same guy we can inform them if any more show up to complain. I haven't looked through the contribs of all the socks but the most recent ones from MrArticleWizard have been moved back to their proper place. Clarkson, Ohio still exists with User:Wikiapelli as the creator but (the real) User:Wikipelli from whom it was copied appears to be letting this one slide. -- œ^™ 13:24, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

It would be very easy to correct that, simply by G6ing the earliest edits (since all content is by Wikipelli) or merging. I'll check with him about it at his usertalk. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:07, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

FWIW, I wasn't aware that there were remedies to the draft theft. I guess I had it in my head that fighting for attribution would be contrary to wp:own. So, not so much 'letting it slide' as assuming "them's the breaks on wikipedia"! In any event, thanks for whatever you can do on this, my first article! :) Wikipelli ^Talk 13:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

It's done. All credit where credit is due. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:55, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Can the copyvio tools be tweaked to spot this (it is of course a copyvio)? Rich Farmbrough, 03:51, 2 March 2011 (UTC).

It's part of Coren's bot's work to compare articles. I don't think it compares user space, but VWbot picked up one of these at least when the userspace sandbox had been mirrored elsewhere. I'm pretty clueless about bots and tools and suchlike, so I don't know the reward/cost benefit to tweaking the bots to look at userspace as well. :) (I've mentioned this to User:VernoWhitney, who may have input.) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:14, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Articles created as copies from userspace drafts are picked up on a fairly regular basis by CorenSearchBot (and my VWBot backup), so long as they've been around long enough to show up in Yahoo search or be mirrored somewhere. The difference between spotting this kind of cut/paste move/copy versus a regular article is that {{Userspace draft}} noindexes the page, so it doesn't usually show up elsewhere if it's properly tagged (which is why the hit that MRG just mentioned was from a proxy site and not a usual mirror). As far as I know it could be set up to run an additional internal search for every single article using the API to get around that issue, but it would take some work. VernoWhitney (talk) 12:47, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

FORUM and IDHT problems at Libertarianism and Talk:Libertarianism

User being reported: Darkstar1st (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

User:Darkstar1st (notification)has civility problems of using Talk:Libertarianism as a forum; and, in relation to "I didn't hear that" conduct in relation to constantly and periodically revisiting community consensus without presenting new evidence or arguments at Libertarianism and Talk:Libertarianism.

1. Forum: [7]
2. IDHT: [8]

The article community has attempted numerous dispute resolution techniques, including BRD, Talk: discussion, User Talk: discussion, informal mediation, formal mediation attempts, administrator assisted informal mediation, article locking, talk page locking, collapsing FORUM and IDHT sections of text on the talk page, revisiting high quality scholarly sources, and ignoring the behaviour as lying outside of consensus. The behaviour has continued; and disrupts the encyclopaedic project by disrupting the talk page and distracting from article improvement.

I would like community assistance in developing a way forward with an editor who does not adhere to argued consensus, and displays tendentious IDHT behaviour. I am at a loss for a way to avoid article disruption, and would like advice. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Darkstar1st has a bad history of edit-warring and continues to communicate with the banned User:Karmaisking on his talk page. Instead of making a constructive contribution, he chooses to argue obscure positions, wasting the time of other editors. I would recommend a community ban. TFD (talk) 02:17, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Would you not consider my edition of william belsham as the man who coined the term libertarian a constructive contribution? Darkstar1st (talk) 02:24, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, well if Darkstar1st, who said he was done editing the article, is back, I'll be putting Libertarianism back on my watchlist. Yworo (talk) 02:31, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

This is your sole contribution to the article William Belsham. You added that he coined the term "libertarian" and btw got the referencing wrong. TFD (talk) 02:35, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

you are also wrong, i have made several edits, here are the 2 most recent, unappropriated and advocating reduction to just state protection from aggression, theft, breach of contract, and fraud. Darkstar1st (talk) 02:46, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Are you talking about the same article? Here is the article history and you have only a single edit, Darkstar1st. Yworo (talk) 02:50, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

yrowo i am discussing edits made to the libertarianism article. before i arrived, it was incorrectly attributed. suggesting my numerous edits are not constructive is curious given i am the editor who identified the person who coined the term. my faith is most certainly good concerning the term. Darkstar1st (talk) 02:56, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Other Stuff, even Other Good Stuff, may exist. Good edits you may make do not change the disruption attendant upon your use of the talk page as a forum, and your failure to abide by argued consensus on the article and in the talk page. It is impossible to weigh contributions against disruption of the encyclopaedic project; and, highly structured and repeated attempts to stop the disruption have not succeeded. That you're not understanding that your conduct is highly problematic to the project is worrying. It makes me seriously consider seconding calls for either an RFC/U or a community ban in the problem topic area as ways forward. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:06, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Yup, reading through the talk page, it seems Darkstar1st is back to his/her old soapboxing and treating the talk page like a WP:FORUM. IIRC, Darkstar1st was on the verge of having an WP:RFC/U opened against them and decided to abandon editing the article. It's probably time to reconsider starting that RFC. Yworo (talk) 02:37, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

First, just as a point of information, as you can see here Belsham was added in Oct 2008 by an anonymous IP and improved later me with a decent reference. Darkstar1st may have re-added him after he fell out after some edit war.

As I wrote at the talk page after playing catch up at talk: I wasn't ready to go there (ANI), but can understand why others might be. WP:Soapbox about people's opinions and questions regarding general views, and vague references to some problem in the text that we would be forced to have to figure out for ourselves have been the problem. Maybe Darksnot answers of six new threads with 10 word descriptions and a lot of opinions and "questions" that are just opinions, all inferring the same POV - dump the anarchists and leftists. One just never knows when some sensible edit is going to be reverted with a waterfall of six new threads with 10 word titles and a lot of opinions, all inferring the same POV - dump the anarchists and leftists. It's totally distracting and disruptive, including from those occasions when he has a legitimate point. I think it would encourage me to help clean up the article if he had to take a six month break from it. CarolMooreDC (talk) 06:17, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I concur that the tendentious WP:IDHT behavior presents a huge barrier to progress at the article. North8000 may choose to overlook the behavior from the small tendentious minority, but it is certainly persistent and quite frustrating. Every few weeks, one of the editors in this vocal minority seeks to overturn consensus that has been clearly established [*here, here, here, here, here, and here]. I guess this is a small step up from the vocal minority starting up an RfC every 4 days on average [no exaggeration], but I do wish there were a remedy available so that these editors could finally "get it" that collaborative editing oftentimes means accepting community decisions that you may not like or that conflict with your preferred POV. The months of this behavior is truly excessive.

Darkstar1st in particular seems to introduce difficulties, as he seems to read very selectively based on his POV. It's almost as if he steels his POV and then goes through the article looking for the merest cherry-picked sentence fragments which conflict with his POV and that he thinks he can assault based on comments from the talk page. Here's one exchange I've had with Darkstar1st that I found discouraging. BigK HeX (talk) 06:41, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

The mess and gridlock at that article is very complex, and very unlike most other contentious WP articles. Brief, low key comments by Darkstar on the talk page are certainly NOT the problem there. I have no stomach for starting to spar with these folks. I make my main point and request below. I just want someone besides me to tell them to chill out have a cup of tea.

Regarding the oft-abused RFC,s, in my 6-7 months at the article, there were basically a bunch of RFC's that I would call false starts in a spirited debate that never really had substantive discussions and never really went anywhere, and one that had substantive discussions and a real conclusion. Since then everybody has been misrepresenting and misusing the results of the RFC (s)North8000 (talk) 12:12, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I would think a Big Gulp of tea is needed - some of the comments against Darkstar verge on the outrageous. Collect (talk) 20:19, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I suggest that you add Libertarianism to your watchlist for a while.

Operative: "I should tell you, so that you don't waste your time. You can't make me angry."

Inara: "Please, spend an hour with him."

-- from Serenity

Yworo (talk) 20:35, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

This accidentally points out the more pervasive problem at the Libertarianism article

This article has been a painful situation of continuous warring, and the main method of warring has been to continuously hurl accusations of violating wp rules without much basis or for the most minor of things, and continuously doing the same on notice boards. In my 1/2 year there, I've not even seen a POV difference at the root of this, just warring for the sake of warring. Even though I consider at two of them to be friends, I want to report this behavior on Fifelfoo, TFD and Yworo. The proof is right here in this notice. One need only READ the diffs provided by Fifelfoo, and then read what those three folks have said in this notice about what Darkstar said in those diffs. It's so obvious that I need say no more. I don't want any sanctions, I just want someone to tell those three folks to CHILL OUT and have a cup of tea. The article could use such a notice with that same advice for one or two more folks over there. :-) Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 04:52, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

What the article needs is a couple of strong but uninvolved editors to help head off the silly side tracking as it starts to happen :) I gave it a shot but honestly don't have the time or will power to keep it up --Errant ^(chat!) 12:44, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I have only posted to the discussion page twice this year, and last edited the article in September. TFD (talk) 12:58, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

(added later) My mistake. I confused / combined you with someone else. I am so sorry! Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:26, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

The article hasn't even been on my watchlist for months, I only noticed the renewed problems b/c another issue brought me to AN/I, which I also haven't been watching for months. Clearly, my two or three comments since this thread was opened can't possible demonstrate "the real problem". Yworo (talk) 13:05, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Don't have much time now, but what I meant is that the only disruption and warring going there is these continuous false accusations of warring/disruption. My "want to report this behavior" statement was more intended to use this is an example, unusually clear cut in this case, and only in the context of asking for a "chill out" recommendation to be given. I did not intend to imply anything regardign those three individuals beyond that, and apologize if it sounded like anything beyond that. This is not to dilute my overall thought and frustration. I am so sick and tired of the pointless endless acrimony at the article!!! Two reasons I haven't abandoned it are the importance of information on the topic, and the fact that the acrimony is pointless....., and not really over anything....just fighting for the sake of fighting. It is not fueled by a RW conflict like all of the hopeless contentious WP articles. are. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:55, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

my edits are an attempt to reconcile the contradictions

How can anarchy be a school of libertarian, if all libertarians originated from anarchy?, that is like saying Christianity is a school of Lutheranism. apologies for using too few words in the past to illuminate what i considered obvious. the article says anarchy is the origin of libertarianism as well as one of two libertarian schools of thought. why is it a school of thought, isnt it actually simply itself? should the followers of anarchy be called anarchist? if not, would someone please explain what is the difference between an anarchist, and a libertarian in the anarchist school? Darkstar1st (talk) 13:16, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Content issues are not resolved at AN/I, only behavioral issues. This is not the place for that discussion. Yworo (talk) 13:20, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

correct, but since we are here, do you see my point? Darkstar1st (talk) 13:22, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Discussions on improving articles must be based on sources, not our own reasoning. And the place to discuss article content is on article talk pages, not ANI threads. TFD (talk) 13:27, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

tdf i copied the text in this section from the talk page. i noticed you have yet to discuss my content there concerning this issue. Darkstar1st (talk) 13:34, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with TFD. All discussion needs to be based on sources. If you provide a source that answers that question one way or the other, then that source's POV can be explicated in the article. General discussion without sources is not useful. That's been explained to you repeatedly in the past. Yworo (talk) 13:36, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

no source required, libertarian is a school of anarchy if anarchy is the origin of libertarian. the reverse is a contradiction such as the article currently reads. Darkstar1st (talk) 13:43, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Sources are always required. Use of logic is original research. We can report the logical conclusions of others, but we cannot use our own logic as editors because our logic may be faulty. In particular, your logic is obviously faulty to many other editors. You should learn something from this, perhaps that your knowledge of the subject or of logic may have some blind spots. Yworo (talk) 16:39, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Darkstar1st seems to have a serious misunderstanding of even the most basic/elementary set logic. This tends to add to the frustration with his edits and proposed edits. Again, I'll reference the discussion here: User_talk:BigK_HeX#how_is_anarchy_different_from_left-libertarian.3F BigK HeX (talk) 13:46, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Not to say that Darkstar's discussison are perfect, but there is no rule that say that putting a comment in a talk page without sourcing is not OK. Doubly so that doing so is not an ANI offense.

Again, not to say that Darkstar's discussions are perfect, but in this confusing mess of an article in a field where there is a morass of terminology/naming issues, IMO, discussions to help sort that are useful and important for article development. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:09, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

My feeling is he can't control his disruptive habits, and therefore it is difficult to take his occasional valid points seriously, if one ever can find them after wading through long subject title, vague complaints more like opinions/soapbox, the necessity to question him to find out what the complaint is, always being wary of what new strategy this is for getting rid of the WP:RS material he doesn't like, etc etc. By the time the occasional valid point is comprehended, one must figure out how he wants to use it to support his goal of getting rid of the WP:RS material he doesn't like, to decide if he's just going to obstruct any attempt to solve the problem. Sometimes it gets solved; more often people get exhausted and give up. As I said on Libertarianism talk, let's just do an RFC/User, using the multiple complaints at ANI, his blocks, etc. and see what we can do to end the disruption over a number of articles. CarolMooreDC (talk) 21:10, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I have, at times, had very strong support for an RFC/USER with Darkstar1st. At present, I'd likely still have weak support for one. BigK HeX (talk) 23:46, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to let this notice make my case. People should actually read the diffs in the initial complaint here. Then see what folks have said/done here in response. People will see that there is nothing there that warrants this. And so then on to the real question.......what is going on here? North8000 (talk) 12:03, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Canvassing at Thomas Jefferson

User notified

Can some other administrator please have some kind words with Gwillhickers about his canvassing? His interpretation seems to differ from mine, and a third or fourth opinion would be useful. Thanks. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:30, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Left him a note, particularly referencing the RFC process. --Errant ^(chat!) 10:27, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Removal of NPOV dispute tag before dispute is resolved

The NPOV dispute tag says that it should not be removed until the NPOV dispute is resolved. At Lyndon LaRouche, SlimVirgin has removed the tag twice today (diff,diff), despite the fact that the majority of those commenting on the talk page have agreed that there is a neutrality problem. She has also referred to those who disagree with her, and specifically to myself, as "LaRouche accounts,"(diff) which is an ad hominem that is specifically discouraged at WP:NPA#What is considered to be a personal attack?. I think that SlimVirgin has also made numerous constructive and helpful edits and comments to the article, but this flare-up is something of a set-back. Delia Peabody (talk) 22:38, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Note. Delia Peabody has been blocked as a sock puppet of banned user Herschelkrustofsky.   Will Beback  talk  02:48, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

The majority commenting have not said the article is not neutral. Delia Peabody (talk · contribs) is the latest in a long line of LaRouche accounts since 2004 who have repeatedly added the NPOV tag, then tried to use it as a bargaining chip. If an established editor clearly unrelated to LaRouche were to add the tag after trying and failing to resolve a specific issue on talk, then of course it would be respected. See Wikipedia:NPOV dispute: "Simply being of the opinion that a page is not neutral is not sufficient to justify the addition of the tag. Tags should be added as a last resort." SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 22:44, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not the editor who originally added the tag, but I have gone over the article carefully and made very specific observations on the talk page about problems with neutrality, as have others. I believe the message on the tag about not removing it is clear, and I don't believe that the tag was added frivolously. It looks like the dispute has been going on for about a month, and the participants are not predominantly newbies. I also think that the branding of editors who disagree with SlimVirgin as "LaRouche accounts" is a tactic that should be discouraged. Delia Peabody (talk) 22:57, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

And am I also a LaRouche account? John lilburne (talk) 23:58, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

My simple take on this is that the article has been 'owned' by 2 people for about 5 or 6 years, that they have battled through various notice boards, and banning processes throughout that time (the latest being in the last few weeks), and both argue that the article in question is neutral. Yet when I asked whether they have ever allowed anything positive to be said about the subject of the article the response I got was that in one instance they ameliorated the term 'savage'. John lilburne (talk) 23:58, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

To be frank I don't care about arguing the toss over specific instances of phrasing in this article. I just want to say that if this article is an example of a NPOV by two experienced editors working on it for several years, then heaven help the rest, because a system that after 6 years ends up with this is severely broken. John lilburne (talk) 23:58, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

John, you've made 58 edits to articles, and you made clear on the talk page that you hadn't read the LaRouche source material, so with respect how would you know whether the article is neutral? Neutrality involves presenting a balanced account of the sources, and that is what the article does. If anything, it is slanted in LaRouche's favour.

The issue is simple. People who work for Lyndon LaRouche, whether as employees or volunteers, have a strong conflict of interest, and shouldn't be editing the article about him. That ignores the rampant sockpuppetry; it ignores the offwiki attacks; and it ignores that the LaRouche position is a tiny-minority view. The COI argument is strong enough on its own. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 00:22, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

For 'a tiny-minority view' there is an awful lot about it on WP, in fact there seems to be more here than on Jimmy Carter. and apparently it spreads off into other areas too, a similar sized article on the 'movement' too. One might say that it borders on an obsession. John lilburne (talk) 01:03, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

If you are claiming that any one that wants to make a judgement on this article has to have all the sources, and then gone and read all the sources that were rejected over 6 years, and all the various notice boards discussions, then you are placing an impossible burden on anyone wanting to comment on the process. I do not doubt that the sources will say, what you have said they said in the article, I do not suspect that you have misrepresented them. However, some sources have been picked and others reject, and that is where I suspect that bias has crept in. John lilburne (talk) 01:03, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

That you are unable to point to a single source, used in the article, that isn't critical, is a strong indicator that the article is not neutral. The guy could well be a complete rotter and bounder for all I know, but 100+ picked sources saying so is surely over egging the pudding somewhat. John lilburne (talk) 01:03, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

It reminds me of a book I read last year by Robert Hutchinson on Thomas Cromwell in which there was nothing good to be said, and every action was ascribed to venal motives. A deeply unsatisfying read. John lilburne (talk) 01:03, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Numerous sources are used for the article, including many written by LaRouche and his associates, and they span the range of views on the subject.   Will Beback  talk  02:48, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

The Thomas Cromwell biography mentioned above also used numerous sources, it still didn't mean that it was in any way balanced. But as you've been working on this article for 5 years, and participated in all the discussion, you'll be able to show us where a source was used in such a way that venal motives aren't being ascribed to this guy and 'his associates'. That is all that is being asked of you, which I think is a reasonable request to make of any neutral editor, who we assume is in command of his sources. You should be able to provide a few examples, after all it has been a week since I first asked. John lilburne (talk) 07:51, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Actually, you asked for "positive sources" that include "positive" assertions. I provided you with several examples. You denied that running for U.S. President, proposing AIDS-related legislation, or meeting with foreign leaders were positive accomplishments. You also refused to actually read the article. For the record, I'd hope we can all agree that LaRouche's two autobiographies, which is cited extensively, is not what you'd call a "critical" source. In all, the article cites LaRouche movement sources at least 32 times.

However this isn't the right venue to discuss the neutrality of articles.   Will Beback  talk  09:02, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Wrong I never said I hadn't read the article. I said I didn't 'give a damn about the minutia in the article', which is exactly what I've said above, and elaborated upon here. Also running for political office is NOT, repeat NOT a positive achievement 10,000s of people do that every year, and some do so in order to defer a prosecution, or for other non noble reasons. Running for US president isn't a positive achievement either, its a notable event, just as when the Yippies nominated a pig. Also meeting foreign leaders isn't a positive achievement either, again at best it is a notable event, you need to understand the differences here. Also a proposal of legislation is not a positive achievement in itself. It might be a notable event, though as 100,000s do that every year, one would expect the proposed legislation to be somewhat notable in itself. For you information a positive achievement would be if some one manages to get legislation passed that actually improves the lot of humanity. John lilburne (talk) 10:06, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

If all you can say is that the article is neutral because "we've said he's run for president, and he's met with some foreign bigwig" then no wonder people are questioning the process here. John lilburne (talk) 10:06, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

If you're still concerned about this then let's take it to the WP:NPOVN. The sourcing of a biography doesn't require administrative action.   Will Beback  talk  10:40, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

That would be dandy if the article as it stands could be rescued by a bit of judicious tweaking. The resistance to acknowledging that anything is wrong by the two main authors makes one think that perhaps the thing has been so poisoned that it needs to be stubbed out and rearchitected. John lilburne (talk) 19:41, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Issues like this seem to be quite common at WP:NPOVN. A helpful answer as to how editors should treat a "source" can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NPOVN#is_NPOV_a_factor_when_discussing_sources.3F. The Editor "J.Johnson" says, quote:

"Acceptable" depends on the context. Editors should not simply parrot every "interesting" remark made about their subject: Wikipedia is not a gossip column. It is an encyclopedia, and tries to be a serious, credible encyclopedia. Which means that the material in article should be researched. The first requirement is that everything is "sourced" (traceable back to some source that presumably knows what they are talking about). Hopefully these sources are reliable, and even neutral. But even if Satan himself says 2+2=4, we do not despise the arithmetic "truth" of 2+2=4. In some contexts, sure, you might find good reason to quote or take material from a very non-neutral source. But editors still have a responsibility to produce neutral material ("balanced", see WP:WEIGHT). CNN might have some pertinent material about Ted Williams, but (esp. in this case) it might also be highly biased; an editor would be expected to check a range of sources, and evaluate the entire context. So strictly speaking the specific answer to your question is "no". But more fully the answer is: depends on how you use it. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:47, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to focus the attention on this sentence: "CNN might have some pertinent material about Ted Williams, but (esp. in this case) it might also be highly biased; an editor would be expected to check a range of sources, and evaluate the entire context". Now, we had the case in TALK:Lyndon Larouche a case where WB asserted, that context is not very relevant, quote: "Regarding HK/Angel's flight's assertion of a misused quote, I don't see it. While King did quote a line without giving extensive context, that isn't necessarily an error. He didn't assign any specific meaning to it and readers can interpret it for themselves. It's not an example that proves the book unreliable." My point is, that while the sourcing of a biography may indeed not require "administrative action", it requires careful evalution of the sources, and certainly not a "leave it to the reader" - attitude. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.210.206.223 (talk) 12:00, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

• Comment from uninvolved editor: Are there any sources available that are not critical? If there are not, or if there are only a very few, then writing a "50/50 = neutral" article would be giving undue weight to the non-critical sources. Quoting from that page: Wikipedia should not present a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention overall as the majority view. I'm not saying it is or isn't the case here, but that that should be kept in mind when determining whether or not the page is "neutral". - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 01:33, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Of course one wouldn't expect a 1:1 split. But one would expect at least a 1:5, 1:6, 1:7, 1:8, or 1:9 split. Unfortunately the two editor involved can't provide any examples. Even if it was a 1:100 split, you'd think they would remember as it would have been a memorable event. John lilburne (talk) 07:58, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

@bushranger: Please keep in mind, that, apart from SVs insistance that LaRouche presents a quote "tiny minority view", even though and especially because it seems to be a "minority", that it does deserve the same uncompromised, neutral treatment as any other viewpoint, see Galileo Galilei. It is oftentimes not the amount of existing sources, but the selection of them and out of them, which makes the difference between a biased and a neutral treatment. 81.210.206.223 (talk) 02:11, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Note: 81.210.206.223 is a single purpose account focused on LaRouche articles.   Will Beback  talk  02:48, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

For the complete picture it is helpful to look at the revision history http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lyndon_LaRouche&limit=500&action=history of "Lyndon Larouche" which gives a more complete history of the problems involved.81.210.206.223 (talk) 03:03, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

• Comment from uninvolved editor I've stayed out of what has been going on at the LaRouche page, but I have been keeping an eye on the discussions going on there and I must agree that there are definite NPOV issues going on. I think the main issue is that, yes, there are a lot of pro-LaRouche accounts getting involved in the discussion, but SlimVirgin is also extremely anti-LaRouche. It is this sort of clash that is causing issues at the page. Silverseren^C 01:02, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Slimvirgin isn't pro-LaRouche, but I don't see her engaging in non-neutral editing on this topic either. If there are particular neutrality issues that you notice then you're invited (not that you need an invitation) to raise them on the article's talk page.   Will Beback  talk  02:48, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

• Comment about removing NPOV tags. I have zero involvement with the LaRouche articles, and I intend to keep it that way. My gut feeling on reading the discussion here is that I would likely agree with SlimVirgin and Will Beback on the content issues that are involved, and I recognize that there are serious issues here with respect to socks. But I have a comment on the original issue of this thread: removing tags. At animal rights-related pages, I've had some pretty adversarial interactions with SlimVirgin and some other editors over NPOV tags that they have insisted on removing, and I'm definitely not anyone's footwear. Slim herself was on the other side of the situation when editors at Intelligent design wanted to remove an NPOV tag that she placed there. It seems to me that the best thing to do with such tags is always to insist that the tag be discussed in talk, but not to remove the tag either until there is consensus, or if the tagger declines to participate in talk. I fully realize that it can be annoying to put up with these ugly tags on pages that one believes to be neutral, all the more so when the tagger is raising a perennial issue that has already been answered, and even worse when the tagger appears to be a sock or other disruptive type. But I've never seen the sky fall when a tag remains on a page. Instead of reverting it, deal with it, then you can remove it later in good conscience. Here, I am concerned that the conclusion ought not to be that, since the tagger was apparently a sock, removing the tag was OK. Better to determine that the socking occurred, first, and then remove the tag. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:37, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

  Well said. Yworo (talk) 19:44, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Suspicious block

User: Delia Peabody was just blocked, as noted by Will Beback above. Please see this section on Delia's talk page, where there are concerns raised about the lack of evidence being presented when asked. In response to Cla68 asking to be emailed the SPI info, Will responded with "I doubt you'd be satisfied with any amount of evidence" and refused to share the information. I find this to be highly concerning and raise suspicions of mine that Delia is not a sock of Herschelkrustofsky at all, but was instead blocked to remove yet another person in the pro-LaRouche side, as Will Beback is the one other person that has been working with SlimVirgin on the talk page and is, thus, clearly involved in the situation.

Also, as Cla68 pointed out on Delia's talk, why does Will have access to this SPI information in the first place if he is an involved editor? This only heightens my concerns. Silverseren^C 16:04, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

If Cla68 is actually engaging in off-wiki coordination with HK (as was claimed in one of the earlier threads), then sending nonpublic info to Cla68 that could help HK's socks avoid detection would be clearly not be in the encyclopedia's interests. If there's some real doubt about Delia Peabody, IMO it's enough to get an additional opinion from some other checkuser beside the main one handling the report. 71.141.88.54 (talk) 17:30, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Will didn't block Delia; I did. I am not involved in LaRouche content editing; I am involved (on and off) with administrative / protective issues such as page protection and sockpuppet identification and blocking.

My block was done on behavioral evidence, which was extensive and included some very specific patterns I am not going to go in to in public as it would tip HK off to how we find him. It included detailed comparisons with other, recent CU-and-IP-address confirmed HK socks.

Subsequent to my behavioral based block, a CU was performed privately, and the results confirmed that Delia was part of a sockpuppet accounts group which included 2 other editors, who were both then blocked. Unsurprisingly both were editing in LaRouche topics. This is apparently yet another new IP range for them to be using; they have become aware that we ID groups of them that way, but are not yet getting a whole new IP block for each and every account they create.

Another checkuser, Lar, is now following up with the one who made the connections I mention, as Lar is skeptical of some of the evidence. I'm not privy to the details, as I'm not a checkuser. Larry will presumably discuss the results if he disagrees with earlier findings. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 17:43, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I never stated that Will was the one that blocked the account, I already knew that you did, George. But what I still don't understand is why Will is privy to the specific information that was found out in this CU, when he is a very involved editor in this subject area? Unless he isn't privy to the information and was lying on the talk page. Which is it? Silverseren^C 17:52, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

After I blocked, the CU did the check and then emailed myself and Will with the information that Delia and the other two accounts were CU confirmed sockpuppets. No email I saw contained protected private information such as IP address or identity info; it was merely a 'the result was that these accounts are sockpuppets'.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 18:09, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Ah, so he wasn't lying, per se, he was just exaggerating the extent of his information. Alright. I still don't understand why he was sent the info. I mean, if you're going to send it to him, you might as well send it to SlimVirgin as well. Silverseren^C 18:18, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Good to hear that, but wouldn't it have been cleaner if it had been done through an SPI so that everybody could have seen that statement? That way, justice could have been seen to be done. We had a similar lengthy discussion here regarding User:Angel's flight, which again one would have thought would have been avoided by an SPI. No-one is suggesting that private information should be made public, and certainly not if that would help the socks to evade detection, but if we have a process for sockpuppet investigation it isn't clear why sockpuppetry blocks are being done without using it. If it's a clear WP:DUCK then fine, but if CU is needed, why not do it formally through SPI? - David Biddulph (talk) 18:30, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Don't look at me, I just work here...

If someone would like to file a SPI request, to get the result confirmed "on the record" that those three accounts are all socks of each other, that's fine by me. I didn't ask for the info, it was sent to me as an interested party as I'd just blocked. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 18:44, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I just think we should have stuff like blocks on the public record whenever they're enacted. Obviously, we shouldn't reveal private information, but we should have a record that this person was blocked for this reason by this person. CU was confirmed, blah, blah, blah. It's when you don't have rightfully public info like this on display that you gets calls about there being a cabal or a conspiracy going on and, rightfully so, for what else are people supposed to think when this info is hidden from them? Silverseren^C 18:58, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

We have not made a general policy, to date, requiring CUs to go "on the record" with results that supported a block.

I don't oppose doing so. Some actual CUs might object, I don't know. Would be good to ask them.

I think it would help admins who are following up later on other SPI / abuse reports.

Part of the problem is that with private CUs, the checkuser doesn't necessarily know / follow up on what the admin did after being told the results. So they don't know if they would need to "put it on the record". This complicates things.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 19:05, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Can't we just say that all CUs that are done by a checkuser need to be reported in some sort of public place, much like how SPIs are reported in their area? They aren't in charge of what is done with the information, but having the transparency of the results of CUs would help all sides, I think. Silverseren^C 19:08, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

There's resistance to that, as a lot of CUs turn up negative results, and posting that they were done would seem like an attack or black mark on the users. There may well be other good reasons not to post them all, including what happens if you find something that opens a seriously big can of worms (like, finding a very senior admin or arbcom member doing something Wrong, etc). Some things need to be reviewed and investigated more in private before actions are taken.

I agree with more openness, it's somewhat delicate though. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:09, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I see Delia Peabody (talk · contribs) has been linked to Tidyborg (talk · contribs) and Pachuco cadaver (talk · contribs).

It's worth noting that Tidyborg was created this month to add this template to the LaRouche talk page. The same edit was first made to another LaRouche page in August by 68.164.112.178 (talk · contribs). That IP resolves (see below) to American System Publications in Los Angeles, the LaRouche company Herschelkrustofsky (talk · contribs) works for. This is the same company Leatherstocking (talk · contribs)—a LaRouche account active 2007–2009—was linked to via his logged-out edits [9] [10] as 64.183.125.210 (talk · contribs), which also resolved to American System Publications.

Who-is for 68.164.112.178

network:IP-Network-Block:68.164.112.176 - 68.164.112.183

network:Org-Name:American System Publications

network:Street-Address:3018 Carmel St

network:City:LOS ANGELES

network:State:CA

network:Postal-Code:90065

Who-is for 64.183.125.210

network:IP-Network:64.183.125.208/29

network:IP-Network-Block:64.183.125.208 - 64.183.125.215

network:Organization;I:AMERICAN-SYSTEM-PUB.

It's also worth noting that Leatherstocking denied having any connection to LaRouche before he was found to be editing from a LaRouche office. See for example [11] and [12] Most of the other longer-term accounts have done the same: denied all knowledge and said they were being victimized, until the technical or behavioral evidence became too strong. It's unhelpful to be naive about this. This is serious long-term abuse carried out by one or two long-term employees of LaRouche (staff, not just supporters), and we shouldn't be having to argue each case anew when it's so obvious. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 21:10, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

That's why i'm saying that we should be more transparent with CUs and blocks for behavioral evidence. If we have a place where such information is announced, such as in a SPI case archive, then we wouldn't have as much arguing because those publically accessible areas can be pointed to. The main reason for most of the controversy here is all of the secrecy and back-room information trading that was not initially put out in the open. If it had been stated clearly in the beginning, this wouldn't have happened. Silverseren^C 21:27, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "this wouldn't have happened," and most of the behavioral evidence can't be made public, for obvious reasons. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 21:45, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Let's be frank, shall we? For six years a whole series of unnecessarily long articles pertaining to LaRouche have been owned by two editors, SlimVirgin and Will Beback. They have cleverly cherry-picked sources to conform to their POV, and if you challenge them, they will get all indignant and say, "But we're only using reliable sources!" And if you continue to challenge them, then ipso factor you are pro-LaRouche (and probably not just a supporter, but an employee,) and you have become a "LaRouche account." Then, they have an admin, Georgewilliamherbert, who does bans on request, and they have a checkuser, Jpgordon, who will provide semi-plausible CU data on request. Don't forget: they have orchestrated bans on so many different accounts, from so many different locations and IP ranges, that they can probably connect your IP to at least one of them. So don't mess with their articles! With Warmest regards, Orange claw hammer (talk)

"Let's be Frank"? Who's Frank? Is that the ID of your sockmaster? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:39, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

CU time, I suppose? And, no worries, Mr. Orange claw hammer, while i'm not going to say anything about your personal attacks on other editors, have no fear about the LaRouche article. I've read through it and seen that there are definite neutrality issues that I plan to help rectify. Silverseren^C 21:41, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

HK has used over 100 socks over the past seven year, many before he was first blocked then banned in 2006. Not a single block of a sock account has been overturned due to misidentification. With his various sock accounts, HK has made far more edits to Lyndon LaRouche, over 1200, than any other editor. The accounts typically push the same issues and make the same personal attacks on other editors. Off Wiki, HK continues to attack WP editors on a forum where he is the senior administrator. The person is clearly devoted to the topic and obsessed with Wikipedia. It's unfortunate that editors in good standing offer him support.   Will Beback  talk  21:55, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not offering him support. The LaRouche article is clearly negatively biased. Anyone can see that just from a passing read through. I'm hoping to help fix that by the application of reliable sources that can help make the information more neutral and encyclopedic. If you think improving the article is offering HK support, then I guess we have different opinions on how to edit Wikipedia. Silverseren^C 21:58, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I'll challenge you to find some. My journalist contact in the US, who says he is heavily biased against LaRouche, informs me that media interest in LaRouche was 30 years ago; that he barely gets a passing mention these days; and that it would be a major surprise if anyone could find any media coverage that wasn't biased; there certainly won't be any recent reliable reportage, unless someone had very specific reasons to investigate claims. IMO the bias in this article is that it is too long and gives greater prominence to the subject than is actually required. Also that it has been over egged and polished to give the impression that this is something relevant for today. Given the obsession evidenced in these articles and discussion one wonders whether or not a LaRouchite eloped with someone's daughter/son wife/husband. John lilburne (talk) 22:23, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

(SPI filed on Orange claw hammer, though it's rather glaringly obvious who it is)

The insidious problem is that an active sockpuppet tends to eventually drive off even their content allies, leaving only the enforcement-oriented admins to keep battling it out as it were. This is not a desirable state of affairs.

As I have said, I'm not editing the content on the articles themselves, as I am tangled up on the admin side rather much. However, I strongly encourage anyone who has a well established WP editing career (i.e., is clearly NOT yet another sockpuppet run by the LaRouche organization) to feel free to start contributing on the article and improve it. We need the help.

It's a little sensitive - Please don't help the socks out, as Will pointed out in a somewhat oversensitive way IMHO. But legitimate interest in neutrality and good article content from established editors in good standing? Much appreciated, personally, and hopefully by all.

Thanks. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:05, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Silverseren, with respect, you're not in a position to make that judgment until you're familiar with the source material. The LaRouche article, including the lead, significantly understates both the range and depth of the criticism of him—and the problematic issues attributed to him (which he often doesn't see as criticism, because he stands by them)—in high-quality reliable sources from the 1970s until the present day.

If you do want to help out, I've posted links to the New York Times and Washington Post archives about him on the talk page, which will get you started. See here. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 22:08, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

In his day, Lyndon Larouche got a lot of publicity and was widely regarded as a looney. But that was then. Since no one really give's a rat's donkey about Larouche anymore, maybe we should stop fighting it and let the guy have his way with the article. Only be sure and post a disclaimer that the article is an experiment, and that other editors may wish to write a separate, non-fiction version. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:14, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Correct. In his day he ruffled a number of feathers within the political establishments, and for one reason or another he became the hate figure de jour (and for some the hate figure de millénaire), he provoked passions and you were either for him or against him. There are no unbiased sources to find as none were ever written, and only those that are still fighting the 1970s and 1980s care about any of it today. In the UK the nearest we have would be Arthur Scargill. John lilburne (talk) 00:46, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

American System Publications

I was just wondering, has this organization been banned from editing Wikipedia? It appears that at least part of the justification for blocking some accounts as socks is because they edited from this organization. I'm told, however, that between 100 and 200 people staff that organization and have access to the Internet. Cla68 (talk) 01:04, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Who told you that?   Will Beback  talk  02:08, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Here's a picture of it. Now, is anyone who edits from this facility who tries to add neutral or positive material to a LaRouche article and suggests using a LaRouche-published publication as a source going be blocked on sight? Cla68 (talk) 04:49, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Again, who told you how many people work at ASP? Would it be incorrect to guess that you've discussed this with HK, and that it's he who gave you this information?   Will Beback  talk  06:12, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Will, Drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass. You're really crossing the line to suggest some one Cla86 is in communication with HK The Resident Anthropologist (Talk | contribs) 06:42, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

If you think it would be inappropriate for Cla68, or an admin like Lar, to be communicating with HK then you'll be shocked to read WikipediaReview. But we still don't know the source for Cla68's information about the LaRouche movement office in Los Angeles, a place from which a number of abusive socks have been found to be editing. One long term sock, user:Leatherstocking repeatedly and angrily denied any connection or support for the LaRouche movement until we determined that he was editing from the ASP office itself. The general issues is if a banned editor is know to be editing from a fixed IP, and then another account comes along using the same IP and promoting the same POV, it's usual and ordinary to assume that it's the same person.   Will Beback  talk  07:13, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Will, it sounds as if you are saying that anyone who edits from that organization should be banned as an HK sock. That picture I linked to shows a fairly large facility. Are you saying that HK is the only person working there? Cla68 (talk) 07:22, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

How do you and SV know that the organization is "tiny?" Cla68 (talk) 07:58, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

No, the pictured building is not that large. It certainly isn't big enough to fit '100 or 200 people', as a mysterious person told you. In any case, I don't see any further need for administrative action on this issue.   Will Beback  talk  08:34, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

My offices look to be no bigger than that and we have space and 100 people per floor, and we are not cramped by any means. John lilburne (talk) 15:09, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Not a reliable source (but more reliable than a mere picture anyway): this claims "Current estimates show this company has an annual revenue of $500,000 to $1 million and employs a staff of approximately 1 to 4. ". I have found no reliable info on this company, no news or anything, and the only publication I could find was written by someone with the same surname as the company president... For a company with 100 to 200 people staff, they are extremely low-profile. Fram (talk) 08:55, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Your link says that Dun & Bradstreet estimate the number of employees to be 88. John lilburne (talk) 15:15, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

These are not real companies. LaRouche set them up in the 1980s to promote his views, and he is their sole client (see mention of that in this court case, para 2 and footnote 1). His staff move between several of these entities (e.g. American System Publications and Executive Intelligence Review News Services, known as EIRNS or EIR News Services). Office space is rented and "organizers" sit there all day posting LaRouche promotional material on the Web, including Wikipedia, and making cold calls to try to persuade people to give money. The building at 310 Carmel Street, Los Angeles, is small (the photo posted above makes it look larger than it is; look it up on Google Street View instead), and the LaRouche people share it with other companies.

The key point is that they have a strong conflict of interest when it comes to LaRouche, because they're paid specifically to promote him. Focusing too much on the sockpuppetry misses that point.

COI says: "Accounts that appear, based on their editing history, to be single-purpose accounts that exist for the sole or primary purpose of promotion (e.g., of a person, company, product, service, website, or organization), in apparent violation of this guideline, should be warned and made aware of this guideline. If the same pattern of editing continues after the warning, the account may be blocked." See the blocking policy for the same point. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 20:59, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Maybe someone in that area could swing past the building and check the size of its parking lot. I don't see how it matters though. If the building is connected with LaRouche and is generating a stream of LaRouche-related editing, it's not rocket science to see that as a problem. There was something similar in the Scientology arbitration, where a bunch of IP addresses connected to the Church of Scientology got banned from editing Scientology-related articles. Note that this is not just about LaRouche articles--Angel's Flight most-edited article was death panel, and there was some possible connection with similar-viewpoint accounts in some other healthcare-related articles. 71.141.88.54 (talk) 21:58, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

But the accounts aren't being blocked for COI they are being blocked for being sockpuppets of HK. Besides it is a bit ingenuous to complain about them being COI accounts as ANYONE spending any length of time, particularly years, editing these articles has a COI. LaRouche simply isn't a major figure, but like Marmite you either love him or hate him there appears to be no middle ground. An article on some obscure parochial politician, that has grown to be bigger than the one on Jimmy Carter, just has to have been the result of obsessive love and hate. John lilburne (talk) 22:30, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Hey did I ever tell you about the TYRANNY of the ODD SOCKS? Friend back in the late 60s decided that having to wear a matching pair of SOCKS was a tyrannical imposition which he would have no more truck with, and that from then on would never wear matching SOCKS. A few months later he was cursing a swearing because he couldn't find an odd SOCK to go with the one he wanted to wear. John lilburne (talk) 22:30, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

It's comments like the above that make me wonder whether SlimVirgin should be editing the LaRouche page, when they are clearly anti-LaRouche and, I would say, have trouble with being neutral on the subject. Where do you even get your information about LaRouche offices anyways, SlimVirgin? Silverseren^C 22:11, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Maybe from the same source as Cla68. ;)   Will Beback  talk  22:51, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

More likely to be from Erica Duggan, really. Silverseren^C 23:50, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

So, effectively, yes editors coming from this location are assumed (with good reason) to be SPAs attempting to promote LaRouche. They may not be HK socks, but they're meatpuppets with an agenda. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 22:31, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

So should Justin Bieber fans be banned from editing the Bieber article, Redsocks fans from editing that article, Californians from editing articles on California ... John lilburne (talk) 22:39, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

There's a significant difference between difference between fans and paid activists.   Will Beback  talk  22:51, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

True, the fans don't get paid for their activism. Silverseren^C 22:52, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Should we make it a rule now that any editors editing specific articles that can be confirmed to be editing from a place that is affiliated with said articles should be blocked as meatpuppets? Silverseren^C 22:52, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I believe that SM already quoted the relevant policy above, and its threshold for blocking people.198.161.174.222 (talk) 22:59, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

We should apply the policies the same way they're applied everywhere else. There's no need to reinvent the wheel.

Per SOCK, accounts that appear from behavioral or technical evidence to be sock or meatpuppets of a banned editor should be blocked. Per COI and BLOCK, accounts that appear to exist for the sole or primary purpose of promotion should be warned, then blocked if the pattern continues. And per Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Lyndon LaRouche: "Supporters of Lyndon LaRouche are instructed ... not to engage in activities that might be perceived as 'promotion' of Lyndon LaRouche." SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 23:06, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

It might be beneficial to ask ArbCom for a summary motion about ASP... should ASP be treated the same as those Scientology offices? If so, that will save some effort in the short run I expect. If not, then there is a need to change a few things. ++Lar: t/c 00:04, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Might be a good idea The Resident Anthropologist (Talk + contribs) 00:11, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any accounts who have edited from ASP who have plausibly denied being HK or his meatpuppets. There is ample evidence that the socks identified as HK are in fact HK and not some other person acting independently of him. I don't think there's a case for the ArbCom to look at.   Will Beback  talk  00:21, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I think something a bit more formal than the say so of you and SV is needed here, and a summary motion (perhaps an amendment to a prior case?) might be the right level of formality. If ArbCom won't support such a finding (that ASP IPs need to be treated as completely disallowed to edit from), then perhaps there isn't actually a basis for the HK bugaboo. Why resist such a finding if there IS such a basis? ++Lar: t/c 15:23, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

• Stupid question why are the ranges that ASP operates not hardblocked if we know HK socking is coming from them? The Resident Anthropologist (Talk + contribs) 00:11, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

• I think only because no one got round to doing it. Based on the logged-out edits, [13] the range is a small one, 68.164.112.176/29 (68.164.112.176 – 68.164.112.183). SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 00:20, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Why not block then? SInce it is undeniable high amounts of abuse are coming in from it I cant see any hurtles to blocking. The Resident Anthropologist (Talk / contribs) 01:03, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

In my opinion, blocking the ASP-registered IPs would do little to stem the tide of HK's socks. He apparently uses ASP's computers but he also uses a variety of other IPs as well.   Will Beback  talk  01:11, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm under no delusion that it will stop them but its a range where no good contributions can really come from. The Resident Anthropologist (Talk / contribs) 01:21, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Remember when Wikipedia (in the person of David Gerard) blocked an entire suburb of Salt Lake City to try to prevent User:WordBomb from editing, or when a good percentage of IP ranges from various universities was blocked to try to prevent Scibaby from editing Wikipedia? Range blocks are counterproductive. Anyway, it appears to me that any account which edits the LaRouche topic and advocates using a LaRouche publication as a source gets labeled under "behavioral evidence" as being an HK sock. Then, based on that a checkuser is performed which, if it traces to the IP range used by that company, results in a block as an HK sock. Until the ArbCom bans that organization from editing Wikipedia, they are allowed to edit here as long as they obey the rules. Cla68 (talk) 02:19, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

The behavioral evidence in this case was much more extensive than "advocates using a LaRouche publication". And will not be discussed on-wiki, as telling HK what signature we're using to detect him is unwise. Please don't take HK's word that some of the accounts blocked as being his socks were someone else. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 17:41, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

The point is that they're not obeying the rules, and have shown no indication that they wish to. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 15:49, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Oscar776

Not sure what to think of Oscar776 (talk · contribs). I see up to a level 4 warning for disruptive edits, a very large number of creations that got AFDed or speedied. Nothing is terribly wrong with their edits, but I do have to question their competence:

• Here, they completely fail at adding an image.
• Here, they somehow manage to add categories from a band's article to one of their albums' articles, somehow adding a {{good article}} tag in the process.
• Changing an image's name to the name of a nonexistant image, then changing it back a minute later
• Trying to push Black Tide through GA, showing a complete lack of understanding of WP:WIAGA
• Constant addition of good faith but unsourced material
• Egregious typos
• Creation of very short stubs about songs, with little more content than an infobox
• Complete ignorance of talk page — user has never posted to another's talk page, nor have they responded on their own.

Again, nothing too major at this point, but several small issues put together can become big. This user seems to have a poor signal to noise ratio, and I was wondering if anything should be done. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Otters want attention)} 16:06, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

3RRN

Could someone please review this? I am sick of dealing with this issue. J Milburn (talk) 16:46, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I presume, noting this post, that this issue no longer requires input by admins? LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:54, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Quick note

User:Ragusino is back, his new sock "User:Nanazo" is edit warring on the Foibe killings article (he attempted an outing in an edit summary). Could i ask someone to please block the guy and/or semi-protect the article? --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 17:42, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Account blocked as a Ragusino sock, and attempted outing suppressed. Should further socks or meatpuppets start editing the article, I suggest a request to WP:RPP. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:29, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Protection policy#Admins editing through full protection: proposed addition

Would an admin close and summarize Wikipedia talk:Protection policy#Admins editing through full protection: proposed addition (initiated 8 January 2011)? This discussion was listed at WP:CENT and was archived a few weeks ago by the RfC bot. Cunard (talk) 23:58, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Somewhat off topic. I think we need to get rid of that ugly-ass pink background shown when an admin edits a protected article. I know why it's there but it hurts my eyes :(. A better choice might be a light gray. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 04:37, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Red for danger. Having that colour on fully protected pages is a reminder that the article is fully protected. Jarring as it may be, it should stay. Mjroots (talk) 05:45, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Timestamp so this will not be archived. Cunard (talk) 05:43, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Timestamp so this will not be archived. Cunard (talk) 06:11, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Restored from archive. Cunard (talk) 00:24, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

• If no response is forthcoming in ~7 days then it probably isn't an incident needing immediate admin attention. Protonk (talk) 00:34, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Revdel

this N419BH 00:29, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Done, as well as the next two edits. Generally not a great idea to post these on a very high traffic noticeboard, though. Courcelles 00:32, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Much as I appreciate the soothing smell of pine, I now can't help but wonder what I missed... HalfShadow 00:33, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Ah. Never mind. HalfShadow 00:35, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Got a better place to post such requests where they will receive quick admin attention? N419BH 01:16, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for oversight. GiantSnowman 01:18, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Nope, it's not an edit requiring suppression as defined by that page. Perhaps we need a Wikipedia:Requests for revdel page. N419BH 01:22, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Yep, I know it's not quite right, but it's the closest thing we've got - for now. A Revdel request page is a cracking idea. GiantSnowman 01:30, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Also, a private message on IRC is a good place to ask if you ever use that. (Admins are always online) →♠Gƒoley↔Four♣← 01:32, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Having a noticeboard for edits you don't want, well, noticed isn't very practical. This category should help pin down an online admin willing to revdel in a pinch. --Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 01:34, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

We just need a place to send a quick, private message to all online admins. Perhaps there's a way to take the Requests for oversight page and modify it into a Requests for Revdel page. N419BH 01:37, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

If something needs to be rev deleted and it's not something you want to point out in public, why not just send it to the oversight list? --B (talk) 03:48, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

In this case it wasn't of that nature. N419BH 04:04, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

True, but the oversighters are admins, near as I can tell, and at least a few of them are on most of the time. Worst they can say is "Go somewhere else"... UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 14:12, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

FWIW, a revision deletion noticeboard had been proposed before (and created), but it never was adopted. Logan _Talk ^{Contributions} 02:25, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Coder Dan defining editors as "illiterate"

Coder Dan (talk · contribs) is creating a list list on his talk page defining fellow editors as "illiterate". He claims that "Too many editors lack the basic writing skills that should be required to contribute". He hides insults within the edit subject section, such as: "using words you don't understand just makes you look stupid" and "Fixed misuse of pseudointellectual vocabulary" and "reply to president of the Illiterate Poseur's Club". Any suggestion that his approach is hostile is met with insults, such as "I don't care what correcting illiterate morons makes me look like, because I don't think illiterate morons should be allowed to edit Wikipedia." [14]

His intent to create a hostile environment is clear. I admit, I have taken the bait when he trolled. That's why I'm now turning to moderation. I do not believe any good comes from declaring other members of the community as "illiterate" and I think that this behavior needs to be stopped.Theplanetsaturn (talk) 04:13, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

...and the first entry on the list is the login page. I guess MediaWiki is illiterate? Also this edit summary is concerning. - The Bushranger _{One ping only}04:22, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Seems like a productive editor overall. I'm really set on edge by the attitude toward dealing with other humans, but I will wait for him/her (likely him) to weigh in here. Protonk (talk) 06:29, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Directing written comments to the illiterate seems like an exercise in futility. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:40, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Heh. Though the real test will be to see how many featured articles he has written. If n>2, then we will just have to give him a barnstar and move along. Protonk (talk) 06:45, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Illiterate? Hey! My parents were married right in the Presbyterian church down the road. (Grumble, mutter, snort) --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 07:10, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Norm Crosby lives! And I take it that you're an "uncircumscribed" Gentile? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:21, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Coder Dan's reply

• Theplanetsaturn is conflating three different things: (1) Two edits I made with unfriendly comments, (2) hostile responses to Theplanetsaturn's attacks on my talk page, and (3) the new section Illiteracy on Wikipedia on my user page.
  1. My unfriendly comments were a matter of venting my frustration at a trend on Wikipedia toward bad writing. I apologize for making them, but I'm sick of spending almost all of my time on Wikipedia dealing with incompetent editors, and I stand by the letter of what I said (e.g. misusing big words makes the writer look stupid). I started my new section as a better way of expressing myself, so I don't plan to make that kind of edit comments any more.
  2. Everything I said on my talk page (sections You may want to cool it.... and Was you condescending attitude...) was in response to Theplanetsaturn's harassment and personal attacks on me. I tried to end the argument by responding to a long, abusive post with "I think I'll just leave it there. Have a nice day.", but Theplanetsaturn continued trolling me, wikistalked me, and abused me even more.
  3. My new userpage section is the central location for my views on what I see as a serious quality problem on Wikipedia, and Theplanetsaturn's objection to it strikes me as a sign of his own insecurity.
• Theplanetsaturn has been trolling, flaming, and harassing me on my talk page:
  • Reference to violence against my family (Was your mother murdered...)
  • Insults and vulgarity (You're a petty and controlling asshole with a pointless chip on his shoulder.... Fuck off.)
  • Ridicule ("subsequently" and "consequently" are not big words. It's kind of sad that you think they are.)
  • abuse after the discussion was over.
  • Wikistalking (regarding another editor's mistake)
  • More argumentativeness (post 1, post 2, post 3, post 4, and post 5))
• Even on this incident page, his comments are trollish (His intent to create a hostile environment is clear.)
• Conclusion: I believe that declaring illiterate members of an encyclopedia community as such is absolutely essential. My list is a wake-up call to Wikipedia, and Theplanetsaturn's objection to it has more to do with his own need to deny his own limitations than with me or Wikipedia.
• And finally, about my hostility: Yes, I can be extremely unfriendly toward people I consider pigheaded or dishonest, but Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a chat room. If you want me to be friendly, all you have to do is be honest and reasonable. :)
  

—Coder Dan (talk) 08:02, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, I see your point there and Theplanetsaturn certainly wasn't the best person to bring this up, but about (3) - I think it may actually be a problem. I sympathize with your frustrations about Wikipedia editing vs competency, but the way you have that written currently points out specific editors which may seem like you're labeling them as illiterate which would then seem like a personal attack. Would it be possible for you to remove those and restate your concerns in a different way? Shell ^babelfish 08:11, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Three questions to Coder in an attempt to fully understand his points (apologies for the inevitable mistakes):

1. I reread literacy (and stupidity) this morning and saw the illiteracy concept is defined quite differently from your definition. Now I won't say you're stupid. But could you could think of an alternative word to describe your frustration?
2. A second thing to take into account is that some people on wikipedia find form less important than content. That attitude has enabled many people with English as their 2nd or 3rd language to contribute to the encyclopedia. The only way to have flawless English is by throwing them out. Would that be your goal?
3. If correcting errors is giving you that much frustration, why are you still doing it? It might be advisable to focus on something else

L.tak (talk) 08:28, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Precisely where at literacy (and stupidity) is the illiteracy concept defined? Moriori (talk) 09:01, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Hm, read to fast. although literacy is described, it is illustrated by grapns indicating illiteracy percentages, making me assume that illiteracy being defined as not being able to read and/or write. But nothing comes close to "literacy is the capability to write flawlessly"; or "capability to write flawless English". If Coder has another conclusion on this or another source for the way he means it , I'd be glad to hear it and I'll suggest him to state that explicitly so ignorant people like me don't take it that he means the encyclopedia-definition. but seriously: I believe there are more people pointing out common errors in English in a fully neutral manner (I remember even a user box like "this user knows the difference between it's and its and stimulates its correct use"), without using strong/ambiguous (and possibly unwarranted/incorrect) wording that is not helpful for the discussion, so there are good ways to direct frustration without offending others (insecure or not)... L.tak (talk) 09:40, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Looks like Coder Dan has done a bunk, but I think a comment needs to be made. I don't think Coder meant "the encyclopedia-definition", especially Wikipedia's because we don't have one. It doesn't take much wit to consider he was thinking dic/defs, such as unable to read or write; ignorant, uneducated; displaying ignorance of, or contravening the accepted standards of, writing and speech; ignorant in a particular field or subject, as in "mathematically illiterate", etc. Coder had a point, because some of the writing in en Wikipedia does look like it was contributed by illiterates, and some people are not bothered by this. Had Coder been less bellicose his opinion may have had some value for the project, but his message is being lost among flak created by his own indiscretions. Moriori (talk) 22:07, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

... and neither do I think he meant that all literally. I hoped to make him realize with my questions (which were admittably pointy and focussing on exactly on how things were said and ignoring the message that he wanted to bring across) that his approach could impossibly be helpful to the project. I am afraid that failed. Hopefully he's not really leaving and he'll manage to find a way of contributing that stimulates others to follow his example of correct spelling. L.tak (talk) 23:13, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

One - For the record, the "violence against family" bit was a joke ALA Batman. As in, you take up a crusade against a type of people because they committed a great wrong against you. If that offends you, I apologize. That said, if you insist on the freedom to declare fellow editors as "illiterate", you might want to develop thicker skin.

Two - The notion that "everything" you said was in response to my supposed harassment and personal attacks ignores the very easy to read procession of events. You began with your blatantly hostile edits of my own words in a comment on a talk page [15]. I pointed out that calling someone stupid and declaring them unable to comprehend the words they are using is condescending. Because it is. The tone you chose was a condescending one. Your tone became more hostile from this point. [16]. Did our dialog escalate from this after this? Yes. Because you attacked me. What do you expect when you act the way you did?

Three - Even in this dialog, you continue with the hateful and angry attitude. You refer to other editors as "incompetent", "stupid", "pigheaded" and "dishonest". You suggest that my taking issue with you calling me "stupid" is "insecurity" and refer to my "limitations". You declare that your own "extremely unfriendly" attitude is justifiable. It isn't.

If what you are seeing transpire on Wikipedia is driving you to such a dark place that you need to resort to a deeply condescending tone, take a break. Because the dialog that passed between us is the sort you will find yourself in repeatedly if you are going to continue. And that is far more corrosive to an encyclopedia then the accidental misuse of a single word on a talk page. [17]

In short - Well intentioned or not, a collection of quotes culled from various Wikipedia pages that declares the writers as "illiterate" [18] is extremely inflammatory. It needs to be removed ASAP.Theplanetsaturn (talk) 08:46, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

> that is far more corrosive ... then the accidental misuse of a single word

Ha Ha. I hope that was intentional :) —Coder Dan (talk) 09:51, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

If Coder Dan is toning down his former incivility and hostility towards other editors, that solves the immediate problem. Generally I think that random lapses of grammar and spelling are almost insignificant compared to Wikipedia's other problems, and should be handled through SOFIXIT rather than rants. Coder Dan should let go of the hostility rather than just venting it in slightly less obnoxious language. Some of Wikipedia's smartest and most-expert editors are non-native English speakers who make a lot of mistakes like that. It's not a big deal. Just feel lucky to have their contributions in whatever form, and fix problems where you find them. 71.141.88.54 (talk) 08:48, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

@Coder Dan: When you say, "I'm sick of spending almost all of my time on Wikipedia dealing with incompetent editors", that suggests to me that Wikipedia is simply not the place for you unless you can change your attitude. Wikipedia will always have incompetent editors, and if you can't deal with them in a mature fashion, it is probably time to move on. 148.177.1.215 (talk) 16:07, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the IP. When you're extremely upset about fairly common grammatical errors (especially errors concerning word misuse that only 10% of English speakers would know are errors), maybe Wikipedia isn't the place for you. It seems that it's awfully tiring being a pedant. I hope you don't over-exert yourself. </sarcasm> Chillllls (talk) 16:28, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Don't worry, I won't over-exert myself. I will go somewhere else, and I'll remember that Wikipedia is just another internet ghetto for brain-dead losers. Have a nice day, User:Chillllls. I hope you enjoy your time here. —Coder Dan (talk) 20:02, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

TALKING SHIT OVER THE INTERNET IS SERIOUS BUSINESS. Seriously. Act like an adult or you'll be shown the door. If you can't manage to debase yourself by collaborating with scum like us, then don't. If you can bring your dizzying intellect to bear without heaping scorn on people who are just trying to add to human knowledge, great! But don't expect to be able to treat people like shit with any impunity. Protonk (talk) 21:51, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I should point out there is another way out. Start writing featured articles on "the right kind of topics" and you can get away with whatever the fuck you want. You may want to try that. Protonk (talk) 21:55, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

*cough* WP:CIVIL, Protonk. Regardless of CD's comments, 'tit for tat' mud-slinging can have consequences. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:53, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I am, of course, not casting aspersions on an editor. I am merely making clear an empirical regularity. It is interesting that we are (as we speak) archiving a thread on this exact issue with the conclusion that of course CIVIL applies to only some of us. So it is not uncivil to make clear this interesting distinction. Probably not very productive, but hardly a CIVIL issue. Protonk (talk) 23:07, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Has Theplanetsaturn been given some authority that I'm not aware of? He just deleted my Illiteracy section, even though I don't see any indication that the discussion has ended. I'll try to say this as civilly as I can, but I don't think it's fair to accuse me of "talking shit" when it's Theplanetsaturn who told me to "fuck off" and I was responding to inflammatory sarcasm by Chillllls. Do civility rules apply only to people who are out of favor? As far as I'm concerned, Theplanetsaturn's aggressive action is just another piece of evidence that this conversation is really a pissing contest between me and Theplanetsaturn and my user-page list section is just an excuse for Theplanetsaturn to dump on me. My "bellicosity" on my talk page and this section has been fully provoked by even worse behavior by Theplanetsaturn, while the text of my list section is totally civil.
As for the section itself, the word "Illiteracy" appears only in the title, and the list contains clear, objective examples of poor grammar, which I think can only be considered "personal attacks" in a severely distorted view of Wikipedia policy. I'm not sure I can sit by and say nothing about these issues, and I think deleting a section on my own user page constitutes censorship. If I can't have some kind of voice here on Wikipedia to express my disappointment in Wikipedia's literacy level, then I'll have to express those feelings to people outside of Wikipedia and make it clear that Wikipedia editors are too intellectually insecure to accept criticism.
—Coder Dan (talk) 01:04, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I have warned User:Theplanetsaturn to stop editing your user page [19]. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 01:16, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. —Coder Dan (talk) 01:38, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm uncertain as to how you can claim that the discussion was ongoing when you already stated you were finished with Wikipedia at the time of my edit. complete with the clear declaration that Wikipedia is "just another internet ghetto for brain-dead losers" [20]

As for your the rest. Yes. I did tell you to "fuck off". After you called me a "pretentious" "illiterate moron". I rose to the bait and have apologized. But if you are sensitive to such name calling, don't engage in it yourself. This "pissing match" as you call it, began with you attacking me. Not the reverse. I'm happy for it to end, but for that to transpire, you need to cease attaching quotes from various editors and labeling them as examples of illiteracy.Theplanetsaturn (talk) 01:23, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Please stop addressing me directly. I would prefer to have nothing to do with you. —Coder Dan (talk) 01:33, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

If you would prefer to have nothing to do with me, then remove the quote attributed to me under your examples of "illiteracy" from your talk page. While you're at it, how about a show of good faith and delete the clearly inflammatory section?Theplanetsaturn (talk) 01:42, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Coder_Dan&diff=prev&oldid=416129824

I'm coming into this discussion late (as usual), but I'd like to remind everyone of an old Usenet rule: every flame about misspelled posts will have at least one misspelled word in it. I'd expect flaming people over using the wrong word follows the same principle. -- llywrch (talk) 01:11, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

• Beyond the initial aggravation that Coder Dan (talk)'s first comment may have caused, I will note here that this does not give Theplanetsaturn (talk) any license or free pass to respond not just in kind but by escalating the hostility and personal attacks by several levels. Both participants in this dispute are asked to disengage from each other, and right now, before their ability to contribute even constructively is revoked. MLauba ^(Talk) 01:21, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't recall claiming any "free pass". If you read my initial post here, I clearly stated that I initially rose to the bait and apologized for doing so. However, as long as Coder Dan has quotes attributed to users while declaring them "illiterate", we will have a problem. The section he is defending and that you reinstated is clearly inflammatory and the guidelines covering talk pages allow for the immediate removal. Particularly when the editor in question has made his exit from Wikipedia clear. So if you don't want me to remove it, please remove it yourself.Theplanetsaturn (talk) 01:38, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

What part in "disengage right now" have you not understood? MLauba ^(Talk) 01:44, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Coder Dan has changed the title of the section in question, so it's a moot point.Theplanetsaturn (talk) 01:48, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Protection policy#Admins editing through full protection: proposed addition

Would an admin close and summarize Wikipedia talk:Protection policy#Admins editing through full protection: proposed addition (initiated 8 January 2011)? This discussion was listed at WP:CENT and was archived a few weeks ago by the RfC bot. Cunard (talk) 23:58, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Somewhat off topic. I think we need to get rid of that ugly-ass pink background shown when an admin edits a protected article. I know why it's there but it hurts my eyes :(. A better choice might be a light gray. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 04:37, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Red for danger. Having that colour on fully protected pages is a reminder that the article is fully protected. Jarring as it may be, it should stay. Mjroots (talk) 05:45, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Timestamp so this will not be archived. Cunard (talk) 05:43, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Timestamp so this will not be archived. Cunard (talk) 06:11, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Restored from archive. Cunard (talk) 00:24, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

• If no response is forthcoming in ~7 days then it probably isn't an incident needing immediate admin attention. Protonk (talk) 00:34, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Revdel

this N419BH 00:29, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Done, as well as the next two edits. Generally not a great idea to post these on a very high traffic noticeboard, though. Courcelles 00:32, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Much as I appreciate the soothing smell of pine, I now can't help but wonder what I missed... HalfShadow 00:33, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Ah. Never mind. HalfShadow 00:35, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Got a better place to post such requests where they will receive quick admin attention? N419BH 01:16, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for oversight. GiantSnowman 01:18, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Nope, it's not an edit requiring suppression as defined by that page. Perhaps we need a Wikipedia:Requests for revdel page. N419BH 01:22, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Yep, I know it's not quite right, but it's the closest thing we've got - for now. A Revdel request page is a cracking idea. GiantSnowman 01:30, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Also, a private message on IRC is a good place to ask if you ever use that. (Admins are always online) →♠Gƒoley↔Four♣← 01:32, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Having a noticeboard for edits you don't want, well, noticed isn't very practical. This category should help pin down an online admin willing to revdel in a pinch. --Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 01:34, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

We just need a place to send a quick, private message to all online admins. Perhaps there's a way to take the Requests for oversight page and modify it into a Requests for Revdel page. N419BH 01:37, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

If something needs to be rev deleted and it's not something you want to point out in public, why not just send it to the oversight list? --B (talk) 03:48, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

In this case it wasn't of that nature. N419BH 04:04, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

True, but the oversighters are admins, near as I can tell, and at least a few of them are on most of the time. Worst they can say is "Go somewhere else"... UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 14:12, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

FWIW, a revision deletion noticeboard had been proposed before (and created), but it never was adopted. Logan _Talk ^{Contributions} 02:25, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Coder Dan defining editors as "illiterate"

Coder Dan (talk · contribs) is creating a list list on his talk page defining fellow editors as "illiterate". He claims that "Too many editors lack the basic writing skills that should be required to contribute". He hides insults within the edit subject section, such as: "using words you don't understand just makes you look stupid" and "Fixed misuse of pseudointellectual vocabulary" and "reply to president of the Illiterate Poseur's Club". Any suggestion that his approach is hostile is met with insults, such as "I don't care what correcting illiterate morons makes me look like, because I don't think illiterate morons should be allowed to edit Wikipedia." [21]

His intent to create a hostile environment is clear. I admit, I have taken the bait when he trolled. That's why I'm now turning to moderation. I do not believe any good comes from declaring other members of the community as "illiterate" and I think that this behavior needs to be stopped.Theplanetsaturn (talk) 04:13, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

...and the first entry on the list is the login page. I guess MediaWiki is illiterate? Also this edit summary is concerning. - The Bushranger _{One ping only}04:22, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Seems like a productive editor overall. I'm really set on edge by the attitude toward dealing with other humans, but I will wait for him/her (likely him) to weigh in here. Protonk (talk) 06:29, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Directing written comments to the illiterate seems like an exercise in futility. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:40, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Heh. Though the real test will be to see how many featured articles he has written. If n>2, then we will just have to give him a barnstar and move along. Protonk (talk) 06:45, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Illiterate? Hey! My parents were married right in the Presbyterian church down the road. (Grumble, mutter, snort) --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 07:10, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Norm Crosby lives! And I take it that you're an "uncircumscribed" Gentile? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:21, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Coder Dan's reply

• Theplanetsaturn is conflating three different things: (1) Two edits I made with unfriendly comments, (2) hostile responses to Theplanetsaturn's attacks on my talk page, and (3) the new section Illiteracy on Wikipedia on my user page.
  1. My unfriendly comments were a matter of venting my frustration at a trend on Wikipedia toward bad writing. I apologize for making them, but I'm sick of spending almost all of my time on Wikipedia dealing with incompetent editors, and I stand by the letter of what I said (e.g. misusing big words makes the writer look stupid). I started my new section as a better way of expressing myself, so I don't plan to make that kind of edit comments any more.
  2. Everything I said on my talk page (sections You may want to cool it.... and Was you condescending attitude...) was in response to Theplanetsaturn's harassment and personal attacks on me. I tried to end the argument by responding to a long, abusive post with "I think I'll just leave it there. Have a nice day.", but Theplanetsaturn continued trolling me, wikistalked me, and abused me even more.
  3. My new userpage section is the central location for my views on what I see as a serious quality problem on Wikipedia, and Theplanetsaturn's objection to it strikes me as a sign of his own insecurity.
• Theplanetsaturn has been trolling, flaming, and harassing me on my talk page:
  • Reference to violence against my family (Was your mother murdered...)
  • Insults and vulgarity (You're a petty and controlling asshole with a pointless chip on his shoulder.... Fuck off.)
  • Ridicule ("subsequently" and "consequently" are not big words. It's kind of sad that you think they are.)
  • abuse after the discussion was over.
  • Wikistalking (regarding another editor's mistake)
  • More argumentativeness (post 1, post 2, post 3, post 4, and post 5))
• Even on this incident page, his comments are trollish (His intent to create a hostile environment is clear.)
• Conclusion: I believe that declaring illiterate members of an encyclopedia community as such is absolutely essential. My list is a wake-up call to Wikipedia, and Theplanetsaturn's objection to it has more to do with his own need to deny his own limitations than with me or Wikipedia.
• And finally, about my hostility: Yes, I can be extremely unfriendly toward people I consider pigheaded or dishonest, but Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a chat room. If you want me to be friendly, all you have to do is be honest and reasonable. :)
  

—Coder Dan (talk) 08:02, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, I see your point there and Theplanetsaturn certainly wasn't the best person to bring this up, but about (3) - I think it may actually be a problem. I sympathize with your frustrations about Wikipedia editing vs competency, but the way you have that written currently points out specific editors which may seem like you're labeling them as illiterate which would then seem like a personal attack. Would it be possible for you to remove those and restate your concerns in a different way? Shell ^babelfish 08:11, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Three questions to Coder in an attempt to fully understand his points (apologies for the inevitable mistakes):

1. I reread literacy (and stupidity) this morning and saw the illiteracy concept is defined quite differently from your definition. Now I won't say you're stupid. But could you could think of an alternative word to describe your frustration?
2. A second thing to take into account is that some people on wikipedia find form less important than content. That attitude has enabled many people with English as their 2nd or 3rd language to contribute to the encyclopedia. The only way to have flawless English is by throwing them out. Would that be your goal?
3. If correcting errors is giving you that much frustration, why are you still doing it? It might be advisable to focus on something else

L.tak (talk) 08:28, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Precisely where at literacy (and stupidity) is the illiteracy concept defined? Moriori (talk) 09:01, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Hm, read to fast. although literacy is described, it is illustrated by grapns indicating illiteracy percentages, making me assume that illiteracy being defined as not being able to read and/or write. But nothing comes close to "literacy is the capability to write flawlessly"; or "capability to write flawless English". If Coder has another conclusion on this or another source for the way he means it , I'd be glad to hear it and I'll suggest him to state that explicitly so ignorant people like me don't take it that he means the encyclopedia-definition. but seriously: I believe there are more people pointing out common errors in English in a fully neutral manner (I remember even a user box like "this user knows the difference between it's and its and stimulates its correct use"), without using strong/ambiguous (and possibly unwarranted/incorrect) wording that is not helpful for the discussion, so there are good ways to direct frustration without offending others (insecure or not)... L.tak (talk) 09:40, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Looks like Coder Dan has done a bunk, but I think a comment needs to be made. I don't think Coder meant "the encyclopedia-definition", especially Wikipedia's because we don't have one. It doesn't take much wit to consider he was thinking dic/defs, such as unable to read or write; ignorant, uneducated; displaying ignorance of, or contravening the accepted standards of, writing and speech; ignorant in a particular field or subject, as in "mathematically illiterate", etc. Coder had a point, because some of the writing in en Wikipedia does look like it was contributed by illiterates, and some people are not bothered by this. Had Coder been less bellicose his opinion may have had some value for the project, but his message is being lost among flak created by his own indiscretions. Moriori (talk) 22:07, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

... and neither do I think he meant that all literally. I hoped to make him realize with my questions (which were admittably pointy and focussing on exactly on how things were said and ignoring the message that he wanted to bring across) that his approach could impossibly be helpful to the project. I am afraid that failed. Hopefully he's not really leaving and he'll manage to find a way of contributing that stimulates others to follow his example of correct spelling. L.tak (talk) 23:13, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

One - For the record, the "violence against family" bit was a joke ALA Batman. As in, you take up a crusade against a type of people because they committed a great wrong against you. If that offends you, I apologize. That said, if you insist on the freedom to declare fellow editors as "illiterate", you might want to develop thicker skin.

Two - The notion that "everything" you said was in response to my supposed harassment and personal attacks ignores the very easy to read procession of events. You began with your blatantly hostile edits of my own words in a comment on a talk page [22]. I pointed out that calling someone stupid and declaring them unable to comprehend the words they are using is condescending. Because it is. The tone you chose was a condescending one. Your tone became more hostile from this point. [23]. Did our dialog escalate from this after this? Yes. Because you attacked me. What do you expect when you act the way you did?

Three - Even in this dialog, you continue with the hateful and angry attitude. You refer to other editors as "incompetent", "stupid", "pigheaded" and "dishonest". You suggest that my taking issue with you calling me "stupid" is "insecurity" and refer to my "limitations". You declare that your own "extremely unfriendly" attitude is justifiable. It isn't.

If what you are seeing transpire on Wikipedia is driving you to such a dark place that you need to resort to a deeply condescending tone, take a break. Because the dialog that passed between us is the sort you will find yourself in repeatedly if you are going to continue. And that is far more corrosive to an encyclopedia then the accidental misuse of a single word on a talk page. [24]

In short - Well intentioned or not, a collection of quotes culled from various Wikipedia pages that declares the writers as "illiterate" [25] is extremely inflammatory. It needs to be removed ASAP.Theplanetsaturn (talk) 08:46, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

> that is far more corrosive ... then the accidental misuse of a single word

Ha Ha. I hope that was intentional :) —Coder Dan (talk) 09:51, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

If Coder Dan is toning down his former incivility and hostility towards other editors, that solves the immediate problem. Generally I think that random lapses of grammar and spelling are almost insignificant compared to Wikipedia's other problems, and should be handled through SOFIXIT rather than rants. Coder Dan should let go of the hostility rather than just venting it in slightly less obnoxious language. Some of Wikipedia's smartest and most-expert editors are non-native English speakers who make a lot of mistakes like that. It's not a big deal. Just feel lucky to have their contributions in whatever form, and fix problems where you find them. 71.141.88.54 (talk) 08:48, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

@Coder Dan: When you say, "I'm sick of spending almost all of my time on Wikipedia dealing with incompetent editors", that suggests to me that Wikipedia is simply not the place for you unless you can change your attitude. Wikipedia will always have incompetent editors, and if you can't deal with them in a mature fashion, it is probably time to move on. 148.177.1.215 (talk) 16:07, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the IP. When you're extremely upset about fairly common grammatical errors (especially errors concerning word misuse that only 10% of English speakers would know are errors), maybe Wikipedia isn't the place for you. It seems that it's awfully tiring being a pedant. I hope you don't over-exert yourself. </sarcasm> Chillllls (talk) 16:28, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Don't worry, I won't over-exert myself. I will go somewhere else, and I'll remember that Wikipedia is just another internet ghetto for brain-dead losers. Have a nice day, User:Chillllls. I hope you enjoy your time here. —Coder Dan (talk) 20:02, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

TALKING SHIT OVER THE INTERNET IS SERIOUS BUSINESS. Seriously. Act like an adult or you'll be shown the door. If you can't manage to debase yourself by collaborating with scum like us, then don't. If you can bring your dizzying intellect to bear without heaping scorn on people who are just trying to add to human knowledge, great! But don't expect to be able to treat people like shit with any impunity. Protonk (talk) 21:51, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I should point out there is another way out. Start writing featured articles on "the right kind of topics" and you can get away with whatever the fuck you want. You may want to try that. Protonk (talk) 21:55, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

*cough* WP:CIVIL, Protonk. Regardless of CD's comments, 'tit for tat' mud-slinging can have consequences. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:53, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I am, of course, not casting aspersions on an editor. I am merely making clear an empirical regularity. It is interesting that we are (as we speak) archiving a thread on this exact issue with the conclusion that of course CIVIL applies to only some of us. So it is not uncivil to make clear this interesting distinction. Probably not very productive, but hardly a CIVIL issue. Protonk (talk) 23:07, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Has Theplanetsaturn been given some authority that I'm not aware of? He just deleted my Illiteracy section, even though I don't see any indication that the discussion has ended. I'll try to say this as civilly as I can, but I don't think it's fair to accuse me of "talking shit" when it's Theplanetsaturn who told me to "fuck off" and I was responding to inflammatory sarcasm by Chillllls. Do civility rules apply only to people who are out of favor? As far as I'm concerned, Theplanetsaturn's aggressive action is just another piece of evidence that this conversation is really a pissing contest between me and Theplanetsaturn and my user-page list section is just an excuse for Theplanetsaturn to dump on me. My "bellicosity" on my talk page and this section has been fully provoked by even worse behavior by Theplanetsaturn, while the text of my list section is totally civil.
As for the section itself, the word "Illiteracy" appears only in the title, and the list contains clear, objective examples of poor grammar, which I think can only be considered "personal attacks" in a severely distorted view of Wikipedia policy. I'm not sure I can sit by and say nothing about these issues, and I think deleting a section on my own user page constitutes censorship. If I can't have some kind of voice here on Wikipedia to express my disappointment in Wikipedia's literacy level, then I'll have to express those feelings to people outside of Wikipedia and make it clear that Wikipedia editors are too intellectually insecure to accept criticism.
—Coder Dan (talk) 01:04, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I have warned User:Theplanetsaturn to stop editing your user page [26]. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 01:16, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. —Coder Dan (talk) 01:38, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm uncertain as to how you can claim that the discussion was ongoing when you already stated you were finished with Wikipedia at the time of my edit. complete with the clear declaration that Wikipedia is "just another internet ghetto for brain-dead losers" [27]

As for your the rest. Yes. I did tell you to "fuck off". After you called me a "pretentious" "illiterate moron". I rose to the bait and have apologized. But if you are sensitive to such name calling, don't engage in it yourself. This "pissing match" as you call it, began with you attacking me. Not the reverse. I'm happy for it to end, but for that to transpire, you need to cease attaching quotes from various editors and labeling them as examples of illiteracy.Theplanetsaturn (talk) 01:23, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Please stop addressing me directly. I would prefer to have nothing to do with you. —Coder Dan (talk) 01:33, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

If you would prefer to have nothing to do with me, then remove the quote attributed to me under your examples of "illiteracy" from your talk page. While you're at it, how about a show of good faith and delete the clearly inflammatory section?Theplanetsaturn (talk) 01:42, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Coder_Dan&diff=prev&oldid=416129824

I'm coming into this discussion late (as usual), but I'd like to remind everyone of an old Usenet rule: every flame about misspelled posts will have at least one misspelled word in it. I'd expect flaming people over using the wrong word follows the same principle. -- llywrch (talk) 01:11, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

• Beyond the initial aggravation that Coder Dan (talk)'s first comment may have caused, I will note here that this does not give Theplanetsaturn (talk) any license or free pass to respond not just in kind but by escalating the hostility and personal attacks by several levels. Both participants in this dispute are asked to disengage from each other, and right now, before their ability to contribute even constructively is revoked. MLauba ^(Talk) 01:21, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't recall claiming any "free pass". If you read my initial post here, I clearly stated that I initially rose to the bait and apologized for doing so. However, as long as Coder Dan has quotes attributed to users while declaring them "illiterate", we will have a problem. The section he is defending and that you reinstated is clearly inflammatory and the guidelines covering talk pages allow for the immediate removal. Particularly when the editor in question has made his exit from Wikipedia clear. So if you don't want me to remove it, please remove it yourself.Theplanetsaturn (talk) 01:38, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

What part in "disengage right now" have you not understood? MLauba ^(Talk) 01:44, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Coder Dan has changed the title of the section in question, so it's a moot point.Theplanetsaturn (talk) 01:48, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

User:Truesayer (and sock DAVIDbrave)

Truesayer (talk) (and his sock DAVIDBrave (talk)) is a SPA only editing articles relating to MP Shahid Malik. I suspected Truesayer of Sockpuppetry and his sock account User:DAVIDBrave was banned with Truesayer receiving a 24 hour block as a result of my report.[28] Since then his disruptive editing has continued in particular adding UNDUE and very obvious coatrack material to the Shahid Malik article giving extensive detail and about boundary changes in the constituency placed prominently in the article, sometimes even in the lead.[29][30][ The edits have been reverted by both Wikipedia administrators, myself and by others numerous times. Despite having the issue explained to him in significant detail he continues to add the material.[31][32][ Further still some of the material in the coat-rack is not even supported by the sources provided. (note the boundary changes are the reason Malik gives for his election defeat)

The editor has removed tags from the articles on multiple occasions despite requests from various editors to stop doing so until the issue was resolved, finally resorting to using the second account to accomplish this.[33][34][35][36][37]

The editor has also removed sources from the article or replaced sources that back up claims in the article with ones that do not, therefore leaving content unsourced. They have also added other undue or problematic material in relation to Malik's pool playing activities (which falsely implied he donated his winnings to charity when in fact they had to go to charity all along).

Finally,the editor makes numerous attacks on myself blatantly in breach of W:AGF. This came about very soon after I had exposed his sockpuppetry (something he still denies doing). The attack started in edit summaries by providing a "list" of all my "most recent editing choices" though it actually omitted every single white heterosexual male in between in order to show what he claimed was a "theme" emerging, falsely implying racism/prejudice on my part.[38] The edits were in fact completely mundane minor category additions about people who had worked for the BBC. An example: I warned Truesayer about his breach of W:AGF and not to attack people or make false allegations.

Instead Truesayer again repeated the slur and false "list" in full in the Shahid Mailik talk page (even though the previous version had been struck from the edit history for falsely calling Denis MacShane a "Jew").[39] The section heading questioned my "objectivity" and stated I was in a "warring mood contrary to the values of Wikipedia".[40] I gave Truesayer one further warning.

Truesayer's reply was to imply I was "someone who hated jews", accusing me of an "out and out lie". He has stated that I'm "someone who frankly operates as if he owns wikipedia". He stated my assertion that bold text is not be used for headings was a "sad bid to justify a rather petty and meaningless piece of editing", and that I am a "bully".

In a further reply the editor admitted he had absolutely no proof to back up his claims, though still continued repeating the same terms clearly in breach of AGF, implying homopobibia, anti-semitism and islamaphobia [41]

I've been trying to avoid dispute here by involving editors from the BLP noticeboard rather than simply reverting problematic material myself but it has had no effect. I did receive a partial apology of sorts and hoped the situation had improved but today a further post (again without evidence) has been made stating I had "made numerous threats" and was "obsessed". It labelled perfectly legitimate advice as "an outburst" and he again stated I was "far from objective".[42]

In summary there has been far too much disruption at the Shahid Malik article and combined with the blatant breaches of W:AGF not to mention sockpuppetry means I have serious concerns about this editor. I also don't feel that I should have to put up with this level of abuse any longer. Many thanks.--Shakehandsman (talk) 04:53, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

This is further proof of how shakehandsman reacts - every time he doesn't get everything his own way he attempts to use his superior knowledge of wiki to bully. In an attempt to become more conciliatory I even posted the below on the talk page for him:

“I accept based on the information you provided that two of the four people I mentioned did as you stated work for the BBC and I thank you for that information. Hence, we were both 50% accurate. However, I note that you have not sought to re-state your claim: “No Wikipedia articles ever use bold text for headings” which was a false statement or at best 100% inaccurate (assuming it was stated in good faith). With respect to Macshane you state that he is Roman Catholic – I stated otherwise in good faith and if you’re correct, then I may indeed have been inaccurate but importantly it was not malicious or defamatory and I note you have helpfully four days ago put Macshane’s religion on his wiki entry. It states in the wiki guidance that editors can sometimes over-react and if on my part you feel I have then I am happy to apologise.” --Truesayer (talk) 20:19, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Yet this does not get a conciliatory response instead he writes the following to my response comment above:

“You have completely failed to understand how Wikipedia works. People are entitled to edit whichever articles they wish and you should be assuming good faith in relation to people's editing. The edits were about as innocuous as one can get, I was simply adding people to categories based on content already in the article. Rather than examine the content of these edits and provide evidence to back up any of your claims you've made the most terrible bad faith serious false accusations falsely suggesting racism and anti-semitism not to mention bullying. Further still, strangely for someone supposedly so keen on accuracy you've also faked the list of "most recent editing choices" by ommitting every single white male in between the various edits. This is quite possibly the worst smear I've ever been subjected to in all my years here. Administrators have already permanently deleted all traces one of your edits on this matter from the history of this article, something that only usually happens for serious breaches. Contrary to your claims people such as myself have all been very lenient and patient with regard to your troublesome editing of this article and your sockpuppetry and attempted to explain Wikipedia rules to you. I'm pleased you admit you have absolutely no proof to back up any of your claims, I strongly suggest you therefore strike through and fully retract all your false accusations. Please do not make any accusations about editors in future without providing evidence. This is how to strike through text” --Shakehandsman (talk) 19:32, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

He makes over the top accusations of false statement when they are benign inaccuracies and threatens and complains at every opportunity. He seems prepared to tells lies and make up wiki rules and principles. For example, when I made the sub-headings bold he undid them and stated that “No Wikipedia articles ever use bold text for headings” of course this is an absolute lie. Secondly, when he removed a citation because he wanted to insert a negative one he argued that it was: “Better to use secondary source here rather than a primary one”.

His sockpuppet allegations are false as was explained to the editor in question but he still went onto the talk page like a triumphant child and stated:"For those who aren't' aware DAVIDBrave is now banned from Wikipedia as the account was a sockpuppet of Truesayer--Shakehandsman (talk) 16:35, 23 February 2011 (UTC)" Despite my attempt to patch things up it appears he just wants friction. As for my comments about him being obsessed they arise from his patronising remarks as per the talk page of another contributor below:

"Hi, I agreed with all your edits but disagreed with the coat rack. The information relating to the Dewsbury seat provides vital context – it was the worst affected seat that survived the Boundary Commission changes in West Yorkshire. On Wiki it states: “This coat rack is almost completely obscured by hats and coats” – there is no question that the article is obscures the piece as it is important context setting and there is lots more information which follows. The information provided is factual/neutral, verifiable (well sourced) and not from original research, which are the three core wiki policies, which jointly determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in Wikipedia articles. According to wiki: “Because these policies work in harmony, they should not be interpreted in isolation from one another, and editors should try to familiarize themselves with all three.”

In addition, wiki guidance states: “Remove material only where you have good reason to believe it misinforms or misleads readers in ways that cannot be addressed by rewriting the passage.” Hope this helps. thank you --Truesayer (talk) 02:54, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

It has WP:WEIGHT problems, because you devote a long paragraph in a relatively short bio to it, and also synthesis problems as it is an expression of your own opinion of the relevance of the redistricting to his loss. If you cited a third party reliable source saying he lost the seat because of the redistricting, that might work. As it stands, the content does not belong in the article. Jonathanwallace (talk) 05:11, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your input on this Jonathan. Others have already stated it is inappropriate including a Wikipedia admin and it clearly does not belong anywhere near the article in its present form. Hopefully the message is now getting through.--Shakehandsman (talk) 05:34, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Sorry Jonathan - I didn't read your comments but I will re-work it tomorrow. As for shakehandsman I'm afraid he seem rather obsessed and has made numerous threats - his outburst here and elsewhere appear far from objective. --Truesayer (talk) 02:54, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I have much more proof but I will not bore you at this stage. Truesayer (talk) 05:50, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Truesayer, I think you're kinda missing the forest for the trees here. Shakehandsman says headings shouldn't use bold text; the manual of style agrees here. He says that secondary sources are preferred over primary; again, that's policy. And you were found to have operated a sockpuppet here. So in general, it seems like you might be confused over a few things and that's okay - Wikipedia is huge and frankly, odd. This might be a good time to take a step back and work with some other experienced Wikipedia editors who can help you learn your way around. Shell ^babelfish 06:13, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I think you (Shell) have misunderstood some of my points. 1. The issue was that shakehandsman specifically wrote: ""revert edits by Truesayer which had made all headings bold. No Wikipedia articles ever use bold text for headings." This I'm afraid is untrue. Thousands use bold text for headings including almost all those edited by shakehandsman. Strangely he has not altered any of their bold headings only Maliks. The reason he did so was I presume due to the fact that I had changed them, and that he and I have issues. He says I changed all the headings - a simple look at history will prove that this is untrue. I merely attempted to ensure there was consistency because the majority of the headings were already bold. This is clear evidence of motivation. 2. Secondly, the primary source he objected to was not a primary source but a neutral council source. I believe that these arguments about 'bold' and 'primary' were merely used to justify changes that I made due to our ‘issues’. There are many more examples but I don’t want to draw this matter out any more than needed. I am however, pleased that at last things appear to be thawing out and I look forward to a more consensual relationship. Shakehandsman is very dedicated to wiki and I have much to learn. Truesayer (talk) 01:02, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Just so it's understood, a source's neutrality (or lack thereof) does not affect whether or not it is a primary source. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 01:30, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Bushranger - My understanding is clear based on wiki guidance (although not hard and fast) if Malik's father had written something on his blog then that would be primary but the council writing somthing on their website is not primary. Truesayer (talk) 05:02, 3 March 2011(UTC)

Truesayer, could you confirm that you have read the manual of style concerning section headings MOS:HEAD and that you can see that shakehandsman's edit here where he removes the bolding is consistent with the manual of style please ? It would also be useful if you could provide examples to illustrate your statement "Thousands use bold text for headings including almost all those edited by shakehandsman." It's difficult to tell whether you mean that they look bold because they use the ==H2==, ===H3===, ====H4==== etc formats or whether they are bold because someone has incorrectly used bold text. Sean.hoyland - talk 04:10, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I should add that I forgot to mention the NPOV issue here too with Truesayer always preferring to use sources (and text) that paint Malik in the most favourable light rather than ones which actually supported the text or were reliable. I do agree that there is some confusion here on Truesayer's part, but there's also perhaps more than that going on. For example the primary source in question here was quite positive about Malik but didn't actually support the text very well at all, the secondary one did fully support everything but also mentioned Malik's controversial expense claims. On a positive note Truesayer has now posted in the talk page of the article finally agreeing to no longer add the coat-rack boundary change content so we are making a little progress here--Shakehandsman (talk) 06:59, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Just to note a wider issue here unrelated to Truesayer himself. I've taken a look at the history of the Malik article and there appear to have been problems with SPAs removing critical material from the article from quite some time now and troubling edits also taking place from the House of Commons itself. The issue has even been covered by the Daily Telegraph newspaper[43]. It would be useful if more editors could keep an eye on the article please or even help to restore some of the lost material. Thanks.--Shakehandsman (talk) 05:14, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

User:Sammyo2009 repeatedly removing BLPPROD tag

I tagged Sam Hawkes article for WP:BLPPROD because article doesn't have any external source to signify the subject's existence and report the user Sammyo2009 (who made this) about it. But User:Sammyo2009 removed it without giving any valid reason check here. I restored the previous version and cautioned the user about it, but he again removed the deletion tag check here. I again restored the previous version and gave last warning to user, but he didn't take it seriously and again removed it. So, this is my appeal to take necessary steps as-soon-as possible, after this i'm not going to tag the article for deletion as he'll again remove it. Bill william compton^Talk 16:10, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm tempted to CSD: A7 it. --Selket ^Talk 17:56, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually, yeah, done (twice before actually). I'll warn the editor but I don't think we'll be hearing from him again for a while. --Selket ^Talk 17:59, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh no, he's back; I'm A7ing this page again now. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:00, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Already done. He may have been editing it when it was deleted. --Selket ^Talk 18:03, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, this type of users are really annoying, they interrupt our peaceful environment on Wikipedia. Bill william compton^Talk 18:07, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

It's back again ... salting and/or blocking may be needed. --- Barek (talk) - 18:11, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Already blocked. --Selket ^Talk 18:12, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

As for the article, It asserts he won a championship, though with no documentation ,so I'm not sure it's A7. You deleted it as such, which would only be correct if you consider that a bad faith assertion, which might at this point be reasonable. DGG ( talk ) 18:17, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I do consider it bad faith. I can find no reference to him, nor any indication that this particular competition even occurred in 2008, much less that the championship is notable. It could also be deleted for G11. --Selket ^Talk 18:34, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't say I disagree with you. Have you considered protecting against re-creation? It discourages the temptation to sock-puppet. DGG ( talk ) 18:51, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd rather not. It seems like a reasonably common name. There is a state legislator in New Hampshire, for example. --Selket ^Talk 18:55, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Remember, when any PROD (including BLPPROD) is removed, even in clearly bad faith, the simplest next step is to AfD it. PRODs are not to be restored onto articles. Jclemens (talk) 19:55, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

According to WP:BLPPROD#Objecting, a BLPPROD tag may be restored if it is removed without adding a source. 28bytes (talk) 19:59, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

BLPPROD is the one exception to that rule, as it is a requirement for all new BLPs to have a source. Thus, if someone removes it without adding one, then the prod needs to be re-added, as we cannot allow BLPs around without sources just because someone objects. It has nothing to do with AfD. Silverseren^C 05:38, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Possible targetting of articles containing British Isles

User Bjmullan has recently made a number of edits which appear to be targetting articles containing the term "British Isles". There has been long-running campaign on Wikipedia to remove usage of British Isles but recently the activity has declined. This is possibly a result of sanctions which now forbid the adding or deleting of the term without agreement. Details are here. Previous tactics to eliminate a specific usage of the term have included fact tagging relevant sentences and returning later to clean up (no attempt made to find references), proding entire articles for deletion and straight deletion of the term, sometimes including the containing sentences or paragraphs.

Since 27 February 2011 Bjmullan has carried out these edits:

PRODing articles containing the term; [44], [45], [46] (+Talk Page), [47],

Direct removal; [48]

Category objection; [49]

Fact tagging; [50] (this resulted in a substantial elimination of material), [51], [52] (+ Talk Page).

Taken on their own each incident might not be noteworthy, and each individual action could well be regarded as legitimate, especially if each was carried out by a different editor. However, there is a definite trend here and I suggest it amounts to gaming the system rather than being examples of editing to improve the quality of articles. LemonMonday Talk 20:41, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I had hopes, this add/remove British Isles dispute ended months ago. GoodDay (talk) 21:33, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

This has been going on for years. I hope you're not an odds-maker ;> Doc talk 22:20, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Check this out, it's like a neverending story. GoodDay (talk) 05:02, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

• I've removed the BLPPRODs that were remaining as all the articles were created before 18 March 2010. I've left a note explaining such on bjmullan's talk. Quantpole (talk) 22:56, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

False vandalism warning by User:ClueBot NG

Not sure if it is the right place. I reverted a self-published source added as reference, but User:ClueBot NG reverted my edit and issued me a vandalism waring. I am afraid to revert it again, can someone do the task. Thanks! --GalupK (talk) 02:57, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd say you can definitely report it as a false positive, but I won't revert it, since it isn't the only cite supporting the statement. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 03:05, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, reported false positive. I'll try to add a some more third party sources and remove the SPS. --GalupK (talk) 03:06, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Also, I'd say it doesn't really qualify as a self-published source. Yes, it's the Libertarian Party's web site, but...it's not like they just popped up last week with a brand-spanking-new web site and are making an outlandish claim.  Frank  |  talk  03:09, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Protection policy#Admins editing through full protection: proposed addition

Would an admin close and summarize Wikipedia talk:Protection policy#Admins editing through full protection: proposed addition (initiated 8 January 2011)? This discussion was listed at WP:CENT and was archived a few weeks ago by the RfC bot. Cunard (talk) 23:58, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Somewhat off topic. I think we need to get rid of that ugly-ass pink background shown when an admin edits a protected article. I know why it's there but it hurts my eyes :(. A better choice might be a light gray. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 04:37, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Red for danger. Having that colour on fully protected pages is a reminder that the article is fully protected. Jarring as it may be, it should stay. Mjroots (talk) 05:45, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Timestamp so this will not be archived. Cunard (talk) 05:43, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Timestamp so this will not be archived. Cunard (talk) 06:11, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Restored from archive. Cunard (talk) 00:24, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

• If no response is forthcoming in ~7 days then it probably isn't an incident needing immediate admin attention. Protonk (talk) 00:34, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Revdel

this N419BH 00:29, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Done, as well as the next two edits. Generally not a great idea to post these on a very high traffic noticeboard, though. Courcelles 00:32, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Much as I appreciate the soothing smell of pine, I now can't help but wonder what I missed... HalfShadow 00:33, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Ah. Never mind. HalfShadow 00:35, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Got a better place to post such requests where they will receive quick admin attention? N419BH 01:16, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for oversight. GiantSnowman 01:18, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Nope, it's not an edit requiring suppression as defined by that page. Perhaps we need a Wikipedia:Requests for revdel page. N419BH 01:22, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Yep, I know it's not quite right, but it's the closest thing we've got - for now. A Revdel request page is a cracking idea. GiantSnowman 01:30, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Also, a private message on IRC is a good place to ask if you ever use that. (Admins are always online) →♠Gƒoley↔Four♣← 01:32, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Having a noticeboard for edits you don't want, well, noticed isn't very practical. This category should help pin down an online admin willing to revdel in a pinch. --Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 01:34, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

We just need a place to send a quick, private message to all online admins. Perhaps there's a way to take the Requests for oversight page and modify it into a Requests for Revdel page. N419BH 01:37, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

If something needs to be rev deleted and it's not something you want to point out in public, why not just send it to the oversight list? --B (talk) 03:48, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

In this case it wasn't of that nature. N419BH 04:04, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

True, but the oversighters are admins, near as I can tell, and at least a few of them are on most of the time. Worst they can say is "Go somewhere else"... UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 14:12, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

FWIW, a revision deletion noticeboard had been proposed before (and created), but it never was adopted. Logan _Talk ^{Contributions} 02:25, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Coder Dan defining editors as "illiterate"

Coder Dan (talk · contribs) is creating a list list on his talk page defining fellow editors as "illiterate". He claims that "Too many editors lack the basic writing skills that should be required to contribute". He hides insults within the edit subject section, such as: "using words you don't understand just makes you look stupid" and "Fixed misuse of pseudointellectual vocabulary" and "reply to president of the Illiterate Poseur's Club". Any suggestion that his approach is hostile is met with insults, such as "I don't care what correcting illiterate morons makes me look like, because I don't think illiterate morons should be allowed to edit Wikipedia." [53]

His intent to create a hostile environment is clear. I admit, I have taken the bait when he trolled. That's why I'm now turning to moderation. I do not believe any good comes from declaring other members of the community as "illiterate" and I think that this behavior needs to be stopped.Theplanetsaturn (talk) 04:13, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

...and the first entry on the list is the login page. I guess MediaWiki is illiterate? Also this edit summary is concerning. - The Bushranger _{One ping only}04:22, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Seems like a productive editor overall. I'm really set on edge by the attitude toward dealing with other humans, but I will wait for him/her (likely him) to weigh in here. Protonk (talk) 06:29, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Directing written comments to the illiterate seems like an exercise in futility. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:40, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Heh. Though the real test will be to see how many featured articles he has written. If n>2, then we will just have to give him a barnstar and move along. Protonk (talk) 06:45, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Illiterate? Hey! My parents were married right in the Presbyterian church down the road. (Grumble, mutter, snort) --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 07:10, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Norm Crosby lives! And I take it that you're an "uncircumscribed" Gentile? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:21, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Coder Dan's reply

• Theplanetsaturn is conflating three different things: (1) Two edits I made with unfriendly comments, (2) hostile responses to Theplanetsaturn's attacks on my talk page, and (3) the new section Illiteracy on Wikipedia on my user page.
  1. My unfriendly comments were a matter of venting my frustration at a trend on Wikipedia toward bad writing. I apologize for making them, but I'm sick of spending almost all of my time on Wikipedia dealing with incompetent editors, and I stand by the letter of what I said (e.g. misusing big words makes the writer look stupid). I started my new section as a better way of expressing myself, so I don't plan to make that kind of edit comments any more.
  2. Everything I said on my talk page (sections You may want to cool it.... and Was you condescending attitude...) was in response to Theplanetsaturn's harassment and personal attacks on me. I tried to end the argument by responding to a long, abusive post with "I think I'll just leave it there. Have a nice day.", but Theplanetsaturn continued trolling me, wikistalked me, and abused me even more.
  3. My new userpage section is the central location for my views on what I see as a serious quality problem on Wikipedia, and Theplanetsaturn's objection to it strikes me as a sign of his own insecurity.
• Theplanetsaturn has been trolling, flaming, and harassing me on my talk page:
  • Reference to violence against my family (Was your mother murdered...)
  • Insults and vulgarity (You're a petty and controlling asshole with a pointless chip on his shoulder.... Fuck off.)
  • Ridicule ("subsequently" and "consequently" are not big words. It's kind of sad that you think they are.)
  • abuse after the discussion was over.
  • Wikistalking (regarding another editor's mistake)
  • More argumentativeness (post 1, post 2, post 3, post 4, and post 5))
• Even on this incident page, his comments are trollish (His intent to create a hostile environment is clear.)
• Conclusion: I believe that declaring illiterate members of an encyclopedia community as such is absolutely essential. My list is a wake-up call to Wikipedia, and Theplanetsaturn's objection to it has more to do with his own need to deny his own limitations than with me or Wikipedia.
• And finally, about my hostility: Yes, I can be extremely unfriendly toward people I consider pigheaded or dishonest, but Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a chat room. If you want me to be friendly, all you have to do is be honest and reasonable. :)
  

—Coder Dan (talk) 08:02, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, I see your point there and Theplanetsaturn certainly wasn't the best person to bring this up, but about (3) - I think it may actually be a problem. I sympathize with your frustrations about Wikipedia editing vs competency, but the way you have that written currently points out specific editors which may seem like you're labeling them as illiterate which would then seem like a personal attack. Would it be possible for you to remove those and restate your concerns in a different way? Shell ^babelfish 08:11, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Three questions to Coder in an attempt to fully understand his points (apologies for the inevitable mistakes):

1. I reread literacy (and stupidity) this morning and saw the illiteracy concept is defined quite differently from your definition. Now I won't say you're stupid. But could you could think of an alternative word to describe your frustration?
2. A second thing to take into account is that some people on wikipedia find form less important than content. That attitude has enabled many people with English as their 2nd or 3rd language to contribute to the encyclopedia. The only way to have flawless English is by throwing them out. Would that be your goal?
3. If correcting errors is giving you that much frustration, why are you still doing it? It might be advisable to focus on something else

L.tak (talk) 08:28, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Precisely where at literacy (and stupidity) is the illiteracy concept defined? Moriori (talk) 09:01, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Hm, read to fast. although literacy is described, it is illustrated by grapns indicating illiteracy percentages, making me assume that illiteracy being defined as not being able to read and/or write. But nothing comes close to "literacy is the capability to write flawlessly"; or "capability to write flawless English". If Coder has another conclusion on this or another source for the way he means it , I'd be glad to hear it and I'll suggest him to state that explicitly so ignorant people like me don't take it that he means the encyclopedia-definition. but seriously: I believe there are more people pointing out common errors in English in a fully neutral manner (I remember even a user box like "this user knows the difference between it's and its and stimulates its correct use"), without using strong/ambiguous (and possibly unwarranted/incorrect) wording that is not helpful for the discussion, so there are good ways to direct frustration without offending others (insecure or not)... L.tak (talk) 09:40, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Looks like Coder Dan has done a bunk, but I think a comment needs to be made. I don't think Coder meant "the encyclopedia-definition", especially Wikipedia's because we don't have one. It doesn't take much wit to consider he was thinking dic/defs, such as unable to read or write; ignorant, uneducated; displaying ignorance of, or contravening the accepted standards of, writing and speech; ignorant in a particular field or subject, as in "mathematically illiterate", etc. Coder had a point, because some of the writing in en Wikipedia does look like it was contributed by illiterates, and some people are not bothered by this. Had Coder been less bellicose his opinion may have had some value for the project, but his message is being lost among flak created by his own indiscretions. Moriori (talk) 22:07, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

... and neither do I think he meant that all literally. I hoped to make him realize with my questions (which were admittably pointy and focussing on exactly on how things were said and ignoring the message that he wanted to bring across) that his approach could impossibly be helpful to the project. I am afraid that failed. Hopefully he's not really leaving and he'll manage to find a way of contributing that stimulates others to follow his example of correct spelling. L.tak (talk) 23:13, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

One - For the record, the "violence against family" bit was a joke ALA Batman. As in, you take up a crusade against a type of people because they committed a great wrong against you. If that offends you, I apologize. That said, if you insist on the freedom to declare fellow editors as "illiterate", you might want to develop thicker skin.

Two - The notion that "everything" you said was in response to my supposed harassment and personal attacks ignores the very easy to read procession of events. You began with your blatantly hostile edits of my own words in a comment on a talk page [54]. I pointed out that calling someone stupid and declaring them unable to comprehend the words they are using is condescending. Because it is. The tone you chose was a condescending one. Your tone became more hostile from this point. [55]. Did our dialog escalate from this after this? Yes. Because you attacked me. What do you expect when you act the way you did?

Three - Even in this dialog, you continue with the hateful and angry attitude. You refer to other editors as "incompetent", "stupid", "pigheaded" and "dishonest". You suggest that my taking issue with you calling me "stupid" is "insecurity" and refer to my "limitations". You declare that your own "extremely unfriendly" attitude is justifiable. It isn't.

If what you are seeing transpire on Wikipedia is driving you to such a dark place that you need to resort to a deeply condescending tone, take a break. Because the dialog that passed between us is the sort you will find yourself in repeatedly if you are going to continue. And that is far more corrosive to an encyclopedia then the accidental misuse of a single word on a talk page. [56]

In short - Well intentioned or not, a collection of quotes culled from various Wikipedia pages that declares the writers as "illiterate" [57] is extremely inflammatory. It needs to be removed ASAP.Theplanetsaturn (talk) 08:46, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

> that is far more corrosive ... then the accidental misuse of a single word

Ha Ha. I hope that was intentional :) —Coder Dan (talk) 09:51, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

If Coder Dan is toning down his former incivility and hostility towards other editors, that solves the immediate problem. Generally I think that random lapses of grammar and spelling are almost insignificant compared to Wikipedia's other problems, and should be handled through SOFIXIT rather than rants. Coder Dan should let go of the hostility rather than just venting it in slightly less obnoxious language. Some of Wikipedia's smartest and most-expert editors are non-native English speakers who make a lot of mistakes like that. It's not a big deal. Just feel lucky to have their contributions in whatever form, and fix problems where you find them. 71.141.88.54 (talk) 08:48, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

@Coder Dan: When you say, "I'm sick of spending almost all of my time on Wikipedia dealing with incompetent editors", that suggests to me that Wikipedia is simply not the place for you unless you can change your attitude. Wikipedia will always have incompetent editors, and if you can't deal with them in a mature fashion, it is probably time to move on. 148.177.1.215 (talk) 16:07, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the IP. When you're extremely upset about fairly common grammatical errors (especially errors concerning word misuse that only 10% of English speakers would know are errors), maybe Wikipedia isn't the place for you. It seems that it's awfully tiring being a pedant. I hope you don't over-exert yourself. </sarcasm> Chillllls (talk) 16:28, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Don't worry, I won't over-exert myself. I will go somewhere else, and I'll remember that Wikipedia is just another internet ghetto for brain-dead losers. Have a nice day, User:Chillllls. I hope you enjoy your time here. —Coder Dan (talk) 20:02, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

TALKING SHIT OVER THE INTERNET IS SERIOUS BUSINESS. Seriously. Act like an adult or you'll be shown the door. If you can't manage to debase yourself by collaborating with scum like us, then don't. If you can bring your dizzying intellect to bear without heaping scorn on people who are just trying to add to human knowledge, great! But don't expect to be able to treat people like shit with any impunity. Protonk (talk) 21:51, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I should point out there is another way out. Start writing featured articles on "the right kind of topics" and you can get away with whatever the fuck you want. You may want to try that. Protonk (talk) 21:55, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

*cough* WP:CIVIL, Protonk. Regardless of CD's comments, 'tit for tat' mud-slinging can have consequences. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:53, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I am, of course, not casting aspersions on an editor. I am merely making clear an empirical regularity. It is interesting that we are (as we speak) archiving a thread on this exact issue with the conclusion that of course CIVIL applies to only some of us. So it is not uncivil to make clear this interesting distinction. Probably not very productive, but hardly a CIVIL issue. Protonk (talk) 23:07, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Has Theplanetsaturn been given some authority that I'm not aware of? He just deleted my Illiteracy section, even though I don't see any indication that the discussion has ended. I'll try to say this as civilly as I can, but I don't think it's fair to accuse me of "talking shit" when it's Theplanetsaturn who told me to "fuck off" and I was responding to inflammatory sarcasm by Chillllls. Do civility rules apply only to people who are out of favor? As far as I'm concerned, Theplanetsaturn's aggressive action is just another piece of evidence that this conversation is really a pissing contest between me and Theplanetsaturn and my user-page list section is just an excuse for Theplanetsaturn to dump on me. My "bellicosity" on my talk page and this section has been fully provoked by even worse behavior by Theplanetsaturn, while the text of my list section is totally civil.
As for the section itself, the word "Illiteracy" appears only in the title, and the list contains clear, objective examples of poor grammar, which I think can only be considered "personal attacks" in a severely distorted view of Wikipedia policy. I'm not sure I can sit by and say nothing about these issues, and I think deleting a section on my own user page constitutes censorship. If I can't have some kind of voice here on Wikipedia to express my disappointment in Wikipedia's literacy level, then I'll have to express those feelings to people outside of Wikipedia and make it clear that Wikipedia editors are too intellectually insecure to accept criticism.
—Coder Dan (talk) 01:04, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I have warned User:Theplanetsaturn to stop editing your user page [58]. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 01:16, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. —Coder Dan (talk) 01:38, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm uncertain as to how you can claim that the discussion was ongoing when you already stated you were finished with Wikipedia at the time of my edit. complete with the clear declaration that Wikipedia is "just another internet ghetto for brain-dead losers" [59]

As for your the rest. Yes. I did tell you to "fuck off". After you called me a "pretentious" "illiterate moron". I rose to the bait and have apologized. But if you are sensitive to such name calling, don't engage in it yourself. This "pissing match" as you call it, began with you attacking me. Not the reverse. I'm happy for it to end, but for that to transpire, you need to cease attaching quotes from various editors and labeling them as examples of illiteracy.Theplanetsaturn (talk) 01:23, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Please stop addressing me directly. I would prefer to have nothing to do with you. —Coder Dan (talk) 01:33, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

If you would prefer to have nothing to do with me, then remove the quote attributed to me under your examples of "illiteracy" from your talk page. While you're at it, how about a show of good faith and delete the clearly inflammatory section?Theplanetsaturn (talk) 01:42, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Coder_Dan&diff=prev&oldid=416129824

I'm coming into this discussion late (as usual), but I'd like to remind everyone of an old Usenet rule: every flame about misspelled posts will have at least one misspelled word in it. I'd expect flaming people over using the wrong word follows the same principle. -- llywrch (talk) 01:11, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

• Beyond the initial aggravation that Coder Dan (talk)'s first comment may have caused, I will note here that this does not give Theplanetsaturn (talk) any license or free pass to respond not just in kind but by escalating the hostility and personal attacks by several levels. Both participants in this dispute are asked to disengage from each other, and right now, before their ability to contribute even constructively is revoked. MLauba ^(Talk) 01:21, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't recall claiming any "free pass". If you read my initial post here, I clearly stated that I initially rose to the bait and apologized for doing so. However, as long as Coder Dan has quotes attributed to users while declaring them "illiterate", we will have a problem. The section he is defending and that you reinstated is clearly inflammatory and the guidelines covering talk pages allow for the immediate removal. Particularly when the editor in question has made his exit from Wikipedia clear. So if you don't want me to remove it, please remove it yourself.Theplanetsaturn (talk) 01:38, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

What part in "disengage right now" have you not understood? MLauba ^(Talk) 01:44, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Coder Dan has changed the title of the section in question, so it's a moot point.Theplanetsaturn (talk) 01:48, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

User:Truesayer (and sock DAVIDbrave)

Truesayer (talk) (and his sock DAVIDBrave (talk)) is a SPA only editing articles relating to MP Shahid Malik. I suspected Truesayer of Sockpuppetry and his sock account User:DAVIDBrave was banned with Truesayer receiving a 24 hour block as a result of my report.[60] Since then his disruptive editing has continued in particular adding UNDUE and very obvious coatrack material to the Shahid Malik article giving extensive detail and about boundary changes in the constituency placed prominently in the article, sometimes even in the lead.[61][62][ The edits have been reverted by both Wikipedia administrators, myself and by others numerous times. Despite having the issue explained to him in significant detail he continues to add the material.[63][64][ Further still some of the material in the coat-rack is not even supported by the sources provided. (note the boundary changes are the reason Malik gives for his election defeat)

The editor has removed tags from the articles on multiple occasions despite requests from various editors to stop doing so until the issue was resolved, finally resorting to using the second account to accomplish this.[65][66][67][68][69]

The editor has also removed sources from the article or replaced sources that back up claims in the article with ones that do not, therefore leaving content unsourced. They have also added other undue or problematic material in relation to Malik's pool playing activities (which falsely implied he donated his winnings to charity when in fact they had to go to charity all along).

Finally,the editor makes numerous attacks on myself blatantly in breach of W:AGF. This came about very soon after I had exposed his sockpuppetry (something he still denies doing). The attack started in edit summaries by providing a "list" of all my "most recent editing choices" though it actually omitted every single white heterosexual male in between in order to show what he claimed was a "theme" emerging, falsely implying racism/prejudice on my part.[70] The edits were in fact completely mundane minor category additions about people who had worked for the BBC. An example: I warned Truesayer about his breach of W:AGF and not to attack people or make false allegations.

Instead Truesayer again repeated the slur and false "list" in full in the Shahid Mailik talk page (even though the previous version had been struck from the edit history for falsely calling Denis MacShane a "Jew").[71] The section heading questioned my "objectivity" and stated I was in a "warring mood contrary to the values of Wikipedia".[72] I gave Truesayer one further warning.

Truesayer's reply was to imply I was "someone who hated jews", accusing me of an "out and out lie". He has stated that I'm "someone who frankly operates as if he owns wikipedia". He stated my assertion that bold text is not be used for headings was a "sad bid to justify a rather petty and meaningless piece of editing", and that I am a "bully".

In a further reply the editor admitted he had absolutely no proof to back up his claims, though still continued repeating the same terms clearly in breach of AGF, implying homopobibia, anti-semitism and islamaphobia [73]

I've been trying to avoid dispute here by involving editors from the BLP noticeboard rather than simply reverting problematic material myself but it has had no effect. I did receive a partial apology of sorts and hoped the situation had improved but today a further post (again without evidence) has been made stating I had "made numerous threats" and was "obsessed". It labelled perfectly legitimate advice as "an outburst" and he again stated I was "far from objective".[74]

In summary there has been far too much disruption at the Shahid Malik article and combined with the blatant breaches of W:AGF not to mention sockpuppetry means I have serious concerns about this editor. I also don't feel that I should have to put up with this level of abuse any longer. Many thanks.--Shakehandsman (talk) 04:53, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

This is further proof of how shakehandsman reacts - every time he doesn't get everything his own way he attempts to use his superior knowledge of wiki to bully. In an attempt to become more conciliatory I even posted the below on the talk page for him:

“I accept based on the information you provided that two of the four people I mentioned did as you stated work for the BBC and I thank you for that information. Hence, we were both 50% accurate. However, I note that you have not sought to re-state your claim: “No Wikipedia articles ever use bold text for headings” which was a false statement or at best 100% inaccurate (assuming it was stated in good faith). With respect to Macshane you state that he is Roman Catholic – I stated otherwise in good faith and if you’re correct, then I may indeed have been inaccurate but importantly it was not malicious or defamatory and I note you have helpfully four days ago put Macshane’s religion on his wiki entry. It states in the wiki guidance that editors can sometimes over-react and if on my part you feel I have then I am happy to apologise.” --Truesayer (talk) 20:19, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Yet this does not get a conciliatory response instead he writes the following to my response comment above:

“You have completely failed to understand how Wikipedia works. People are entitled to edit whichever articles they wish and you should be assuming good faith in relation to people's editing. The edits were about as innocuous as one can get, I was simply adding people to categories based on content already in the article. Rather than examine the content of these edits and provide evidence to back up any of your claims you've made the most terrible bad faith serious false accusations falsely suggesting racism and anti-semitism not to mention bullying. Further still, strangely for someone supposedly so keen on accuracy you've also faked the list of "most recent editing choices" by ommitting every single white male in between the various edits. This is quite possibly the worst smear I've ever been subjected to in all my years here. Administrators have already permanently deleted all traces one of your edits on this matter from the history of this article, something that only usually happens for serious breaches. Contrary to your claims people such as myself have all been very lenient and patient with regard to your troublesome editing of this article and your sockpuppetry and attempted to explain Wikipedia rules to you. I'm pleased you admit you have absolutely no proof to back up any of your claims, I strongly suggest you therefore strike through and fully retract all your false accusations. Please do not make any accusations about editors in future without providing evidence. This is how to strike through text” --Shakehandsman (talk) 19:32, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

He makes over the top accusations of false statement when they are benign inaccuracies and threatens and complains at every opportunity. He seems prepared to tells lies and make up wiki rules and principles. For example, when I made the sub-headings bold he undid them and stated that “No Wikipedia articles ever use bold text for headings” of course this is an absolute lie. Secondly, when he removed a citation because he wanted to insert a negative one he argued that it was: “Better to use secondary source here rather than a primary one”.

His sockpuppet allegations are false as was explained to the editor in question but he still went onto the talk page like a triumphant child and stated:"For those who aren't' aware DAVIDBrave is now banned from Wikipedia as the account was a sockpuppet of Truesayer--Shakehandsman (talk) 16:35, 23 February 2011 (UTC)" Despite my attempt to patch things up it appears he just wants friction. As for my comments about him being obsessed they arise from his patronising remarks as per the talk page of another contributor below:

"Hi, I agreed with all your edits but disagreed with the coat rack. The information relating to the Dewsbury seat provides vital context – it was the worst affected seat that survived the Boundary Commission changes in West Yorkshire. On Wiki it states: “This coat rack is almost completely obscured by hats and coats” – there is no question that the article is obscures the piece as it is important context setting and there is lots more information which follows. The information provided is factual/neutral, verifiable (well sourced) and not from original research, which are the three core wiki policies, which jointly determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in Wikipedia articles. According to wiki: “Because these policies work in harmony, they should not be interpreted in isolation from one another, and editors should try to familiarize themselves with all three.”

In addition, wiki guidance states: “Remove material only where you have good reason to believe it misinforms or misleads readers in ways that cannot be addressed by rewriting the passage.” Hope this helps. thank you --Truesayer (talk) 02:54, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

It has WP:WEIGHT problems, because you devote a long paragraph in a relatively short bio to it, and also synthesis problems as it is an expression of your own opinion of the relevance of the redistricting to his loss. If you cited a third party reliable source saying he lost the seat because of the redistricting, that might work. As it stands, the content does not belong in the article. Jonathanwallace (talk) 05:11, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your input on this Jonathan. Others have already stated it is inappropriate including a Wikipedia admin and it clearly does not belong anywhere near the article in its present form. Hopefully the message is now getting through.--Shakehandsman (talk) 05:34, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Sorry Jonathan - I didn't read your comments but I will re-work it tomorrow. As for shakehandsman I'm afraid he seem rather obsessed and has made numerous threats - his outburst here and elsewhere appear far from objective. --Truesayer (talk) 02:54, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I have much more proof but I will not bore you at this stage. Truesayer (talk) 05:50, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Truesayer, I think you're kinda missing the forest for the trees here. Shakehandsman says headings shouldn't use bold text; the manual of style agrees here. He says that secondary sources are preferred over primary; again, that's policy. And you were found to have operated a sockpuppet here. So in general, it seems like you might be confused over a few things and that's okay - Wikipedia is huge and frankly, odd. This might be a good time to take a step back and work with some other experienced Wikipedia editors who can help you learn your way around. Shell ^babelfish 06:13, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I think you (Shell) have misunderstood some of my points. 1. The issue was that shakehandsman specifically wrote: ""revert edits by Truesayer which had made all headings bold. No Wikipedia articles ever use bold text for headings." This I'm afraid is untrue. Thousands use bold text for headings including almost all those edited by shakehandsman. Strangely he has not altered any of their bold headings only Maliks. The reason he did so was I presume due to the fact that I had changed them, and that he and I have issues. He says I changed all the headings - a simple look at history will prove that this is untrue. I merely attempted to ensure there was consistency because the majority of the headings were already bold. This is clear evidence of motivation. 2. Secondly, the primary source he objected to was not a primary source but a neutral council source. I believe that these arguments about 'bold' and 'primary' were merely used to justify changes that I made due to our ‘issues’. There are many more examples but I don’t want to draw this matter out any more than needed. I am however, pleased that at last things appear to be thawing out and I look forward to a more consensual relationship. Shakehandsman is very dedicated to wiki and I have much to learn. Truesayer (talk) 01:02, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Just so it's understood, a source's neutrality (or lack thereof) does not affect whether or not it is a primary source. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 01:30, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Bushranger - My understanding is clear based on wiki guidance (although not hard and fast) if Malik's father had written something on his blog then that would be primary but the council writing somthing on their website is not primary. Truesayer (talk) 05:02, 3 March 2011(UTC)

Truesayer, could you confirm that you have read the manual of style concerning section headings MOS:HEAD and that you can see that shakehandsman's edit here where he removes the bolding is consistent with the manual of style please ? It would also be useful if you could provide examples to illustrate your statement "Thousands use bold text for headings including almost all those edited by shakehandsman." It's difficult to tell whether you mean that they look bold because they use the ==H2==, ===H3===, ====H4==== etc formats or whether they are bold because someone has incorrectly used bold text. Sean.hoyland - talk 04:10, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I should add that I forgot to mention the NPOV issue here too with Truesayer always preferring to use sources (and text) that paint Malik in the most favourable light rather than ones which actually supported the text or were reliable. I do agree that there is some confusion here on Truesayer's part, but there's also perhaps more than that going on. For example the primary source in question here was quite positive about Malik but didn't actually support the text very well at all, the secondary one did fully support everything but also mentioned Malik's controversial expense claims. On a positive note Truesayer has now posted in the talk page of the article finally agreeing to no longer add the coat-rack boundary change content so we are making a little progress here--Shakehandsman (talk) 06:59, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Just to note a wider issue here unrelated to Truesayer himself. I've taken a look at the history of the Malik article and there appear to have been problems with SPAs removing critical material from the article from quite some time now and troubling edits also taking place from the House of Commons itself. The issue has even been covered by the Daily Telegraph newspaper[75]. It would be useful if more editors could keep an eye on the article please or even help to restore some of the lost material. Thanks.--Shakehandsman (talk) 05:14, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

User:Sammyo2009 repeatedly removing BLPPROD tag

I tagged Sam Hawkes article for WP:BLPPROD because article doesn't have any external source to signify the subject's existence and report the user Sammyo2009 (who made this) about it. But User:Sammyo2009 removed it without giving any valid reason check here. I restored the previous version and cautioned the user about it, but he again removed the deletion tag check here. I again restored the previous version and gave last warning to user, but he didn't take it seriously and again removed it. So, this is my appeal to take necessary steps as-soon-as possible, after this i'm not going to tag the article for deletion as he'll again remove it. Bill william compton^Talk 16:10, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm tempted to CSD: A7 it. --Selket ^Talk 17:56, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually, yeah, done (twice before actually). I'll warn the editor but I don't think we'll be hearing from him again for a while. --Selket ^Talk 17:59, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh no, he's back; I'm A7ing this page again now. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:00, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Already done. He may have been editing it when it was deleted. --Selket ^Talk 18:03, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, this type of users are really annoying, they interrupt our peaceful environment on Wikipedia. Bill william compton^Talk 18:07, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

It's back again ... salting and/or blocking may be needed. --- Barek (talk) - 18:11, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Already blocked. --Selket ^Talk 18:12, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

As for the article, It asserts he won a championship, though with no documentation ,so I'm not sure it's A7. You deleted it as such, which would only be correct if you consider that a bad faith assertion, which might at this point be reasonable. DGG ( talk ) 18:17, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I do consider it bad faith. I can find no reference to him, nor any indication that this particular competition even occurred in 2008, much less that the championship is notable. It could also be deleted for G11. --Selket ^Talk 18:34, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't say I disagree with you. Have you considered protecting against re-creation? It discourages the temptation to sock-puppet. DGG ( talk ) 18:51, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd rather not. It seems like a reasonably common name. There is a state legislator in New Hampshire, for example. --Selket ^Talk 18:55, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Remember, when any PROD (including BLPPROD) is removed, even in clearly bad faith, the simplest next step is to AfD it. PRODs are not to be restored onto articles. Jclemens (talk) 19:55, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

According to WP:BLPPROD#Objecting, a BLPPROD tag may be restored if it is removed without adding a source. 28bytes (talk) 19:59, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

BLPPROD is the one exception to that rule, as it is a requirement for all new BLPs to have a source. Thus, if someone removes it without adding one, then the prod needs to be re-added, as we cannot allow BLPs around without sources just because someone objects. It has nothing to do with AfD. Silverseren^C 05:38, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Possible targetting of articles containing British Isles

User Bjmullan has recently made a number of edits which appear to be targetting articles containing the term "British Isles". There has been long-running campaign on Wikipedia to remove usage of British Isles but recently the activity has declined. This is possibly a result of sanctions which now forbid the adding or deleting of the term without agreement. Details are here. Previous tactics to eliminate a specific usage of the term have included fact tagging relevant sentences and returning later to clean up (no attempt made to find references), proding entire articles for deletion and straight deletion of the term, sometimes including the containing sentences or paragraphs.

Since 27 February 2011 Bjmullan has carried out these edits:

PRODing articles containing the term; [76], [77], [78] (+Talk Page), [79],

Direct removal; [80]

Category objection; [81]

Fact tagging; [82] (this resulted in a substantial elimination of material), [83], [84] (+ Talk Page).

Taken on their own each incident might not be noteworthy, and each individual action could well be regarded as legitimate, especially if each was carried out by a different editor. However, there is a definite trend here and I suggest it amounts to gaming the system rather than being examples of editing to improve the quality of articles. LemonMonday Talk 20:41, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I had hopes, this add/remove British Isles dispute ended months ago. GoodDay (talk) 21:33, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

This has been going on for years. I hope you're not an odds-maker ;> Doc talk 22:20, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Check this out, it's like a neverending story. GoodDay (talk) 05:02, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

• I've removed the BLPPRODs that were remaining as all the articles were created before 18 March 2010. I've left a note explaining such on bjmullan's talk. Quantpole (talk) 22:56, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

False vandalism warning by User:ClueBot NG

Not sure if it is the right place. I reverted a self-published source added as reference, but User:ClueBot NG reverted my edit and issued me a vandalism waring. I am afraid to revert it again, can someone do the task. Thanks! --GalupK (talk) 02:57, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd say you can definitely report it as a false positive, but I won't revert it, since it isn't the only cite supporting the statement. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 03:05, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, reported false positive. I'll try to add a some more third party sources and remove the SPS. --GalupK (talk) 03:06, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Also, I'd say it doesn't really qualify as a self-published source. Yes, it's the Libertarian Party's web site, but...it's not like they just popped up last week with a brand-spanking-new web site and are making an outlandish claim.  Frank  |  talk  03:09, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

User:WikiManOne possible violation 1RR

I believe the user has violated general sanctions on the abortion article Catholics for Choice here: [85] and [86]. Lionel (talk) 03:16, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

The first one is a clear revert. It's a stretch to call the second diff a revert. On the other hand, while reviewing the article history today, it's clear that Kenatipo (talk · contribs · block user) has violated the 1RR general sanction.[87][88] I will not enforce the GS here as I have previously tried to mentor WikiManOne who is involved in this exchange.--Kubigula (talk) 03:50, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't look like the second one is a revert. It's POV though... N419BH 03:52, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

WMOs 2nd revert does appear to be a partial: but considering the recent, extensive discussion on this board, and the fact he is just coming off a block, something more substantial than a warning may be in order. Regarding Kenatipo, I believe those edits count as 1 revert, since there were no intervening edits by other users. Lionel (talk) 03:56, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I was about to agree on the "no intervening edits" bit. I'm not sure I'd classify WM1's second diff as a "partial revert", though.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 03:59, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

The second set of edits is pretty clearly not a revert, but adding blatant POV pushing is really not appropriate. He also has declared that pro-life activists are by definition extremists and not long after the expiration of his previous block, he repeated the same revert that got him blocked to begin with. Also, he has on his talk page, a "theme song" for the Republican party in violation of WP:UP#POLEMIC and has declined to remove it. This behavior really needs to be modified in some fashion. Perhaps a completely uninvolved admin with a relatively neutral position on abortion could mentor him? --B (talk) 04:04, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm involved with him on a related topic, and so will not be taking any action as either an admin or an arb, but man... this guy just won't learn to back down--he's essentially an unrepentant POV warrior. If someone else wants to move for a sanction (topic ban, etc.) on WikiManOne, I'd be happy to support it as an editor, though. Jclemens (talk) 04:08, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Anti-choice? Really? That's a pretty obviously loaded term, and edit warring is no worse a crime than POV pushing. I for one have lost my patience with WmO (something I've never done with anyone to the point). I think anything short of a statement explaining his lack of POV-pushing should be dealt with a topic ban, closely monitored, and only let up when a mentor (who is on his side in the debate) agrees he can handle it. Magog the Ogre (talk) 04:41, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Unlikely, since he's also completely unwilling to accept responsibility for his actions, as shown by his comments at this 3RR report. He blames his block on "opposing admins in content disputes", and calls it "indefensible" when in fact it was affirmed by multiple admins at ANI (and a couple emails from other admins saying it was "not a block they would have made" does not admin abuse make). I'm with all others here calling for action; a topic ban seems like the best way forward. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 04:55, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree on the anti-choice, I should not have used that term in article space. I use "pro-choice" and "anti-choice" exclusively to describe those that support women's reproductive rights and extremists who do not regularly outside of wikipedia so it was just an honest oversight. I would not have fought to re-include it and would have in fact changed it to another term if someone had asked. The theme song is not in violation of that policy, you were one of those that thought my statement on the radical evangelist in Afganistan was a violation of said policy, a position which there was no consensus on. I'm unlikely to view your statement that it is a violation very seriously when I don't see it and you have previously made the same claim without consensus. I stand by my statement that anti-choice activists are extremists by definition, in fact, the subject of the article whose talk page I made that statement on has also made the same statement. I think that covers everything. As for the reverts, there were no two reverts, as there were no two reverts on Lila Rose yesterday. Pretty amusing to see editor after editor who pushed a right wing pov come here asking for a topic block though... _WM^O _{Please leave me a wb if you reply} 04:58, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Statement of Intent

Resolved

 – Done. See "enacted" comment at the end of this thread (or, if other people comment further, near the end of this thread) --Floquensock (talk) 13:52, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I think that's enough toleration of a clearly disruptive POV-warrior. It only encourages others to follow his example. If this is how he is going to behave, we are better off without him. Here's the deal:

1. I am removing (not proposing for discussion, I'm going to do it) the statements at the top of his talk page. If he reinstates them, I will block him indefinitely. If he puts them back up while blocked, I will remove his talk page access.

2. I propose topic banning him from editing any abortion-related articles or their talk pages, broadly construed, for a period of 1 month. If the topic ban is enacted and he violates it, I will block him indefinitely. Not a gradually escalating series of long drawn-out ANI threads, but an indef block.

3. I propose an interaction ban with anyone he has had previous fights with, for a period of one month. He is not to follow, or even give the appearance of following, other editors around to continue the battle on another battlefield. If the interaction ban is enacted and he violates it, I will block him indefinitely.

4a. I propose that if he starts POV-pushing or treating editing like a game/battle/etc on new subjects, that the topic ban can be extended to include those new topics by any uninvolved admin.

4b. I propose that after the topic and interaction bans expire, his edits be monitored. If there is a consensus that he has resumed POV-warring, the topic and interaction bans will be made permanent.

5. If the topic and interaction bans are enacted and anyone goes to his talk page to gloat, I will block them for a week. If they follow him to a non-abortion article, or even give the appearance of following him, and pester him while he's attempting to gain experience editing constructively, I will block them for a week. This includes seeing how close you can come to gloating without going over the edge. I'd put an edit notice up to this effect on his talk page, so no one could claim they didn't know.

Like I said, I'm going to clean up his talk page now, but any thoughts on the other proposals? Keep in mind that, just this once, it would be great to not spend 5 disruptive days discussing how to stop one disruptive editor from being disruptive. --Floquensock (talk) 05:05, 1 March 2011 (UTC) p.s. crap, I just noticed I'm logged in on my non-admin account, but I don't want to lose this edit. I'll switch to Floquenbeam before changing his talk page. --Floquensock (talk) 05:05, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Did you read the discussion at Wikiquette alerts? There doesn't seem to be consensus in favor of your position on the items on my talk page... Let's get this straight: if the wikiquette complaint had any sort of consensus against my statements, I would have removed them myself already._WM^O _{Please leave me a wb if you reply} 05:08, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I will block you for it anyway. It is an example of all that is wrong with your participation here. I am sick to death of the games we let people like you play, and I am doing what I can to stop it, at least in this particular instance. --Floquenbeam (talk) 05:13, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

So why are you taking actions that there wasn't consensus for at the wikiquette alerts? I thought that that was the place to handle it. _WM^O _{Please leave me a wb if you reply} 05:16, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Also, I don't see how I'm pushing any more of a pov than Kanatipo or Haymaker or Lionelt or Jclemens, or any of the other right wing editors here? Heck, most uninvolved editors get disgusted and leave those articles for a reason. _WM^O _{Please leave me a wb if you reply} 05:17, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

The issue isn't your POV, which you are absolutely entitled to, but the way in which you engage with articles and fellow editors in your quest to make Wikipedia reflect it. Please--find anything particularly offensive I've said which substantiates your assertion that I would be pushing a POV to the extent that you are. Those who oppose POV warriors may simply be the guardians of NPOV. Jclemens (talk) 22:33, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

If what I put on my talk page was so offensive, then why didn't the Wikiquette alert reflect that? Instead, there seemed to be substantial question on that. I remember NYyankees51 calling me "pro-death" during a debate, or was it Kanatipo, or Haymaker? I don't remember. That is clearly much more offensive than anything I have said, in fact, I am yet to see what I've said that is so "offensive" that went anywhere on wikiquette. _WM^O _{Please leave me a wb if you reply} 05:07, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikiquette reports are generally ignored; the lack of people commenting on you there is nothing to be particularly proud of. I notice that you've listed things other editors have said when I asked you for specific issues about me that you've found problematic. For what it's worth, I think you're overestimating the amount the influence "the rules" have at protecting an editor who is roundly perceived to have been unproductive. Jclemens (talk) 07:24, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support measures 1-5. I sincerely hope this works. Jclemens (talk) 05:14, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

• Strong Support for All: With a couple editors (myself included, plus an admin) having tried to help WMO, I feel there is no other option but to do the "tough love" alternative proposed above. WMO has been given multiple options and chances, but yet continues to POV push and edit war on the same articles which has gotten him into trouble previously. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 05:14, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• (edit conflict × 4)Strong Support Enough is enough. Even his post here characterizes the pro-life (using the most common term here) movement as "extremist". In fact, Support an immediate block to prevent disruptive POV pushing at ANI. And before you go calling my support here political in nature, I am pro-choice. N419BH 05:17, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• One month? Is that really going to do much good? I predict we'll be right back here again at the beginning of April if this is enacted as is. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 05:25, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
  • IMHO, If he doesn't learn anything in one month, we need to show him the door as quickly and smoothly as possible. If we're back here in a month, then we either make it permanent, or block him indef. --Floquenbeam (talk) 05:27, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
  • (ec, great minds thinking alike and all...) If he comes back from a topic ban and keeps up the same kind of behavior, the community is not generally willing to give further chances. On the other hand, if a month working on different topics won't help him to see all the lovely non-battleground parts of Wikipedia in which he can participate, I don't think anything will help. Jclemens (talk) 05:28, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
    • OK, fine, support this proposal. Can't hurt to try. I still think it's likely we'll be here next month to discuss sanctions again, though. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 05:34, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Support as I think an enforced topic ban is in the best interest of the encyclopedia and WMO. There's no question that WMO has lost his way as a result of editing these articles and that he wears his heart on his sleeve. He has done productive work outside the abortion arena, and I hope the one month break will help him get on a better path. That being said, I do remain concerned that WMO is the sole focus here. While nobody technically crossed 1RR, the Catholics for Choice article was clearly the subject of edit warring today and WMO was not the only one pushing his point of view.--Kubigula (talk) 05:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• If this is enacted, I'll guess I should avoid stalking WmO, for fairness sake. Actually, WmO is welcome to make good faith comments on my talk page about any matter whatsoever at any point, so long as he doesn't obviously abuse it (e.g., by throwing epithets at me). I extend that invitation within any possible ban on interaction, so long as it's within my say. Also, I think WmO is probably an INTP (like half the rest of us here, given the fact we're editing Wikipedia). INTPs, such as me, are really good at recognizing what they do know, and being right, but they're also really bad at not recognizing when they're wrong (as opposed to INTJs). In fact, they're known for being utterly obnoxiously opinionated (like ENTPs), and making asses of themselves over it. Again, all of this applies to me, but perhaps WmO could turn down the heat a bit and realize that other people can have another point of view without being Science-hating Fundamentalist Religious Zombie Nazis who wouldn't deserve even the time of day. Magog the Ogre (talk) 08:01, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Support all the suggestions as a practical way to de-escalate and stop further disruption. Hard sanctions, but seems fair (I've been keeping my eye on this whole charade but not commented so far I think). Particularly #2 is of importance. --Errant ^(chat!) 11:43, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Support 1-5 and a slow clap for Floquensock. Hopefully this puts the user back on the narrow path. - Haymaker (talk) 13:09, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Support all measures. WMO has had too many chances. It's time to see if he is interested in helping the project as opposed to simply pushing his POV. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 13:42, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Support - Worth a try. - TexasAndroid (talk) 14:22, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• (EC)Oppose All: Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it against the Talk page guidelines to edit a user's talk page against their expressed requests. Second, the jump from 1 month to indefinite duration blocks/bans seems significantly more punitive then preventative in terms of scale. I was under the impression that we went with escalating duration (1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, indef). Third, the virus like behavior (as I read it) of these sanctions could very quickly encompass every single article and author in the community. As such I'm inclined to oppose these as we're supposed to extend to our troublesome editors the same level of good faith and policy implementation. Hasteur (talk) 14:32, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

  Note that while I support the topic ban and the removal of the polemic material on WMO's userpage, I agree with Hasteur's point that there should be no preemptive ruling that any violation warrants an indefinite block or ban - he has not had more than a 48 hour block to date. As always, any further issues should be dealt with based on the particular circumstances and with a view to preventing further disruption to WP.--Kubigula (talk) 17:22, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

• Comment I'm hesitant to impose sanctions solely on WikiManOne -- there have been other people in the recent disputes who have been equally as disruptive, imho. An uninvolved admin might want to check the recent edits to Planned Parenthood and see if there's anyone else in the past few days who's been reverting with minimal explanation and minimal talk page discussion. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:39, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
  • The general sanctions that are in effect in this topic area were a result of a conversation that was initially about only sanctioning WMO. Many people supported the more general restrictions because the issue is more widespread, but that doesn't mean WMO isn't at the forefront. Anyway, general sanctions are in effect, now its time to deal with disruptive editors on a case by case basis as need arises. It appears that need has arisen in this case. If you want to start new threads about other editors please do so. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 14:46, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
    • Want to, yes. Think it would be wise to, not so much. :-) That's why I was asking for an uninvolved admin to check.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Strong Support Well, judging by his talk page and contributions, it is about time to topic ban him. Ever since he started editing on abortion related topics last month, he constantly edit wars and pushes a POV. He was blocked twice last month and there are a slew of warnings on his talk page. He has had enough chances but it appears the user refuses to stop. Truthsort (talk) 15:04, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• As a quiet observer, I've seen WMO's name come up far too often in these discussions; to me, that suggests that yes, he's not getting the message about collegial editing and avoiding POV-pushing on this topic. I support the above proposals; a month will hopefully be enough time to get the message across. If it's not, well, we have 'indefinite' as a block option for a reason. Having said that, we do need to keep watch on the other editors in this sphere as well: many of them are not innocent either. Tony Fox (arf!) 17:32, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Support The amount of wikidrama in the "pro-life" v. "anti-abortion" debate should, with any luck, go away. Collect (talk) 20:22, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

• It seems like there's a lot of support for this proposal, but I would like to wait to see if WMO has anything to add. If no response is forthcoming, then I'll enact it.

  I understand the concern that the other "side" in this has not been treated the same way. But this is not about the page Catholics for Choice yesterday; it's about a long term pattern of behavior for one editor. I don't have the desire, or the intestinal fortitude, to try to ride herd on abortion related articles, but if I did I have no doubt that I'd find problematic behavior on the other side too. If someone else is a better man than I and wants to try to sort that out, good luck. I doubt you'll find someone equally as disruptive from the opposing camp, but if you do I'd support a similar topic ban for them as well. --Floquensock (talk) 23:25, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

• Would you be so kind as to provide difs for these "disruptive" edits after the general sanctions took place? _WM^O _{Please leave me a wb if you reply} 03:33, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
  • ^^ Up there. In B's comments near the beginning of the thread. Frankly, it seems nearly everyone in this discussion save you can see that your edits are disruptive, and I think that's telling. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 14:53, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
• Also, I would like an understanding as to why exactly we can't just follow the General Sanctions... if my editing is so clearly out of line, then it should be easy to catch me violating those and block me based on that.. as of right now, NYyankees51 has a longer block for violating the sanctions than I have gotten since the sanctions went into effect. So why pile on me? _WM^O _{Please leave me a wb if you reply} 05:07, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

• Comment - in an interesting development, I am continuing to be stalked even as this discussion continues by a user, here. Now, I agree with the edit, but he made the edit immediately after my edit. _WM^O _{Please leave me a wb if you reply} 03:52, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
  • How does somebody correcting spelling in an article three hours later qualify as "stalking"? Kansan (talk) 15:15, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
    • Three and a half hours, actually. And it doesn't. Furthermore, an editor drawing a lot of attention to himself can expect to have his edits monitored. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:13, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
• Enacted In a while (I type slowly and am juggling things IRL) I'll notify WMO that I'm imposing the topic ban and interaction ban. Note that I've looked a little bit more into other editors' behavior in some of these pages, and agree this is not all one sided. I think WMO is the worst offender, and he's the one that caught my eye, and he is the one shouting IDIDNTHEARTHAT the loudest, so I am confident this temporary ban is valid. I simply don't have time to keep an active eye on all these pages, but I encourage an uninvolved admin to look at it further; from a brief review (too brief for me to act with enough certainty), I think there are a couple of others who should be told that if they make one more battleground-ish edit, they too will be given a 1 month topic ban.

  This is 75% an abortion topic discretionary sanction, so I'll log it wherever I'm supposed to log it once I figure that out, but it is also 25% an overall behavioral thing, so like I said, if this general behavior just gets moved to another topic area, I'm willing to extend the topic ban to other areas or just throw up my hands and block for a long time. This has to end. --Floquensock (talk) 13:52, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Gender-neutral language

Several years ago, an editor added the sentence "Until then, humankind was aware only of rock snakes (featured in Thunderbirds Are GO) inhabiting the planet"[89] to the article Captain Black (Captain Scarlet). This remained in the article from 28 November 2006 until 25 February 2011, on which date Alexandre8, without explanation, replaced the word "humankind" with "mankind".

This edit goes against Wikipedia guidelines on gender-neutral language, which state "Use gender-neutral language where this can be done with clarity and precision" and "Non-neutral usage can sometimes be avoided by careful word choice; for example, by using people or humanity (instead of man)". I reverted this unhelpful edit, and since then the editor has edit-warred in order to maintain his substitution of gender-specific for gender-neutral language. S/he has continued this disruption even after I posted a reasoned comment in the article talk page[90], and after I posted a 3RR warning[91]. Alexandre8's response was a dismissive comment on the talk page[92] and an abusive comment on my own talk page[93]. Could someone please explain to this editor the principles of gender-neutral language and civility. RolandR (talk) 21:25, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I note this is at the talk of the article, where it should be and kudos for doing that. This is utterly unacceptable and I've given Alexendre8 a warning over it. Other admins less generous may consider a block right now more appropriate - I'm not very block happy myself but that is well over the line. Pedro :  Chat  21:42, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I note however, the "shared history here. To be fair Roland, user pages making such overly in your face commentary are rarely helpful or useful in a colaborative arena. In particular the "fuck nazis" image is singularly agressive. Whilst Alexendre8 should not, ever, make edits as identified above - and I do not excuse it in anyway - I'd personaly make a polite request to turn down the content on "your" user page. I appreciate it's only partly relevant to the issue at hand - but I suspect it is also partial cause.Pedro :  Chat  21:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that some editors, including apparently Alexandre8, do not see this as an anti-Nazi statement, but instead complain that I am comparing Israelis to Nazis. This is not an analogy that I am in the habit of making. In fact, the cartoon is -- as should be clear to any observer -- an comment on those who use antisemitic imagery and language in a mistaken belief that this somehow supports the Palestinian cause. RolandR (talk) 22:00, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

That's how it looks to me too. You should zap that image. It's more offensive than anything Alexandre8 said. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:06, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

• Pedro, I'd be inclined not to block, if for no other reason than RolandR has followed the edits of someone he's pissed at to a completely unrelated article, reverted them on a flimsy pretext, pretended to be morally outraged when his poking them with a stick worked, and then slapped an edit warring template on their page when he was edit warring as much as they were. I don't condone Alexandre's response, and it appears there's a history here that they both share some blame for, but I'd hate to reward someone playing silly buggers like this. --Floquensock (talk) 22:34, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not pissed off (British usage; here "pissed" means drunk) with Alexandre8, it was not a flimsy pretext, I am not pretending to be morally outraged, and I don't believe I have been poking with a stick. Alexandre8's original edit, substituting a gender-specific term for a gender-neutral term which had been in the article for over four years, seemed unnecessary and gratuitous to me. My edit summaries and talk page comments have been reasoned and polite, and I don't believe that I have behaved in any way improperly, or contrary to Wikipedia principles, in this matter. RolandR (talk) 22:55, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

"Pissed off" in USA slang means angry. And are you seriously trying to argue that "mankind" is a gender specific term? That's like the folks arguing that "woman" is gender-biased and we should be spelling it "womyn." — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 13:33, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

But the issue here is why Alexandre8 found it necessary, without explanation, to replace the term "humankind", which had been in the article for over four years, with the term "mankind". I'm not proposing to go through Wikipedia to remove al occurrences of "mankind", but I can see no legitimate reason for insisting on using it when the original editor preferred not to, and no one else has challenged this since December 2006. RolandR (talk) 14:27, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

You may want that to be "the issue", but you've opened a can of worms to other issues. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:09, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

In other words, this is WP:LAME. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 16:38, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I have nothing positive to say about Alexandre8's behavior here but picking a fight over {hu}mankind doesn't strike me as a positive contribution either. "Mankind" is not so much worse than "humankind" as to require yet another long thread in AN/I. Mangoe (talk) 17:03, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi all, I'll make an appearance, I've only just got round to renewing my userpage. Sorry I was so disgusted at Roland's userpage I had to let my feelings know. Sure the language wasn't pretty, but in all honesty his userpage is for ALL to see, and his user page is for his viewing only really. My reason for making the change is that the tv serial uses frequently the words "mankind" and not "humankind" and since humankind is no improvement on gender equal language, I don't see why it's political correct overtones should be advocated. P.s there is not really any beef between us, just I found his userpage so abhorrently revolting, I snapped. Alexandre8 (talk) 11:48, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

BLP violations and edit warring at Matthew Shirk

Three obviously related accounts, Ashleyulm (talk · contribs · count), Bushnellmacomb (talk · contribs · count), and 205.173.35.131 (talk · contribs · count), have been adding unsourced and poorly sourced boosterism to the article Matthew Shirk. I've explained the various verifiability, neutrality, and BLP issues at the talk page, and thought we had worked out a compromise. However, they returned to edit warring today, and are now threatening to continue indefinitely.[94] As this now includes multiple policy violations, I feel a block is necessary.--Cúchullain ^t/c 21:01, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

The IP is registered to the city of Jacksonville, so it is probably coming from Mr. Shirk's office. --Selket ^Talk 22:00, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I just semi-protected the page to avoid blocking a potentially sensitive IP address. -Selket ^Talk 22:06, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia, Jacksonville has between 800K and 1.5M residents; given the subject matter it is possible or even likely that a strongly interested party is editing from those accounts, but it might be politic (sic) not to assume so. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:12, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, if I was unclear. I did not mean that it was geolocated in Jacksonville. It is registered to the City of Jacksonville - as in it is an official city IP address. --Selket ^Talk 23:11, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

That's not terribly surprising. Thanks for the help. I'll be keeping my eye on it.--Cúchullain ^t/c 13:51, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Toxic starring Nicolas Cage

Resolved

I saw that Toxic (2014 film) was created. It purports to be a film starring Nicolas Cage and to be released in 2014. The problem is, there's no such topic in any form. On the talk page, the creator says to tell Blue Sky Studios to make the film, so it strikes me as a day dream being shared on Wikipedia. I reviewed WP:SD but was not sure which criteria would suffice. I proposed it for deletion but think immediate action could be taken. Would {{db-hoax}} suffice or not? A very simple search engine test will reveal that there is no reality behind this topic. Erik (talk | contribs) 13:00, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

SGGH (talk · contribs) deleted it. Thanks! Erik (talk | contribs) 13:05, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

User:Sol Goldstone and User:Mbz1

Hi all. I'm posting this here for more eyes on a somewhat long-term issue. Tonight, RussianLoveBoat (talk · contribs) made an edit here (now suppressed) which linked to an off-wiki image containing both the RL name of User:Mbz1 along with messages alleged to be obtained from her gmail account. This was reported to Oversight by another editor (ticket:2011022710001736, oversight queue) and I ran the case. On checking the clear SPA account, I discovered that the account was hiding behind a South-African proxy, now blocked. (Un-)fortunately, the proxy wasn't as anonymizing as was thought and the underlying IP was traced back to Sol Goldstone (talk · contribs). I'm calling that  Confirmed, per checkuser. I blocked this 'retired' account for a month but am now bringing it to the attention of the community for discussion and further action, if needed. It was pretty egregious abuse, and on a number of levels. Hiding behind a proxy and a throwaway account to post email allegedly taken from someone's email account is pretty messed up - Alison ^❤ 06:20, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Novel, someone gets blocked for outing? I thought wikipedia didn't care when attempted outing occurred anymore, or at least didn't care enough to issue any blocks over it... _WM^O _{Please leave me a wb if you reply} 06:32, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Last I checked, WIkipedia cared about abuse of multiple accounts. That work for you? - Alison ^❤ 06:33, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

IMHO, if this is indeed confirmed, this should be grounds for an indef. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 07:17, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Ok, if someone has hacked an account, or are socking...then, by all means, block them. What I do NOT agree with, though, is blocking someone for "outing" the RL name of User:Mbz1...she "outs" it herself. Look at User:Mbz1, and the pictures she has uploaded to commons. Srsly, you cannot name your RL-name as an "author"...and then complain about "outing"!! Cheers, Huldra (talk) 07:37, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

While I agree with Huldra that it is not hard to find the RL info, there have been long threads on user talk pages about this issue. It is clearly way out of hand. "Last I checked, WIkipedia cared about abuse of multiple accounts. That work for you?" said it pretty well. In addition, the editors are in disputes in the I-P topic area (strict sanctions can be applied) and there was a complete lack of decorum. Some of the long discussions and possible manipulation related to this issue are shocking. I cannot see how an indef is not a great answer and do not see how there could be any defense of the behavior unless we are encouraging manipulation in an area currently seen at arbitration enforcement too often.Cptnono (talk) 07:46, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Agrees with Cptnono about indeffing. It continues to amaze me how Wikipedia can tolerate bad behaviour of this kind. Editors get blocked a month or two and then they're back doing the same thing all over again. This is especially true for editors engaged with Israel-Palestine related articles. One strike-and-you're out is the way to go. --Frederico1234 (talk) 08:04, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Given the comments above, I've changed the block of User:Sol Goldstone to an indef. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 08:19, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm broadly in agreement with what you're saying re. the RL name, Huldra; that cat left the bag some time ago. What I do take issue with, though, is the socking and proxy use to post private emails; that was just underhanded and sneaky in the extreme. WP:SOCK more than covers that - Alison ^❤ 07:52, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

• For a slightly deeper peek at how duplicitous and troubling Sol Goldstone's behavior has been here, with the above as background, look at this recent revealing exchange between him and his target, and this discussion on Jimbo's talkpage. This incident has it all -- phishing; illegally posting as the internet provider to obtain a wikipedia editor's password; illegally breaking into, viewing, and distributing their private emails. I can't imagine how many rules have been violated. Let alone laws. This isn't just a normal wiki-issue; these are very severe infractions, that raise questions of serious violations of law.

I would urge one of the sysops here (Alison, perhaps?) to, as Jimbo suggested, "write to Danese Cooper, the CTO, with full details and evidence. [Jimbo would] appreciate seeing that as well, preferably by email, so that if there is any aspect of it that would allow the culprit to cover his or her tracks, we not tip our hand." BTW, do we have a super-duper-permanent block category? If so, I think I have someone I would like to nominate.--Epeefleche (talk) 08:37, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

WP:BAN perhaps? N419BH 16:29, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I would support a ban. This behavior is outrageous, especially the flourishes identified by Epeefleche oops, I meant Cptnono. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 20:40, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Alison, if policy allows it, please retain any available checkuser data for possible later use by IC3. 71.141.88.54 (talk) 10:20, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Community ban on Sol Goldstone?

Resolved

 – ban enacted. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:07, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Interpreting Epeefleche's comment about a "super-duper-permanent block" as support for a ban, I'll third his suggestion (Malik has already seconded it). The evidence he and Alison have brought forth is very damning, and so is this thread on PhilKnight's talk. While Mbz1 had already disclosed her real name by the time the RussianLoveBoat issue was raised, it's the thought that counts, and Sol was obviously intent on outing Mbz1. Even one such incident is unacceptable; keeping it up for two whole months is intolerable to the highest degree.

I understand if no admin would unblock Sol after this, and I do hope that's the case – so if there's no reason to go beyond a de facto ban, then so be it. Bear in mind, however, that this is an editor who, for an extended period of time, engaged in malicious harassment/stalking of Mbz1 by hacking her e-mails, falsifying an e-mail to her from ArbCom, making deliberate and egregious attempts to invade her privacy, and using lies and open proxies to cover up his own tracks. I wish Mbz1 the best in all this, and Alison has my utmost thanks for bringing this to ANI's attention.

We've banned for less than this. --Dylan620 ^{(t • c)} 23:58, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

• I'll...fourth?...the call for an application of the banhammer on the basis of the evidence that's been presented here. And I'll add a Facepalm for the fact that some people have so little life they'll do things like this. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 00:08, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• And how! Some things are just beyond the pale, including any one of the actions identified. All combined? Definitely ban-worthy. --Danger (talk) 00:30, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Sol Goldstone notified. --Dylan620 ^{(t • c)} 00:32, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

• Endorse. A person who engages in activities like this should not be participating in a collaborative project.   Will Beback  talk  00:52, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Sol's harassment of Mbz1 and proxy-sneakery are ban-worthy, whether he was the original email hacker or (as he claimed) somebody who got sent the hacked emails. I have sometimes disagreed with Mbz1 but arguing about articles is one thing, what Sol did went way way beyond that. betsythedevine (talk) 01:05, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Agree. Seal the vault. Dayewalker (talk) 01:28, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Endorse ban. Dylan interpreted my comment correctly.--Epeefleche (talk) 01:50, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• I also support and as there are clearly not objections I have added the template banned to the users page and added him to the Wikipedia:List of banned users#S - user S there Sol Goldstein banned . Off2riorob (talk) 01:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Sorry Rob, but even though a ban is a foregone conclusion at this point, two hours just isn't enough time for substantial discussion. 48 hours is preferred instead. --Dylan620 ^{(t • c)} 02:12, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
    • I think in a case as blatantly egregious as this there's no need to wait for 48 hours to pass. What this person did is flat out illegal. N419BH 02:17, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
      • I've reverted this closure by Dylan620. Whatever the merits of this proposal, we cannot ban someone in a three hour discussion. WP:BAN is crystal clear, this discussion should remain open at least 24 hours, with 48 being preferable. Also, the language of the policy requires an administrator to close the discussion. Courcelles 06:15, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Endorse ban. This type of activity simply cannot be tolerated. 28bytes (talk) 06:40, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Endorse ban. "Sol Goldstone"'s actions make it impossible to AGF if he/she ever returns asking for the right to edit. His/her actions have already caused enough damage and harm to WP, its editors, and its readers. -- nsaum75 ^{!Dígame¡‎} 07:27, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Endorse ban. We can't possibly trust someone who is morally capable of this kind of action. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:43, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Endorse ban. There appears to be solid evidence of very serious, and potentially criminal, misconduct here so a ban is fully warranted. Nick-D (talk) 10:52, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Endorse ban. Editor is unconstructive. TFD (talk) 11:18, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Endorse - though I try to find reasons to oppose draconian measures, this one seems, if anything, a tad prudent. Collect (talk) 11:26, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Endorse - Presuming Sol is guilty as charged of hacking, socking, & outing, a "super ban" seems appropriate. WP should not be a forum for personal vendettas. Frankly, the hacking alone is really the most outrageous offense. Any editor who hacks another's e-mail account b/c of content disputes on WP should immediately & permanently be banned. NickCT (talk) 15:50, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Dangerous presumption, since the apparent victim of the hacking is "99.99% sure" that Sol Goldstone was not responsible for it. However, to quote Alison, since few here seem aware of the discussion on her talk page, "I'm reluctant to pin the specific act of hacking on the person behind the accounts now blocked. We don't know that at all. I can certainly stand over the charges of socking, proxy use and posting links to the emails which is certainly egregious enough behaviour." --Demiurge1000 (talk) 17:52, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Dangerous perhaps. I'm putting faith in other's assessments, which I acknowledge, could be wrong; however, it's probably worth noting that Sol hasn't come forward to profess his innocence (not that silence should be taken as guilt). If Sol denies the offense, I'll dig a little deeper into the evidence. Until then, I stick by my earlier statement. NickCT (talk) 18:32, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Agree that it is dangerous -- because the phisher here is subject to incarceration. Phishing itself (let alone the other offenses) attracts a 10-year prison sentence, for example, in the UK. At the same time, I see Nick's implicit point that "Sol" has done much to make clear to us that he is quite capable of lying. And he has demonstrated that he is capable of using his systems knowledge (such as it is) and absence of morality to further the same goals that it would appear the phisher had.--Epeefleche (talk) 09:01, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

@Epeefleche - Two quick points - 1) re "clear to us that he is quite capable of lying" - I think you may be reading a bit to much into my comments. 2) re " because the phisher here is subject to incarceration" - I realize WP:NLT may not exactly technically apply here, but I think its spirit does. Talking about "incarceration" is poor taste. If there is some legal issue here, it's between Mbz1 and the hacker. WP shouldn't be a forum for discussing it. NickCT (talk) 13:51, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

@Nick--Apologies for reading too much into your comments. Still, while that is not what you intended to highlight, he did in fact demonstrate that he was quite able at lying. As to your second point, you are correct -- NLT has zero bearing. Furthermore, it is quite relevant to editors that those who resort to phishing are subject not only to wp "punishments", but to incarceration.--Epeefleche (talk) 06:03, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

@Epee - I see the cooperative & diplomatic mentality that resulted from your last tango with AE has worn off..... pity... back to battlegrounding I guess. NickCT (talk) 14:56, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I have no idea what you are talking about. Other than (as Sol was wont) you seem to be trying to bait me. As the baiting is veering far off-topic, and does not IMHO warrant a response, I'll respectfully decline.--Epeefleche (talk) 15:03, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not trying to "bait" you Epee. Though thanks for WP:AFG. I'm simply pointing out that I don't think you're trying v. hard to be constructive. Regardless, my best to you, NickCT (talk) 15:20, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

• Endorse ban. Bearian (talk) 20:33, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Endorse - no doubt. Rich Farmbrough, 03:47, 2 March 2011 (UTC).
  
• See also Jimbo's comment on the proposed ban, in which he wrote: "Sounds like a no-brainer to me".--Epeefleche (talk) 08:50, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
• What Alison said, the socking and proxying, moreover in a sanctioned topic area, was more than enough to stir this ban. Gwen Gale (talk) 10:52, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Edit war at Talk:September 11 attacks

The main combatants, as you can see are user:Vexorg and user:Soxwon. Seeing the edit warring I warned them both about the discretionary sanctions involved and edit warring. [95][96]. Now they are both posting on my talk page defending their actions. As I wrote this Soxwon posted a comment indicating they may take a break from the subject, but input on whether Vexorg's comments should be allowed to stand or if they violate WP:FORUM is still sought. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:20, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Looks like I should probably mention HalfShadow (talk · contribs) as involved user as well. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:26, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Only in an extremely technical manner; I reverted it once. And the comment really didn't have any place there; it was just him complaining about the article: "Censorship!" this, "Political bias!" that, etcetera... HalfShadow 04:32, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I admit that the "piss off" was out of order and it won't happen again. However, I stand by my statement that his statement was clearly just a general Truther complaint about some massive conspiracy with no intention of helping. In that case, I felt WP:FORUM applied. I have gotten too wrapped up in that talkpage anyways, and I'll probably take a wikibreak (well, massively downgrade activity) this week. Soxwon (talk) 04:31, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

For making yet another revert after blanking Beeblebrox's warning, I have blocked Vexorg for 72 hours, and placed him on revert restriction over the 9/11 topic for half a year. I have not sanctioned Soxwon, but someone else may choose to do so. Courcelles 04:35, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Given that he is lucky not be blocked as well after all those reverts and his own admission of already being well aware of the sanctions, I think an identical restriction is in order. 1RR for six months, I believe it was? Please understand Sox, edit warring is always the wrong thing to do. Even if a clear, overwhelming consensus emerges that this content did not belong on that talk page, it was still not acceptable to revert so many times. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:39, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, it's not my business what you may decide to do in the case of Soxwon, but in his defense, it's not like he was actually reverting a legitimate post, it was just some guy complaining, which isn't what talk pages are for. Isn't there some sort of loophole for that sort of thing? HalfShadow 04:41, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it is 1RR for six months that I put Vexorg on. I didn't sanction Soxwon because he didn't continue this trainwreck after a formal notification of the sanctions was delivered, given the "despite being warned" clause of the Arb decision. I don't, and didn't mean to sound as if I did, endorse the way Soxwon handled this situation, if anyone wants to sanction him for his part in this mess, you won't get an objection from me. Courcelles 04:47, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

HalfShadow, no there is absolutely not a loophole that allows edit warring anywhere on Wikipedia except in cases of blatant vandalism, which nobody has even claimed this was. I would like to see some input from uninvolved users on the appropriateness of the remarks and if they were germane to the talk page on which they were posted, but it doesn't matter as regards the edit warring. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:50, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Beeblebrox, the remarks in question do not follow the guidance of WP:TALK, in my opinion.[97] They lack the prime values of "courtesy and consideration" of talk page communication. I judge them more likely to provoke or offend than to further a discussion leading to an improvement to the article. The same guideline goes on to say that it is appropriate to remove "harmful posts, including personal attacks, trolling and vandalism. This generally does not extend to messages that are merely uncivil; deletions of simple invective are controversial. Posts that may be considered disruptive in various ways are another borderline case and are usually best left as-is or archived." Often such posts are best handled by reminding the editor of the relevant guidance from WP:TALK. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 05:41, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Per Courcelles, I think sanctions for Soxwon are in order, and should be discussed. This recent diff [98] in which he sort of apologizes for his bullying at the 9/11 conspiracy theories article, illustrates his mindset. In my view he sees himself as a crusader against "Truthers", and it his mission to squelch them on Wikipedia. I'd like serious consideration be given to sanctions on 9-11 articles, given that his talk page features a user box that calls the "9-11 Truth Movenment" "bullshit". Such a person openly advertises they are not at all neutral on a given topic. I am unimpressed by his stated intent to "massively downgrade activity" for one week. (Full disclosure: Soxwon and I have a history from a couple years back, but with the exception of my comment earlier this month, I have stayed away from further confrontation. However, this ANI discussion is too "in my face" to ignore.) Jusdafax 06:45, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

*sigh* And once again, Jusdafax accuses me of bias for being forthcoming with my opinions within my userspace. As previously stated, User:Jusdafax and I have a history. He/She also clearly failed to read the discussion at all, or he/she would have noticed I was arguing in favor of including truther content and I am not trying to "squelch them on Wikipedia." Again Jusdafax, just b/c I'm open and don't act as if I don't have an opinion one way or another doesn't mean I can't be neutral. Also, my downgrade in activity will be the result of real life, so you can rest assured that, save for tonight, I won't be on much this week. Soxwon (talk) 07:01, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Huh? So what if he thinks what the truthers say is bullshit? It is. Is there such a thing as being biased in favor of sanity? --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 08:08, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Did I read this right? An editor repeatedly posts material on an article talk page which does not, on its face, have anything to say more than he does not like the article, and proffers nothing to improve the article? Seems to me that "misuse of an article talk page" is involved, and not "edit war." Irrelevant discussions are subject to removal seems applicable. As does Do not use the talk page as a forum or soapbox for discussing the topic. Frankly, too many talk pages are ruled by people who post long screeds saying "this topic does not exist" and the like - which does not actually further the project. Collect (talk) 13:08, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

The two are not mutually exclusive. We generally do not allow edit warring regardless of the underlying reasons for it. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:01, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I have reverted his comments, because they do not belong. I don't believe this fits within the above edit warring, but I wanted to comment about it here. The comments in question do not belong, do not help the article at all, and is simply soap-boxing. That is enough for me to consider it vandalism. --Tarage (talk) 23:01, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not saying that the remarks do belong, but labeling them as vandalism is just plain wrong. Vandalism is editing done with the clear and obvious intent to damage Wikipedia. Making off topic or useless comments on talk pages is not helpful but there is no clear intent to damage the project. If we have a consensus to remove the comments that's fine, but they were not vandalism by Wikipedia's long-accepted definition, and therefore not exempt from the edit warring policy. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:50, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Give me a break..the {{notaforum}} banner has been at the top of that talkpage for a long time...if "editors" are posting there just to promote conspiracy theories or to disrupt true efforts to make the article better, then such posts should be removed on sight as disruptive material...the reason that article has 50 plus archive pages is due to the "truthers" efforts to promote nonsense over facts...and little in those archives has done anything to make the article better....its mostly been the sane telling the truthers to get lost....I mean, this is supposed to be an encyclopedia of knowledge afterall, not some place where conspiracy theorists can try to override the known evidence with fantasy and delusions.--MONGO 00:28, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I have a different take. If you aren't helping the project, you are either not participating(Which is not vandalism), or you are participating in a way that is not helping the project(Vandalism). His comments were inflammatory, did not cite one source, and did not present any benefit to the article. That's vandalism. --Tarage (talk) 00:59, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Tarage, I watched (at least part) of this drama unfold and tried to politely warn both Vexorg and Soxwon that they were breaking the 3RR and would likely get smacked for it. Both deleted the Talk page entries I added, which—while a bit dodgy—is their right and I wasn't going to say anything about it 'cause far smarter folks than I are handling the situation.

However, as annoying as are incivility and hateful speech, mischaracterization and abuse of process for the sake of expedience is far worse. I believe your assertion that these two are "vandals" is unfair; the evidence does not support the accusation. The Wikipedia definition of vandalism states, very clearly:

Edit warring over content is not vandalism.

Were it up to me, I'd block edit-warring parties for several weeks but it would be for "lack of judgment" and "unwillingness to follow the rules", NOT "vandalism". — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 02:46, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

You missunderstand. I don't believe edit warring is vandalism. I am claiming that Vexorg's post was vandalism, and Soxwon was reverting vandalism. I was saying he should not be punished in any way, shape, or form. --Tarage (talk) 08:49, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Surely someone who can't even understand the correct definition of 'vandalism' is not a particularly valued editor. Of course my comments were distasteful to some. Especially the "warrior against truthers" who was edit warring with me. And it certainly wasn't violating WP:FORUM - Please actually read WP:FORUM Vexorg (talk) 16:00, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I see absolutely no reason why user:Soxwon should be blocked or sanctioned at this point. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:28, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

What some of you folks are proposing is directly contradictory to several well established policies. Again, I am fine with the idea that the remarks ultimately were unhelpful and did not belong on the talk page, but it manifestly did not meet Wikipedia's definition of vandalism, and we block users who violate the edit warring policy. If you don't agree with those two policies then lobby to have them changed. Administrators are generally not permitted to make up new policies on the spot, that's the kind of thing that gets our tools yanked. So, I followed what the wider community, not just the warriors on 9/11 pages, have decided are our policies. If you don't like that take it up with them. The only issue I feel needed to be discussed here was if the remarks should ultimately be removed, and it seems we have a consensus that in the end they should be. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:56, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Depends if V's edits were "a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia" - and it does seem a stretch. However we can assume Sox has understood "Don't edit-war even if you think you are right" so no sanctions are needed. Sanctions should be avoided whenever possible, they foster ill feeling, and complicate matters. Rich Farmbrough, 04:32, 2 March 2011 (UTC).

I do not see any reason to sanction Soxwon. He was warned of edit-warring and stopped. TFD (talk) 15:07, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

• Beeblebrox...you seem to think that talkpages have another purpose than as a place where contributors can coordinate efforts to make an article better. I don't know how long you've been watching that particular talkpage, but I assure you, if we kept all the rants and ravings of the truthers or similar there, there would probably be 100 archives by now instead of just over 50....as it says near the top of the page and as arbcom has stated, the talkpage is not a forum....--MONGO 00:11, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I suggest you read WP:FORUM Vexorg (talk) 16:02, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Old Man Murray (2nd nomination)

Resolved

 – That'll do admin; that'll do. HalfShadow 19:11, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I think perhaps this circus has gone on long enough. If someone would do the honors? HalfShadow 18:35, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Done. Cheers. lifebaka++ 19:06, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I have to say I am disturbed by the nominator's COI. That's what the circus was all about. ~Amatulić (talk) 01:40, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I was going to say DRV in 4...3...2..., but Masem has beaten everybody to that. –MuZemike 06:56, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

And news of the deletion has hit Slashdot - see here. Tabercil (talk) 17:35, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

User:维基帝

(I will admit this in shame: I couldn't make heads or tails out of the directions on reopening WP:RFCU cases, and that's why I'm coming here...)

I suspect (based on username — edit pattern does not per se have the usual signature) that 维基帝 (talk · contribs) (which means "Wiki Emperor") is possibly a sockpuppet of Yongle the Great (talk · contribs). Anybody can help walk me through the process of reopening the RFCU case to request a CheckUser? Thanks. --Nlu (talk) 09:00, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

It's WP:SPI you want, which is pretty simple, but let me know if you have a problem. Glad to see other editors involved in helping with this extremely persistent puppet master. Dougweller (talk) 10:38, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, but RFCU and SPI are the same page... And it's the reopening directions that I don't understand. --Nlu (talk) 10:46, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

So they are. I'll take a look, I don't recall that everytime a sock's been reported the directions have been followed, I seem to recall new cases being opened as from scratch. Dougweller (talk) 10:57, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, there is a hidden direction (titled "Requesting checkuser work for an existing case") that you need to press "show" on, that indicated that you should follow the directions if there had been an existing case. The trouble is that I simply can't understand exactly what it's directing me to do. --Nlu (talk) 11:02, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

 Checkuser note: - Based on technical comparisons to recently-blocked socks of Yongle, 维基帝 (talk · contribs) is  Unlikely to be the same user.  Frank  |  talk  13:06, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. --Nlu (talk) 15:59, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

 Clerk note: No, this isn't Yongle; my guess is it's Phaseyour2. I've added a CU request to the SPI case for them. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 16:47, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

GiacomoReturned NPA Restriction

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

Archived, pending closure, see #Uninvolved closure sought. MickMacNee (talk) 16:50, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

---

Uninvolved closure:

The raw count of positions here is 19 in favor, one weakly in favor, 16 opposed, 1 weakly opposed, and 4 others. A number of the opposes could shift into the weakly opposed category depending on interpretation, but I am leaving them as simple opposed.

We have a 20 out of 41 raw count for "support", and that's 20 out of 37 for those giving a clear support/oppose. That is either slightly below or slightly above 50%, which fails to meet our usual standard for consensus.

In terms of arguments presented, however, there is a strong trend. A majority of the opposes indicated that they were opposing on grounds of futility rather than truly opposing the sanction. That is significant and should be noted and considered in closing.

I do not feel that closing with a "community sanction enacted" with less than clear majority support is appropriate. I am not enacting the sanction with this closure.

However, a plurality of those commenting felt that Giano is doing something wrong. I am noting here and will note on Giano's talk page that there is a community consensus that his behavior has not met the standards the community expects. This is not a "green light" for stricter enforcement in any way, but should be taken as indicative of slow exhaustion of community patience on this issue. It is generally wise to step away from behavior which is moving towards exhausting community patience.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 21:00, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Errant's final comments

Well, it has been about 24 hours since I proposed this. And despite a lengthy thread there has for the most part been minimal drama, excluding a few editors on "both sides" who pushed the boundaries a little far. That is encouraging. The arguments are starting to come full circle so I closed this off for the purposes of sanity :) To summarise my conclusion of this: There seems to me to be clear consensus, with a little opposition, that the actions of Giano were inappropriate and inexcusable even given the provocation These also seems to be support for the idea that Giano's idea of civility is not in line with community expectations But, as proposer, I don't feel I have firm support to impose this specific sanction More to the point Giano has told me both here and via email he will accept no sanction, so imposing it or not is simply beuracracy that serves no real end Rd232 makes a sensible point that the next step in this is to approach the civility policies and work on ways to impose sanctions that are in line with community support and that work. I will go ahead and work on this at some point in the near future (where it won't be mis-construed as carrying on this issue) Giano also has a point, too, about the actions and behaviours of others. Not that this excuses his behaviour, in my mind it makes it worse. In particular, although no blame needs to be attached to others, it is perhaps a good reminder that an impersonal "policy based" approach to editing (particularly deletions) might also be uncivil, or at least insensitive. At this stage there seems no useful purpose in lengthening the thread. No one is going to be blocked, sanctions would not have the effect I desired etc. Thanks for contributing --Errant (chat!)

I realise this may be akin to "political suicide" :) but I would like to propose a community restriction on GiacomoReturned based on WP:NPA. Yesterday Soundvisions1 opened a WQA thread about Giano's actions in this file deletion discussion. The file appears to have been nominated as part of a separate dispute over the {{keeplocal}} (the TFD discussion has the history).

To summarise the specific concerns raised at WQA; Giano took offence at the image nomination (note: I don't necessarily blame him) and viciously abused the nominator and one other person who voted delete. His language included calling them idiots, morons and one specifically nasty sentence: an ignorant, stupid little admin who has not the remotest idea what you are talking about. (see WQA thread for diffs and other abusive language).

Soundvisions1 left a template message with a personal customisation to remind Giano of our civility policy. Perhaps the wrong approach per WP:DTR but I believe that his actions in both places was in good faith.

Soundvisions1 immediately started receiving advice on his talk page to approach the matter differently; these were civil comments but it looked like the start of a potential flood. In light of that, and the drama that such WQA threads (about Giano) usually create I closed the discussion and tried to engage with Giano on his talk page. This was an attempt to avoid community level mess by giving Giano the opportunity to once again address his behaviour.

Giano has rejected this attempt; he initially tried to justify his actions on the basis that the image was being attacked. However it does not seem reasonable to call people morons based on that, and indeed our WP:NPA policy expressly says it is unacceptable to do so. He then advised me to leave him alone and to look at civility issues within "corps d'administrateurs", suggesting that until everyone else is civil he does not feel a need to be. He continued further justification of his actions; "I see nothing wrong in telling someone behaving like an idiot that they are doing so". Whilst on some level I approve of the idea of calling a spade a spade I feel it is still unacceptable to do so with abusive language.

It appears to me that Giano holds little respect for the editing community in general and admins in specific, and those he does respect have not been able to impress a standard of civility on him. Giano appears to believe that our policy on civility does not apply to him and, more concerningly, he appears to believe that it is appropriate, and indeed his right, to act as he did.

During the discussion he treated me with disdain and portrayed an arrogant attitude. Had he said "Sorry, I snapped and it was inappropriate" then that would personally have been satisfactory to me. But he seems to believe that the attacks were justified and had no respect for my attempt to help.

Because I was unable to have a mature conversation with him over this issue I feel I have to bring this back to the community for discussion, along with a proposal to sanction Giano. Note that at this stage I am not asking for, and specifically oppose, any form of a block. However I would like to propose a sanction to impress on Giano that guidelines of WP:NPA still apply, especially given his past long history of incivility and battleground mentality. --Errant ^(chat!) 09:30, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

• Comment from Soundvisions1: I just want to, again, clarify something. The message I left was based on a template but it was not a simple "Just hit the warn button and walk away" post. I believe there are two sentences from {{uw-npa1}} in use. I find it rather silly that there is *any* focus on that at all when the context of the issue, which I personally "authored" in a warning, is that nobody should be calling *any* editor, admin or not, "idiot", "ignorant morons", "ignorant, stupid little admin who has not the remotest idea what you are talking about", "idiotic little twits" and/or a "mental retard." I was not a participant in the deletion discussion at all, nor in any template discussion which is being pointed out now. I have never, to my knowledge, encountered GiacomoReturned before or had any interaction with them. Likewise, to my knowledge, I have never had interaction with the two editors who posted on my talk page, one of which who threatened me with a block unless I backed off. I have since learned that GiacomoReturned has a rather long tack record of being a rather controversial figure at Wikipedia and has supporters who do not feel behavior such as this is out of line. I received a minor taste of that yesterday and suspect my posting here may result in more, however I want to state, again, that there was no secret motive behind my initial warning other than what I explicitly said, in non-templateed form (ie. - I said it on my own), on the users talk page. Soundvisions1 (talk) 12:06, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Proposed sanction

Extended content

I propose the following sanction: GiacomoReturned is sanctioned to abide by the community standards of civility, as set out in WP:NPA, in all areas of Wikipedia. Continued attacks on other editors and a use of abusive language will be met with escalating blocks starting at 24 hours. This sanction is to last one year from the date of application and can be re-addressed and overturned by community consensus during that time. Attacks on other editors may be construed at an admins discretion, but a reasonable level of personal attack must be satisfied in line with the advice at WP:NPA. Giano demonstrated to me that he feels NPA is non-applicable to his actions, and I feel the above specific sanction will help impress on hiom the standard of maturity requested by the community. And please can we keep discussion here civil :) --Errant (chat!) 09:30, 2 March 2011 (UTC) What actually are you aiming to achieve, Errant, by sanctioning Giacomo this way, and in what ways is this going to improve the project? --Epipelagic (talk) 10:01, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Giano appears unable to interact in a civil manner in certain scenarios. My hope is that this will impress on him the need for civility. Benefit to the project; it will remove some vitriol and improve the overall collegiality of the project. I don't think his actions are defensible in this case, but my main concern is that he appears to believe his actions were appropriate and I wish to stop future occurrences. (I'm going to be super busy today, so I won't likely be able to respond any more, this was originally put in front of the community and I removed it to address the issue, was unable to do so and so without prejudice I have placed it back before you :)) --Errant (chat!) 10:08, 2 March 2011 (UTC) I think what Epipelagic is getting at is that we've been through this a million times before and there's no reason to expect anything to be different from yet another round. For better or worse, we've made a tacit decision to live with the situation, so opening a thread like this is unnecessary drama and a waste of energy. 71.141.88.54 (talk) 10:15, 2 March 2011 (UTC) I'm happy (and even encouraging) if someone wants to make the same call as me yesterday and close this down to avoid drama. But a number of editors have questioned my actions yesterday as pre-emptive. *shrug* Not much I can do; my involvement in this is simply in trying to come up with a way that might potentially work without descending into a drama-fest. If that is likely to happen just close it :) --Errant (chat!) 10:18, 2 March 2011 (UTC) close it as a perennial proposal. nothing good will come of this. Gold Hat (talk) 10:32, 2 March 2011 (UTC) support sanction We'd block other users for the same thing. I know parts of the history here, but only parts. But in any case, we shouldn't have a tiered membership of some sort. And incivility is likely one of the problems that drives away new editors. Endorsing such incivility as a perennial issue is really pretty scary. Hobit (talk) 13:55, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Not quite true. You'd block other regular editors for the same thing, or in fact less, but not administrators, which is the root of much that's wrong here. Malleus Fatuorum 19:45, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Impractical: What counts as blockworthy incivility is almost always contentious among administrators, and, it seems, especially when it's from Giano. (People may complain about "special rules" for him, but like it or not, it's the way our community works). Other editors could probably also fit this category. All this is going to do is lead to more heated disputes over blocks, so I'm afraid I can't support this proposal. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 14:38, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Meh - Giano provides cover for the rest of us curmudgeons, i.e. "well if you can't block Giano for that, you're not gonna block me for saying this". But really, unless it is for either blatant "go fuck yourself" comments or true project-wide disruption, civility blocks are weaksauce. Stop poking the bears and move on. Tarc (talk) 14:49, 2 March 2011 (UTC) So how is calling people "ignorant morons" and "some mental retard" any different than a "go fuck yourself"? --Conti|✉ 15:06, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Support sanction. Saying that "it's the way our community works" is acceptance that we have editors that are permitted to engage in personal attacks just because some clique have identified them as "special" and are prepared endlessly to kick up a fuss whenever there is any criticism of their behaviour. It is also very dangerous for the community to give out the idea that if you want your friends to be above the rules, then the way to do it is to create as much drama as possible whenever anyone tries to remind them of the rules. It may not be a problem in one case, but what happens when every little clique or POV-faction on Wikipedia catches on to this and starts trying to implement a similar status for themselves, by means of disruption? Errant's comment about how those people Giano does respect have not been to persuade him of the merits of avoiding personal attacks, is telling; rather than suggesting he cool it, their normal response is to encourage him by repeating or justifying his comments about others. (And in this case, apparently, to threaten a good-faith editor unfamiliar with the situation, with a block for raising the issue - that's wildly unacceptable.) While I'm sure it would be lovely if everyone who ever nominated a page or file for deletion engaged in a discussion process before doing so, that's simply not practical, and inability to respond to the situation in a level-headed manner betrays a lack of maturity that really is incompatible with working on a collaborative project. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 15:03, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Hmm, I do want to say that my comments about those he does respect was not intended to imply they encourage him, I have no evidence of that. But I have seen some gentle "c'mon dude" comments which are then ignored. --Errant (chat!) 15:10, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Oppose primarily due to concerns of (to borrow Tarc's phrase) bear poking.--Cube lurker (talk) 15:12, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Unfortunately I can't in good faith agree with such thinking; giving Giano carte blanche to viciously abuse editors makes me hideously uncomfortable :( --Errant (chat!) 15:15, 2 March 2011 (UTC) If I posted under every comment that I in good faith couldn't agree with I'd have litle time for anything else.--Cube lurker (talk) 15:26, 2 March 2011 (UTC) I support holding Giano (and everyone else) to behavioral standards, which per policy includes prohibitions against personal attacks (and note that the proposal here is basically already encoded in that policy "If a pattern of lesser personal attacks continues despite the warning, escalating blocks may follow, typically starting with 24 hours.") But I'm unsure that a discussion here is going to result in any resolution of this strange dispute. I rather wonder if an WP:RfC/U would be helpful or if this is a matter for arbitration. The block/unblock history alone suggests that standard community discussion may not be effective. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:30, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Oppose. The offensive comments are in response to what could be considered provocation (deletion of a file that Giano says he spent some time on for what seems to be an optional deletion). I would give latitude to the content contributor in this case to vent his frustration. I would also add this a textbook situation where I think admins with weak content contribution backgrounds are out-of-touch with content contributors and why otherwise good looking admin candidates should be opposed at RfAs. Lambanog (talk) 15:43, 2 March 2011 (UTC) I don't know. I have a pretty above average content contribution background & I don't see how it is acceptable to react to provocation like that. A real world comparison might be verbally abusing someone who said they didn't like your painting very much. Not very socially acceptable :) unless it was intended as a jibe, I don't overly see the relevance of the comment there, civility and content contribution aren't really related to admin action --Errant (chat!) 15:55, 2 March 2011 (UTC) You're being euphemistic. A closer analogy would be verbal abuse in reaction to someone who deposited the hypothetical painting into the garbage can. Lambanog (talk) 17:29, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Ummmmmm. Does WP:COOL ring a bell? -FASTILY (TALK) 21:08, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Counter-proposal: Why doesn't everyone just not post to his talk page unless it relates to mainspace work? And, ya know, save your fingers from cramping? Listsshown (talk) 15:46, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Note: The above user has been blocked indefinitely. --Conti|✉ 16:48, 2 March 2011 (UTC) I don't need Carnac the magnificent to see what is in the envelope here This is a total waste of time. Protonk (talk) 15:55, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Comment/Question: Has there ever been an RfC on Giano? It might be a good next step. --Conti|✉ 16:01, 2 March 2011 (UTC) I don't think there has been an RFC: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Giano / Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Giacomo / Wikipedia:Requests for comment/GiacomoReturned are all redlinks. Rd232 talk 17:21, 2 March 2011 (UTC) See Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Giano II. -- GoodDay (talk) 17:28, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Support And high time. WP:NPA applies to everyone. It even applies to editors who have friends that condone personal attacks because someone made the attacker mad by trying to delete something he worked hard on. The policy also applies even if someone feels it gives him cover to make similar personal attacks. The "latitude" to "vent his frustration" drives other contributors away from the project. Edison (talk) 16:08, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Why bother? Valued content contributors - based on past clusterf...discussions on this topic - have special dispensations regarding WP:NPA. Not that this is right, but it seems to be canon. Tony Fox (arf!) 17:57, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Support, not that I actually expect anything to come of it. It is (insert civility violation here) to say that accomplished content contributors should get a free pass on conduct. It is (insert civility violation here) to say that long-time contributors should get a free pass on conduct. It is (insert civility violation here) to say that a user should get a free pass on conduct simply because that's what we have done in the past. It is (insert civility violation here) to say that long-time contributors are more valuable to the future of the project than are newcomers. Wikipedia is not a club, and no user cannot be replaced. (I feel better, getting that off my chest.) --Tryptofish (talk) 18:25, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Poking a sleeping dragon with templates is almost always a bad idea. I personally think you brought this on yourselves. (In my opinion Giano's comments were not that bad compared to how people talk in real life.) --Guerillero | My Talk 18:41, 2 March 2011 (UTC) support though I'd reword it a little. Calling somebody the names used is a straight-out personal attack, not a question of interpretation. No work environment in RL would tolerate such language in public. There may be other times where it might be acceptable, but the discussion pages of one of the most prominent websites in the world is not one of them. . Civility is one of the 5 pillars. Nobody is exempt. What Wikipedia needs is content contributors, but not at any cost. Not a the cost of creating an unsatisfactory environment for other content contributors. If there are repeats I shall warn and if necessary block Giano, following WP:NPA's wording "If a pattern of lesser personal attacks continues despite the warning, escalating blocks may follow, typically starting with 24 hours." If anyone wants to remove NPA from policy, they can try to do so. If my colleagues disagree and revert my block, I will not wheel war, but I will probably take it further. It's time somebody acted. DGG ( talk ) 18:50, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Oppose Maybe there is a way to get Giano to not fly off the handle when silly tings happen, this is definitely not it. Someone would immediately trundle over to Giano's talk page and bait him into getting blocked. Had others acted a little more sensibly (discussing before nomming a FFD, not suggesting G is using Wikipedia as a personal homepage, not using a template on him) this would never have arisen. Franamax (talk) 19:21, 2 March 2011 (UTC) If he is foolish enough to take the bait and respond, he deserves to be blocked. Realize that the same rules apply to him as they apply to us. -FASTILY (TALK) 20:15, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Poke. Maybe we should split the English-language Wikipedia into a US one and a UK/rest-of-the-world one, after all. Not so much for language reasons but to test what is better in the long run and what leads to a toxic environment: US-style extreme verbal hygiene, or a relaxed attitude. Hans Adler 19:38, 2 March 2011 (UTC) I've long thought that to be an idea worth pursuing. And I strobgly suspect that even many American editors might choose to join the rest-of-the-world enclave. Malleus Fatuorum 19:42, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Do you know, here’s an amazing thing: someone, ages ago, fixed up this thing in my preferences that makes all Admins names appear blue. So a few moments ago I checked the recent contributions of all the Admins in this “debate” - there is not one of you supporting this sanction has written anything educated today, or as far as I can see recently. You pass comment here, you pass comment there and occasionally in a fit of exertion one of you fixes a typo or fiddles with a category. Not one of you has purchased a book (yes, purchase ie spend money—not look for a here-today-gone tomorrow internet site) or even got a book out of the library, sat down and read it and then written a page—or even a referenced paragraph. Yet, you feel you somehow have the privilege of commenting on those that are writing this encyclopaedia and keeping you where you are. I find that rather sad. If I upload an image, it is because I need it. If I draw an image it is because I need it. I do not expect to have to argue with someone who does not write as to why and when I need it. The deletion debate should have been cancelled the very second I made that clear—the very second! In fact, the deletion debate should not have occurred, I should have been asked first. Now, you people gathered her can waste as much of your time chattering as you like—nothing will sway my opinion because I am correct—and deep down you know I am. If people behave like idiots, they must not be surprised to be told so.  Giacomo  19:28, 2 March 2011 (UTC) I was once blocked five days for calling other editors idiots. Apparently that's no longer a blockable offense? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:31, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Administrators get away with calling other editors "wankers", and "less important than the dog shit on the sole of my shoe", so I really can't see the problem here. Malleus Fatuorum 19:39, 2 March 2011 (UTC) If I see an admin calling someone a wanker etc. they will be seeing the same treatment from me. Same applies to any comments directed at Giano's mental health (indeed, if I see any of that will be blockable NPA offence in my book). Giano is beign held to the same standard of behaviour I hold everyone to :) Giano; what you have written here is basically in support of what I believe about you. You appear to confess to believing yourself superior to us. Bottom line, yes I buy books and referenced material. I also do a lot of clean up and fixing an neatness and.... it's all useful work. So, you wrote some articles. That's brilliant, but I do not feel it allows you to be arrogant and rude to other editors. That is the root of the problem --Errant (chat!) 20:38, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Yes, quite true and as certain people gathered here clearly want a "drama fest" let's explore why the Arb, Coren, was allowed to call me mad/paranoid or whatever it was (find me the diff someone - he was trying to have it deleted) at the same time Arb Risker was emailing me claiming I was trying to "hijack" her account. Let's have the "drama fest" if that's what people want; I had rather hoped this was going to pass over and had igored it for hours. It seems not Giacomo  19:53, 2 March 2011 (UTC) The hypocrisy on display here is eye-watering, and can only be explained by that fact that administrators define thier own truth. Thus if one calls you a "toxic personality", or "chronically uncivil" then they are merely stating a fact, as they have "the trust of the communbity". Whereas if you call one one of them an idiot you are stating an unwelcome opinion that needs to be stepped on. It stinks. Malleus Fatuorum 20:11, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Funny; all I saw there was "I'm more important than you! Nya nya nya!" HalfShadow 19:33, 2 March 2011 (UTC) I'm not an administrator. I have bought books for the express purpose of sourcing content I wrote. I've uploaded images, and even defended a few in deletion discussions. And I said what I said, above. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:45, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Wow, I wish I was a "valued content contributor" so I could say what I really want to here without getting blocked. (Use your imagination.) I'd point out the work that I've done, which has involved libaries, purchased books, etc., but Giano will just conveniently ignore it. (Yes, I've been quiet for a while; this is called "real life" intruding. My apologies for not living at my computer.) Tony Fox (arf!) 19:56, 2 March 2011 (UTC) God I know right? What I would do for that exclusive Giano privilege. -FASTILY (TALK) 21:03, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Giano, all the rules on Wikipedia also apply to those that write articles. Nothing you say or do will change that. --Conti|✉ 20:17, 2 March 2011 (UTC) LOL A sanction sticking against Giano. That's funny! Resolute 20:00, 2 March 2011 (UTC) What's the problem with that? HeyMid (contribs) 21:18, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Irrelevant to support or oppose any proposed sanction. There will always be at least one admin who will unbock him after a future violation, so community standards will never apply to him. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 20:04, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Support - this kind of blatant violation of WP:NPA should've resulted in a block in any event, this sanction is the least that should happen. Exxolon (talk) 20:12, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Support per "there is not one of you supporting this sanction has written anything educated today, or as far as I can see recently". If you can't avoid personal attacks in a discussion about sanctioning you for personal attacks, there's little hope they will be avoided elsewhere. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:14, 2 March 2011 (UTC) But this is the nub of what is really going on here. Giano was referring to the administrators who want to sanction him. The question is whether his statement is true or not. If it is true, then it is highly relevant fact, not an abusive judgement that should be construed as a "personal attack". This happens over and over on Wikipedia–administrators declaring a content editor has make a "personal attack" because they point out something the administrator doesn't want to hear. If Giano's statement is true, then he is pointing to a situation that results in gross abuses towards competent content editors. Certain editors on Wikipedia, whose contributions and abilities in terms of producing real content are minimal, are given one-sided powers to attack and block the editors who do make the real contributions. There is nothing wrong with editors who are not competent in this way being given administrative privileges to help them with the janitor work that need to be done. But the ability to block competent and productive content editors should be confined to administrators who are themselves competent in content areas and have the confidence of able content editors. --Epipelagic (talk) 21:45, 2 March 2011 (UTC) You'll note that when I told Giano something he didn't want to hear I didn't verbally abuse him to do so. I hope that people can see a difference in that. I dislike this characterisation of content contribution as the "real" editing. It's just one part of the whole thing, and we should be working together to stamp out nastiness and make sure everyone can do their editing in peace. That includes eradicating policy-wonk and minor disputes (the FFD thread) such as the piece that started this whole thing off --Errant (chat!) 22:03, 2 March 2011 (UTC) What? What are you supporting? " Attacks on other editors may be construed at an admins discretion, but a reasonable level of personal attack must be satisfied in line with the advice at WP:NPA." What exactly does that mean? Moriori (talk) 20:18, 2 March 2011 (UTC) IMHO, it means don't block for a single "stop making idiotic edits". 10 "idiots", or 1 "c***s****r", might be a "reasonable level of PA" to call for a block, on the other hand. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:36, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Yes, the intention was to carefully exclude blocks for minor incivility. Colour me crazy but I have no issue with occasional light snapping or jokey but firm "you're being a bit of an idiot" etc. We all get ratty, it happens. The intention is to refer to the level of attack such as the one inspiring this thread. --Errant (chat!) 20:42, 2 March 2011 (UTC) I understood that to mean the following: "In the event of any physical or verbal attacks or otherwise hostile or adversarial actions targeted towards other editors, admins, users or accounts which may or may not be construed, depending on one or more admin's/admins' discretion, irregardless of any reasonable levels, personal attacks must (!) be pleased, satisfied or contented in precisely the same way that is described at WP:NPA, notwithstanding any and all unclarities that may or may not arise consequential of this sanction's infelicitious verbalification." But I am no longer sure this was the intended meaning. If it is not, I obviously withdraw my !vote above. Hans Adler 20:43, 2 March 2011 (UTC) As above, What?--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:27, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Support I see the intent in the proposal and Support it, but it needs to be clarified and its awkward. Sarek makes a point of the absurdity of the situation The Resident Anthropologist (Talk / contribs) 20:33, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Comment. I don't like to see editors call each other idiots. But in this context I can't support a sanction, and I mean no disrespect to the editors the words were directed at. There have been discussions on the Foundation mailing list recently about how to retain editors and attract new ones, and one of the issues raised is the insane way we apply our rules. Of all the rules craziness we find on WP, the image processes really are the worst. I wish we'd do something about it as a community, instead of allowing a small number of editors to drive everyone else up the wall, then criticizing people who react badly to it. I'm currently being told I can't use a photograph of a London tourist plaque in a featured article—a photograph kindly taken and released by a Wikipedian—because of something called freedom of panorama. I won't link to the discussion because the person who raised the issue means well. And this is the problem. Most of us mean well, but by relying on increasingly byzantine rules, or laws we don't understand, we've forgotten how to use common sense, and the result is a website guaranteed to be a high source of frustration to most human beings. I wish we'd focus more on how to tackle that, because it's going to be the thing that kills us. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 20:45, 2 March 2011 (UTC) My guess is that our rules about images are insane because the copyright laws regarding images are insane(ly complicated). You're bound to get frustrated when you try to comply with all the laws out there. Regardless, even a silly or stupid or unfair or inconsiderate process does not legitimate you to call other editors morons, idiots or retards. Even if you are right, even if they are blatantly wrong, you just don't get to call others such things around here. Period. --Conti|✉ 20:51, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Unfortunately, this "Fredoom of Panorma", as one English-challenged editor once called it, is indeed the law in the USA. A guy can create a work of art, put it out in public, and you can photograph it for your private photo collection, but you can't publish it in the USA unless the guy's been dead and gone for generations, or some such. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:34, 2 March 2011 (UTC) This is an issue of NPA, not media file policy. -FASTILY (TALK) 20:59, 2 March 2011 (UTC) He should have gone with "Batshit crazy". That one's fine on arb pages.--Cube lurker (talk) 21:00, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Is this a recent issue that I can deal with? --Errant (chat!) 21:12, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Go knock yourself out blocking a sitting arb.[99] (Don't worry, I won't hold my breath.)--Cube lurker (talk) 21:16, 2 March 2011 (UTC) And who exactly was that alleged personal attack directed at? -FASTILY (TALK) 21:20, 2 March 2011 (UTC) You're making my point. Thanks.--Cube lurker (talk) 21:23, 2 March 2011 (UTC) All evidence to the contrary. Giano directs his attacks at specific individuals. -FASTILY (TALK) 21:38, 2 March 2011 (UTC) I'm having trouble with the idea that NPA doesn't apply to discussions about files. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:27, 2 March 2011 (UTC) (edit conflict)That's not worth a block. It is more generally directed frustration and I would be inclined to send some Wikilove (which I see was done) and a friendly reminder that keeping cool is a good idea :) I thought that you had implied someone had called another editor batshit crazy, that is warning level NPA IMO and if delivered with the same vitriol as, say, Giano's attack that started tis thread I would have blocked. You will not find me shy to block Arbs if they do break rules... --Errant (chat!) 21:29, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Like I said. I'm not holding my breath.--Cube lurker (talk) 21:32, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Really? here's me called batshit crazy [*here's me called batshit crazy me and supposedly requiring a health profesional you won't find the exact diff, because being an arb he had it deleted - check the history. you lot are a joke. Sorry, is there a reason you are not blocking?  Giacomo  21:36, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Meh. you probably do. -FASTILY (TALK) 21:41, 2 March 2011 (UTC) I probably do, If I stay here.  Giacomo  21:48, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Well, what you waitn' for? -FASTILY (TALK) 21:52, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Quit it. This is exactly the thing that is not helping. --Errant (chat!) 21:54, 2 March 2011 (UTC) (edit conflict)Ouch, that is indefensible. I understand how you feel, BTW, seeing stuff like that let go is a problem and needs to be addressed. If it happens again (not sure what I can exactly do several months after the fact) resist responding to it and I will be happy to deal with it for you. That's a serious promise. Fastily, that's not a helpful comment --Errant (chat!) 21:44, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Yes sir. -FASTILY (TALK) 21:53, 2 March 2011 (UTC) I'm afraid you it watched happen; I particularly like th ebit when having told me I am batshit crazy, he sudenly ...er ..remembers. Just leave me alone, you lot are pathetic in your hypocrisy!  Giacomo  21:46, 2 March 2011 (UTC) There is no hypocrisy here but your own. Grow up. -FASTILY (TALK) 21:50, 2 March 2011 (UTC) No, Giano. I never saw it. Next time come get me. If you do I will sort it. --Errant (chat!) 21:54, 2 March 2011 (UTC) That again! I really must write more silly essays, if they are such fertile ground for diffs to be stored up for months upon end and constantly resurrected. The first significant difference that springs to mind, is that the comments were very quickly retracted. By contrast, you (Giano) seemingly never retract comments, because you believe you're superior to the rest of us and therefore you can do and say whatever you like. That's the problem this is intended to address. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:46, 2 March 2011 (UTC) "The first significant difference that springs to mind, is that the comments were very quickly retracted" Diff for Coren's retraction please? Getting a dodgy deletion against concesus is not a retraction.  Giacomo  22:56, 2 March 2011 (UTC) This is what I had in mind, and fits my definition of a retraction well enough. Incidentally, does that mean that the copy of the page that you're pointing everyone to in your WP:NOTTHEM exercise, is actually a copy where the text of Coren's comment is only there because you restored it to the page even before you copied the page in toto? Interesting. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 03:46, 3 March 2011 (UTC) FGS, the whoe arbcom saw it!!!!!!! and had it deleted against concensus. Wise up about what this place is really like and stop attacking the wrong people.  Giacomo  21:58, 2 March 2011 (UTC) ErrantX, It's true that that edit is too stale to block, but there's nothing stopping you from proposing an editing restriction on Coren. Just a thought.--Cube lurker (talk) 22:53, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Support This relly needs to stop; Giano is not subject to a free-ticket for blatant personal attacks and incivility. HeyMid (contribs) 21:18, 2 March 2011 (UTC) No, let it carry on, I like to see their true colours behind all their smug behavious. I have a 100 more diffs up my sleeve yet about incivilit - we have not yet had the "toxic personality herself" - show up yet.  Giacomo  21:53, 2 March 2011 (UTC) You do realize that your main argument seems to be that your unacceptable behaviour should be ignored because others have behaved unacceptably in the past as well, right? --Conti|✉ 22:01, 2 March 2011 (UTC) No, I just wonder why it only bothers you when it's me saying it?  Giacomo  22:12, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Oppose - Having read the exchange on the RFD page, I can fully sympathize with Giaco going ballistic over such busybodyism towards a free image that he drew himself. The image nannies (and there are plenty of them) should stick with images whose sources are unknown and whose copyrights are questionable (and I'm sure there are plenty of those also). ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:29, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Oi! Don't hate :/ -FASTILY (TALK) 21:57, 2 March 2011 (UTC) SchuminWeb is the guy who ought to be sanctioned, for his gratuitous and pointless nomination of that illustration for deletion. He is the author of this particular incident. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:11, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Support - This has been going on for far too long. Users have been blocked for far less than what Giano dishes out. It's time his carte blanche is taken away. (X! · talk)  · @940  ·  21:33, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Support. A comfortable work environment for all editors is more important than any one editors contributions. Noone gets a free pass to poisoning the well for everybody else with consistent uncivil behavior.·Maunus·ƛ· 21:48, 2 March 2011 (UTC) The leader of Herman's Hermits gets a free pass? :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:53, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Support. WP:CIVILITY is a policy. This user has frequently violated it without response, which may foster the belief that it doesn't apply to everyone. I do not buy the argument that the problem is with other editors purposely annoying him. If any such behavior is seen it should be addressed directly rather than by allowing this user to flout WP policies.   Will Beback  talk  22:17, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Support Editors, even if they provide great content, should not get a free pass because of that, and tolerance of such has been going on for far too long. It shouldn't be assumed that such content-based expertise cannot be provided by other, less confrontational editors. There is no overriding necessity for the encyclopedia to be finished, either today, or tomorrow, per WP:DEADLINE. My personal preference is that these editors, and there is a small but disruptive claque of them, should either adapt or go, and that goes for their fanclubs too. Rodhullandemu 22:27, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Can you please clarify that Rodhullandemu? Are you saying that all the editors here who oppose sanctioning Giano should leave Wikipedia? I oppose sancrtioning Giano. Are you saying that unless I change my thinking to align with yours, that I should should leave Wikipedia? --Epipelagic (talk) 23:14, 2 March 2011 (UTC) And does it go for "confrontational editors", and their fanclubs, closer to home, too, Rodhullandemu? Bishonen | talk 22:39, 2 March 2011 (UTC). I don't regard myself as having a "fanclub". Such (two) blocks as I have accumulated have been reduced solely on their (lack of) merit, rather than one of my "fans" intervening unilaterally. I am prepared to stand or fall upon my own merits, and throw myself upon the collective wisdom of the community. These editors in particular, do not appear to me to have that luxury. Rodhullandemu 22:47, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Oppose. Crap, not again. Giano is a choleric guy. He gets steamed up. But of course he gets all soothed down again <sarcasm> if only somebody says the magic words "Calm down per Wikipedia policy". <Sarcasm>. I mean, you and I would, wouldn't we? It always works really well if somebody attacks our work in a petty way and then somebody else tells us to calm down, doesn't it? <sarcasm>. Bishonen | talk 22:39, 2 March 2011 (UTC). P.S., is Jehochman somewhere in this long thread? I can't locate him, but he made some extremely thoughtful comments on Soundvision1's talkpage, please take a look: [100][101] 22:39, 2 March 2011 (UTC). What is this "attacks our work in a petty way" ? Yes having things deleted (or even proposed for deletion) is annoying. Yes it's acceptable to react in an exasperated way, at least briefly. That doesn't mean one somehow has an excuse to condemn everyone else's views as beneath one. What is it with this acceptance of people who consider themselves too important to abide by the same rules everyone else has to? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:52, 2 March 2011 (UTC) How do you calm Giano down, then? You're right, poking an angry person with a stick sure isn't going to help much, but letting an angry person run around to scream at whomever gets into his way cannot be the solution either, right? --Conti|✉ 22:54, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Oppose. I consider the more egregious incivility to be from the person nominating the image which kicked off this whole thing. Granted, they perhaps did not use particular choice words that some users seem to have issue with, but it does more to undermine the purpose of the encyclopedia by engaging in such petty mindless bureaucracy. If there was a reasonable civility policy that encompasses things which don't include naughty words, and which is applied to admins, sanctions such as the one proposed should hopefully not be necessary. Quantpole (talk) 22:44, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Oppose, because the proposal is unfair. The proposer made only one statement supporting his proposal -- "Giano demonstrated to me that he feels NPA is non-applicable to his actions" . No diffs. No quotes. Nothing to support that claim. Maybe most/many people discussing this have seen Giano somewhere around the project or have interacted with him and the proposer thought such familiarity obviated his obligation to spell it out. That might be ok for regulars, but not editors who don't know Giano. That makes it unfair because a properly accredited rationale was not given to support the proposal, for all to see. I am for civility, but not unfairness, and think the proposal should be junked. Moriori (talk) 23:41, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Eh, I think uninvolved commenting on WP dispute resolution isn't that great a thing for those who haven't been around it for long enough to have gained some understanding of how it actually works, and anyone who has been around it for any length of time has seen plenty of Giano-related drama already. However, to supply some context to the situation for newcomers, here are some links:[102][103][104][105] etc. 71.141.88.54 (talk) 02:16, 3 March 2011 (UTC) You have very clearly made my point for me. To justify the rationale for the proposal, someone (you) needed to belatedly produce some diffs. The proposer didn't do so when initiating the proposal. It is unfair to consider a sanctioning anyone without a very good case being made in a proposal to do so. It wasn't. Moriori (talk) 03:02, 3 March 2011 (UTC) User:Fastily reverted my archiving of this thread. I'm reverting that, since there is no justification for spending any more time discussing something that cannot meaningfully be enforced without changing policy first. Rd232 talk 23:18, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Wow, and I never got a chance to get out the popcorn before this discussion got closed. Sanctions against Giano are never performed, because, for some reason I have never understood, he is sacrosanct. Corvus cornixtalk 23:06, 2 March 2011 (UTC) If we had an agreed civility restriction approach that actually worked, Giano would be an early candidate for employing that. The difficulty is always that blocks are supposed to be preventative, which generally interpreted as only preventing immediate problems, making the use of punitive blocks (which would prevent or deter longer term problems) impossible. But without the ability to apply punitive blocks, you can't have the necessary discussion about whether incivility has crossed a line or not, so it forces individual admins to make rapid calls (whilst the block can reasonably be said to be preventing problems now), which tends to be disastrous. The way to square that circle is to accept punitive blocks when they are endorsed by the community as part of enforcing a previously imposed civility restriction. That's what this proposal was about. Rd232 talk 23:14, 2 March 2011 (UTC) I'm surprised that there hasn't been an RFCU concerning this user. That would seem like the logical step to take in the dispute resolution process.   Will Beback  talk  23:22, 2 March 2011 (UTC) See Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Giano II as has already been linked above. Having four or five or however many accounts, should not be a method of avoiding scrutiny. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:36, 2 March 2011 (UTC) If you guys don't stop archiving/unarchiving, you'll be blocked per 3RR..! If somebody wants it unarchived, it should be left unarchived. That's the principle here. Bishonen | talk 23:23, 2 March 2011 (UTC). I find the closure if this discussion highly inappropriate, given that there actually was a majority in support of the proposed restrictions (surprisingly enough). --Conti|✉ 23:25, 2 March 2011 (UTC) As opener I am not overly worried. The thread now has potential to turn into a drama spat, and I had hoped to avoid that. If the choice is DRAMA vs. closure I support closure. --Errant (chat!) 23:27, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Told ya so--do you understand now? ;-). I thought of attempting to close the thread as soon as you said it was ok to do so earlier, but I figured it wouldn't stick even then. Maybe I should have tried anyway as it might have had a chance at that time, but oh well. 71.141.88.54 (talk) 02:19, 3 March 2011 (UTC) What is the basis for archiving a discussion that seems to have more support than opposition? Yeah, Giano does a lot of good work, but Giano needs to learn to do a lot of good work less rudely. --B (talk) 23:36, 2 March 2011 (UTC) It is obvious that in the highly unlikely event of the proposed sanction being accepted as having consensus, it will be useless except for the purpose of causing further drama. Without providing a more solid footing for civility restrictions, the situation of which this is merely one example will not change. The proposal has only slightly more support than opposition, and the support for this proposal is more of the "something must be done, this is something, therefore it must be done" type, whereas opposition rests on the weary knowledge that it won't bloody work. The only thing imposing this sanction might achieve is a temporary pretence that it would work, thereby putting off the day when somethign actually workable might be created. Rd232 talk 00:55, 3 March 2011 (UTC) I don't think Giano is quite the special case that he is sometimes made out to be; I think our approach to other prolific content contributors who also have civility problems is often quite similar. I've long advocated largely ignoring incivility rather than sanctioning it, but meh, that's just my opinion. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 23:38, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Neither do I; but he does tend to perpetuate that status by his attitude, or twattitude, if you prefer. But it happens right now that he is the focus of attention on this regard, and the evidence against him has been largely rehearsed, time and time again. I think that the time for ignoring has long gone, and that he should either exhibit some collegiality, or go. If he will not do so, it's up to the community to say so, and that is the purpose of this thread. If he doesn't get the message, it's up to us to express it. Rodhullandemu 23:51, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Please, "twattitude" isn't a clever word play, it's a childish way to call someone a twat, which is exactly the kind of thing we're trying to discourage here. --Conti|✉ 23:53, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Yep, twattitude is definitely a personal attack.--Cube lurker (talk) 00:23, 3 March 2011 (UTC) Rodhullandemu, apart from your desire for Giano to leave Wikipedeia, you indicated above that all editors who oppose sanctioning Giano should also leave Wikipedia. That seems a highly personal attack directed simultaneously at a number of editors. In my reading, Giano, when he is treated in a respectful way, is invariably collegial. --Epipelagic (talk) 00:41, 3 March 2011 (UTC) That's true. So long as we genuflect properly none of us should have any problems. Protonk (talk) 03:04, 3 March 2011 (UTC) That's also true of some twitchy administrators. --Epipelagic (talk) 04:18, 3 March 2011 (UTC) I don't have an answer for you. Wait. Look over there! All those other people don't have answers either. Surely you will just have to accept my point because those other people can't justify it. Protonk (talk) 04:46, 3 March 2011 (UTC) Stifle explained over 3 years ago,[106] "The key issue regarding Giano is not what remedies are applied to him, but how they are enforced." Unless someone has a convincing theory that the outcome of a sanction like the one proposed will not be more of the same, all we're doing here is digging ourselves deeper into the same hole. 71.141.88.54 (talk) 02:25, 3 March 2011 (UTC) We need to end the toxic atmosphere, and one that would chase away well-intentioned editors from most backgrounds. This is not a RPG, or a political blog, where name-calling is part of the fun. This a a project with a purpose, a project that needs to continually recruit new people to survive. What will they think when some of the most respected editors here say, you new people have to behave, but properly, but a few people are exempt and are going to remain exempt? The principle here is that everyone stands here on an equal footing. If anything, the more experience one has the more polite one should be. In the outside world, people who fly into insult learn not to, or find they are decreasingly tolerated. There are all sorts of anger management methods. I get angry too, and in my life have had some bouts of temper--I eventually learned after some rather unpleasant experiences. Others can learn also. Tolerating them gives them every reason not to learn, not to improve. And every time an experienced person here acts outrageously and gets away with it--especially when the other people here say he ought to be permitted to get away with it, ordinarily civilized quiet people see, and decide not to join the project. DGG ( talk ) 00:34, 3 March 2011 (UTC) It's not that simple DGG. I would think at least as many potential content editors, including ordinarily civilized quiet people, would be chased away by seeing how some of the most competent editors on Wikipedia are resented and harassed by a certain faction. --Epipelagic (talk) 01:22, 3 March 2011 (UTC) What about nominating an image uploaded by a long-standing contributor without the courtesy to discuss it first? Does that not create a toxic atmosphere for editors old and new? Giano only explodes when incomprehemsible (to him) things happen or when he thinks he sees abuse of power. Shouldn't we fix that stuff? New editors will come across those same issues and decide if they want to stay long-term. I've only ever seen Giano be helpful to new editors asking him questions too, though I agree that all experienced editors should be setting an example to those newer and trying to learn the ropes. Franamax (talk) 01:42, 3 March 2011 (UTC) "or when he thinks he sees abuse of power" - that seems to be almost all the time, though. Shouldn't we fix what stuff? A good-faith editor failing to investigate the longstanding-ness of the uploader of an image, rather than basing their actions on the situation regarding the image itself? Does that need a lot of fixing? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 02:17, 3 March 2011 (UTC) SchuminWeb had no business nominating that image for deletion. He's the cause of this current brouhaha. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:31, 3 March 2011 (UTC) I'd side with Giano in this dispute but I would also not blame SchuminWeb for the nomination unless there was a history between them. What needs to be recognized and appreciated, and I'm not sure how many admins do, is that there is an aggressive aspect to nominating things for deletion and anyone who does so should be prepared and willing to brush off a little asperity especially since the effort to delete is likely to be much less than that exerted to create. Lambanog (talk) 05:05, 3 March 2011 (UTC) Lurking -- llywrch (talk) 01:29, 3 March 2011 (UTC) Why bother? Blocks don't stick to Giano, so any sanction that involves them is pointless. --Carnildo (talk) 01:31, 3 March 2011 (UTC) Support. The disturbing aspect about this latest episode (as if the general fatalism wasn't disturbing enough) is that the filers are completely uninvolved as far as I can see, they didn't put his image up for deletion, and their assessment of what's cleary wrong both in that debate and afterwards, is pretty spot on. Bearing in mind the time elapsed since the intitial FFD, Giano's explanations/defences all pretty much fall under WP:NOTTHEM as far as the specifics go, or are otherwise just plain irrelevant rants. MickMacNee (talk) 02:56, 3 March 2011 (UTC) Oppose. Giacomo reacted rudely after being provoked. Apart from when he is provoked, Giacomo is not habitually rude as certain commentators misrepresent him to be. He is more of an asset to this project than a liability. --Epipelagic (talk) 03:19, 3 March 2011 (UTC) Does it matter? Civility applies at all times, not just when unprovoked. Giano needs to learn how to calm down when he feels people are against him. Unfortunately, people have been giving him dozens of free rides, and that's where the drama comes from.(X! · talk)  · @354  ·  07:30, 3 March 2011 (UTC) Support NPA and CIVIL are policies for a reason. Giano must abide by the same rules everyone else has to. Basket of Puppies 03:32, 3 March 2011 (UTC) Comment This is all a monumental waste of time, and ironically it's just feeding the disruption. I appreciate the general sentiment of Errant's well meaning proposal and of all those who are supporting it, but seriously this is a waste of time. From what I've seen so far Giano's incivility is nothing compared to the disruption caused by the drama that follows it. The way to make that go away is to minimize the reaction to his outbursts not to maximize it. This all seems a whole lot like a bunch of junkies who can't help themselves saying, "please take the drugs away because I can't handle them. When Giano says mean things I just can't stop myself from bitching about it at AN/I." It's not that Giano's outbursts cause all that much damage it's that a bunch of people don't have the self control needed to ignore them. What does it matter that Giano shoots his mouth off now and then? Because it isn't fair? Because if you shot your mouth off you'd get sanctioned? Does everyone have an aching desire to be uncivil to other people? I don't. I feel bad for Giano that he doesn't have the self control to prevent the outbursts. But then again the guy is also 10 times the editor I'll ever be when it comes to actually producing quality work, which is really what we all ought to be doing instead of this. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 03:58, 3 March 2011 (UTC) Yes, well said. --Epipelagic (talk) 04:10, 3 March 2011 (UTC) It matters because it affects other people. I myself would not be the least upset at anything giano might say to me, and I am personally perfectly willing to forgive his outbursts. Not that there aren't things that can be said to me that would bother me, but his sort of language is not among them. I am not willing to ignore his effect on other users here. I am am even less willing to accept the effect it will have on prospective users. The encyclopedia is at risk if we do anything that that would alienate new contributors, and insult is certainly among them. Some things can not be prevented, such as the disappointment at not having an initial article accepted, but some things can, and personal attacks are among them Something that has a public effect should not have a personal exemption; that he should be permitted, but not other people, is what everyone with the same behavior will say. I can understand that we may not want to prolong this discussion now, and the reason is that it makes us uncomfortably knowing that the majority of us will only enforce the rules on the weak. DGG ( talk ) 04:29, 3 March 2011 (UTC) Everyone commenting here is culpable in the "public effect". Has Giano ever scared off new users? I doubt it, because new users don't have the wherewithal to engage Giano in the ways that piss him off (see this incident for a good example of the type of thing that seems to ignite his fury). If Giano was actually driving new users off the project constantly he'd have been banned long ago (and I would certainly support sanctions now if that were the case). No he's getting under the skin of experienced users who can't for whatever reason, take the high road on this. I'm sorry to say it but it seems pretty clear to me. Now don't mistake my commentary for self-righteousness. There are plenty of editors who get under my skin and plenty low roads I've traveled already. I'm not happy about my reactions to those editors, but like all the people who let Giano's antics ruin their day, and like Giano himself, I'm a mere human being. In the end we need to ask some pragmatic questions. 1) Is it worth driving Giano from the project? No is my answer. 2) Is it worth engaging in this drama fest? No is my answer to that as well. Out.Griswaldo (talk) 04:43, 3 March 2011 (UTC) What you're saying has merit. However the problem isn't about driving specific new editors away (that's a straw man), even established editors can be driven off. What happened to kick this off was sucky and a misplaced nomination. But that happens to people here all the time, Giano is not unique in that. We also whine and bitch about it. I've got no problem with that, done it myself. The issue is the level to which the anger manifests itself in Giano's actions. It is an unacceptable level of incivility that has potential for widespread fall out, whether or not it comes to AN/I or drives off new editors. The content issue is non-persuasive. Someone Those incapable of interacting pleasantly in difficult situations should not be doing article work if it leads to disruption. it is simply fortunate that Giano works in a relatively non-contentious area. FWIW I agree this thread is teetering on the edge of being a non-productive drama, but it seems to have mostly survived. Ignoring a problem is not always a sensible option. --Errant (chat!) 08:11, 3 March 2011 (UTC) Support, though I expect this to be unfortunately toothless in the absence of some restriction on reversal of enforcement actions. T. Canens (talk) 04:52, 3 March 2011 (UTC) Oppose While Giano should not breach CIVIL, other editors should use more collaborative methods to propose deletion of images created by major content creators. Was there a discussion with Giano along the lines of "I know you have created a lot of excellent content, but I'm wondering if you might have forgotten about this image; if you no longer need it, perhaps it should be deleted"? Please refloat this proposal if Giano breaches CIVIL when he has not been poked. Johnuniq (talk) 06:34, 3 March 2011 (UTC) Weak support. As Tarc points out, it provides uncivil editors cover if we do not act here. People should be able to make their points without crossing the threshold into incivility; any editor not capable of that does not deserve to be in this community. Incivility undermines the project -- even if the cause of upset if real.--Epeefleche (talk) 07:04, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I object to Errant's closure of his own proposal, and requested him to set it aside so that an uninvolved person can re-close it, to give the actual consensus view. Further info on his talk page. MickMacNee (talk) 16:14, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Uninvolved closure sought

Pursuant to Errant's final comments [107], I've set aside his closure so that an uninvolved person can review and close the above proposal. MickMacNee (talk) 16:50, 3 March 2011 (UTC)