Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive693

User:Maheshkumaryadav

Maheshkumaryadav (talk · contribs) Maheshkumaryadav is making a slew of articles, all with the same purpose (anti-Pakistan). From this version of his talk page you can see he's been repeatedly told of inappropriate pages he's created, and warned not to make more. --Rob (talk) 17:40, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

• user notified. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 17:54, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I am not sure if this offers any help but the above user seems to have been blocked on more than one occation before [1] though im not sure they are related offences however I am sure that he/she has blatant pov against Pakistan as his articles and its tone illustrates this Ichigo0987765 (talk) 19:08, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

The stuff about Pakistan's apparent duplicity in regard to OBL needs to have at least one article, given the presence of a U.S. conspiracy theories artice. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:12, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

There is already an article based on this alleged duplicity I think it goes by the name of support networks of obl something along the lines of that but swamping wiki with articles of regurgitated information is just silly in my opinion and only serves to satisfy ones pov Ichigo0987765 (talk) 19:18, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

One article should suffice. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:22, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

The article is Allegations of support system in Pakistan for Osama bin Laden. Guoguo12--Talk--  21:16, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

It seems the user isn't just critical of Pakistan. He made Anti-corruption initiatives by civil society in India, Corruption in Indian politics, and then Effects of corruption in India. Again, all pushing a similar POV. He also made Judicial reforms in India, which isn't just POV, but is saying what the judiciary in India "needs". I think a block is needed until the user at least acknowledges the problem, which he's not doing by blanking his talk page. --Rob (talk) 21:32, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I've worked "with" (near? against?) this editor a bit, primarily in India/corruption topics. While I can't really point to a single specific incident, my feeling is that, overall, Maheshkumaryadav's editing pattern is influenced a lot more by his own goals than by a sincere desire to build a neutral encyclopedia. One thing worth looking at is the list of new pages xe has created. Now, there's nothing wrong with an editor having a narrow field of focus; but if you look into each of the articles on "Corruption in Indian X", you'll see that they're mostly unsourced, always assert that there is a major problem with corruption in that particular field, and are light on any kind of details. In other words, I see in Maheshkumaryadav an editor who has a very strong POV regarding high levels of corruption in India (and, now, it seems, high levels of Pakistani involvement in terrorism), and who believes it is xyr "mission" to make sure that this topic is covered as widely and extensively as possible. This has taken the form of creating multiple articles to cover several very closely related topics, adding the same See Also link to multiple different articles which it had no connection to, and creating a Template (see Template: Scandals in India) of which 24 of the 26 links were redlinks. In fairness, on the latter issue, he has since withdrawn opposition to deleting the template. Finally, all of this is compounded by the fact that Maheshkumaryadav very rarely communicates on talk pages, and, in particular, responds to concerns on xyr own talk page via blanking. Each of the actions of Maheshkumaryadav are individually defensible and often on the "right side" of the rules, and are in many instances the marks of an inexperienced editor. Taken as a whole, though I see someone here primarily to Right Great Wrongs, an attitude which will make it quite difficult for xem to be successful on the project. Now, to be fair, I don't actually know that there's any admin action to be taken here--it seems to me that we generally don't do anything to stop even blatant POV pushing until after its gone much farther along than Maheshkumaryadav's has. But if there is anyone that can think of a way to talk to xem, though, to help "bring xem into the fold", as it were, it would be appreciated. I've tried a few times, both nicely and strictly, but, for the most part, my comments have generally just been removed without comment. Qwyrxian (talk) 04:48, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, i Mahesh Kumar Yadav (talk) 07:20, 6 May 2011 (UTC) have read the above comments and i respect the view of other contributors and administrators. Let me put my POV. Corruption in India and Pakistan and state terrorism, both are true things and there are facts in media about those. As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, a knowledge source, If the things are true and we can give solid references, if they are suitable enough to have an article , we must try to have an article on that, Changing the name, content, removing POV from articles is welcome, but removing complete articles because they are not the best articles is not correct. It takes 20 minutes to create a small article ( for me), but the deletionist it takes 10 seconds to remove article. It discourages the article or Wikipedia expanders. I am against corruption and role of Pakistan in terrorism. But i don't write my POV in articles, i provide data and references what other prominent personalities and media have data and take on these issues. I am not against Pakistan, Pakistan is also being affected by terrorism, Creating articles supporting state sponsored terrorism by Pakistan should be viewed as work against terrorism not against Pakistan. A stable and terrorism less Pakistan is in interests of Pakistan, Asia region and whole world, including other members here. My articles are not against particular person our country. They are against social problems and in interest of humanity.

The articles are not advertisement and the motto is to have a good and neutral article on that particular area. But I single person cannot create a perfect article alone. Those against my point of view, should improve articles or take steps to improve articles. Very less as a % of people coming to Wikipedia contribute to it. But the acts of deletion work as demotivation and work in a way to discourage the newcomers. We all own Wikipedia equally. Its our knowledge. After 2000 edits ,seeing all my edits i don't think my acts can be considered vandalism. I will be bold in creating things, but will be using talk pages more and will try to keep things neutral. I will learn more how to use Wikipedia and how to create better articles. Thanks again.{Mahesh Kumar Yadav (talk) 07:20, 6 May 2011 (UTC))

No one is (I think) claiming your edits are vandalism. I do believe that you're trying in good faith to improve the encyclopedia, but the problem is that I think you don't actually understand how the encyclopedia works. You said above that you "don't write [your] POV in articles." Let me show you a simple example where that's not true, from Judicial reforms in India, which I just started an AfD on. The first sentence of that article, which you wrote, is, "Judiciary of India needs judicial reforms for speedy disposal of cases and ensuring accountability." That is a clear statement of a POV. It is not a neutral statement about judicial reforms that already have been passed (which is what an article of this title should be about). Per my comments on the AfD, there is actually nothing neutral that is salvageable from that article. This is the problem that concerns me and others above. Do you see why that article, at least, does not meet WP:NPOV? Qwyrxian (talk) 09:08, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Comment: Does Wikipedia expects adults to be born instead of babies ? My personal experience is that, at present on Wikipedia it is more difficult to create content than to delete it. A baby is not born as a productive citizen. But on Wikipedia an article is expected to be good quality when created. Wikipedia expects adults to be born instead of babies. And mostly they(the articles) are killed, because they are not good. Instead of feeding and improving the article, deleting or merging is decided, because it is easier. This discourages the content creators and the result they are forced to leave Wikipedia.Mahesh Yadav (talk) 09:32, 6 May 2011 (UTC) http://strategy.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:May_2011_Update&offset=20110506092709#Wikipedia_expects_adults_to_be_born_instead_of_babies_8578

The problem here is that the articles you have been creating are fundamentally flawed because they reflect your and only your view, and even have titles reflecting your view. They are as such nearly impossible to improve into good articles at all. Therefore they get deleted. --OpenFuture (talk) 10:10, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Maheshkumaryadav, part of the problem is the rate you've been making articles. People can fix one or a few. But, you're creating numerous articles, often on the same topic. You keep slightly changing the name, to re-create essentially the same article. It appears you're doing this to get around other editors, and keep content that fits your POV. You say your articles " are against social problems and in interest of humanity.". Well, that's a noble goal, but unrelated to Wikipedia. This is not a resource for you to pursue you political ambitions. You say you welcome others to fix the POV of the articles, but this is like a whack-a-mole game, where one is put down, and another pops up immediately. Also, you've been edit warring to stop redirects of some of these articles, which is very disruptive and may warrant a block. This is a growing problem, which is getting harder and harder to fix, if we leave it alone. I have tried PRODing and they've been removed, with others. Redirects are reverted. So, I don't see what non-admins can do. --Rob (talk) 11:55, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Just a thought, which I hope keeps this matter in perspective: all countries have a problem with corruption. Any time there is a situation where someone in authority is willing to bend the rules for some cash -- even if "nobody" would be hurt by this action -- that's corruption. We could create (& probably should) an article "Corruption in X", where X is every country existing or historical. However, corruption in, say, Sweden, is far different than corruption in the United States, & both are far different than corruption in India or Pakistan. Without detailed & verifiable sources, any "Corruption in X" article would say little more than "Corruption is an acknowledged problem in X." And that's about as useful as saying "The sun rises every day in X." -- llywrch (talk) 19:47, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Pippa Middleton... again

There was a discussion at Talk:Pippa Middleton#Should Coat of Arms be removed? as to whether the coat of arms info on the page should be removed. Now, I didn't think the discussion had achieved consensus, but the info had been removed with comments like "talk page consensus is clearly against this." Is that right? Was consensus achieved in that discussion? StAnselm (talk) 22:25, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

It's a moot point whether it's in or out (it's out) right now as Floquenbeam has said "I'll block the next person who reverts that particular section back in, and/or back out, until consensus is reached." Exxolon (talk) 14:43, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

The discussion should get an admin closure, to make it an "official" consensus, but it is only one day old. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:18, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Off-wiki harassment by Jaredgk2008

Following blocking of Theyallbewhales (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Theyallbewhales) for sockpuppetry, I received the following email via my personal website. I want to bring it to administrators' attention no only to tie the two sockpuppetry/vandalism cases together, but also to let you know about this user's off-wiki harassment and expressed intent to continue vandalizing. Thank you. Kevin Forsyth (talk) 18:02, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Not only did i use these sock puppet accounts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Theyallbewhales I also used these sock puppet accounts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Jaredgk2008/Archive

[cut-and-paste of contents of those two investigations]

I plan to use an internet cafe computer to vandalize more accounts.

I think the best course of action here is block the accounts as they appear. Eventually they'll get bored. If more problems arise, please file another SPI or let me know on my talk page and I'll take a look. Thanks for bringing this up. TNXMan 18:41, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good, thanks for the help. Kevin Forsyth (talk) 19:54, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Permanent vandalism on the page Geography of Spain

This page is regularly vandalized by the same Turkish user, an anon IP who is no-one else but Menikure, with references removed. He has also spread on the French wiki, with an anon IP too, sometimes with the name Saguamundi. I will ask the protection of the page, but I think that additionnally, a check user is essential.--92.161.48.209 (talk) 19:29, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

If he removed references, why does your revert of him not restore any references? Why is the entire climate section of this article supported by so few references? There are whole paragraphs claiming climate zones, temperatures, and so forth, with no supporting reference at all. You're calling his removal of File:Climates of Spain.png vandalism, but it has no references either. Why not? If I were to reduce the climate section now to material that's supported by reliable sources it would be two sentences long. Why should any of this unreferenced stuff be trusted? -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 20:05, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Blackamoors (decorative arts)

An editor appears to be using sockpuppets to repeated add th fact that his non-notable self has a coat of arms including a "blackamoor". I gather that this editor has a history of self-promotion. Paul B (talk) 20:05, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Daniel C. Boyer was blocked in 2007 for the exact same behavior; self-promotion and using a sockpuppet. In that case it was only for 24 hours, then extended another 24 hours for editing as an IP during the block. The editor Samuel O'Malley is obviously a sockpuppet and I'm blocking it as such. The only question is what to do with Daniel. Clearly his self-promotion is pretty blatant, and he didn't learn his lesson the last time about sockpuppetry. Is it time to consider a permanent site ban? -- Atama頭 20:27, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

(I also just left Daniel a note about this discussion.) -- Atama頭 20:30, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

User:Fazm1bico copyright violations

User:Fazm1bico has a history of adding unsourced game engines on video game articles. After many warnings, the user has been mute. Today I went through the editor's contributions and have found, already 3 articles that are a direct copies of copyrighted websites. [see the list here]. I'm pretty sure the article Aura II: The Sacred Rings is also a copyright violation (I haven't searched for it yet). Given the user's past of being mute, I'm afraid they may not acknowledge that these copyright violations are serious and may continue to create more. —Mike Allen 01:47, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

• There are plenty of efforts and warnings by a number of editors on that editor's talk page. It is impossible they didn't see any of it, and an indef block at the next occurrence seems reasonable to me if no response is received. Drmies (talk) 03:07, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
• I'm not sure it would be fair to say the user has a history when the account is only a week old. Although the user has created many copy-written articles recently, they have gone back and at least attempted to remove the copy-written material. I have posted on their talk page to provide further information to the situation in addition to the generic templates, although I'm not sure they are reading any of it, as there has not been any response. Simply put, despite the lack of written response, I feel the user has made a good-faith attempt to fix their mistakes, and a block at this point would be uncalled for. The question is how you tell a user to respond to their talkpage... MrKIA11 (talk) 10:37, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

History as in a few days with no response from the user, but yet they kept reverting the changes back. Not years. Sorry for using a vague term. Copyvios are serious and when you don't have a user that responds, what else are you supposed to do? Also, shouldn't the old revisions of the article be removed since they still hold the copyrighted versions? —Mike Allen 21:33, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

This user has now edited out at least 3 copyright problems, so I think no extra admin action is needed. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:10, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Apparently I shouldn't have really used the speedy deletion tag for copyvio, I should have used the copyvio template so it would have been placed on the copyright violation noticeboard. Lesson learned. Thanks. —Mike Allen 04:04, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Benjiboi

Resolved

 – Done. Thanks guys. -- DQ (t) (e) 01:02, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

We need a couple of Admins and/or editors to help look into Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Benjiboi. MuZemike found a huge sockfarm here and needs people to review the edits. Anyone who has some time to stop by, the help would be appreciated. -- DQ (t) (e) 16:27, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

TheProSamurai's block evasion

Resolved

 – Blocked indef for continued socking and block evasion via IP.  Sandstein  06:32, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

TheProSamurai (talk · contribs) is currently blocked for two weeks for sockpuppetry and edit waring on at Samurai X: Trust & Betrayal. Now he is back using his IP address 122.151.252.213 (talk), which appears to be static and on the same articles he was edit waring on with this other accounts. (previous SPI case) —Farix (t | c) 00:45, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Massive number of Playboy-related AFD nominations by a single user

User:Damiens.rf has, over the last few hours, nominated more that 100 articles converning Playboy models (mostly Playmates) for deletion; the count is steadily growing. The nominations really can't be bundled together, and typically require examination of each individual's movie/TV credits. There's no way that interested editors can handle this volume of nominations, which often prove controversial. This runs afoul of the fait accompli principle set out by Arbcom in the TV episodes and characters cases; while not formally adopted as policy or guideline, I think there can be little doubt that the principle enjoys community support -- without it, consensus-building becomes a war of attrition. Make no mistake, I believe Damiens is right on principle on the notability issues involved, and disagree with him only as to exactly where to draw the lines involved. I don't doubt his good faith; while not all the AFDs on Playmates he made in the recent past were successful, I think they demonstrated significant support for the arguments he's advanced. But this is too much for the process to handle in one batch, far too much. It's inherently disruptive, despite the nominator's good faith, and it's likely to turn into a contentious mess that prevents the sort of article-by-article decision making that ought to be going on. Similar large bundles of Playmate nominations in the past have led to cookie-cutter voting and unpleasantness, and didn't contribute enough to building an encyclopedia to justify the effort and bad feelings involved. Full disclosure: I've been working in the same direction as Damiens for some time now, working gradually and using "soft" redirects to convert the large number of poorly sourced Playmate stubs into better-organized, more notability and BLP-compliant components of group articles. That process has been minimally controversial so fsr, and I believe it offers a better compromise that can enjoy a broader consensus. But even if I agreed entirely with the nominator, this is too much to handle in a single wave of AFDs. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 04:05, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Damiens has agreed to stop, so I think this is set for now.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 04:24, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Is everything set? Damiens.rf has a history of doing these large scale mass nominations for both images and articles. He's been brought here more than once for this very issue. He'll likely be brought here again. AniMate 04:58, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Geeze, and I thought I did too much when I did about 10 at once. BelloWello (talk) 05:08, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Didn't we tar and feather another editor who went on a AfD spree of articles that may or may not have had appropriate justifications? Just wondering if we intend to trot out the WikiMob on this case as well as 100 is significantly more than the ~20 articles that were nominated in the other case (with the other case also having the multiple distinct "events" of nomination frenzies). Disclosure: I've interactied with Damiens before on a discussion about a picture's Fair Usage Rationale. Hasteur (talk) 12:40, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

There's an important difference here -- Damiens did a much smaller batch of Playmate nominations a short time ago, and these nominations are reasonably consistent with the results there. The previous spree you're referring to, by a different editor, was completely off the wall, and completely indiscriminate -- and used an automated tool in evasion of his blacklisting from the use of that tool. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 18:00, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, Wuhwuzdat had it coming. HalfShadow 21:25, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

background - Some years back, folks at WP:PORN decided to include "is a playboy playmate" as one of the final evidences of notability in WP:PORNBIO. What followed was that there were articles created for every girl that has ever striped for playboy. When this piece of WP:PORNBIO was brought to an wider audience via an RFC, the community decided that being a playboy playmate is not, by itself, evidence of notability, and playmates should have articles only when otherwise notable.

These deletions were expected. I have not run across all of the playmates. And I have not nominated all I have ran across. Of course, some of them may be proven otherwise notable, but that's why we have a discussion process.

Most of the articles will surely end up being deleted or redirected to a list. After that, the playmate's enthusiast's efforts may concentrate on improving the articles on really notable playmates, as today, many of these are stubs just because there's simply not enough volunteers to keep up with an playmate sub-encyclopedia. --Damiens.rf 13:21, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

The concern, I think, is that those who are interested in this topic area have to go through a large number of AFDs at once, each debate generating its own discussion and finding its own consensus. If I were intent on Keeping each of the articles you nominated, checking and following such a large number of debates would be a full-time job for the coming week. I'm sure as hell not going to edit much else, either. Here, the scale of the nominations detracts from the (probably valid) point that the subjects just aren't notable.

If you were intent on keeping each of the articles I nominated you'd be wrong to begin with. Each case should be judged on its own merits, and an intention of blindingly keeping all playmates was the original problem we started from. --Damiens.rf 15:24, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

I think it would have been far better to nominate a dozen or so to establish your test cases, and then bundle 5 or so at a time thereafter. If, as you say, these articles are sure to be deleted, the second and third sets of articles would have precedent to follow, and the debates would be much simpler. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 14:01, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

He did do a run of test cases. They're in the deletion log for April 4. [2] Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 18:07, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

@Damians. Restrict the nominations to a level that the guys at Wikipedia:WikiProject Pornography can handle. For example, 7 AfDs per week. Just make all your research in one go, write the AfDs, and save the list of AfDs in a text file. You can open it every week and mechanically nominate the first 7 items via copy/paste. You can combine this with Ultraexactzz's advice above. I know, this is nowhere near as rewarding as doing all of them in one go :-) . --Enric Naval (talk) 14:22, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

7 Afds in a week would be a good rate; you don't want Wikipedia:WikiProject Pornography to be slammed to hard, after all. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 14:32, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Pacing AFD nominations is especially important when nominating biographies whose potential sources are likely to predate the Internet era. It's pretty easy to determine notability -- or the lack thereof -- for someone active in 2002 or even in 1995. But some of these nominations are from the 1970s, and may require additional legwork (especially due to newspaper paywall policies). Serpent's Choice (talk) 14:41, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Seven articles per week is ridiculous low. Why should I restrict the pace of deletion nominations where there were no restriction of the pace of creation for such articles?

It has been a long time since the rfc that established that it was a mistake to consider all playmates notable, and I have seen not organized effort from wp:pornbio to clean up the mess.

There's no reason to worry. AFDs that do not have enough participation get relisted. And if a stub of the form "Rose Rosewood was the Jan 1961 Playmate. She was clicked by Mr. Photographer" get deleted, and we later find out that Ms. Rosewood was notable, it can easily recreated. As easily as it was first created. --Damiens.rf 15:24, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) WP:KITTENS works both ways. And there are significantly fewer people able to handle AfD nominations than there are people willing to create articles. --Alan the Roving Ambassador (talk) 15:30, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

You should restrict the pace of deletion nominations out of respect for the people who will be trying to determine consensus on each article. Seven per week is ridiculously low, but there is no reason at all why you can't limit to say, five per day. And I would say to nominate no further articles until the current backlog clears. Resolute 15:41, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

I will nominate no further Playmate-articles until the current backlog clears. --Damiens.rf 15:46, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. Resolute 19:46, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

I think the nominator should be commended for instigating these long-overdue AfD discususions. Particularly so for going through the AfD process honestly, rather than sneaking around a discussion by creating a redirect. A subject whose only claim to fame is to being a Playboy Playmate is not notable, as consensus has determined. It is wrong to redirect this article to a list of 12 other such non-notables, whose only claim to fame has been specifically determined to be non-notable. List of Playboy Playmates of 1961 for example links to not one artice, contrary to all guidelines, and the subject of the list is in itself non-notable. If the subject is notable, she will have a standalone article at which her Playmate centerfold can be mentioned. Including her on a list of a non-notable subject is simply wrong. Kudos to User:Damiens.rf for stepping up and doing the honest work that the fans have been covering up. Dekkappai (talk) 18:15, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

• On a separate note, Dekkappai's nomination of said list he linked, AfD here, seems to be failing spectacularly. And my arguments would be the same as is stated in the AfD, essentially that Dekkappai is completely wrong about what lists are for, considering in most cases they are specifically for listing people or other information that are not notable enough to have their own article. Silverseren^C 00:29, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

• Comment - Automated tools to send material to AfD for existing articles should be banned. This reminds me of the case of a recent editor who went WP:IDONTLIKEIT on sororities and fraternities, starting with the Alphas... Carrite (talk) 04:17, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Sure. Only tools that send material to AfD for non-existing articles should be allowed. --Damiens.rf 05:31, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

I speak of New Pages, of course... Carrite (talk) 02:40, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

It seems Damiens.rf is simply implementing previously established site-wide consensus, against a minority of vociferous WikiProject members. How many articles are we talking about here in total? Tijfo098 (talk) 19:20, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Except for the fact that Damiens.rf has not been previously banned from using automated tools, I honestly don't see much difference in his deletion nominations here and the ones for which Wuhwazdat was banned from starting AFDs. How can you possibly be following WP:BEFORE if you post an AFD at a rate of one a minute, and use a completely boilerplate rationale in every AFD? The proposition that being a Playboy Playmate does not guarantee notability does not in turn mean that being a Playboy Playmate means that you are not notable. The results thus far seem to be varying widely, suggesting that these were just as indiscriminate as the past sprees against British models or fraternities, targeting a subject rather than considering each article topic on its own merits (for example, that sufficient sources exist here, or that the subject is notable for other things here or here). I agree with Carrite: there needs to be some restriction on using automated tools to AFD articles, even if it's just a cap on the noms per day or per hour, because that kind of bot-like editing is completely at odds with the kind of consideration that an AFD requires, Isn't the point of automated tools to make noncontroversial edits easier? The purpose is not to make one side of a deletion debate labor-free, while imposing the unreasonable burden of researching 100+ articles a day upon those who are interested in seeing if they can be saved. Particularly where the AFD nominator obviously hasn't bothered to do that work. postdlf (talk) 19:42, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Q - "How can you possibly be following WP:BEFORE if you post an AFD at a rate of one a minute, and use a completely boilerplate rationale in every AFD?"

A - It would be only possible if the articles were almost all just one paragraph long and equally boilerplatelly written. Oh, wait a second!

The proposition that being a Playboy Playmate does not guarantee notability does not in turn mean that being a Playboy Playmate means that you are not notable.

Are you implying I used this rationale? I haven't.

"The results thus far seem to be varying widely, suggesting that these were just as indiscriminate"

No, they are not. Most of the articles are going to be deleted/redirected.

My nominations were not undiscriminated. I reviewed every article and, when needed, searched for the model's page on imdb. Of course, in some of the nominations, it could turn out that the model is notable after all. But these will be the exceptional cases.

You know, many of the articles say nothing more than "Ms. Nice Flower was <insert date> Playboy Playmate. She was shot by photographer Mr. PhotoMan". Since being a playmate is, by community consensus, a grant of notability, such articles are qualified for WP:CSD#A7. But I have sent them to AfD anyway. --Damiens.rf 19:58, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Oh really? Explain your review process for someone like Ms. Teen Oregon USA 1994 who has multiple acting credits? Garbage. Just like how you seem to interpret the consensus that playmates are not inherently notable to mean that reliable source coverage about their "playmatehood" are disqualified in determining notability, which is a perverted interpretation that defies WP:BASIC. The proper reading of that consensus is that playmates are not notable in and of themselves if they do not have independent coverage by reliable sources. If several newspapers cover some girl with some depth because she was named playmate or only cover her because she is a playmate, that's her notability! Morbidthoughts (talk) 06:24, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

It is also clear from your mention of WP:CSD A7 that your understanding of deletion criteria is weak. CSD A7 is for articles that don't indicate why a person is important. It "is a lower standard than notability" and to use it on Playmates just because playmates are not inherently notable would have been improper and probably would have gotten you blocked if you had done 100 in a day. Morbidthoughts (talk) 06:35, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

There's no use arguing with deletionists. They don't care about concensus. They live to delete stuff... and vice versa: If they don't get their daily ration of deletions, they could shrivel and die. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:40, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

No need to be nasty, Bugs. Many of us care about consensus and take the time to clean up around here.—Kww(talk) 07:15, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

The editor in question says he doesn't care about concensus, he's nominating for deletion anyway. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:38, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Welll, A7 isn't about notability, so that part's just a common misapprehension. As for "Since being a playmate is, by community consensus, a grant of notability, such articles are qualified for WP:CSD#A7. But I have sent them to AfD anyway.", the only way that parses at all is if you assume he mean "...by community consensus, [not] a grant of notability,...". Either way, it doesn't excuse discussing people that work at identifying the material that needs to be removed from Wikipedia with such negative tones and implications.—Kww(talk) 07:50, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

If he meant to say "NOT", then he should have said "NOT". I'm not a mind-reader, I can only go by what he said, or appeared to me to say. As far as negativity... deletionists are pretty much useless. They take away instead of adding. They aren't interested in value to the readers. They are only interested in deleting stuff. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:38, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm strongly inclusionist myself, but I think that there are definitely some deletionists who do add some quality content to the project. The problem is when some of them get in their minds that all articles on certain topic are all inherently non-notable and do spray and pray style nominations. I mean, if they just took their time and picked the low-hanging fruit they'd have more success getting junk deleted with much less drama. (Though I accept that the nominator in this case was acting in good faith) Qrsdogg (talk) 14:39, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Let's be clear here, Bugs: I don't think that I am "pretty much useless", nor do I consider my preference for removing material to be one that doesn't add "value to the readers". I take your statement as a personal insult, and think you should stop. A project where no one took out the trash would be just as useless as a project where no one added content.—Kww(talk) 15:22, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

• At Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Serria_Tawan I see the only two people trying to delete it are copying and pasting the same exact argument time and again without even reading the article, considering its merits, or looking for sources. I clicked the Google news archive button at the top of the AFD, and found she had written a book which was reviewed in the news, and she interviewed for it. WP:BEFORE exist for a reason. You can't expect people to go through a hundred different AFD at once. And the mindless boilerplating "Delete them all, I don't need to bother looking for sources or even reading the article" should be stopped as well. Dream Focus 09:23, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
  • The editor's AFDs here are at best incompetent, and at worst malicious / bad faith, and should all be immediately dismissed. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:09, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
  • While I do believe checking for WP:BEFORE prior to the nomination of all these articles is something that should have been done, this particular article is not a good example to illustrate this. Nimuaq (talk) 16:22, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Right, DreamFocus. Damien says above that he was 1) nominating on the basis of the article's current state, rather than its potential, and 2) doing no more than "review[ing] every article and, when needed, searched for the model's page on imdb". That's not compliance with WP:BEFORE, and you can't justify this by saying that most are delete-worthy, even if it's only a few that are notable. We don't expect every AFD to be correct, but it's simply not acceptable to post an AFD on the based on averages related to the subject matter rather than a careful consideration of that particular article topic.

    So we do we need a ban here from Damien.rf using automated tools to list articles at AFD, or is it enough that he's said he will stop? postdlf (talk) 14:59, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

    • No, it's not enough. The AFD's need to be deleted, as being driven by incompetency and/or bad faith. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:13, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree. Close all of them. If people want to nominate just a few at a time, after doing things properly, such as taking a few seconds to do a Google news search first before each nomination, so be it. Dream Focus 16:06, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

I think it would be fair to at least speedy close all the AFDs that just have the same copied and pasted boilerplate comments from the nom and the delete !voters, with no other substantive comments. postdlf (talk) 18:01, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't go that far. After the RfC change, these Playmate articles do need to be reviewed, and speedy closing them would force someone to start all over again with AfDs. And if a speedy-closed article were re-nominated soon, someone would object with a "this was just speedy closed a few weeks ago". I would be more in favor of (1) speedy closing only the clearly notable nominations, and (2) a promise from Damiens not to make any more nominations until this backlog is fully cleared. --JaGa^talk 18:32, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

They should be rolled back as if the nominations had never occurred. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:07, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Why nominate them at all? Why not just merge them all into some big "List of" articles? That lets the articles get broken out again if notability is established. 69.111.194.167 (talk) 07:54, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

If this is a repeat problem for Damiens.rf, ie, if he has a repeated history of causing problems, then he should be stopped. BarkingMoon (talk) 23:09, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

(non-Admin comment)I'm troubled by the very act of mass AfD nominating by anybody. I disagree with the inclusion of some content, but that doesn't entitle me to create headaches for the people who put it in & defend it with good reason (even if I disagree with them). That appears to be what's at play here. I'd also disagree Playmates aren't inherently notable. Any member of such a readily-identifiable group would seem to be, IMO. Moreover, deletion risks deleting useful information. (Yes, I am strongly inclusionist most of the time.) IMO, this kind of behaviour should be discouraged strongly. In this case, it's way over the top IMO. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 16:38, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

This does appear to be a repeat problem. There seems to be a long history of disruptive editing here. But unfortunately all anyone here will tell you to do is go start an RfC which will fester for a month or two and accomplish nothing.--Crossmr (talk) 02:19, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I think we need to move this to a policy discussion, because I think there are a few critical issues here.

1) PORNBIO is widely seen as the lowest of the low-hanging fruit when it comes to notability. It probably needs a strong rewrite to bring it in line with general notability guidelines (most curiously how is a single limited-scope award "multiple significant reliable sources"?). It is my understanding that WP:GNG is the minimum standard and project page guidelines should not go lower than that.

2) We need a process for mass deletion that allows for consistent results across an entire field without creating a fiat accompli by volume of nominations. The current situation is utter chaos because it's all on a case-by-case basis. I realize that every article needs to be examined on its own merits but I would rather see a standard created, and then applied. We should be arguing over the standard first, then how it applies to given articles, not judging each article by a different standard.

3) Wikipedia has a serious problem with a lack of adherence to GNG, especially in areas of fandom. The end result is, in practice, that areas that have a wide fan-base willing to vocally defend them have voluminous coverage and very low standards for inclusion. Because articles are judged on a case-by-case basis whomever shows up carries the day most often. Without a method for mass deletions and soliciting wider community input the process is vulnerable to canvassing and meatpuppetry. HominidMachinae (talk) 12:15, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm all for a review of all the specific notability criteria. Local criteria are supposed to be specialized clues to help identifying when someone on a given field passes the general criteria. But since they are mostly written (and only reviewed) by local enthusiasts, it's usual for them to serve as a backdoor entrance to Wikipedia for otherwise non-notable subjects. --Damiens.rf 20:58, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

The specific notability criteria are a double-edged sword; in many cases they may be higher rather than lower. (I've been involved in a few AfDs where folk from a sports wikiproject argued "Delete" because a BLP didn't meet that project's criteria (ie. the person played in a specific league/event), even though the subject did pass the GNG (ie. there was substantial discussion in reliable sources). bobrayner (talk) 19:57, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Should automated tools ever be used to list articles at AFD?

Apart from the conduct of any individual editor, it seems like the use of automated tools generally to post AFDs just causes ill will and can easily be abused (whether or not in good faith) by the rapid posting of bulk nominations. Per WP:BEFORE, we expect that those listing articles for deletion individually assess each article and its potential as a topic before listing it, and we expect tailored deletion rationales rather than boilerplate votes. Automating this process obviously runs counter to those expectations, and I see no inherent benefit to enabling people to post more AFDs at a faster rate. When is it ever a good idea to post AFDs in bulk? When has it ever improved the accuracy and validity of deletion nominations and rationales? As I noted in the last AN/I posting about abuse of automated AFD postings, it not only causes a wide net to be cast that inevitably catches valid article subjects in with the crowd, however few proportionately, it also hinders deletion of the articles that should be deleted because the whole process ends up being mistrusted as indiscriminate. Listing an article at AFD shouldn't be quick and easy; it should be cautious and deliberate.

So I think we need to evaluate whether this feature should be disabled entirely in all automated tools, or at least hindered in some way to prevent rapid-fire mass nominations, such as by capping the rate (e.g., no more than one every ten minutes) or absolute number (e.g., no more than ten per day). postdlf (talk) 17:55, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

As a regular participant in AfD debates, I place great importance on WP:BEFORE and believe that AfD nominators who ignore it create a fair amount of dissension. Automated nominations pretty much assure that individual assessment of the notability of the topic and the avaiability of reliable sources has not taken place. I agree with most of what Postdlf has said. However, I think that a hard working and conscientious editor could make more than ten nominations a day, if each was researched and had its own rationale, so I would oppose such a limit. Cullen328 (talk) 19:55, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

The limit I propose is not for manual AFD listings, just automated ones. postdlf (talk) 20:12, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

The AfD templates are also set up the be pretty self-automating. I mean, once you {{subst:afd}} into an article, you get links for the the AfD page preloaded with templates, the day's list where the new AfD is reported, and the author notification template. IMO, it's not that hard to take the AfD the rest of the way manually for there.

That said, I know there are some editors who batch process. They will find 10–20 articles they have concerns about, research them, and then post all the AfDs consecutively for the ones that warrant deletion. If they choose to use an automated tool to help them post the AfDs, I don't object to that usage—so not every person who fires off a bunch of AfDs consecutively has not thought them through. However, those batch-processing editors are probably the exceptions to the rule, with the editors who do start a bunch of ill-considered, cookie-cutter AfDs being more common—and if the latter group is abusing the automated tools, then the tools need to be either throttled or disabled. —C.Fred (talk) 20:28, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Does this proposal treat individual (i.e. non-bulk) Twinkle-style AfDs as "automated"? Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 20:33, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Lots of responsible editors use automated tools for nominations. Anyhow, a general proposal like this should be at the Village Pump, not ANI. --RL0919 (talk) 20:37, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

I use twinkle to place xfds. Automated tools for such purposes are convenient for avoiding mistakes, like forgetting to notify. I think there's nothing why with doing mechanical things by using machinery. Judging when to nominate for deletion is needed no matter how one is going to do it. It's true that the availability of the tools makes it easier to be thoughtless, but the lack of required thought is in the responsibility of the editor who uses them. Large batch nominations have been a problem for a long time: there are some times when individual attention is clearly not needed, but often it is. Nobody should be nominating in significant batches, either in one group nomination of in many closely spaced individual ones, without making it very plain from the start that they have searched carefully each of the individual items, and how they have done it. Proper preparation makes things go much smoother, than placing the nominations without such comment, and then having to justify oneself in response to criticism. DGG ( talk ) 05:21, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Short answer, no. Mass edits of any sort need to be approached carefully, and in particular invocations of a deliberative process like an AfD need to be done deliberatively rather than in mechanical fashion, lest Wikipedia turn into a battle between editors and bots. That's not to say there's anything wrong with helper bots and Twinkle, applied carefully, or that you can't do just as much harm by cutting and pasting. The point is that unleashing a whole bunch of processes at once swamps anyone's ability to deal with them. Seven (or five, or fifteen) per week is not ridiculously slow, as Wikipedia has no deadline. But it would still need some consensus, as it's not reasonable for a single editor to dictate process for everyone else. There's a threshold somewhere between several dozen and several hundred pages with the same issues, beyond which AfD is just not the best venue for making decisions. Anyway, best to put the brakes on things before people invest too much in it. For example, why not keep all the AfDs open as is, but announce a schedule for closing them in batches of a period of 30 days? Or maybe group all the sub-stubs with no claim to notability other than being a playmate into a single batch (all of which would be deleted within 7 days if no further sourced claims to notability are made). That would give people enough time to handle it. - Wikidemon (talk) 08:40, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

This case again points to the need for a mass deletion policy. To avoid both the issues of inconsistency and fiat accompli in these matters. Also, for the record, I disagree with any ary arbitrary throttle limit on AfD nominations of non-notable articles ESPECIALLY BLPs. HominidMachinae (talk) 11:58, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

I'd be very wary of saying that we should absolutely never automate big batches of submissions to AfD; it might not be appropriate here and now, but it's difficult to anticipate the future environment (including who !votes, how they !vote, changes to what might need deleting, changes to other bots and other processes...). Agreed that it would be helpful to improve how we deal with bulk deletions of related articles which don't fit within CSD criteria. bobrayner (talk) 12:59, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

On the encouragement of several editors I'm going to take a stab at a mass deletion policy to put up for RfC. I have a job interview tonight maybe I'll have it up tomorrow. My goal is a policy that allows for us to look at localized criteria that might show adherence to GNG and other important policies in that specific area and apply it in a uniform fashion to a wide area, to ensure consistency and adherence to core policies and guidelines. A side goal is a process that is NOT limited to the 7-day AfD term, to avoid the creation of a fiat accompli by giving an article's defenders more time to perform proper research. HominidMachinae (talk) 21:05, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

I can see using automated tools at New Pages. There's a ton of crap at the gate. But using automation against standing articles en masse, be they sororities starting with Alpha or Playboy playmates or whatever the next person decides they really, really hate, should be banned outright. Once an article clears New Pages, gets patrolled, a higher standard of research should be required before it is taken to AfD. The "machine gun 'em all and let the saps at AfD sort 'em out" approach smacks of bad faith. It is disrespectful of the work of those who created the page, and it disrespects the process at AfD. Carrite (talk) 02:48, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

For the record, it took me one full hour just to paste in the same rationale again and again and again down the list of Playboy Nominations — doing no research into any of them, stating my case for a procedural keep. How are those at AfD supposed to do adequate research into each of these nominations if it takes that long just to spool through them? It can't be done... This is why automated mass deletions like this MUST be prohibited. if WP:BEFORE is allowed to be ignored, there is no way to adequately defend against essentially disruptive mass WP:I DON'T LIKE IT attacks. Carrite (talk) 14:40, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

It took me more than a day to analyze all those articles (and some more, that I felt passed GNG), but just a couple of minutes to nominate them for deletion. --Damiens.rf 15:37, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I love that Damien denied using automated tools, [3], when he's used Twinkle for every nomination. He characterises it as tabbed browsing. Uhh okay there. Morbidthoughts (talk) 15:23, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

• I never denied that. Take your spurious accusations elsewhere. Try to understand what tabbed browsing is and stop caring about the timeframe my contributions log span. --Damiens.rf 15:37, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Nothing spurious about commenting on your attempts at misdirection. Morbidthoughts (talk) 15:48, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
    • Stop that. I did not attempt that. Stop such accusations. --Damiens.rf 16:15, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that WP:BEFORE was ignored and mass deletion nominations made. I don't care if it was Twinkle or a magic F12 key on an antique computer that makes it happen, it's a form of automation that needs to be banned. Carrite (talk) 18:54, 4 May 2011 (UTC) last revision: Carrite (talk) 18:54, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

If you're honestly care about it, WP:BEFORE was not ignored. It may be the case that this or that article ultimately comes out not to be deleted, but it will not be more likely to happen in my nominations than in it is in general. --Damiens.rf 19:11, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

• Non-admin comment. I'm all for discussing it at the pump, but for the record I agree with Postdlf's logic. AfD's should be limited to a more manageable number per day, although discussion on an AfD is fine. Crisco 1492 (talk) 09:54, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I've been looking in to related occurrences since one of Mhiji's incidents in January. Most of these occurrences are used as a form of mass disruption of Wikipedia and some of these have been done by technically sophisticated users. For example; Wuhwuzdat's hacking of the Twinkle blacklist and Mhiji's use of an unauthorized bot (possibly a hacked version of AWB). Many use sockpuppets to perform mass disruption such as Claritas' mass AfDs of transformer characters last year. These are often done in the guise of helping the project but are actually just a different form of vandalism that uses up our limited resources. It's clear that we need to address this mass disruption some how. I requested a few edit filters a couple weeks ago. I'm not sure if what I requested is possible though. - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 18:04, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

No, you are going to need another hardline policy like 3RR to accomplish that. –MuZemike 06:25, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

All the mass-AfDs that I can think of have been disruptive - another example involves visa-policy-by-country articles, for very many different countries, last year. A large part of that disruption is due to the fact that somebody with a little automation can simply click on "AfD", whilst the stokers in the AfD boiler-room still have to do real work on each nomination.

However, that doesn't mean that wanting to AfD many articles is a matter of bad-faith editing; there really are lots of articles out there which are deletion-worthy, so there can be legitimate reasons for wanting mass-deletion. A couple of times in the last year I've stumbled across walled gardens of a hundred articles which don't really belong in an encylopædia, and I had to hold back from AfD because treating these articles the same way as a single article would have been disruptive. Hence a single bad article might be deleted, but the determined editor who churns out 100 bad articles may find that many survive much longer, because other editors are worn down. I don't think that's a desirable outcome for wikipedia. bobrayner (talk) 12:42, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I got sidetracked there, and should make that point clearer. Mass AfDs may often be disruptive, but that's due to awkward processes rather than evil nominators (though a few nominators might be evil). Simply cracking down on mass AfDs might reduce that disruption, but it still leaves us with a problem, because we need mechanisms to deal with groups of bad articles. bobrayner (talk) 15:09, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

• One of the articles, which got noticed and had people comment in, ended as keep. Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Tylyn_John But with so many mass nominated, and the only people commenting the nominator and someone else who just copy and pasted the same delete rational in every AFD without bothering to even look at the article or look for sources, how will they close? Should articles be deleted simply because no one was around to participate? If people just followed WP:BEFORE and only nominated things which should be, then we wouldn't constantly have far more AFDs open than anyone can go through. Mass nomination means you are guaranteed to destroy most of the articles you don't like. Dream Focus 16:42, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Question

• Is there are equivalent of WP:BEFORE for article creation?

Some have accused me of creating a mess to be sorted out by others with my AfDs. But this descriptions fits well to those creating ever lasting unsourced stubs with the minimum claim of notability to avoid a PROD. At this point, WP:BEFORE forces any AfD nominator to do the research work the article creator should have done to begin with. There's not really an incentive not to stuff the encyclopedia with tons of garbage. --Damiens.rf 18:09, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

• Yes, you created a useless mess. The playmate articles are far from garbage, even for ones deemed non-notable. No content is being deleted, its just being merged into list articles. People can choose to work on what they want, of course, but the reward here if any is extremely small to the project's greater good. WP:YFA, among other places, is where guidelines for article creation are set forth. The truth is that new editors are being run off the project at a rate so high, in part because of the way their contributions are treated, that wikipedia is alarmed about it.[4]. That in part, seems to be driven by zealous enforcement of policies to keep out "garbage."--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 19:10, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
  • We do have equivalents of WP:BEFORE for article creation. The worst creations tend to get speedied shortly after creation for this reason; the more effort the creator made, the more likely their article will survive the initial gauntlet. However, two wrongs don't make a right; just because you feel some articles were created rashly doesn't justify rash AfDs. bobrayner (talk) 19:52, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Once again, Wiki fails to deal with problematic editors.BarkingMoon (talk) 21:48, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

• (non-Admin comment) I think this has got out of hand. I don't see the issue of mass nominations of Playmates being dealt with, and it has now veered to a discussion of using Twinkle for mass deletion nominations. I go to AfD daily and select a number of nominations and then do the research and checking of these nominations, clicking just about every link. Checking takes time; sometimes it is quick, other times it is slow - to see if deletion is really merited. Often it means going and reading quite a few other pages before coming back and making a decision which can be to comment, keep, close, delete or make no comment at all. I will tell you that on 28 April and on the day these nominations were relisted, I chose not to do any AfD noms on that day, because I felt it was an abuse of the process - lumping the matter with regard to notability for Playmates to the small team at AfD to be settled and the issue of mass nominations and its impact on the daily AfD list. AfDs' are dealt with individually, not en masse. Consider that we need closure on the issue of notability and Playmates; and that need closure on the issue of mass nominations for AfD in a specific topic or category. --Whiteguru (talk) 08:06, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Talk:51st Australian Film Institute Awards

Moved from WP:AN by Skomorokh

I am wondering if anyone would be able to action the proposed move that I requested a month ago for the 48th - 51st Australian Film Institute Award pages. It was previously listed on Wikipedia that the first awards were presented in 1959 when they were really presented in 1958. Therefore the ordinal numbers for each year are incorrect.
Sources:
Shining a Light: 50 Years of the Australian Film Institute. Australian Teachers of Media. 2009. ISBN 1876467207.
"IMDb Australian Film Institute Awards". The Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 2011-01-19. DonEd (talk) 06:43, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

50th Australian Film Institute Awards → 51st Australian Film Institute Awards
49th Australian Film Institute Awards → 50th Australian Film Institute Awards
48th Australian Film Institute Awards → 49th Australian Film Institute Awards

DonEd (talk) 02:03, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Could you please link to the discussion about this issue? (By the way, would it be easier just to use the year rather than ordinals, e.g. 49th Australian Film Institute Awards → 2007 Australian Film Institute Awards?) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:27, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Why not just call it whatever it's called in the reliable sources that verify the content of the article and demonstrate notability of the topic? If no sources call it the 50th or 51st whatever, then surely giving it that name is original research? Sergeant Cribb (talk) 06:40, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism

Resolved

 – Backlog processed

Eyes and fingers on buttons, please? Drmies (talk) 02:54, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

• Try this one, for new admin practice: 68.99.226.127 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). Drmies (talk) 02:55, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
• Looks like everyone but ClueBot and me are watching the Lakers game. ClueBot, I leave the ship in your hands. Drmies (talk) 03:03, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

What, we can't bite the newbie administrators and violate WP:BITEADMINS? –MuZemike 07:48, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

• It is far more effective to bite the older admins WP:EXPLODEFARTS - they tend to reach higher orbits of indignation, with more colourful displays... LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:14, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Henry Cavill and Ellen Whitaker

Sourced info about their engagement is being repeatedly deleted. It originally seemed to be from User:2.91.25.12 (who's been warned, to no effect), but other IPs (possible sockpuppets) have joined in. I reported it here, since it involves edit-warring and sockpuppetry, and didn't know whether article protection or blocking the IPs was the solution. Thanks. --Ebyabe (talk) 13:49, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Blocking of obvious sock puppets

Do we really need to go through the motions of identifying the master of an obvious sockpuppet? Or is it enough that a "new" user shows up making, as their only edits, a serious of reverts of edits made by a specific set of editors? nableezy - 19:29, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I'd say it would be easier than AN/I, unless you think you can get the quick attention of a specific admin who is familiar with the sockmaster. Much of Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Grundle2600 is filled with quick duck-blocks, for example. Whenever I filed one, the turnaround time was pretty swift. Tarc (talk) 19:35, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Typically, if it passes the "duck test", the SPI will be declined. So if it passes the duck test, it should be indef'd immediately and skip the middle man. Or, an admin/checkuser can decided to take the obvious action, as below. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:36, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Proxy blocked. If they resume editing, please let me know so I can either a) check their connection to previous accounts or b) block another proxy. TNXMan 19:42, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Just to correct BB: the SPI won't be declined, but an associated checkuser request generally will be. Many a sock is blocked based on an SPI request where it was determined to be unnecessary to run a checkuser.—Kww(talk) 19:50, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I'm talking about. In the case of an obvious sock, there's no point in going through the bother of creating an SPI. Just block the bozo and be done with it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:24, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I wear socks on my feet.BarkingMoon (talk) 21:50, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Where they tend to collect hair shed by Manx cats. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:42, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

So I'm a "sockpuppet"? On what evidence? That I edited a bunch of articles you don't want anyone to edit? Is that how this works? As soon as I start editing, you and your friends undo all my edits and get my IP blocked? Real "collegiate" Wikipedia. Nice going. AmiAyalon1969 (talk) 08:12, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

If you like, I'd be happy to initiate the process at WP:SPI. Are you requesting the process to be started? --Alan the Roving Ambassador (talk) 17:15, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

And this is why you go to SPI first. Let the quiet professionals deal with it, rather than invite mayhem here. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:37, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Need a sock block

218.250.143.151 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) 218.250.142.19 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), incarnation of User:Instantnood needs blocking to end the revert disruption. He's way too intimately familiar with my history to be some innocent IP who just happens to like edit warring, stalking me, and using the same language. And warning, he'll change IP. I'm going to request a CU look if there are any user names behind the IP as well. SchmuckyTheCat (talk) 16:36, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Seems like Alison is on it, though perhaps a rangeblock would be helpful here? (I never remember how to calculate those, so I don't know if there would be too much collateral damage.) /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 18:03, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Doctor Who images

I'm bringing this here because I'm not sure where else to take it, and because some uninvolved admin intervention may be necessary, either to enforce the NFCC, or to prevent process gaming or edit waring.

The article is The Impossible Astronaut‎ (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). There have been repeated attempts to put an image in the infobox. On each occasion, so far, the uploaded image has been discussed and after the appropriate time deleted or removed as not meeting the NFCC. People then hunt for another image to decorate the box, offer some weak justification, and insist that the image remains until the debate is concluded. Rinse and repeat. The result is we pretty constantly have violating images on the article until the latest debate concludes. In such cases, should the onus not be on the uploader to make the case and a challenged image remain off until/unless there's a consensus it meets the criteria? Or better, people shouldn't decide they want a decoration and then keep trying their luck with the NFCC until they get one past it.

Images in question so far have been:

• Current image File:Doctor Who The Impossible Astronaut.jpg currently on FFD here.
• File:The Silent.tif (currently legitimately used on another article), edit warred on this article until its failing NFCC finally established (see the history of the file to see the edit warring over its NFCC justification for this article). See the discussion leading to removal [5]
• File:Doctor Who Impossible Astronaut.jpg deleted for illegitimate NFCC justification.

Anyway, I removed the most recent image, only to have it replaced. So, I'm going to bow out and leave this to others. The basic problem is non-free content being driven by a desire to fill and infobox and then people seek for a content justification, rather than the other way about.--Scott Mac 13:36, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. The NFCC rationale used for this image pretty clearly doesn't fly (or shouldn't). However, there seems to be a pretty clear consensus-in-practice that a single screenshot from a TV episodes can be used to illustrate the episode articles, providing identifying information. Particularly for long-running shows, the screenshot can provide important contextual information, especially since most TV watchers don't really keep track of the titles of episodes they've seen -- indeed, at least for many US TV series, the titles aren't even used in the broadcasts. Visual cues can be helpful in a way that textual descriptions often aren't (we all know that proverb). There are hundreds of Doctor Who episode screenshots alone, and roughly 20,000 overall (although a significant share of those illustrate character articles). Rather than picking them off piecemeal, based on the poorly written rationales rather than potential encyclopedic function, we should have a centralized discussion on the underlying issues and make our treatment of such images consistent. (The NFCC issue is independent of the case-by-case decision on how well-chosen a particular image may be; some seem rather randomly selected.) Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 17:48, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
  • At WP:FAC these kinds of images with weak justifications usually haven't survived, whether or not its a single identifying image for the show or not. Part of the reason that doesn't really work is that there isn't really a single image that represents a television episode in most cases (as opposed to a film poster, album art, etc.) It still has to meet WP:NFCC even if it's in the infobox. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 17:52, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
  • As NFCC forms our Exemption Doctrine Policy for the foundation's resolution, a consensus that we ignore them to pretty up TV shows doesn't work, we apply the NFCC regardless. --82.7.44.178 (talk) 18:24, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
    • I don't disagree, in principle, with either of you. But I think that community practice, over tens of thousands of articles, has created a working consensus that single identifying screenshots in episode articles satisfy the requirements of NFCC #8 in the same way that book or album covers do for the corresponding articles. I believe that, rather than having this kind of discussion in the context of scattered images that seem to be not terribly good at identifying the subject, we should have a more centralized discussion on the general principle rather than nibbling at the edges. (I personally believe we ought to revisit NFCC#8 and much more specifically outline the conditions when identifying images can be used. We are now in the anomalous situation where article form has more influence over NFCC use than it should: for example, allow single screenshots to be used in articles on individual TV characters, for identifying purposes -- but if the articles are merged into a single "characters of the X tv series," the exactly coextensive use of the same nonfree content is no longer permitted. But that's a discussion for a different day, perhaps.)
    • In short, we need to conform the existing practice, which is reasonable under the Foundation resolution, with the NFCC requirements, which some editors reasonably interpret as contrary to current practice. With two reasonable, but incompatible, interpretations, we should seek a more general, well-focused discussion. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 19:48, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
      • "single identifying screenshots in episode articles satisfy the requirements of NFCC #8" NO, NO,100x no. This is not policy, not consensus, and not compatible with the NFCC.--Scott Mac 20:04, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
        • There is indeed a very clear policy consensus against this indiscriminate use of such images that has been shaped and confirmed across dozens if not hundreds of deletion debates. We have at least a couple of them every week, and the large majority of them end in deletion. We also have a very wide-spread myth among article authors that there is such a blanket allowance. I doubt there has ever been an informed consensus discussion leading to this idea. The reason for its existence is simply that at some time many years ago, at a time when NFC enforcement was given less attention, somebody made the fatal decision of including an "image=" parameter in the relevant infobox templates, and the results of that person's one-off whim are still haunting us today. I've often been tempted to just go and deactivate that field in the template, which would orphan a couple thousand bad non-free images at one fell swoop. The only reason I've refrained from doing so is for the sake of the ten righteous ones among the thousand bad ones. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:24, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
          • There is indeed a very clear policy consensus against this indiscriminate use of such images that has been shaped and confirmed across dozens if not hundreds of deletion debates. . . . We also have a very wide-spread myth among article authors that there is such a blanket allowance. And that's why we need a centralized discussion. There are thousands upon thousands of such uses, and they're being added faster than they can be deleted. If "policy is what we do," as Jimbo once said, than I can't really see how (what I call) the consensus-in-practice among the editors who write the articles is less valid and the opposite consensus-in-practice among the editors who take part in deletion discussions is more valid. The whole "identifying use" NFCC justification has sprung up from editorial practice; it would be hard to develop it from the policy page text alone. Unless you're intent on playing whack-a-mole forever (or at least willing to), a centralized discussion on the underlying principles is the better way to go.Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 21:37, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
            • Just one aside: I'm now struck by the thought that, in all the years of playing whack-a-mole about this (and you are right, it really has been something like that), your argument about "identifying use" above is the first time I've ever seen something like a coherently argued position in defense of this practice. Even if policy is "what we do", I find it hard to call something a policy consensus if its proponents have for years failed to think up something even approaching a coherent, articulated justification for it. All they ever said in so many words in debate upon debate was "so many other articles are doing it, so why can't we here?" Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:48, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
              • If we want to argue policy is what we do, then please formalise that policy that it's automatic an image, any image from a show can be used in the article and we'll be in breach of the foundation resolution. The fact that we've been slack in enforcing our existing policy and meeting the foundation requirements shouldn't be an excuse to continue that slackness. We've also had/got tons of textual copyvios and tons more being added all the time, should we just allow that as "policy since it's common practice" too? --82.7.44.178 (talk) 22:31, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
                • I've started a discussion on WT:NFC#Television episode screenshots to try to clarify the existing language that would suggest that episodes don't normally get screenshots unless the scenes are discussed. Input for the larger policy issue should go there. --MASEM (t) 23:49, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I will only say this (without getting sucked in the underlaying NFC debate): While an image is under discussion, it is customary to leave the image in place for the duration of that discussion. It is the only way in which participants can judge the image in question in the scope in which it is used. Removing an image from an article while under discussion is not helpfulf and is often seen as a disruption of that discussion (I know I do). It is the reason why FfD exists; with arbitrary removal we would not need FfD to begin with. — Edokter (talk) — 20:49, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Comment: from Hullabaloo's remarks about practice, and others' about that practice violating NFCC, it sounds like we have a more widespread problem. This should probably be addressed via amending policy, or possibly an RFC on the general issue which can inform general practice. Rd232 ^talk 01:02, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

OTRS permission check needed

Could any OTRS person perhaps do me a favour and check this ticket for me. It was added to a number of images, but not by an OTRS person but by the uploader himself, and that uploader has a massive prior history of copyvios. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:02, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

That ticket is a permission to use a specific photograph of Jessica Stam, and nothing else. If it's being used elsewhere, it's a lie. — Coren ^(talk) 21:15, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, that's what I expected. Indef-blocking the offender. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:24, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Please look at Danstar123

I'd like for an administrator to look at the work of Danstar123. Edits like this are very dangerous, and it looks like nobody noticed this for many days. Inigopatinkin (talk) 15:18, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm not certain you can characterise that as 'dangerous'. It looks like good faith to me. Of course it violates BLP etc but given it's been made to the page of a cult leader I suspect it is in fact correct. Egg Centric 15:35, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) Appears to be good faith edit, although as Egg pointed out, there's a BLP problem. I glanced at the Contribution history and everything else looks constructive. Suggest a polite note on Danstar123's User Talk page regarding the BLP problem, and maybe something about WP:V to go with it. --Alan the Roving Ambassador (talk) 16:57, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Has anybody notified the user of this posting? 216.93.212.245 (talk) 04:06, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I have just made the required notification. Inigopatinkin, in the future, please remember that when you open an ANI discussion on an editor you must notify them of the discussion. Monty₈₄₅ 04:13, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

AIV Backlog

Resolved

There is a lengthy backlog at WP:AIV, if an admin or two could take care of it, it would be appreciated. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 03:10, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Still 6 reports remaining. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 04:24, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Please look at Danstar123

I'd like for an administrator to look at the work of Danstar123. Edits like this are very dangerous, and it looks like nobody noticed this for many days. Inigopatinkin (talk) 15:18, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm not certain you can characterise that as 'dangerous'. It looks like good faith to me. Of course it violates BLP etc but given it's been made to the page of a cult leader I suspect it is in fact correct. Egg Centric 15:35, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) Appears to be good faith edit, although as Egg pointed out, there's a BLP problem. I glanced at the Contribution history and everything else looks constructive. Suggest a polite note on Danstar123's User Talk page regarding the BLP problem, and maybe something about WP:V to go with it. --Alan the Roving Ambassador (talk) 16:57, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Has anybody notified the user of this posting? 216.93.212.245 (talk) 04:06, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I have just made the required notification. Inigopatinkin, in the future, please remember that when you open an ANI discussion on an editor you must notify them of the discussion. Monty₈₄₅ 04:13, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

AIV Backlog

Resolved

There is a lengthy backlog at WP:AIV, if an admin or two could take care of it, it would be appreciated. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 03:10, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Still 6 reports remaining. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 04:24, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

WP:BATTLEGROUND WP:COI behavior?

Admin User:JzG has blocked User:James Cantor (who identifies himself as James Cantor) for repeatedly editing the biographies of some professionals that disagree with him in real life on professional issues (disagreements recorded in print academic publications). The block has now expired. Admin User:DGG however seems to think that the block was unjustified and that Cantor tagging with {{notability}} the biographies of people with whom he has had real-life disagreements is not a problem but a way to improve Wikipedia. I have asked DGG to reconsider his position on his talk page, but he asked that the discussion not be continued there. Since DGG is an admin, I thought this would be the proper venue to continue the discussion. Tijfo098 (talk) 21:08, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

how the heck is DGG encouraging battleground tactics, or have a conflict of interest, here? he said that he didn't think the article tagging was justified, but that tagging the articles was not disruptive. How does that indicate that he's encouraging battleground tactics or that he himself has some sort of conflict of interest?
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 21:21, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Where did I say DGG has a conflict of interest? Tijfo098 (talk) 21:43, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

It's not terribly clear, to me, exactly what you're asking for, or who has done what. Are you seeking some sort of action against User:DGG, or against User:James Cantor? How did you come to the conclusiong that DGG "seems to think that the block was unjustified", and why is that relevant? This report is confusing.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 21:48, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Frankly, I thought the block was also unjustified. It looks to me that James Cantor was blocked for having a COI, and not any actual disruption. Does James Cantor have a topic ban that I'm unaware of? I've already commented at Cantor's talk page to explain further. -- Atama頭 22:37, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

It's perfectly correct to say that I thought the block unjustified, because I said so in just those terms on the user talk page. I prefer not to block or unblock in a situation that involves things I've worked on, or I would have unblocked. I have frequently said here before that admins should avoid anything at all that might possibly be interpreted as over-involvement, true or false,& I try to follow my own advice. I gather the block is still in effect for a few hours, and I very strongly urge somebody to lift it. I would certainly unblock in a similar situation where I had no prior contact with the people. As for battleground behavior, it's pretty clear who I think is currently engaged in it. DGG ( talk ) 23:25, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

The block ended about 5 hours ago. I tried to unblock when James made his most recent unblock request and couldn't because a block was no longer in effect. -- Atama頭 23:29, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I believe that MuZemike and Atama tried unblocking me at about the same time and "unblock-conflicted".

My remaining concern, for which I would appreciate input, is whether I am supposed to follow JzG's restrictions on threat of more blocking (which amounts to a topic ban) despite that the other admins who have so far commented said that I have been acting within the relevant guidelines. My original (and unanswered) response to JzG is on my userpage here, and the subsequent block discussion is here.

— James Cantor (talk) 00:04, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

James Cantor was autoblocked when he shouldn't have been (which I don't know why the autoblock was still up). –MuZemike 04:07, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

The way I see it, this is green light for the following involvement of experts in Wikipedia. Expert 1 writes a paper, proposal, whatever, in some academic publishing venue. Expert 2 publishes a rebuttal or a paper disagreeing with expert 1, again in an academic venue. Expert 1, who is also a Wikipedia editor, tags the WP:BLP Wikipedia biography of expert 2 with {{notablity}}, meaning non-notability of course. Tijfo098 (talk) 23:35, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

And what if Expert 2 has a valid reason for the tag? I don't see a problem here. -- Atama頭 00:16, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Just for the record: The first thing I did was to state the issue on the talk page here, and the other editor in the discussion suggested the tag here, which I then enacted here.

If there is anything else I could have done to make the issue more explicit for other interested editors, I don't know what it is.

— James Cantor (talk) 00:47, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Expert 2 doesn't edit Wikipedia to begin with. Do we want experts tagging each others' biographies here when they have a real-life conflict? Is that the new purpose of Wikipedia? Tijfo098 (talk) 00:24, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Linking WP:BATTLEGROUND is a senseless non sequitur. If you want to know what the Wikipedia guidelines are for a situation like this, read WP:COI. If you have a problem with our guidelines, start a discussion on the talk page there. There is also WP:COIN (where I tend to hang out). But basically what you're describing isn't explicitly disallowed on Wikipedia. -- Atama頭 00:30, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I might also add that there is a very relevant line in BATTLEGROUND you should consider, "Assume good faith that every editor and group is here to improve Wikipedia—especially if they hold a point of view with which you disagree." -- Atama頭 00:41, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

On a side note, Guy was never informed that someone had started a discussion here that included him, I've now informed him. -- Atama頭 00:21, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

• I would like to be entirely clear here: I have no objection to Cantor editing in his field of expertise, I do object to to his editing of articles on living individuals with whom he has off-wiki disputes. His reaction to a warning on this was to repudiate the basis of the warning: [6] - this is, I think pretty uncontroversial. An individual with real-world conflicts editing the biographies of those with whom he is in conflict and asserting that there is no reaosn why he should not, that warnings are invalid? That is an unequivocal rejection of WP:COI and not acceptable. Hence the shot across the bows. Guy (Help!) 00:31, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

• So his rejection of the COI guideline that makes suggestions about how an editor can edit Wikipedia without causing problems is a justification for blocking? COI is not a policy, and isn't enforceable without a community ban. When did admins get the unilateral right to block someone for having a COI? The diff you provided looked like you were single-handedly placing a topic ban on an editor, which admins don't have the ability to do. I had hoped there was some blatant disruption on James Cantor's part that I had missed but it looks like I was incorrect. So again, tell me, what discretionary sanction were you operating under? -- Atama頭 00:37, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Funny, DGG had threatened to block another editor over COI/DE for simply commenting on a talk page. What changed in the policies since then? Tijfo098 (talk) 01:24, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

It was a borderline legal threat. Did Cantor do something similar? As I've said repeatedly, there needs to be disruption along with the COI before a block can be levied. Even WP:COI states as much, to prevent the kind of block that happened against James Cantor. Guy attempted to place a topic ban on James Cantor, which is completely in conflict with the banning policy. "Except as noted above, individual editors, including administrators, may not directly impose bans." The exception is when discretionary sanctions apply, which is why I asked about it before. Frankly, Guy's directive to James Cantor was unenforceable. If you wish for there to be a topic ban against James Cantor, however, this board we're posting on is the perfect place to initiate it. Just make your argument as to why the ban is necessary and ask for community input. You can't, however, ask an admin to ban someone for you, we can't do that. -- Atama頭 02:41, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

How was it a legal threat? The editor threatened with a block there by DGG seems to have simply written that he had been sued already, which created the COI. Tijfo098 (talk) 02:53, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

And if you and DGG are concerned about expert retention, you may want to pay some attention to the thread just above this one, where an expert is being accused of the utmost impropriety of wanting to include an overview table of the field previously written by him but which has apparently been published by the foremost professional organization in the field on their web site. James Cantor has also added a number of external links to his personal website to various articles, which has created a ruckus in itself—there's a thread in the EL/N archives— but I am not complaining about stuff like that, I'm only concerned about his editing of his opponents' biographies to disparage them, and the encouragement he now receives from some administrators in that direction. Tijfo098 (talk) 03:11, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Tijfo's comment is rather a half truth. Missing from his (?) opinion are this COI guideline:

Using material you yourself have written or published is allowed within reason, but only if it is relevant and conforms to the content policies.

Remember: an editor with a self-evident interest in the matter turning up on the talk page is an indication that they are playing it straight.

and my many, many, many talkpage entries doing exactly that: [7], [8], [9], [10], etc., etc., ...

Well okay, I guess that makes Tijfo's comment somewhat less than a half, but I think the point is clear. I have every desire and every conceivable demonstration of following WP:COI, including even its optional recommendations. The only, and I mean only dissatisfied editors are those with whom I have had one or another content dispute, typically because the scientific POV I added to a page disagrees with their own POVs.

— James Cantor (talk) 04:17, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I do not recall the two of us having something that can be really called a content dispute here. And I probably agree with you on most sexuality-related topics—"probably" because I don't know your position on everything. The closest thing that comes to a content dispute between us (that I can remember) is this thread, where you asked for sources justifying the discussion of homosexuality on the paraphilia page. Are you saying that I have a grudge on you for that? Tijfo098 (talk) 01:05, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I was referring to edit disputes in which I find myself on sexuality pages in general, not any with you specifically. Hans Adler just captured the idea perfectly, below.— James Cantor (talk) 14:31, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I think James Cantor's behavior on wikipedia has been way over the top since the beginning, with various bits of WP:COI driving most of it; and his putting a notability tag on the bio of a person that he has an off-wiki dispute with is certainly unacceptable. Maybe a warning would have been better than a block, though, as he does tend to toe the line when it's pointed out to him. Dicklyon (talk) 01:28, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I think we need to accept that there are situations when people can put notability tags on the biographies of someone they have an off-wiki dispute with - eg, in cases where the person may not be notable and tagging for notability is objectively justified. To argue otherwise is simply to suppose that people can't behave responsibly or like grown-ups on Wikipedia. Assuming that won't encourage responsible behavior or editing; just the opposite. 203.118.184.13 (talk) 03:18, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

"won't encourage responsible behavior or editing; just the opposite" like not signing in to your account before commenting at ANI? Tijfo098 (talk) 03:31, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

More like assuming bad faith and making an accusation like the above. 203.118.184.13 (talk) 03:35, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

So not letting him tag articles of his opponents is an assumption of bad faith? How about you nominate WP:COI for deletion then? Because it's all an assumption of bad faith in the same vein. Tijfo098 (talk) 04:13, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia operates by consensus, and it's really not up to individual editors to "let" other editors do or not do particular things. More to the point, it is indeed assuming bad faith to suppose that someone cannot possibly be permitted to edit an article about an opponent, if his edits seem unproblematic in themselves and other editors might have made them in good faith. 203.118.185.58 (talk) 04:38, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Actually, 203.118.185.58, I think the consensus is that the notability tag on the rival's BLP was _not_ objectively justified. As I recall, not even DGG supported it. BitterGrey (talk) 05:11, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I was commenting on the general principle at stake rather than the rights or wrongs of this particular case. But see WhatamIdoing's comments, about the lack of evidence for both Cantor's supposed rivalry with Moser and for Moser's notability. 203.118.185.151 (talk) 19:58, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

(←) Let me put it in simple terms. Administrators can't place bans on editors without having a discretionary sanction first. That's pretty much the end of the discussion. Nobody has refuted this, or can refute it. If you don't like it, start an RFC. If you want a ban on a particular person, propose one and see what the community thinks. Otherwise this is all just noise. -- Atama頭 06:09, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

User:JzG didn't ban James Cantor, he blocked him for disruptive editing. An he'll probably block him again next time Cantor does something like that. If you disagree, you can unblock Cantor, because you're an admin too, I gather. Tijfo098 (talk) 06:40, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Telling someone they cannot edit an article is a ban. Ignore that all you want, but that's a fact. I'm assuming it was done in error, but if I see it again, I'll have to start an RFC. Administrators cannot ban editors unilaterally, and an attempt to do so is a claim of authority an administrator doesn't have. -- Atama頭 06:58, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Lots of edits to read. I do not see grounds for asserting that James Cantor rather more likely, however, that consensus would be reached for a ban on WP:BLP articles in the field, given his numerous documented real-world disputes. from any material I read, and, in fact, that COI is a straw man argument here. Nor did I see his edits as "disruptive" to the point where a block would be preventative. They certainly did not reach any stage where they made untrue claims about any person, and WP:BLP still applies to any contentious edits in them. If he violated WP:BLP and consensus were reached on a block, that would be an entirely different issue. BTW, the COI argument would imply that no expert could ever edit in their own field, as every expert has presumably had interactions with others in the field. I do not think such an extention of COI is wise. Collect (talk) 11:30, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Two points on my mind:

• I'm the editor who suggested tagging Charles Allen Moser with {{Notability}}. Why? Because editors are supposed to tag articles if they have BLP-related notability concerns. You're not supposed to let them sit and rot in the hopes that maybe, someday, we'll have sources, and maybe, possibly, if we all cross our fingers, no harm will come to the subject in the meantime.
  In case someone's interested in the details, at that time, there were a whopping four (4) sources cited in the article that weren't co-authored by Moser, and their contents were as trivial as "[Footnote] 10. Charles Allen Moser, unpublished doctoral dissertation for the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality, completed August 1979". That's 100% of the material about Moser in one of those four sources, and it is not even close to what we mean by "significant coverage".
  Since then, the professional trans activist who encouraged JzG to block Cantor, Jokestress (talk · contribs), whose own website has many pages attacking Cantor, e.g., for "notably virulent" transphobia[11]—has found a handful of additional independent sources. However, my spot check of these sources hasn't turned up a single one with true "in-depth coverage" about the person we've inflicted this article on. We've got a longer string of single-sentence sources, e.g., WP:INTEXT attributions like "According to several researchers, notably Charles Moser and JJ Madeson in their book...", or uncritical, unanalyzed direct quotations from works the subject co-authored. This is what the folks at AFD usually call the "passing mention", which is a distinctly poor indication of notability, especially for a living person. If this were a company or a product, we'd all be at AFD right now, and you'd all be screaming delete, rather than trying to punish someone for correctly flagging a possible problem for attention from the community exactly as recommended by our policies.
• I see that a couple of people have asserted here and elsewhere that Cantor—who does actually count as a living person under our policies, even on this page—has treated Moser badly by wondering aloud whether the apparent lack of "significant coverage" means that Wikipedia shouldn't inflict a badly sourced article on Moser. There are have been explicit claims that Cantor and Moser are in some sort of rivalry or academic feud. I want to know: Where are your sources for that contentious claim about these two BLPs? Perhaps some folks are simply showing how gullible they are by repeating Jokestress' assertion that they're rivals, but I've never yet seen the smallest evidence that this alleged rivalry actually exists in the real world, or even a credible explanation of why such a rivalry would prompt Cantor to promote Moser's papers on Wikipedia. I've provided sources proving that Jokestress has a real-world feud with Cantor; it didn't even take two minutes to find them. So where are yours to show that Cantor and Moser have a real-world rivalry? (Hint: Merely failing to agree 100% on a given academic point isn't the same thing as having a "rivalry" or "feud".) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:24, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
  • I'm going to notify User:Jokestress that you are discussing her statements here. Tijfo098 (talk) 17:32, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Oh, and if you think that Moser guy is not notable WP:AFD or {{prod}} his bio. ANI is not the place to decide that. Tijfo098 (talk) 17:40, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
    • ANI is, however, the ideal forum for deciding whether any editor should be blocked for expressing concern about the notability of a BLP. That's why you started this discussion here, isn't it? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:33, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Orrather, whether an editor who has numerous off-wiki disputes should be permitted to edit the Wikipedia articles on individuals with whom he is in dispute. To which the answer is, in general, no. It's not like this is the first time someone has been told to lay off articles on people with whom they have off-wiki disputes. Cantor seems happy to undertake not to edit some articles directly, according to his user page, so I don't even see why this is a problem for him let alone anyone else. Commenting on the talk page is fine. Guy (Help!) 18:54, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Full support for the block - No editor should edit the article of living people they have citable off wiki disputes with - User:James Cantor either needs to back off or we need to consider a topic ban. There are a couple of others that also would benefit from a topic ban, its not just James, user:Jokestress is another, Cantor is highlighted because of his real life name - the whole area is overloaded with over involved contributors. Off2riorob (talk) 19:07, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

@Guy: Orrather, whether an editor who has numerous off-wiki disputes should be permitted to edit the Wikipedia articles on individuals with whom he is in dispute. That's a reasonable suggestion, but that would require either a policy change or perhaps arbitration. What you're suggesting is a change to what is considered a blockable offense on Wikipedia. Right now, there is no such thing as a blockable offense for COI outside of discretionary sanctions. That discussion can happen, and might be a good one to have. But I'll caution you, we couldn't even decide on whether or not we should consider being paid to edit an article to be a blockable offense, which is a far more blatant form of COI, I don't have a lot of hope to get a policy change for an even greyer area like this.

@Off2riorob: Full support for the block - No editor should edit the article of living people they have citable off wiki disputes with - User:James Cantor either needs to back off or we need to consider a topic ban. It sounds like you're saying two contradictory things. Should there be a topic ban, or can James Cantor be blocked without a topic ban? I'm sure anyone would be hard-pressed to find a way to support the latter. Anyone who is an administrator should know very well that we can't initiate topic bans on our own, heck, just about every RfA I've seen in the past couple of years includes the question "what is the difference between a block and a ban" for a good reason. As to the former, I think it's reasonable to suggest a ban for one or more people involved in this dispute, I'll leave it up to someone more familiar with the history here than me to draft such a suggestion. -- Atama頭 19:40, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't completely disagree with Off2riorob's principle, but I'm still waiting for someone to provide name a reliable source that shows this alleged "citable off-wiki disputes" involving Cantor and Moser. I've been having trouble finding reliable sources that even name both of them on the same page, but perhaps someone else's search skills are better than mine.

We are making accusations about real people here, folks. This affects more than the editors: This affects Moser, too. Wikipedia hits high in the search engine rankings. A relatively obscure researcher (Moser) shouldn't have the world told that he's in an academic feud with a somewhat better-known researcher just so that one or more of us can gain an upper hand in a pretty simple content dispute. We need to either cough up some citations to support these allegations of an academic dispute, or we need to start striking comments and quit making administrative decisions based on unsupported and possibly false allegations of an off-wiki dispute. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:53, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

@Atama - I don't support restrictions at all really - I support the involved users getting the idea and moving away from editing in their involved sector - if they don't do that - I support restricting them via topic bans - wikipedia is not benefiting at all from them attempting to insert their strongly held involved opinions into articles, this is especially important in relation to articles about living opponents of theirs ...about living people. Off2riorob (talk) 22:00, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I totally agree with you there, Off2riorob, on a case-by-case basis of course, if their edits violate WP:NPOV that can't be allowed. -- Atama頭 22:35, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, try this (doi:10.1007/s10508-008-9436-8), and note that Cantor is coauthor to the Blanchard 2008 paper (DSM-5 proposal) as noted in his bio here. He somehow took interest in the bio of Karen Franklin as well; do I have to spell it out how that is a COI as well? Tijfo098 (talk) 23:46, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

WTF? Moser contradicted a paper of which Cantor was an author? That's all you have, and you present it as if it was a smoking gun? I really don't see what's wrong in general with academics editing their colleagues' articles so long as they do it fairly. If you want to make a case against Cantor you must (1) prove that he is so irate about the people whose biographies he edited that even though his edits may look innocuous, we must assume that he did it for some secret dark motives, or (2) prove that there was something wrong, or at the very least tendentious, with his edits.

Now the field of sexology may cause strong feelings in those who have personal problems related to this field. But when you assume that therefore academics working in the field who disagree with each other must automatically be enemies, then that's pure projection. A proper academic feels passionately about his or her field, but not in the same way as someone whose aberration/lifestyle/whatever is under examination. That's not to say that there is never fighting between academics working in the same field, but the normal assumption is that they get along with each other rather well, even where they disagree. And it would be absolutely stupid for an academic editing under his real name to do anything controversial concerning a colleague. This kind of thing always comes out and causes a bad reputation. That's practically a guarantee that there will no improper edits by Cantor. If we ever get hard evidence that in fact he doesn't care about his reputation and edits improperly, then we can still look at this again, but so far absolutely no such evidence has been presented. Hans Adler 00:01, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I assume you want the animosities to rise to the level similar to that in thread above this one (on EP) where self-identified anthropologists were in bash mode on an EP prof before something is done? Also, it's best to wait for Jokestress to reply, because I'm hardly familiar with Moser's work. I just pointed out what I could find in a few minutes. Tijfo098 (talk) 00:51, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Also, you essentially say that "sexual minorities" have more of a conflict of interest in editing sexology articles than sexologists themselves have describing their own work in Wikipedia, or that of those other sexologists they disagree with. Interesting line of thought. Can we extend that to ethnicity for instance? It's also a core part of many editors' identity. Tijfo098 (talk) 01:12, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

May I suggest that this entire thread is getting seriously tendentious and is not actually accomplishing anything? It might be a good idea to have the whole thing shut down as pointless, and the thread archived. 203.118.184.9 (talk) 02:08, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I said no such thing. I said they are more likely to be pissed when someone characterises their lifestyle as an aberration that needs treatment, or when someone characterises the uncurable condition that has destroyed their life as a mere lifestyle choice – whichever applies from the POV of the respective individual. In addition, there are also editors who get involved to prevent damage to society – which may be a perfectly legitimate reaction, or an instance of moral panic, but in either case will also tend to make conflicts acrimonious. Both types of editor are likely to blow normal, civilised academic disputes way out of proportion, and as far as I can tell that is precisely what has happened here.

The same principle does apply to ethnicities. An actual, bona fide scientific researcher in a field related to ethnicity, editing the articles of his colleagues whom he regularly meets at conferences and exchanges emails with in between, is likely to be more self-restrained and therefore more neutral, and also to be much more knowledgeable about the subjects, than an lay editor who edits such an article because he or she feels that the subject's research is all wrong or offensive.

The only way someone can do real research is by being sufficiently detached from their field to notice contradictions to their own theories. In science there is (supposed to be) a strong culture of openness to all forms of criticism, which must be dealt with constructively. It's not enough to hypothesise that in the case of a specific researcher and editor this culture may have broken down, and something may have been a motive for improper behaviour, when there is no evidence that improper behaviour ever occurred. Maybe your instincts are right, and maybe there is proof for this, but you haven't made a convincing case, or in fact any case at all. It looks just like a witch hunt. At some point this pounding on vague suspicions with no evidence and no disruption other than that caused by an overreacting admin really has to stop, as it's already in the territory of unsubstantiated personal attacks.

(Please note that I am taking no position whatsoever on the science here. I have no experience whatsoever with unusual sexual interests beyond having a few homo- or bisexuals among my friends. I am not interested in these topics, but on the other hand I am not damaged by a hypocritical upbringing. I have no strong or unusual positions either way. But I do have strong positions on the ability of academics to contribute to Wikipedia in their field unless and until they are actually breaking the rules.) Hans Adler 12:46, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Does the "strong culture of openness" include removing criticism of your work from Wikipedia under WP:2LAW? Tijfo098 (talk) 23:24, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

(1) We should look at the full picture. (2) He removed this letter to the editor from the lead of a medical article. In that context WP:MEDRS#Choosing sources applies, and it says: "Peer reviewed medical journals are a natural choice [...]. They contain a mixture [...]. Although almost all such material will count as a reliable source for at least some purposes, not all the material is equally useful, and some, such as a letter from a non-expert, should be avoided."

I am not saying the edit was ideal, but it was not criminal and it was 14 fucking months ago. If that's the best concrete evidence you have, then you have nothing. (I find the letter to the editor that he removed very convincing, and if I had seen this edit I guess I would have restored it.) Hans Adler 23:53, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

From the Moser article Dr. Cantor removed a quotation saying that Moser is "well-known". (This was done before he tagged Moser's biography for [lack of] notability.) Perhaps the quotation was wp:undue, but this wasn't clearly argued in the edit summary. Presumably Moser's notability doesn't hinge on the recognition he receives in that quote, but I'm not going to speculate on his notability any further. My opinion from the helicopter is that those edits in sequence look questionable. Tijfo098 (talk) 00:42, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

A lot of editors, including myself, routinely remove vague puffery and peacock terms like "well-known", "leading", and "notable" from all sorts of articles. That's a very typical and directly recommended good-editor behavior. If you want to improve Wikipedia today, then here's one list containing hundreds of similarly puffed-up BLPs that you could be improving. I'm sure you'd have no trouble finding hundreds more. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:10, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, exactly. Presumably the whole reason for having an article about someone is that they are well known - there would scarcely be any point to having an article about him or her otherwise. Tijfo098 is straining to find examples of sinister behavior by James Cantor, but isn't succeeding very well. 203.118.185.73 (talk) 06:10, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I would not have advised anyone to bring this matter here, because neither the specific situation nor any general issue was likely to be advanced, but rather that bad feelings would expand concentrically. So it has--witness the above general discussion, What business do we have here discussing the motivations of people editing in this field? As for the reliability of people editing in their own academic specialties, academics can be just as pig-headed as anyone else, except that their quarrels are likely to extend way beyond the Wikipedia scale in duration, extent, and rhetorical skill. There may be some fields of science where people are open-minded about criticism, but it certainly does not apply to anything having immediate RW applications, especially in the social sciences. And I read some of the arguments above as saying that transsexuals should not be editing articles about transsexuality, which makes as much sense as saying heterosexuals should not edit articles about that aspect of human life. It depends upon the editing. There's been a lot of bad editing in the present field; almost everyone editing in it has a very strong POV. Cantor's editing in this instance was not disruptive, and that is all that needs to be considered with respect to him. (And yes, this does imply that Guy's block was disruptive, & I think that proven by events.) If we need to change general rules, common sense would indicate that we should not do so in the context of a particular case, especially a case necessarily involving emotions of this degree of magnitude. DGG ( talk ) 22:54, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you that there's plenty of disagreement on this matter (as we found out in this thread), so it's unlikely to get resolved by consensus. (But hey, it's less absurd to debate this issue than to dramatize the MOS:DASH.) Tijfo098 (talk) 23:35, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Comment: WP:COI says "A Wikipedia conflict of interest (COI) is an incompatibility between the aim of Wikipedia, which is to produce a neutral, reliably sourced encyclopedia, and the aims of an individual editor. [...] COI editing is strongly discouraged. When editing causes disruption to the encyclopedia through violation of policies [...] accounts may be blocked. " As a result, whilst "COI" is often loosely thrown around where editors have personal or business links, it doesn't lead to blocks unless clear disruption is shown. The blocking threshold should be substantially higher when the alleged COI editor is both editing with their real name and is notable enough to have their own wikipedia entry (which can lead to such kerfuffles affecting their reputation). The bottom line is that COI editing is not banned per se, and admins can't sanction it unless it becomes clearly and unambiguously disruptive - a judgement that must be made after a large dose of WP:AGF and attempted education of the user. Rd232 ^talk 01:37, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm also quite willing to WP:AGF, but one needs to consider the long term history of edits as well, as ArbCom has done in a recently closed case. For example, with his previous (and acknowledged) account Dr. Cantor edited the biography of User:Jokestress (who identifies as Andrea James), to add a certain incident to the lead as well as the expression "controversial American transsexual" (that expression, which is not in the source cited, reminds me of a "left-wing Professor of Biology"; James is described as "a Hollywood-based trans-consumer advocate and an entrepreneurial consultant on trans issues" in the source). I'll let you judge for yourself if that incident, which received only a paragraph in press as part of a larger story, is lead-worthy material in any WP:BLP. Dr. Cantor also pushed the text beyond what NYT wrote, which is only "sexually explicit captions", which became "sexually explicit obsenities written over them" in Wikipedia. I understand that an agreement was struck in which he agreed to avoid making such edits. Tijfo098 (talk) 05:30, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

That's three years ago - ancient history. Granted that it wasn't good editing, Cantor hasn't done anything remotely like that for a long time, and I don't think a fair-minded person would hold it against him now or use it as a reason to ban Cantor from anything. I think all parties to this thread should acknowledge that it isn't serving a useful purpose. Either propose sanctions against someone - against Cantor for his supposed COI and disruptive editing or against JzG for blocking him disruptively - or else just drop the whole thing. 203.118.185.73 (talk) 06:17, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

That's a pretty good point until you realise that that particular edit occurred 3 days after the creation of what you say is Cantor's previous account. Unless he had undisclosed other, earlier accounts (I have no idea but given that he changed accounts very openly it doesn't seem very likely), this relativises things quite a bit. It's still a valid point, but it's also not the kind of smoking gun that requires us to ABF him three years later. Hans Adler 11:08, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Ok, it would be unfair to deny that his editing skills have improved over time. Tijfo098 (talk) 12:22, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Whitewriter continued hounding

Hello, I have been the subject of repeated wiki hounding from mr whitewriter for months. His recent attempt to have relevant material that I have been working on deleted from my userspace is an example of this : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Skier_Dude#Hi_dude.21_:.29 I request only to be left in peace to continue my work and as I have stated before, my enjoyment of working on wikipedia has been repeatedly disturbed by mr white writer. I have seen a pattern of aggression from him against anyone on wikipedia who is seen as supporting kosovo, and I wish only to be able to add in neutral and verified factual data about the geography and history of kosovo. My collection of placed of cultural interest that he would like to have deleted are sources for my work and I have been able to process some of these, including posting pictures and we even were able to collaborate on some articles such as Hermitage_of_St._Peter_Koriški. I only ask for some protection from these repeated attempts on deletion of my notes and works. thanks, mike James Michael DuPont (talk) 14:15, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

He has worked hard to have my work deleted before

• User_talk:Mdupont#Your_contributed_article.2C_List_of_populated_places_in_the_municipality_of_Draga.C5.A1.2C_Kosovo

and

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Prizren#Not_all_Viewpoints_Third_opinion where he had removed a large block of referenced material and still has not restored it.

Here are some examples of him causes disputes over issues if people belong to one ethnic group or another, his actions seem to be motivated along these lines.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Petar_II_Petrovi%C4%87-Njego%C5%A1&diff=prev&oldid=423530887
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Emir_Kusturica&diff=prev&oldid=425875874

James Michael DuPont (talk) 14:36, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

The last two diffs don't add anything. WhiteWriter was not a problematic editor in those discussions. As for him having "worked hard to have my work deleted", I can see why it may feel like that to DuPont, but it isn't the case. The List of Populated Places was a duplicate. The Prizen point was given a third opinion. The huge number of subpages is a minor policy issue. I didn't undertstand from his post that WhiteWriter was proposing to delete the lot.Fainites ^barleyscribs 01:49, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

OMG, this is interesting... User:Mdupont showed us several time that he dont know or respect several wikipedia guidelines, (WP:SPA obsession) and when i or any other editor ask for guideline respect, then we are problem, i suppose. Users knowledge of NPOV, LAY and several other guidelines is quite limited. Anyway, any uninvolved editor can see some of the users usual articles quality, or wast list of partial WEBHOST sub-pages, and you will see for your self. That is miles below wikipedia quality level. At the end, i just tried to help and fix, following main and essential Wiki guidelines...

But i will not tolerate his definitely purpose disrespect and misspelling of my user name, as white water, and white write, even after i warned him explicitly on that. In this previous link you will see one of my numerous attempt's to talk to him, and help him to edit wikipedia in a good way. And when i look a bit better, we didn't have any connection points for months, so we may see that wiki-stalking was on his side now, and not mine. If we exclude off wiki invite by someone else, for some reverts, of course. Unfortunately, i would ask some protection from this user, as i was only trying to do good, as best as i know and possibly can, while his only compromise or cooperation responds are false bad faith reports like this one. --WhiteWriter ^speaks 12:02, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Is BelloWello canvassing?

Regarding Southern Adventist University, Bello posted this request for help with Young Earth Creationism on an uninvolved user's Talkpage. Initially it seemed innocent enough to me, then I recalled Bello has had 3 other incidents with gaming the system:

1. Editing to the brink of 3RR, resulting in another user getting blocked (rightfully I might add)[12]
2. Making trivial edits potentially to trap another user with 3RR[13]
3. Accusing another user of COI to potentially to suppress his ability to edit. This resulted in a "final warning" from Jasper Deng[14]

I began asking myself questions. I share them with you:

1. How is YEC even remotely related to SAU? Was this a pretense?
2. Why not just start a discussion on the talk page? Why assume the editors there are ignorant of YEC?
3. Why didn't he just edit the article himself and see what happens?
4. Why involve an editor who has never edited SAU about a topic which was never discussed at SAU?

Note that there is a Project Creationism banner on the talk page, added by Bello. At first I thought this bizarre, again since it is completely irrelevant, but it may have been added to justify the request to the uninvolved editor. Lionel (talk) 22:06, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I am addressing this question: How is YEC even remotely related to SAU? Was this a pretense? The Adventist Church is in the process of firming up its committment to YEC (Young Earth Creationism). SAU is an important entity in this process. It is of interest to those watching to wonder how Southern relates to the YEC issues. DonaldRichardSands (talk) 22:43, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Note: Donald is active on the SAU talk page, appears to be knowledgeable about SAU/YEC and would probably have been a valuable contributor to a discussion on the talk page had Bello started one. Lionel (talk) 22:58, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

<--This recently renamed mystery user has also had WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior on P/I related stuff at DYK, where he seems very much at home, after making a first DYK nom April 24. [15], and in particular,

• 20110425 overriding concerns just expressed by Gatoclass OKs article Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle as GTG
• 20110425 BATTLEGROUND and uncivil re same article
• 20110504 defends same article and claims all who oppose it are "involved"
• 20110504 BATTLEGROUND and uncivil re same article

Coninuing partisan battle is this edit [16] where BelloWello censors out a good chunk of the article's very few critical comments, in clear violation of consensus-building that had been going on among other editors who were working to get the article balanced enough for DYK. With editing issues like this in more than one area, I wonder if we are looking at a new name of a banned user. betsythedevine (talk) 01:35, 8 May 2011 (UTC) (I just notified BelloWello of this discussion, since there was nothing on his talk page about it.)

See discussion of prior username, I presume if the old account was still blocked, the admin posting there who has knowledge of the old name, would have done something about it. Monty₈₄₅ 01:44, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I think BelloWello is just trying to be as bold as possible with his changes, but, the battleground behavior concerns me a bit as well. I personally think that his recent comments about Fountainviewkid's supposed COI (whom I've notified) and his recent edit warring, in addition to the gaming of the system, all of which we have already take note of, combine with those comments on the DYK template talk to suggest that BelloWello ultimately seems to have a long pattern of a BATTLEGROUND attitude, with gaming the system being used as a "weapon in the battle." But with that said, BelloWello has also made nice contributions recently too - he recently wrote a new article with few problems.Jasper Deng (talk) 02:14, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

• "How is YEC even remotely related to SAU?" The link provided in the cited comment on my user talk page provides a clear answer. Beyond that we have a reasonably broad overlap between creationism and Adventist academia, including (but not limited to) George McCready Price and the Geoscience Research Institute. As to the rest, I can't really comment upon it -- but it does seem to be rather a grab-bag of unrelated complaints -- and certainly complaints unrelated to the thread's title. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 06:50, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Problem with Frank Guinta

The article concerning NH Representative Frank Guinta is getting extensive edits from an IP near DC: Special:Contributions/66.44.78.19. Others have tried to engage this IP in discussion on his talk page and on the article talk page, but in vain. His opinion, expressed in edit summaries, is that the article should talk about Guinta's official position but omit his campaign promises (for example). I don't know if we should ask for page protection, or a temporary block of the IP to get his attention, or for someone more experienced at BLP to figure out which if any of his requests are appropriate. The lawsuit against Guinta certainly got press coverage when it was filed less than 6 months ago, but is it still notable enough to be in the bio? Also, the behavior of the SPA account suggests possible WP:COI. Advice would be welcome if you have any -- thanks! betsythedevine (talk) 03:03, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I have notified 66.44.78.19 of the existence of this discussion. In the future, please remember that when you start an ANI discussion you are required to provide notice to the involved editors. Monty₈₄₅ 04:19, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I really apologize and I do know this but it was late at night and my brain wasn't working on all cylinders. Thanks for doing it for me. I appreciate it, and I appreciate the gentle tone of your reminder. betsythedevine (talk) 12:42, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Another blanking by a confirmed sockpuppet Koreanworld1

Koreanworld1 was identified as sockpuppet. See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Koreanworld1. The user was exempted the block at the discretion of an uninvolved administrator. However the first edit after the SPI was the same blanking of the edit.[17]. I request indefinite block to the user. ―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 10:22, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Just saying, wouldn't it be a good idea to start with that uninvolved administrator?--Wehwalt (talk) 11:57, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the advice. I contacted the admin at the talk page. ―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 12:34, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism

Not that it probably will do any good and I'll probably just get attacked myself in order for others to avoid their own problems, but here we go- at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism#2 sources to support that Nikki Yanofsky is Jewish? I have been personally insulted and had words put in my mouth by User:AndyTheGrump. He has called me a bigot and accused me of spreading anti-semitism. I am in fact a Jew, a declaration I have made many times over many many years, one that is not in doubt and in light of User:Noleander and the years I fought to try to bring at AN/I some sort of resolution to that user's perceived anti-semitism should show how I feel about that remark by Andythegrump. Considering nothing was ever done about Noleander here at AN/I until ArbCom had to FINALLY step-in I hope that a stern warning to AndyTheGrump regarding his comment that "Jews can never be a nationality" is all I would like. Such a declaration as fact along with his other comments are over the line. His OPINION that Jews are not a nationality is his opinion, to state it as fact is insulting.Camelbinky (talk) 01:46, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Check your definitions. think you are confusing a number of terms as Nationality Ethnicity are separate categories and imposing them on a minor is WP:BLP violation under WP:BLPCAT. Nationality is not the same as the latter two. Since there is not Jewish country on earth there is not "Jewish nationality" there is an Israeli Nationality totally separate issue. Please review your terminology. The Resident Anthropologist (talk)•(contribs) 02:08, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

ResidentAnthropologist—you say, "think you are confusing a number of terms as Nationality Ethnicity are separate categories and imposing them on a minor is WP:BLP violation under WP:BLPCAT."

Two questions:

1. Does WP:BLPCAT say anything about minors?

2. Does WP:BLPCAT say anything about material for placement in the body of an article? Bus stop (talk) 19:10, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Firstly, nothing I said could remotely be described as accusing Camelbinky of anti-Semitism. I did however object to him/her making offensive remarks about Canadians and Moslems, as well as as repeating a highly-questionable stereotype implying that Jewish people necessarily have stronger allegience to 'Jewishness' than to their own nationality. Regardless of who claims this, it is a particularly harmful assertion, and one that has led to persistant attempts to exclude people of Jewish faith/ethnicity from positions of political power.

As for Jews being a 'nationality', this is simply false, in the sense that Camelbinky is attempting to use the terms. He/she clearly has little understanding of what 'nationality'/'nationalism' implies in regard to the nation state, and why it cannot be a term meaningfully applied to Jewish people as a whole. One can be An Israeli, or a Canadian, and if one chooses to identify as such one can call oneself an 'Israeli Jew', or a 'Canadian Jew' - one will search in vain for a Jewish embassy however. A nation-state is a social construct, but the 'state' part of the phenomenon tends to have a material existance too (usually including an army...) - note that Camelbinky explicitly states that he/she considers Jewish nationality as being "nothing to do with the State of Israel". I'm not sure I intended to imply that Jews can never have a nation-state - merely that there isn't one at the moment, so to assert that 'nationally' Nikki Yanofsky was more Jewish than Canadian is just plain wrong. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:10, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

There is no consensus here or in the world about the meaning of "Jewish". With respect to the article involved, personally, I regard meeting any of the numerous suggested criteria as sufficient. Where she does seems to depend on the interpretation of sources about a subject working in a field with which I am not familiar. I suggest that some compromise wording be found ("of Jewish background") or the like. But what we can really manage to do here is try to prevent personal conflicts or arguments over it, such as the argument above. It would not be productive to attempt to settle here whether Jewishness is or can be a nationality, or the relationship between nationality and ethnicity. DGG ( talk ) 04:05, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

If there is no consensus on what it means then why are we week in week out, arguing about labelling people with the term in lists, in articles, and in categtories? John lilburne (talk) 20:02, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

John lilburne—you say, "If there is no consensus on what it means then why are we week in week out, arguing about labelling people with the term in lists, in articles, and in categories?'

It is not the editors here at Wikipedia that have to agree fully on the significance of a term but rather the reliable sources, if there is more than one reliable source, that should be in agreement as to the applicability of a term to an individual who is the subject of a biography. Bus stop (talk) 20:41, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

This is AN/I. We aren't here to decide whether Yanofsky is Jewish or not (personally, I think she should be allowed to decide for herself, but I seem to be in a minority...). Instead we are here to decide whether me calling Camelbinky's comments 'bigoted nonsense' was justified or not. I'd like to be judged on the evidence, not on what we think of Yanofsky (who deserves none of this nonsense, one way or another - i've seen no evidence that she gives two hoots how Wikipedia labels her). AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:17, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Seeing as how I never said anything bigoted about Jews, Muslims, or Canadians I'd like to know how it is ok to continue to say I did. I said that if an article were made about my cat we could use the definition of Muslims that all animals are by default Muslims and I was doing that as an analogy to how it can be hard to label people (or animals in that case) as what the religion itself labels them because in the Jewish CULTURE all people whose mother is a Jew is considered a Jew (and this is a different label than a religious one, beit din does not care what a person personally practices when deciding if someone is a Jew, neither does the state of Israel when deciding if someone is qualified for the "right of return"). As for Canadians I asked that if it isnt notable if someone is Jewish, how is it notable that anyone is a Canadian? Because to me that would be a double standard. So how was either comment bigoted?Camelbinky (talk) 05:50, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't matter how any of you categorize "Jewish". Reliable sources use the term, sometimes in reference to people who are subjects of biographies. Reliable sources sometimes say that someone is a "Jew". Reliable sources do not necessarily categorize the term when they use it—in fact they generally do not. Can we report that in our biographies? Forget about whether we are talking about a racial grouping, a religious grouping, or what have you. Are we permitted to repeat what reliable sources say in this regard in our biographies? I think the answer is obviously Yes.

Here are 3 of the arguments presented against stating in our biographies that an individual is Jewish:

1.) Is that fact relevant to the person's notability? Perhaps not, but nor need it be, for the placement of such material in the body of an article.

2.) Has the person "self-identified" as being Jewish? Present policy does not require "self-identification" for the placement of such material in the body of an article.

3.) Do the sources specify whether the individual is religiously observant or religiously nonobservant? The reasoning is that we should not be permitted to state that someone is Jewish without the further information as to the person's level of religious observance.

By the way, every other post above is addressing this admittedly off-topic subject. Bus stop (talk) 12:18, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

"If you are in a hole, stop digging" as someone or other once said. Leaving aside your unsourced comments regarding Moslems and animals, and the fact that you wrote "How is it notable that ANYONE is Canadian?", you are still repeating untenable claims regarding Jewish identity. Do you really think that Yanofsky's 'culture' is Jewish, rather than Canadian? Or that she cannot be both, as she chooses? Evidently not, You insist that there is something both hereditary and essentialist about being 'Jewish' that can be applied to people (all people, regardless of their own beliefs) by a rabbinical court. This is not merely imposing the belief system of a particular faith/culture (or more accurately, a subsection of a faith/culture, since the issue is contested even amongst Jews) on outsiders, it is also marking out Jews as 'others', who's loyalty should be to 'Jewishness', and who can never be simply 'Canadian' or whatever. As I've already pointed out, this is a particularly harmful stereotype, often used to marginalise Jews (or worse). The fact that you yourself are Jewish does nothing to mitigate the harmfulness of this stereotyping. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:42, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

AndyTheGrump—we go by what reliable sources say, by-and-large. Standard operating procedure is that if a reliable source says that a person is Jewish, we are probably justified in repeating that. It is not inconceivable that sources could be in disagreement with one another over such a point. That would create a gray area. But we are not talking about that sort of complication, are we? Bus stop (talk) 13:05, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

This is AN/I, and we are supposed to be talking about Camelbinky's complaint about my remarks, and my response. If you insist on trying to hijack this section for yet another forum-shopping exercise, I will raise a complaint about your behaviour in a new (and appropriate) section. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:23, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

AndyTheGrump—if you would like to know the truth, I am trying not to address the real reason we are here: I too find your dialogue sometimes distracting and sometimes abrasive. I could engage in a good old fashioned mudslinging match with you, but I'm sure you would get in some good shots too. But I feel that I am contributing something edifying to this discussion. And most other posts including your own are going on longwindedly about the nature of Jewish identity etc. Standard Wikipedia policy is applicable here. "Jewish" is an attribute of identity. Sources use it to indicate the presence of that attribute, and in general to describe a person. No single word is expected to answer for all questions that can possibly be raised in association with a person being written about. A 500 page biography is not even going to answer all possible questions. We use the term Jewish as one of many building blocks in constructing a composite picture of a person being written about. Bus stop (talk) 13:46, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Hijacking_of_an_AN.2FI_section_by_Bus_stop_to_discuss_an_off-topic_content_dispute. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:11, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

That many Jews are identified and self-identify as such, including specifically cross-sections like "I am a Jewish writer", is a fact. And in either case this is not to be decided upon by WP:ANI. I think WP:ANI is here to address behavioral issues. I must say though, that sometimes I have found WP:ANI's reaction to antisemitism and general racism very prompt and adequate, while at other times lacking and even offensive. Debresser (talk) 13:09, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Can you clarify who it is you are suggesting is being antisemitic and/or racist? It is far from obvious from your comment. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:23, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

The issue isn't self-identification as Jewish, but apparently Camelbinky's insistance that "Jewish" is a nationality, rather than a religion or ethnicity. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:54, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

The issue is at hand here at ANI is that of Camel Binky's WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior in dealing with people he disagree with. CamelBinky flips out on what he thinks Andy is saying instead of actually what he said. Then CamelBinky makes some derogatory remarks about certain groups then when confronted with his inappropriate remarks decide to cast the specter of Noleander onto Andy. Andy is no Nolleander and frankly comparing him is basically Godwins law in action. I think the issue we should be looking at here is who failed to follow rationale discussion and who made a big stink over essentially nothing. The Resident Anthropologist (talk)•(contribs) 18:32, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

• Start an RFC/U or two, and quit sniping at each other here. Nobody involved in this discussion seems to be asking for any administrative action regardless, and I'd say that no administrator action is needed (except maybe a few troutings).
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 21:29, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I asked for admin action. I asked for admin action on several occasions regarding Noleander and this is exactly what happened. And this person's disregard for individual Jews opinions and dismissive attitude, not just towards me but to another user as well in that discussion, is in fact similar to that case and may get worse if it is not made clear NOW that it is not acceptable to disregard other's opinions regardless of nationality, ethnicity, religion, or personal viewpoint. Calling me a bigot based on what I said and refusing to show HOW it is bigoted is right along the lines of the type of talk page discussions Noleander did. If being a Jew is not notable then HOW is it notable being a Candadian is notable? That is a very relevant question and not bigoted. Show me how it is. Cats, and all non-human animals are by default Muslims in the Islamic religion. This is a fact, and in a talk discussion there is NO requirement that any fact or opinion needs to be referenced to a source, I was under the impression that it was common enough knowledge, and given that if you have Wikipedia you have access to Google/Ask.com/Yahoo! and I was under no obligation to enlighten further, you dont believe me, do research. Wikipedia is about learning, expanding one's horizons, and researching. If you're not willing to confirm what one person says and simply attack it as "wrong" and "rude" and say that it's part of being a "bigot" because you werent hit over the head with "proof", in my opinion you've come to the wrong place to work.

So, in summary, I'd like to know how I did something wrong and how I am a bigot by asking a question about how it is notable to be a Canadian but not a Jew and by mentioning an unsourced FACT about Muslims. If it cant be proven how those things are wrong and how my comments were "derogatory" as ResidentAnthropolist stated. I'd like apologies if it cant be proven, and I'd like a warning on Grump on telling others that their OPINIONS are, in his own words "not necessary here" and his attack on Jews. MANY Jews consider themselves a nation (our own prayers state that very opinion), and by disregarding what we believe as not relevant is insulting and disrespectful.Camelbinky (talk) 17:25, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

The only person showing "disregard for individual Jews opinions" is yourself. That you are apparently unable to see this, is no excuse. I happen to believe that people should be entitled to decide for themselves who and what they identify with, rather than have the opinions of others, whether on a Wikipedia talk page, or in a rabbinical court, define who they are, and which stereotypes to apply. As for your comparison between Neiolander and myself, I consider that utterly contemptible, and were it not to be so self-evidently false to anyone who has followed my activities on Wikipedia, I would be asking for action to be taken against you. Maybe I could have worded my initial comments in a more polite way, but your behaviour since has only reinforced my opinion that you are more concerned with enforcing particular perspectives regarding individual affiliations than you are with creating an objective encyclopaedia. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:42, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

AndyTheGrump—you say, "I happen to believe that people should be entitled to decide for themselves who and what they identify with"… How do you reconcile that with present policy which does not require "self-identification" for purposes of identity as regards material for placement in the body of articles on living people? Bus stop (talk) 22:26, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I happen to believe that policy (or at least, your interpretation of it) is misguided. I also happen to believe that your inability to stop dragging in off-topic issues to push your own hobby-horse is disruptive to the Wikipedia project. Any more questions? AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:42, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

AndyTheGrump—you say, "I happen to believe that policy (or at least, your interpretation of it) is misguided."

Policy requires "self-identification" for Categories, Lists, Navigation Templates, and Info-box statements. But I find no policy requiring "self-identification" for material placed in the body of an article.

If you believe that policy is "misguided" there are probably ways to try to change policy. But much of the discussion you and I have had has taken place in settings where the possibility of changing policy was not present, such as the Talk pages of individual biographies of living people.

Here and here are two recent examples.

The two examples I give above derive from the Nikki Yanofsky debate. I would not really call that such an "off-topic issue" as it is the issue that led to the WikiProject Judaism Discussion Board. It is of course from the WikiProject Judaism Discussion Board that we find ourselves here, because Camelbinky found some problems in the way you related to him/her at that Board.

I am simply asking of you that you respect policy as policy presently stands.

For instance—we are not the Ministry for Ethnic Truth just because in keeping with present policy we use reliable sources to say in an article that someone is Jewish.

And your reasoning that "She is who she is, she is what she is, and 'sources' may be right or wrong" is problematic because it disregards that under present policy we are allowed to rely upon reliable sources in support of saying that someone is Jewish.

You are combining abusive speech with disregard for a small part of policy. I think that is a small problem. I'm asking you to tone down the rhetoric where it has bearing on your fellow editor and as it concerns policy. That is all I'm asking of you. Bus stop (talk) 01:48, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

This is an AN/I thread regarding comments I made about Camelbinky. It isn't a thread about your obsession with ethnotagging Jews. Go away. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:02, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

For "ethnotagging" I find only one Google hit and it is Wikipedia. And for "ethno tagging" I get a mere 38 hits and they are almost all Wikipedia. I think it is potentially problematic when an idea cannot be expressed without resorting to novel terms. Bus stop (talk) 02:18, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Fortunately, ethnotagging seems to be an unusual hobby - hence the need for a neologism. Keep it up and I'm sure you'll get into the OED ;) AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:29, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

No, writing an encyclopedia is not an "unusual hobby". Bus stop (talk) 02:49, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

″encyclopedia (plural encyclopedias)

1 A comprehensive reference work with articles on a range of subjects.″ [18]

What exactly is the "range of subjects" that you write about, Bus stop? [19]

AndyTheGrump—this is an improper use of the Talk page of an article:

"The issue is that this isn't the Ministry of Ethnic Truth. Unless someone's ethnicity/faith is relevant to their notability, adding it to a BLP is placing undue weight on something they themselves may see as insignificant, and others have no right to impose. Sadly, a number of Wikipedia 'contributors' seem to consider this exercise in ethno-tagging as some kind of Mitzvah/Crusade/Jihad (delete according to taste), and do little else. Others see this symptom of OCD as disruptive, if not offensive."

This too is an improper use of an article Talk page:

"Bus Stop, do you really expect anyone to take your comments seriously, given your abject refusal to define what you mean by 'being Jewish'? I'm actually no longer sure you even know yourself, given your insistence that 'reliable sources' don't have to explain what they are being reliable about. Yanofsky may quite possibly be a follower of the Jewish faith (though this is hardly a yes-or-no question, given the divisions within Judaism), she may also consider herself ethnically Jewish (for which the evidence is stronger, though again, ethnicity is a social construct, rather than a biological fact). What I think we can be certain about is that she doesn't consider herself Jewish because either 'reliable sources', or you yourself says she is. You are neither telepathic nor omniscient, and on that basis, your insistence that if a 'source' states that she is Jewish, it is all that needs to be said is just plain nuts. She is who she is, she is what she is, and 'sources' may be right or wrong. You have no right to state this as a fact one way or another. Your insistence on doing so tells us nothing about Yanofsky, and a great deal about you."

In the above I think you are expressing a degree of disregard for some aspects of policy as it presently stands. Additionally, I think you are speaking to other editors in ways that engender bad feelings. And perhaps worst of all you are not being clear. There is no response that any editor including myself can give when the writing is as strange as that which invokes Ministries of Ethnic Truth, ethno-tagging, Mitzvah/Crusade/Jihads, and OCD. There's no realistic way for me to carry on a conversation with you when you tell me I am telepathic or omniscient. This language has nothing to do with that which is proper in interpersonal editorial communication. You can't be telling me I'm just plain nuts if you are seriously interested in collaborating with me in writing an encyclopedia.

If you know of instances in which I have spoken to you offensively or in an untoward way please bring it to my attention. Bus stop (talk) 04:06, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

This is an AN/I thread regarding comments I made about Camelbinky. It isn't a thread about your obsession with ethnotagging Jews. Go away. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:15, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

AndyTheGrump—you say, "This is an AN/I thread regarding comments I made about Camelbinky."

I am not unaware of the context and the origin of the comments exchanged between you and Camelbinky. I was a participant in the discussion in which they transpired. That discussion is found here.

I find you saying in that discussion:

"Bus Stop, a simple question. Are you claiming that the sources you cite state that Yanofsky is Jewish (a) by ethnicity, or (b) by faith? These are two different questions, and need to be considered as such."

""Jewishness is an attribute of identity". Exactly. Yanofsky's identity is for her to define. Any outside source claiming to be able to assert her identity for her is therefore not a reliable source - you cannot assert that someone else is X or Y, only that you chose to identify them as such."

"So Bus Stop,in other words if a source says that someone is 'Jewish', the reliability of the statement has to be determined according to its meaning to Jews, who can then decide exactly what it means, or apply it arbitrarily to 'mean' anything? Wrong, just wrong. Scientologists could claim (indeed, they probably would) that Yanofsky is an an immortal spiritual being - a Thetan - currently reincarnated in in Yanofsky's "meat body". We don't apply the rules (or opinions) of particular ethno-religious groups to determine identity, for obvious reasons. Instead, we determine the reliability of statements from their context, and the meaning given to them. On this basis, a statement that Yanofsky is 'Jewish' that does not expand on this to indicate in what sense the term is used cannot be cited except as opinion - and even as that, it isn't much of a source."

"Your opinion on this is of no relevance - I note that this 'Jews are always Jews, and their nationality is of limited consequence' has been used before. Can you please find a less inappropriate place to push this bigoted nonsense."

""Jews, although known as a nation, are in fact a racial group". Utter garbage I strongly disagree."

"Let's deal with the facts. Even 'scientific racism' in it's heyday didn't consider Jews as a 'race' - they were seen as part of the Semitic peoples, along with other people of Middle-Eastern descent. Likewise, 'hispanics' has never been a 'racial' category, and 'asians' wasn't normally used as a category ether. I can think of one obvious example where Jews have been identified as a race, but I hardly think it is necessary to point out, nor indicate why it is of dubious merit. In any case, since the diaspora, intermarriage with other populations have made any 'racial' aspect of Jewishness of less significance. From an external perspective (the appropriate one for Wikipedia), 'Jewishness' combines elements of ethnicity (which isn't the same thing as 'race'), and faith. These are the facts - though facts relating to social constructs, rather than biology, 'racial' or otherwise."

"How can we assess whether a source is reliable for a statement if we don't know what the statement means?"

I consider all of the above to be agenda-driven and/or abrasive to the editors that might hold differing views on the topic at the heart of the matter.

Policy permits placement in the body of an article, even a BLP article, the information that a person is a Jew or Jewish, if such information is well-sourced.

You are arguing that the existing state of policy should be different, yet you are taking up that argument where the potential for bringing about any change in policy is nonexistent.

I think the body of the article is the mainstay of Wikipedia. It is the meat and potatoes of our project in my opinion. Therefore I think you are taking up a fundamental argument against standing policy. I think you therefore have to use standard language—I don't think you should be calling those you disagree with ethnotaggers, and I think you should be confining your calls for policy change to those forums in which policy change is an actual possibility. It is a distraction to be interrogated by you at every turn whether Judaism is an ethnicity or a faith. Sources are really all that matter, according to present policy. Bus stop (talk) 14:24, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

This is an AN/I thread regarding comments I made about Camelbinky. It isn't a thread about your obsession with ethnotagging Jews. Go away. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:55, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

AndyTheGrump—you say "This is an AN/I thread regarding comments I made about Camelbinky."

This is one of your comments addressed to Camelbinky":

"Your opinion on this is of no relevance - I note that this 'Jews are always Jews, and their nationality is of limited consequence' has been used before. Can you please find a less inappropriate place to push this bigoted nonsense."

Your above post addressed to Camelbinky is clearly abusive. It detracts from the requisite atmosphere of collegiality at this project. You can't expect to refer to another editor's post as "bigoted nonsense" without evoking a negative response. Bus stop (talk) 17:03, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

That is right. This was the phrase I used that Camelbinky complained about. Now, I clearly could have been more polite, and maybe I should have been. I stand by what I have argued however - that Camelbinky was making a generalisation about Jewish people that was not only unwarranted as any such generalisations are, but was particularly questionable in that the very same suggestion - that "Jewishness IS a nationality ON EQUAL TERMS with being a Canadian"[20] (or perhaps French?) has often led to people of Jewish descent being excluded from positions of power, and far worse besides. I assume that you consider the words I used to describe Camelbinky as ill-considered (with hindsight, so do I, if only to avoid this needless drama), but where do you stand on the substantive issue? Is it acceptable for people to repeat negative stereotypes about Jews (or people they consider to be Jews) merely because they are Jewish themselves? Or do you not consider the assertion of an inherent dual loyalty to be a negative stereotype? AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:41, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

In effect it is a confirmation of Norman Tebbit's Cricket Test, and adopted by neo-nazi to slander populations with for the last 20 odd years, that these others are not Loyal to their native country because given half a chance they'll be rooting for some foreign team. Good for you for calling him on it. John lilburne (talk) 20:22, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

John lilburne—I find you taking a stand in opposition to the adherence to sources when the reliable sources establish that a person is Jewish:

"12 days ago you were told that no one gave a shit about your sources, that you needed to show why "she is Jewish" is more relevant to article than "she was was brought up in a Jewish household", given that there is no self identification. 12 days later, you are being told that no matter how much whining you do, baring self identification, you will not get consensus here to add "she is Jewish" into the article."

I guess my question to you would be—how do you justify such a stance? You seem to be taking a reasonable position here, but in the previous post linked to you seem to be pushing sources aside, even when they say quite clearly that the subject of the biography is Jewish. Bus stop (talk) 23:46, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

My question to you, Bus stop, is what has this got to do with an AN/I thread regarding comments I made about Camelbinky? AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:54, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Comment

It seems that this AN/I thread, like so many others, went off track. True, Camelbinky seems to need a better awareness of the difference between being Jewish religiously and being Jewish ethnically, *BUT* at the point AndyTheGrump called the comments "bigoted nonsense" and Camelbinky objected, everyone in the WikiProject_Judaism thread should have taken a step back. We all lose our patience at times and end up needing to check our attitudes. How hard would it have been to say, "sorry, I disagreed with you, but my namecalling was wrong. Let's get back to our discussion"?

Instead, people grew more stubborn and the debate went off track because someone was slighted and couldn't get a simple apology. It seems from my reading of events that Camelbinky is sincerely trying to work with the other editors. So, rather than attack the person, why not look at what was said and try to explain, basing your reasoning on Wikipedia guidelines. And Andy, how hard would it be to just apologize? I think you would probably much rather be working on fun things than having to defend yourself here, right? Anyway, my 2 cents on all this. -- Avanu (talk) 17:57, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Avanu, initially all I requested was an apology for his words. Andy not only refused, but continued with saying I was bigoted against Canadians and Muslims, along with being bigoted against Jews. Andy then attacked another editor in the same manner calling their comments ridiculous and belittling them. Such personal attacks and belittling is unacceptable and I will not drop this until a sincere apology is given by Andy and assurances given that a realization that it was wrong (and not that "it was worded wrong", it wasnt just the wording, it was the entire idea).Camelbinky (talk) 18:33, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Please remember, Camelbinky, absolute statements like "I will not drop this until XXXX happens" kind of amp things up too. Your frustration is understandable, but hopefully in the end, we can get everyone to just try and tone it down and work more civilly from here on out. -- Avanu (talk) 19:53, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I apologize for being so forceful. I am indeed frustrated, I went years with dealing with Noleander and people at AN/I stating it wasnt a big deal and turning things around and making things about me, such as Anthropoligist did in this thread stating I was stating derogatory statements. I have yet to see any explanation of WHAT I said that was derogatory about Jews, Muslims, or Canadians; so I'll change my statement to- I'd like an apology and acknowledgement that I was not a bigot and did not say anything derogatory from Anthropolist and Andy.Camelbinky (talk) 21:17, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Let's get this straight. I object to you applying stereotypes to people on the basis that the are (or are seen by you to be) Jewish, so you compare me to a 'contributor' with a known history of dubious edits which if not necessarily antisemitic, are definitely pushing the boundaries (though this is being more considerate to Neolander than I think is merited). You refuse to acknowledge that you made derogatory remarks regarding Canadians, andf have made a sweeping statement about Moslems which you have refused to back up with evidence, and you still present yourself as entirely innocent in all this? And you expect an apology from me. Ok, then explain why exactly I should apologise to someone who chose to portray Jewish people in such stereotypical terms when I was unaware whether you were Jewish or not, and frankly, given your resort to stereotypes, still find it a little inexplicable? Are you suggesting that before I object to questionable comments regarding ethnicity, faith, 'race' etc I sould investigate the ethnicity, faith, or 'race' of the person commenting? Sorry, but I don't work like that. If I see prejudice, I say so. Maybe I could have been more polite in saying it, but I see no reason to withdraw my objections to the comments you made that led to my characterisation. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:11, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

You continue to be unable to show me how anything I said was derogatory about Canadians where I have several times already stated almost word for word what I said regarding them. At this point I can no longer Assume Good Faith with you when you use vague blanket statements stating that I have used derogatory language against Canadians! I have not, and I need an apology. How have I been prejudiced against Canadians by asking "If it is not notable to be Jewish, how is it notable to be a Canadian?" You obviously dont know anything about what a sterotype or derogatory comment is because I didnt make one about any group. And as I said before- you dont believe me that Muslims believe all animals are by default Muslim, then look it up! It isnt being bigoted by stating a fact. I am not your mother, I am not your teacher, I dont have to hold your hand and teach you anything. You are a big adult, I assume, and can look things up yourself. If you think I'm wrong about a fact, prove it. You are like Noleander in that you turn things on your accuser and attack them by stating ulterior motives and that Jews who are prideful about their heritage and use terminology about Jews in Jewish terms as I have done are some how "prejudice" or bigoted, which is what Noleander always did. Don't tell me what Noleander did, because I brought Noleander here and had these discussions with him many times. And the lack of Admin intervention here is disheartening because we're going down the same damn road. Nothing was learned apparently. So, go ahead Andy, continue acting the way you do, go right ahead, eventually your arrogance and condescending attitude and rudeness and refusal to apologize and name calling and hatred of Jews using their own terminology will catch up to you too.Camelbinky (talk) 04:22, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

No, I am not "like Noleander [sic]", as any impartial observer can see. I have said nothing about any supposed ulterior motives of Jews, beyond stating that it is wrong to make assumptions about people based on a presumed allegiance to an ethnicity/faith/'nationality' that they may not have - this is stereotyping. You may think that being Jewish yourself permits you to make such generalisations about Jews - it doesn't. As I have already stated, if I see prejudice, I say so. Hiding behind facile comments regarding another contributor does you no good whatsoever, and is clearly a gross breach of WP:CIVIL, if not worse. Unless you withdraw your entirely unwarranted insinuations of antisemitism, I will have no choice but to request administrative action against you. Do you really think that you can redefine 'antisemitism' to mean "arguing with someone who is Jewish that is wrong to apply stereotypes to Jews"? Somehow, I can't see that getting you far. AndyTheGrump (talk) 11:37, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Comment This thread needs to be marked resolved as there is no administrative action coming from this clearly. At best this might have been WQA worthy, but certainly not AN/I. Also, Camelbinky you are engaging in personal attacks, please stop doing so. Saying that someone else is like an editor who has been topic banned from editing Jewish related articles is an attack. If you really think AndyTheGrump exhibits a pattern of behavior "like Noleander" then open an RfC. Now please lets stop this nonsense here. Thanks.Griswaldo (talk) 11:51, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I think this is utterly ridiculous that an editor can continue over and over to claim that I am 1- a bigot, then later move on to me being stereotyping. WITHOUT ANY PROOF of what I said that is either! His latest rant now doesnt talk about the Canadian and Muslim comments, wonder if he realizes if they arent bigotry now or he just forgot. I'm sick of AN/I being as Griswaldo did, just sweep it under the rug, ignore this crap and call it nonsense. Exactly what you people said about Noleander each and every time. What is the use of this place if this is what you do? How about taking people's complaints and DOING SOMETHING, anyone who doesnt want to HELP a person with a problem can just NOT COMMENT. Someone has a problem, try to make them feel better. This BS about "the problem is not legitimate" is not how the real world works. You make a complaint at work about another employee, it gets DEALT with SERIOUSLY by HR. Perhaps we need a more professional group at AN/I who takes things seriously. I have said nothing that is bigotry or stereotyping and continue to get harrassed by being said that I have. His belief that me calling my own people a nationality is stereotyping is wrong and his FLAT-OUT LIES that I ever said anything about Jews being more loyal to being Jewish than to their own nation is being allowed to continue. He lies. Why is there no consequences for the explicit lies continuing? I didnt say anything bad about Canadians, Muslims, or Jews, and yet he's allowed to continue in each post saying that I did. But Griswaldo attacks me saying that showing how that is what Noleander did, that's wrong and I get slapped on the wrist. This is what I have come to expect here. Well, I hope Busstop and others keep an eye on Andy and collect every time he makes comments about editors and Jews, because at ArbCom EVIDENCE IS ACTUALLY LOOKED AT and things are taken seriously and action is taken. Here, people read a thread attack the complainer and tell him to drop it apparently. That's not an attack, that's a fact of what has happened. You want to take action against me for a personal attack, go right ahead, hopefully it'll bring to light the crap that happens here. Yea, Im frustrated. An admin cant take 2 freakin seconds to bring to light that I didnt stereotype anyone and I'm not a bigot?!Camelbinky (talk) 14:34, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Now I've "attacked" you? Give me a break. What I said was that I don't see anything in your complaint that is AN/I worthy. I also suggested that if you really think there is a pattern of behavior here from Andy, then stop bitching here and start an RfC. If he is really "like Noleander" it should be very easy to get some satisfaction afterwards. Go for it, but this venue is a waste of time for you and everyone else. I'm not responding again.Griswaldo (talk) 14:47, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

And I think you might be confused because I'm not going to "take action" against anyone because I'm not an administrator just a commentator.Griswaldo (talk) 15:09, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

You said "You are engaging in personal attacks". Yes Griswaldo that is an attack when you say I am engaging in personal attacks when I'm not. I'm trying to get something to be done and when you, a commentator not an admin, come here and try to shut down discussion and state that I'm being disruptive and have nothing to complain about that is attacking. If you dont want to get involved, WHY COMMENT?! This is why AN/I doesnt function, people come here and all they want to do is shut down conversation that they dont even investigate. Blame the victim.Camelbinky (talk) 17:22, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and I'd like to point out that if I'm stereotyping and being a bigot by stating Jews are a nationality when Andy claims they cant because a nation-state doesnt exist, then apparently our own article on Al Jolson is bigoted and stereotyping because it calls him a Lithuanian singer, but when he was born it was the Russian Empire therefore his nationality would have been Russian because there was no Lithuanian NATION-STATE, which according to Andy is a prerequisite for nationality. Therefore anyone's ancestor's who came to the USA prior to the 1860s can't claim Italian as their ancestor's nationality either by-the-way because there was no Italian nation, according to Andy's definition. And there is a Jewish nation-state by the way, the State of Israel EXPLICITELY defines itself as a JEWISH state. Jewish prayers refer to ourselves as a NATION. To call me a bigot and state that I'm stereotyping is a red-herring to promote ideas and push an agenda to deny Jews the right to have people in Wikipedia properly defined as a Jew, and YES is exactly what Noleander often did. To say that Jews cant identify Wikipedia-article subjects as Jews, but Canadians for example CAN, is the bigoted remark; and that is what Andy is pushing. THAT is anti-semitic in nature, though not overtly obvious. Parallels to Noleander are obvious. If I have to push this to make it obvious to the point where I get in trouble, well it's worth it to bring it to the light of day so that eventually something can be done. Because it took too long for something to be done about Noleander, and it's ridiculous that no one learned a lesson about sniping these things in the bud sooner.Camelbinky (talk) 20:14, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Accusations of antisemitism

As can be seen above [21] Camelbinky has now made a direct accusation of antisemitism on my part. Needless to say, this is utter nonsense, as an inspection of the relevant texts will show. and I will ask a administrators to take action regarding this gross breach of Wikipedia standards. I can see no reason why this should not result in an immediate and substantial block. It should be noted that Griswaldo suggested to Camelbinky that "if you really think AndyTheGrump exhibits a pattern of behavior 'like Noleander' then open an RfC", which then led Camelbinky to accuse Griswaldo of attempting to "shut down conversation" - hardly civil behaviour either, and a further indication that Camelbinky is unable to behave in a collegial manner. Yes, I probably should have chosen my initial words better, but this doesn't give grounds for Camelbinky to make all sorts of wild allegations about other contributors. He/she seems utterly incapable of reading what I have written and instead seems to assume that any disagreement is evidence of sinister motives. This cannot be acceptable behaviour from a Wikipedia contributor. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:31, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

You are allowed and continue to state that I am a bigot and that I am stating stereotypes but then you accuse me of being the one crossing the line for saying you have stated things that are anti-semitic? Hilarious. Yes, please an administrator investigate. Block and ban me. This is ridiculous. Andy you called me a bigot over and over! You want me banned? Ban yourself then first and I'll gladly ban myself for the same amount of time.Camelbinky (talk) 21:33, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

This thread is going nowhere and is creating more heat than light - Andy seems to be quite well informed in these issues and Jewish comments in prayers do not a nation make. I would close this but its better if you just move along and let it close itself. Claims of antisemitism should not be thrown around lightly - save them for clear cut cases as thr:::owing them around lightly is disruptive and demeans a serious charge. Off2riorob (talk) 13:47, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Claims of anti-semitism shouldnt be thrown around lightly? But claims that I am a bigot and that I throw around stereotypes is ok? You really think I dont know what I'm talking about? In Noleander's case it was even stated that any involvement I may have had involved "He was criticizing editors for editing about Judaism without having knowledge of it, or knowing what the correct vocabulary is" as User:SlimVirgin pointed out. I have been acknowledged several times for being quite knowledgeable about Jewish history and culture. Jews consider themselves to be a nationality, that's all that matters for it to be a valid OPINION. Andy decided to tell me and another editor our opinions were unwarranted UNWANTED and not appropriate. Because we disagreed with him. And he decided to declare mine to be a stereotype and called me a bigot. So if you decide that I'm wrong for accusing him of anti-semitism then I say you are have a serious problem with not seeing that his calling me a bigot is just as wrong and I question your impartiality.Camelbinky (talk) 07:09, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't taking sides. I complained about a comment andy made at the Jewish noticeboard also. I don't think he should be calling you a bigot and I don't think you should be calling him an anti Semite either - total impartiality. I am not impartial about this thread being a waste of time and creating only heat and light though. Lots of moaning and groaning without any chance of any administrative action. Never mind but its stuck here now for another 24 hours filling up the noticeboard for nada. Off2riorob (talk) 09:28, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Ok, let's put an end to this nonsense. Camelbinky, I shouldn't have called you a bigot. I unconditionally withdraw that, and offer my aopologies.

Returning to substantive issues, I still insist that your assertions regarding this matter are badly thought out, and potentially harmful to the interests of people of Jewish ethnicity/faith/descent. My initial objection was to this:

Excuse me Off2riorob, but are you saying that it is notable that she's a Canadian? How is it notable that ANYONE is Canadian? Is she notable because she's Canadian? If you say we can't put she's Jewish (if she really is) then it should apply equally to her being Canadian. A reliable source that happens to state she's Jewish is good enough. Frankly a reliable source stating her mother is Jewish is also good enough, because she would be considered a Jew. Of course I wont press that last part anywhere because technically if my cat ever becomes famous then a Wikipedia article could conceivably be written claiming that my cat is a Muslim (in the Islamic religion all animals are by default Muslim, regardless of their owner's religion).

We need to realize that Wikipedia can NOT treat the Jews the same as a religion, it is not the same as being Catholic where you can through your life be or not be a Catholic on any given day. You ARE Jewish or you are not. With exception of converts. You can not change being Jewish any more than a person can decide "Oh, I'm not an Australian Aborigine, I'm now a Scandinavian". No, you're not a Scandinavian, and Wikipedia at best could only state "XY is an Australian Aborigine who declares themselves to be a Scandinavian". Also Jewishness IS a nationality ON EQUAL TERMS with being a Canadian, and has nothing to do with the State of Israel.Camelbinky (talk) 19:33, 3 May 2011 (UTC) [22]

As can clearly be seen, you aren't using the term 'nationality' in the sense of a 'people', but explicitly comparing it with say Canadian citizenship, and arguing that it is "ON EQUAL TERMS". This is the core issue here. As I have repeatedly pointed out, a suggestion that people of Jewish descent are somehow inherently of divided loyalty regarding citizenship etc is an old and persistent prejudice, often used in the most explicit terms by antisemites, but common in more general political/social discourse. I'm sure it is unnecessary to give examples here - we are all well-aware enough of this already. As for whether you were really making negative remarks about Canadians, or about Moslems, is rather beside the point. You were making generalisations about Jewish people - or the children of Jewish mothers - which can only be taken as an assertion of some form of inherited 'difference'. This is stereotyping.

Rather than addressing this issue when you made your complaint about my comments here, you have instead chosen to make invidious and baseless comparisons between User:Noleander and myself, and explicitly labelled me an antisemite (where incidentally, your earlier suggestion, which I had assumed was to be taken as your opinion, that Jewish nationality was "nothing to do with the State of Israel" seems to have been forgotten). [23] You have also chosen to make negative comments about other contributors here, which is inself a breach of WP:CIVIL at minimum. I suggest that you unconditionally and unequivocally withdraw your false allegations of antisemitism on my part, and further confirm that you consider any comparisons between Noleander and me are baseless. If you will not do this, I will have no choice but to pursue this issue further, with the object of getting sanctions taken against you. I also suggest that you offer Griswaldo and Off2riorob your apologies for your remarks regarding them. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:04, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Bus stop's comments about tangentially associated issues

Enough. This discussion does not belong on AN/I
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Off2riorob—you say this issue is "for nada". I hardly think this is for nada. Several editors seem to be of the opinion that we do not have to include in our articles that an individual is Jewish even if sources support that they are Jewish. Let us look at what AndyTheGrump has to say to another editor, this time Chesdovi, in that same thread: ""Jews, although known as a nation, are in fact a racial group". Utter garbage I strongly disagree." And the following is the next post by AndyTheGrump in that same thread: "Let's deal with the facts. Even 'scientific racism' in it's heyday didn't consider Jews as a 'race' - they were seen as part of the Semitic peoples, along with other people of Middle-Eastern descent. Likewise, 'hispanics' has never been a 'racial' category, and 'asians' wasn't normally used as a category ether. I can think of one obvious example where Jews have been identified as a race, but I hardly think it is necessary to point out, nor indicate why it is of dubious merit. In any case, since the diaspora, intermarriage with other populations have made any 'racial' aspect of Jewishness of less significance. From an external perspective (the appropriate one for Wikipedia), 'Jewishness' combines elements of ethnicity (which isn't the same thing as 'race'), and faith. These are the facts - though facts relating to social constructs, rather than biology, 'racial' or otherwise." The above is all irrelevant. Wikipedia is not censored, and original research is frowned upon. What is the above but an argument for censorship based upon original research? At lots of junctures AndyTheGrump wants to know whether Jews constitute a religion or an ethnic group. This is not a small problem. It successfully throws every discussion into a bogged down version of the tedious teasing apart of "religion" from "ethnicity" from "race" from "culture" from "nationality". As if on cue AndyTheGrump poses this show-stopping question to me in that very same thread: "Bus Stop, a simple question. Are you claiming that the sources you cite state that Yanofsky is Jewish (a) by ethnicity, or (b) by faith? These are two different questions, and need to be considered as such." Wikipedia does not require a distinction between whether a person is religiously observant and religiously nonobservant. I find AndyTheGrump discussing this right now, though to his credit he did not initiate this discussion on his Talk page, and I am not accusing him of anything improper in relation to that discussion on his Talk page. But I will note that he apparently embraces the use of the term "Ethno-tagging" as displayed in that Talk page discussion as well as by his use of it numerous times in this very thread, for instance this: "This is an AN/I thread regarding comments I made about Camelbinky. It isn't a thread about your obsession with ethnotagging Jews." What we are addressing is a sourcing issue. We are WP:NOTCENSORED. In my opiunion it is no surprise at all that AndyTheGrump is going to get into arguments with people. He is bucking basic policy, he is doing it in settings in which policymaking decisions are not being discussed, and he is recurrently resorting to abrasive language to belittle those who express disagreement. Isn't that what brought us here? In the same thread AndyTheGrump abrasively told Camelbinky that: "Your opinion on this is of no relevance - I note that this 'Jews are always Jews, and their nationality is of limited consequence' has been used before. Can you please find a less inappropriate place to push this bigoted nonsense." I would like AndyTheGrump to confine his speech to appropriate language and to appropriate forums. I am prepared to discuss any issue. But I require certain ground rules. I can't be told that I am "ethnotagging"—not unless Wikipedia incorporates "ethnotagging" into its official vocabulary—complete with definition. I don't like the vague innuendos. I am incapable of countering accusations that are not clearly articulated. These discussions ("Are you claiming that the sources you cite state that Yanofsky is Jewish (a) by ethnicity, or (b) by faith?") do not have to crop up on every Talk page and Discussion Board unrelated to policy change. Bus stop (talk) 14:50, 8 May 2011 (UTC) - this post from Bus Stop is totally off topic - just look at the title of the section and then look at Bus stops large comment - there is no connection at all, it doesn't belong here at all it meaningless to the discussion - also and I know I have asked you b4 - please stop posting those obtrusive large internal links, thanks - Off2riorob (talk) 15:18, 8 May 2011 (UTC) Off2riorob—your position is made clear on this in many discussions. You are entitled to your position. But this thread and my above post to it are entirely related. I see you here arguing on a related topic. This is the same stuff over and over again. Please don't compartmentalize issues to avoid addressing them. Bus stop (talk) 15:33, 8 May 2011 (UTC) Dude - over the last four days your total contributions to the en wikipedia have been fifty edits to this ANI thread. You have been previously restricted in the Jewish topic area you are repeatedly involved in the same issue at multiple locations. Would I be so wrong in saying to you - thanks but no thanks. Although all are welcome here, we are all reflected in the net sum of our contributions and can ask ourselves by looking through them, who am I, what net positive am I? Off2riorob (talk) 15:37, 8 May 2011 (UTC) Off2riorob—you refer here to "ethnic profiling". Can you tell me what "ethnic profiling" refers to in this context? Bus stop (talk) 15:52, 8 May 2011 (UTC) If you don't know what ethnic profiling is that might be the issue - Ethnic profiling is the focus of notability on a subject through his genetic history. Asserting his genetic history as though it is notable This issue is compounded by your insistence in adding it blindly without any historical content or explanation and weakly cited. This is nothing to do with this report and has nothing to do with admin action.Off2riorob (talk) 15:58, 8 May 2011 (UTC) Off2riorob—it is fanciful language not particularly appropriate in this context. Bus stop (talk) 16:00, 8 May 2011 (UTC) You should read it accept it and move along. The bigger issue here is that this sort of issue repeated in massive threads is all you are contributing, your sole focus of contribution to the project. Off2riorob (talk) 16:01, 8 May 2011 (UTC) Off2riorob—David Draiman says that he is Jewish. "Racial profiling" would be an inappropriate reference in that context. We are permitted to include such an attribute of personal identity as that a person is Jewish. Bus stop (talk) 16:13, 8 May 2011 (UTC) Clearly within policy living subjects self declarations carry massive weight. - Off2riorob (talk) 16:17, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Legal threat

A new user account has raised a copyright issue on a couple of photos I've uploaded. See [24] I.e., "Publishers from whom you'll probably hear from soon here, as they've decided to take matters into their own hands including legal options. Believe me, publishers do know how the law works." I've advised this person of WP:LEGAL to no effect.("If law were as simple as reading a brief documentation such as "WP.LEGAL", we wouldn't need attorneys to handle legal affairs.") Also he's published on my user page the text of a supposed letter from a publisher, replete with phone numbers, which I'm not sure what to do with. ScottyBerg (talk) 22:37, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Can you provide links to the images? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:41, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

See [25] and [26], both on Commons. I've nominated the first for deletion as a question was raised as to whether it was published prior to 1923. However, the second one is an 1898 postcard, and therefore was definitely published (as a postcard) in 1898. ScottyBerg (talk) 22:52, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) With respect to the letter from the publisher, I would recommend that you do nothing with it. In such a case I'd simply point out Commons:Commons:Contact us. If the publisher wants to assert copyright, they can contact the Wikimedia Foundation. Meanwhile, the image (File:Doyers Street - postcard - 1898.jpg) is hosted on Commons; removing the image from the article here is pointless; it is still in publication. If he continues to make legal threats (whether he asserts that these actions are his or some vague other party) to support his removal of the content, we will have no choice but to follow WP:NLT. You've already nominated the other one for deletion as reasonable concerns were raised. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 22:56, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. You know, it's ironic as this involves the same issue (publication of pre-1923 images) that arose in a PUF discussion recently that I contributed to, as you know. ScottyBerg (talk) 23:01, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

• Hold on just a minute here - the source of one of these images is a link to a Google Books page. The other appears to come from a web page wherein the image has the a credit "courtesy of www.arcadiapublishing.com, from 'Manhattan's Chinatown' (2008)". These are not scans of a postcard or photo that were uploaded to Commons, these are images that came from a copyrighted work. I do not think it is up to Wikipedia or Commons editors and admins to play lawyer and decide that they are not under copyright protection. Is this type of thing common? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 13:13, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Common sense decides in this place. A public domain image doesn't become magically protected by copyright because someone claims it is anymore than I can decide to claim copyright over King Lear just because I've printed a copy of it.

    I don't think there's any doubt that I'm a staunch defender of copyrights on-wiki — when they aren't plainly fraudulent claims. — Coren ^(talk) 14:26, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

    • There is still a potential legal issue, while I think it is unlikely, could the publisher claim the image is adjusted/touched up to such an extent that is qualifies as a derivative work and is thus subject to copyright? I really don't know how far you need to change it, but I do know that if you go far enough you can have a copyright even if the source material is public domain. Monty₈₄₅ 07:39, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
      • That's possible. If so, it can be dealt with if the publisher so contends. I've advised the user on how to contact Commons, as suggested. ScottyBerg (talk) 15:01, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

YEC attack?

TJWinters (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

User:TJWinters is removing material from Yellowstone National Park which says humans were there 11,000 years ago, and from Whale shark which says the species is 60 million years old - edit summary reasons are that 11,000 years is not accurate enough and that 60 million years is not supported by scientific evidence. I've reverted and warned, but I'd rather hand over to someone else before I get close to 3RR myself - I don't think it's deliberate vandalism, but it sounds suspiciously like Young Earth Creationist actions to me -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 23:44, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

TJW is blocked for 24 hrs for disruptive editing. Under the circumstances, as far as I am concerned, you were reverting vandalism and 3RR would not apply. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:53, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks - I'm always a bit wary of treating it as vandalism where I think someone honestly believes their changes are right -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 23:58, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Note that there are other reasons for believing this user to be a YEC although I'm not sure if it would be violting WP:OUT to post them... suffice to say google is ones friend. 86.181.252.70 (talk) 09:01, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Or with the name spelled differently, it could just be a coincidence, or someone pretending -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:25, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Interesting in light of the discussion above about YES and Southern Adventist University, our Yellowstone article has had somewhat similar edits (in that they were downgrading the mainstream view) from someone also active at the SAU article. Dougweller (talk) 16:49, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Somedifferentstuff introducing changes against consensus via revert warring

Somedifferentstuff (talk · contribs · logs · block log) has repeatedly reverted changes which only he supports (see [27], and continue to do this after warnings.

These are his reverts: 9 of them during the 5th of May: [28], [29], [30], [31], [32], [33], [34], [35] and [36] And an additional three today: [37], [38], [39]

Many of these changes are incomprehensible reverts of Cluebot dating fact-tags, showing that he is a newbie, and I've given him considerable leeway because of this, but he doesn't seem to be listening to the explanations I have given him: [40], [41]

He is also getting increasingly rude: [42], [43] which is not a good sign. I think administrator action is needed so that he starts taking Wikipedia policies seriously and tries to cooperate and communicate with other editors instead of just disrupting. At least it's obvious I can't make it happen. :-) --OpenFuture (talk) 13:11, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

If necessary, I encourage the administrators to look at The Spirit Level (Book) talk page as well as all of the edits made on the article. Somedifferentstuff (talk) 13:41, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Whether or not your arguments have merit, you are not obliged to edit war over them. If I see a repeat of the antics of May 5 (including, as the reporter noted, your repeated reverting of a simple cleanup bot dating tags), then I'll block you. This is a collaborative project and it is mandatory that editors take heed of that. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 15:19, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Evolutionary Psychology

The article Evolutionary Psychology is having problems. Memills (talk · contribs) is an evolutionary psychology professor who is very enthusiastic about his field, however this enthusiasm results in him editwarring to keep a large embedded table[44][45] about general phenomena of Evolutionary theory that are not specific to Evolutionary psychology in the article, and for accusing the group of editors arguing that this is off topic and is not a good way to approach article writing for being "anti-EP'ers" and motivated by wanting to put his discipline in a negative light. This is clearly issues of OWNership, of lack of good faith, of battleground mentality and it is in addition disruptive. I would like some disinterested admins to take a look at Memills conduct and help him understand how articles are written how writing a collaborative encyclopedia is different from writing textbooks. ·Maunus·ƛ· 19:52, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I welcome the review. I would note that Maunus has described the field of evolutionary psychology as "the EP cult" (see Talk:Evolutionary_psychology#Article_improvement) and he has repeatedly shown strong antipathy toward the discipline as evidenced by his edits and comments on the Talk page. He has repeatedly "collaborated" (or tag-teamed) with others with similar sentiments to delete sourced, notable and relevant information from the article. In addition, he has repeatedly attempted to block in the inclusion of such information, while contributing only material that is critical of the discipline. A search of his username, and mine, on the Talk page, and in the archived Talk pages, will document this. I will be happy to provide specific links if requested. Memills (talk) 22:02, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

It appears that there may be issues of WP:COI/WP:SELFPUB with respect to Memills editing of this article. Memills is a professor of psychology. Note that one point of the current conflict relates to a table [46] originally introduced by memills, which he credited to himself [47]: "Table from Mills, M.E. (2004). Evolution and motivation. Symposium paper presented at the Western Psychological Association Conference, Phoenix, AZ. April, 2004." aprock (talk) 22:12, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

The table in question is not my personal research -- this has been discussed previously on the Talk page. These references were added at the request of other editors. The "Overview of theoretical foundations" table is a summary of theories based on content from multiple evolutionary psychology textbook sources (as noted by editor Leadwind on the Talk page). The organization of the table by systems level was noted in the Mills (2004) reference, as well as in the following reference listed for the table (see Bernard, et al., 2005, Figure 2). Again, the content of the table is not my research (darn -- as if I could lay claim to theories by Darwin, Hamilton, Trivers, Dawkins, etc.), although I might claim a tad bit of the systems level organization of the table, but even that is based on Systems theory for which I cannot take credit. Memills (talk) 23:45, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

A style guideline that's been around a long time and is quite influential in our Good Article nominations process is WP:Embedded lists, which talks about some of the problems of using a list format in what is otherwise a prose context (and the same objections are made to tables). Tables are great at showing box scores of games, and other black/white, incontrovertible data that would be tedious as prose, but they have a habit of interfering with Wikipedia's collaborative process, in part because they exude an aura of "truthiness". If someone wants to make a tweak that doesn't exactly fit with the defined rows and columns of the table, it's harder to do so than if the information were presented as prose.

Also, I have a question ... basically, the most common question we ask about any edit: do you have authoritative secondary sources that say that that breakdown is a better way to summmarize evolutionary psychology than other ways? - Dank (push to talk) 00:57, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

HBES is the largest and most prestigious organization of academic evolutionary psychologists. An earlier version of the table was included at the Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES) "Introduction to the Field" webapge for many years (see the archived version here). The current version of the HBES.com website does not include the table because the website was redesigned to include only professional business items, rather than material to help to educate laypeople about the field (WP would be a more appropriate place for that). I was a member of the HBES committee involved with the website, and I was privy to these decisions. There were no objections made by anyone regarding the table, and HBES certainly would not have retained the table for many years had evolutionary psychologists found it inaccurate. Memills (talk) 01:07, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

HBES is not in the business of writing encyclopedias. This is an encyclopedia article not a textbook or an affiliate website of EP's promotional organization.·Maunus·ƛ· 13:57, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Irrelevant to this discussion. The issue was whether experts found the table accurate -- they did. Memills (talk) 18:45, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Who was the author of the table on that HBES web page? aprock (talk) 02:22, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Obviously, someone who was very, very knowledgeable. Memills (talk) 03:41, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't see any need for admin action here, but the involved editors do need to WP:AGF and talk to each other more about how to collaborate better. Memills exemplifies the problem of an expert working too closely with an article that involves his own work. He can hardly accuse anyone of WP:OUTING him if he used his own name as username and cited a bunch of work by himself to cement the obvious. His table is WP:SYN even if the items it contains are not WP:OR, unless he provides a good source for this way of organizing the material. When he gets over these problems he will be in a better position to collaborate, and then if there are still problems with the other editors pushing a POV, he'll be in a better position to seek help on that. He should ideally not add material sourced to his own work without at least discussing it on the talk page first to see if there are objections or better way to keep it neutral, to prevent edit warring that might look like WP:COI. It seems likely that all points of view can be fairly represented in this article without anyone getting too tweaked about it. If problems persist, give him a warning referencing this advice, and if that doesn't clear it up, then ask for admin action. I see he was blocked for edit warring already last month, so one warning should be enough for him to get the point. Dicklyon (talk) 01:20, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Re WP:OUTING I did not provide my full name, nor reference to my place of employment, or my professional webpage. In fact, as noted above, I removed this information after a personal threat was made.

I did not reference a bunch of my own articles -- I have referenced two.

As noted above, WP:SYN, the synthesis represented by the table was published at the professional website of evolutionary psychologists. If they accepted it, I see that as a "good source for this way of organizing the material."

Finally, I believe the core issue here has been brushed aside a bit. Take some time to read though the Talk page. We have a few editors who have engaged in WP:GAMING, WP:CENSOR, and WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT, and who have consistently worked to prevent sourced notable material from being presented, who have repeatedly deleted such material, who have plainly admitted a bias, have not contributed prose except that which negatively portrays the discipline, and have resisted requests to be more civil and truly collaborate. I really believe that they are not editing in good faith - to make the article an accurate representation of the discipline.

Are these editors' actions being examined as well here? This would take a bit of time reviewing archived Talk pages, and I imagine there is not too much time here for that. To have these issues examined, do I need to file a separate complaint? Memills (talk) 01:40, 5 May 2011 (UTC)Memills (talk) 01:40, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

You have done nothing to show that you have any interest in collaborating, you consistently demonize those of your cooeditors who disagree with you, you polarize every debate into pro-/AntiEP camps even in discussions about completely editorial decisions such as wehter to present information in table form or prose, or whether a section is giving unnecessary details about circumstantial information. As for WP:OUT you can't have your cake and eat it: you consistently pull the professor card in debates, refer to your own expertise etc, but when we mention it it is outing?·Maunus·ƛ· 14:08, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

False -- the only time that I have done so is when an editor mentioned that a expert would be needed to determine if the table was an accurate representation of the discipline, and I then indicated that I was a professor who regularly teaches evolutionary psychology. That was the only time that I have "pulled out the prof card." I have suggested that editors turn to evolutionary psychology textbooks to review what should / should not be included on the page, and, use them as a reference to help to resolve disputes. Memills (talk) 18:37, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

You volunteered quite a while ago. The Resident Anthropologist (talk)•(contribs) 01:50, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Correct, and, as I noted above, I deleted that material after a personal threat was made against me. Memills (talk) 01:56, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Volunteered it man, its reality. There is a reason I dont post my vita here The Resident Anthropologist (talk)•(contribs) 01:58, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

So much for the Delete button on Wikipedia... Memills (talk) 02:08, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Maunus and Aprock are both known for advancing an anti bio-whatever explanations to many things. On some issues I agree with them, but they seem to be pushing fringe ideas themselves on this one. Maunus also has a potential, but less evident WP:COI here, being a professional in a competing discipline. Tijfo098 (talk) 02:25, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Note Tijfo098 provides no evidence for this statement vis-a-vis Aprock and choses not to reply to queries to do so. [[48]]. Gerardw (talk) 19:54, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

So anthropologists have an COI in relation to EP but Ep'ers don't? Interesting suggestion.·Maunus·ƛ· 14:09, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Right of course! Anthropologists have COI when commenting on Evolutionary Psychology! So Logical! The Resident Anthropologist (talk)•(contribs) 02:33, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Academic turf wars are unheard of [49]. Tijfo098 (talk) 03:17, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

As this is the first time I've seen this brought up by you (and honestly the first time I recall you ever addressing me), I'll ask that if you feel that there is a problem with any of the edits I make to please provide diffs, pursue the usual dispute resolution, and/or bring the issue to the appropriate noticeboard. In the absence of any of the above, I will ask you to strike the above personal attack. aprock (talk) 02:32, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

And, Aprock, I would ask you to strike the links to my personal/professional websites that you included your post above. Memills (talk) 02:59, 5 May 2011 (UTC)2

done. aprock (talk) 03:05, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks, I feel safe now. Memills (talk) 03:25, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Now this is an interesting premiss - that being a 'professional in a competing discipline' creates a COI. Presumably working within the discipline creates a COI too (actually, a much more obvious one), so nobody with any academic credentials should be allowed to contribute to articles? The mind boggles! (though whether it does so because this was advantageous to my hunter-gatherer ancestors, I'll not hazard a guess) AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:01, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh, go ahead, guess. Here are the rules. Actually, it is a competing theoretical paradigm, thus the rancor. Memills (talk) 03:25, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

"Most anthropologists are unenthusiastic about evolutionary psychology" from What is Anthropology?, ISBN 0745323197, p. 138; on the next page, 139, you can read about the "academic turf wars". Tijfo098 (talk) 03:48, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. I am well aware that evolutionary psychology is a 'competing theoretical paradigm' to anthropology. So what? Homepathy is a 'competing theoretical paradigm' to orthodox medicine. Does that make the criticisms of practitioners of orthodox medicine less valid? AndyTheGrump (talk) 11:03, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

As someone who has opposed both Memills and his many detractors, I occupy something of a middle ground on the page. When I started editing the page, Memills resisted adding appropriate coverage of EP criticisms, but I successfully got the criticisms added to the page (esp. the lead). He wasn't easy to work with, but he conceded when confronted with WP policy. Meanwhile, the various anti-EP editors have waged a strange campaign to distance EP from evolutionary theory. Evolutionary theory gets a lot of credit, so the anti-EP crowd doesn't want to emphasize the roots that EP has in evolutionary theory. They say that EP isn't the only way to apply evolutionary theory to psychology, so we shouldn't let the article give the impression that evolutionary thinking leads to EP. (It turns out that the "other" way to apply evolutionary theory to psychology is also called "evolutionary psychology," so it's all very confusing.) Anyway, a bunch of people who oppose EP are piling on Memills because he's the number-one proponent of EP on the page, and it isn't pretty. Everyone should settle down and just stick to WP policy and to what our best sources say. We have some recent EP textbooks to use as sources, so we shouldn't have any problem agreeing what to put on the page. It looked for while that people were cooling off, but you can see that the lull was temporary. Nobody who disagrees with Memills treats EP as a legitimate field of study. If editors think that EP is illegitimate, of course they'll want to gang up on an EP professor. It's impossible to think that all this hostility derives from a difference of opinion about the use of tables. We should just get back to reporting on what our best sources say about EP instead of fighting all the time. Leadwind (talk) 03:56, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

(ec) From a quick read-through of recent talk page sections in the article in question, it appears that Maunus and others seem to be trying to use their own opinion on what modern EP means in order to change the information covered in the articles. Coupling this with liberal usage of strawman arguments and other fallacies in order to prove that they are correct, they appear to be, essentially, shouting down Memills and the sources he is presenting. If there is any owning going on here, then it is by Maunus and others who are attempting to drive Memills off the page and are offhandedly disregarding the sources that Memills is presenting (when it has already been proven through revelation of Memills identity that he would know far more about the topic than them and has given sources to prove as such). Silverseren^C 03:59, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Leadwind's comment is a good summary above. Silverseren^C 03:59, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Leadwind's claim to occupy the 'middle ground' on the article talk page is somewhat disengenuous. He/she has instead used the talk page to promote a bizarre view of what the 'standard social sciences model' (a fictitious construct invented by EP) is in order to demonstrate the 'superiority' of evolutionary psychology - see Talk:Evolutionary psychology/Archive 4#Standard social sciences model. Ignoring the fact that Leadwind seems to have learned about the so-called SSSM from a biology professor, it rapidly becomes apparent that he/she considers the whole thing to be some sort of Marxist-dominated plot to deny human nature. Nonsense like this is supposed to be the 'middle ground'? I think not... AndyTheGrump (talk) 11:19, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Andy is half right. Please note that I claimed to occupy "something" of a middle ground, not "the" middle ground. I'm closer to Memills than to Andy, but then so is Encyclopedia Britannica. I know the SSSM quite well, having majored in psychology and sociology before EP was established. I'll allow his caricature of my opinions pass without comment. Unlike Andy, I have added both criticisms of EP to the page and positive elements, opposing Memills on one hand and the EP detractors on the other. That qualifies as something of a middle ground. Check the page's history since January, and you'll see for yourself the quality of my additions and of my sources. Anyway, Andy's "grumpy" charges against me are unfortunately a fine example of what we've come to expect on the EP talk page. People can be so mean. Leadwind (talk) 13:23, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I see you are back to your old schtick of pretending the Encyclopedia Britannica has a positive view on EP when in fact it has only two sentences about it one of which is mildly positve the other of which is critical.·Maunus·ƛ· 14:12, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I like Encyclopedia Britannica, as should every supporter of majority viewpoints. Curious editors are directed to the social behavior article, where we learn that EP's findings have been "impressive" and that they don't represent a "real danger" to liberal ideals. (I also count more than two sentences.) EBO also ventures certain criticisms of EP, which I dutifully cited on the EP page, because I believe in including both sides of the issue. I've gotten resistance from both sides when I have tried to cite EBO, so that suggests that the coverage in EBO must represent some sort of middle ground. If only we could just stick to what our best sources say, maybe there'd be less fighting. Leadwind (talk) 15:41, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes you have been met with resistance because EBO does not have an article about EP but only mentions it in passing - in the article about social behavior in animals written by an ethologist who is not a specialist in EP or in anthropology. Great source, great middle ground. You also didn't cite EBO but claimed it said a lot fo things that it didn't claim and I had to bring the cites to the talk page so other editors could see that there was indeed no independent coverage of Ep in the EBO.·Maunus·ƛ· 16:28, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

The problem again comes back to sources. I like EBO because it's a great source for the majority viewpoint, and anyone can read it themselves. If you don't like EBO, please name a better source and tell us what that source says about EP. Let's just find good sources and report what they say. It should be simple. Leadwind (talk) 00:05, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

The apparently the Majority Viewpiont is that Evolutionary Psychology does not deserve an encyclopedic article. You know full well that I have produced source upon source at the talkpage, textbooks, articles and monographs published by university presses, none of which have been deemed worthy of inclusion by Memills who reserves the right of decision on pain of being ridiculed and battered if one disagrees with him.·Maunus·ƛ· 00:10, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Nobody 'knows the SSSM quite well', for the simple reason that it only exists in the mind of evolutionary psychologists. And that you claimed that 'the SSSM' was dominated by Marxism is easily verified: "The connection between Marxist intellectuals and the SSSM isn't really in dispute, is it?" [50]. I note also that you seem to think that Socialist Worker is somehow a reliable source for assertions about the politics of Stephen Jay Gould (not that he was a social scientist in any case, but whatever...). Such half-baked conspiracy theories have no place in any scholarly context. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:52, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Andy, as fun as it would be to talk about Gould's Marxist motivations for opposing evolutionary explanations of human behavior, we're off-topic, and I'll let you have the last word. Leadwind (talk) 13:58, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

This dispute might be a good time for a knowledgeable, patient admin to explain whether the tables are WP:SYNTH. Memills' detractors say they are, but they don't explain what novel conclusion Memills is promoting through this supposed synthesis. Leadwind (talk) 13:35, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of whether the tables are a synthesis or not, Maunus's original objection stands: that they are not about evolutionary psychology, but are instead an 'Overview of theoretical foundations' of evolutionary science in general - they are also inappropriate from a WP:MOS perspective, as they are presenting evidence better covered as conventional text. The difficulty seems to be that Memills is trying to write a textbook, rather than an encyclopaedia entry, and thus feels obliged to include 'everything' needed to understand the subject, whereas it would be better to direct questions about more general evolutionary science elsewhere. The snag with that of course is that he will not have the same control over the content that he hopes to achieve in this article. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:05, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

There is an agenda here. Leadwind caught it pretty well: "...the various anti-EP editors have waged a strange campaign to distance EP from evolutionary theory. Evolutionary theory gets a lot of credit, so the anti-EP crowd doesn't want to emphasize the roots that EP has in evolutionary theory." The key here is what evolutionary psychologists believe are the essential theories to understand, not what you think is or is not essential. And, to determine what they think is essential, we can look to the evolutionary psychology textbooks -- and there the answer is clear: Darwin, Hamilton, Trivers, etc. EP cannot be understood without it. Memills (talk) 17:32, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

AndyTheGrump has stated that he believes that evolutionary psychology is "bollocks", Maunus refers to it as "the EP cult". Their arguments here are just an extension of what goes on constantly on the EP Talk page.

An reviewer uninvolved in the dispute, Tijfo098, above notes that "Maunus and Aprock are both known for advancing an anti bio-whatever explanations to many things." Another uninvolved reviewer above notes that "it appears that Maunus and others seem to be trying to use their own opinion on what modern EP means in order to change the information covered in the articles." There is an agenda here by these editors. I have lost faith that their agenda is to improve the EP page so that it accurately represents the discipline. Instead, by deleting material and blocking new material, they are attempting to hamstring the article.

Instead, it would be helpful if additional, uninvolved reviewers can take some time to review the Talk pages (the current one, as well as several recently archived ones) and help out by providing independent evaluations of the situation. Memills (talk) 16:16, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

And you have referred to Anthropologists as cultural determinists and Leadwind has referred to them as Marxists - so where does that leave us. Tijfo098 is not a neutral observer, nor is silver seren - both have had personal disputes with both of them over other issues in the past. You are clearly the one trying to OWN wp's coverage of wikipedia, you had had disputes with Viriditas for the same reasons the long before I even realized that the page on EP was more of an advertisement than an ecncyclopedia article. This is not your personal venue for promoting your discipline - you can do that at the HBES webpage or wherever else people will allo you to do EP lobby work. This is not the place.·Maunus·ƛ· 16:36, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

The above reinforces my point about the need for neutral reviewers.

Many anthropologists self-identify as "cultural determinists" and the Cultural determinism page notes that it is "...is the belief that the culture in which we are raised determines who we are at emotional and behavioral level ... instead of biologically inherited traits" which I believe accurately characterizes your perspective. Leadwind has not referred to anthropologists as Marxists to my knowledge -- you added material to the EP page about claims of Marxism. My goal is not to "promote" my discipline, it is to insure that the article is an accurate overview of the discipline. Your goal apparently is to prevent that from happening since, after all, you believe it is a "cult." Memills (talk) 17:19, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

No, no anthropologists have identified as cultural determinists for the past 50 years. You have been told so by several anthropologists already. I am getting sick and tired about you telling me what my goals and opinions are, especially since you contradict my own statements about them. That is a violation of WP:TALK and WP:CIVIL. I encourage you to stop it and if you don't I do expect some of the administrators to take action against you. I do regret having referred to EP as a cult, I should know better. You are however exhibiting the extreme incapacity to see things from another viewpoint that is characteristic usually associated with the pejorative use of the word "cult", and that was what my statement implied. I said that out of frustration with your continued personal attacks and speculations about and characterizations of my motives, goals and opinions that you know nothing about. I apologize for having referred to you as behaving as if "brainwashed by the EP cult", that was uncivil and out of line. ·Maunus·ƛ· 17:32, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Leadwind and I have suggested several times that the way to go forward is to rely on evolutionary psychology textbooks to resolve any disagreements about what should / should not be included on the page. You have consistently ignored that suggestion. Instead you have your own ideas about the field, which you believe trump what is actually presented in the textbooks. Your own ideas and perspectives don't trump the textbooks. Memills (talk) 17:56, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

This is not the first time you decide to make flat out lies about my edits to the article, I have consistently used textbook sources, also while you were still citing your own conference papers. LEadwind had no acces to any textbooks himself and was begging me to write in lenghty quotes on the talkpage which I did untill I got tired of being his secretary. You are now again in violation of WP:TALK and WP:CIVIL. And for the second time I kindly ask you to retract your lies and accusations about me or I will have to seek stronger sanctions against you.·Maunus·ƛ· 19:43, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Making claims that other editors are "lying" isn't helpful. You have done this before to me, and to other editors on the Talk page. You have also moved and deleted my, and other editors', comments on the Talk page without our permission in clear violation of WP:TPO. Leadwind does own several evolutionary psychology textbooks. How many evolutionary psychology textbooks do you own? Memills (talk) 19:49, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes I have accused you of lying before, because you lied. Now you are doing it again, you can avoid the accusation if you stop lying about me. Leadwind owns textbooks now because you sent them to him. I own three and one of which I have cited from them on the page (workman and reader), which you should know because we have disccused them. Your only excuse if you have a medical condition affecting your longterm memory, if you can provide proof of this then I will retract my accusations of your lying about my edits, but not my accusations of you lying about my motivations and goals which you know nothing about. ·Maunus·ƛ· 20:27, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

People infer motivations and goals by your comments and your edits. Tell me where my inferences are wrong: You dislike evolutionary psychology. You believe that the field is based on false assumptions (such as a modular mind, etc.). You believe that EP leads to erroneous conclusions about human nature and human behavior, and that some of these are dangerous (or, if misused, could be dangerous). You feel that EP could be used to support right-wing or conservative political policies. You feel that it is very important that the issues be presented not just on the Evolutionary psychology controversy page, but throughout the Evolutionary psychology main page as well.

I'm all ears. Memills (talk) 20:50, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

The fact that you are a professional psychologist does not give you the right to infer motivations or political viewpoints that I have note stated myself (such as my supposed fear of using EP to justify right wing viewpoints which I have explicitly denied on several occasions). I ask you to now a third time to retract you "inferences" or corroborate them with diffs. I state again that I have no strong feelings regarding evolutionary psychology as a discipline, although I must admit that I have not been favorably impressed with the few evolutionary psychologists I have had the (mis)fortune to interact with.·Maunus·ƛ· 23:32, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Everyone has a right to make their own inference -- in fact, they cannot help but do so. Thanks for the clarifications re your opinions. Memills (talk) 23:39, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes you can make your inferences but please keep them to yourself. We have policies such as WP:CIVIL and WP:TALK that clearly state that it is not permissible to use "inferences" about other editors as ad hominem arguments in discussions, or in order to disqualify people's arguments out of hand. You are consistently violating these policies and being nonchalant about it.·Maunus·ƛ· 23:54, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Per WP:CIVIL Note that "the Assume Good Faith guideline does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of obvious contrary evidence." In my opinion, as evidenced by the long history on the Talk page and your edits, I am afraid that I have lost faith that you are an unbiased editor on the EP page, because of the pattern of actions I referred to in my opening comment above. Memills (talk) 00:14, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Please document that "pattern" by diffs or retract your personal attacks. (fourth request). Also are you seriously accusing me of editing in bad faith? Do you realize the gravity of such an accusation? Being biased does not mean acting in bad faith - you are biased, but I do believe you are acting in good, if misguided, faith. In anycase even if it were the case that I was a bad faith editor that would not excuse you from observing basic principles of civilty. ·Maunus·ƛ· 00:22, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

You opened this case. I said that I have "lost faith" that you are an unbiased editor, based on continual patterns of edits, and comments on the talk page. Whether you are editing in bad faith (or whether I am) is for others to judge now. Memills (talk) 02:21, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Once again I note that Memills is grossly misrepresenting my views. As is blindingly obvious from the context, I wasn't referring to EP as a whole as 'bollocks', but rather the suggestion that "large, tree-climbing apes evolved consciousness to take into account one's own mass when moving safely among tree branches". As I said at the time, "if this is the best that EP can say on consciousness, I'm going to propose we add it to the 'pseudoscience' category (or possibly 'fiction')." Now if anyone wishes defend this ludicrous 'explanation' for the evolution of consciousness as anything other than pseudoscience/bollocks, I will be most surprised. Prove me wrong... AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:58, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

AndyTheGrump -- your own opinions (and mine too) about whether something is true or false are irrelevant to the content of the article. What is relevant is the sourced and notable material. The easiest place to find material relevant to EP are the evolutionary psychology textbooks. Memills (talk) 20:15, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

How exactly does that justify you making false claims about my beliefs? Or can you find evidence for these in your textbooks too? AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:19, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Yep, there it is. On page 93. Memills (talk) 20:23, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Infantile... AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:30, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Grumpy. Memills (talk) 20:33, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

A few quotes (below) exemplify Maunus' continued incivility to an editor, all taken from just one recent brief post:

• You don't know what you are talking about.
• You also have no business coming here just to slander me and side anyone with whom I happen to be in disagreement just because I happen to have chastised you for making antisemitic generalizations a month ago.
• You clearly know nothing about what is going on at this page and you are not being helpful to anyone.
• So please back off Seren and go do some reading before mouthing off here.

'nuff said. Memills (talk) 02:07, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Off-topic comments from sockpuppet account
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
·Maunus·Θ· has now blocked himself for 3 months. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.116.41.96 (talk) 10:46, 7 May 2011 (UTC) True. Maunus has blocked himself for 3 months - he is preparing to do fieldwork, as he has already noted elsewhere, and needs to be free from the distractions of Wikipedia. His self-imposed block cannot in any way be taken as an indication of anything else - though whether this was intended by the IP above, I cannot say. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:01, 7 May 2011 (UTC) The block summary was "preempting incivil behavior at multiple takpages". So that means that AndyTheGrump is wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.116.41.96 (talk) 14:57, 7 May 2011 (UTC) None of this is of the slightest relevance to the subject of this AN/I thread. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:02, 7 May 2011 (UTC) Wrong again!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.116.41.96 (talk) 15:11, 7 May 2011 (UTC) Not surprising since the IP is certainly a sockpuppet of a banned user (most probably Mikemikev (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)). Mathsci (talk) 15:06, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Comment The "Standard Social Science Model," as commentators here have pointed out, is a figment of some collective imagination or another. It is not a model adhered to by any sociologists or anthropologists I know. Here's an apropos definition of SSRM. I find it quite ironic that a group of scholars who are constantly whining about how other scholars misrepresent evolutionary psychology maintain that all sociologists, psychologists and anthropologists today believe in caricatures of human nature like the "noble savage" or caricatures of human cognition like the "blank slate." Nothing could be further from reality. I have to admit that I don't know much about EP, but I sure as heck know that the straw man they have erected as their whipping boy is a phantom.Griswaldo (talk) 21:20, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

The issue of the correct definition, or validity, of the SSSM is irrelevant to this ANI.

However, interested readers can see Tooby and Cosmides' Evolutionary Psychology Primer. They coined the term, and they give a brief definition in the primer. Memills (talk) 01:23, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

And we are supposed to take ignorant garbage like that seriously? Frankly, it has about as much credibility as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. As has already been pointed out 'the SSSM' is a figment of EP's collective imagination, and if this is the best they can come up with, I think they show little evidence of having much of that. If you are going to try to insult other academic fields, at least try to do it with a little more style...

For the benefit of those who are willing to take this ludicrous 'blank slate' theory seriously, ask yourself how a statement that "our universal human psychological architecture has no distinctive structure that organizes the social world or imbues it with characteristic meanings" could possibly be reconciled with the structuralist approach of Claude Lévi-Strauss for example, or indeed with Freudian psychology, or with any form of research that compares one society with another, and seeks to understand what is common to them, and what is different. Actually, if one takes the 'blank slate' theory literally, such research would be impossible. I well remember my first 'introduction to social anthropology' lecture as an undergraduate, which began with the lecturer stating that anthropology was based on "the psychic unity of mankind" - that we could only understand each other because beneath the sociocultural differences there were things we held in common - that communication, and understanding, could transcend cultural boundaries. The methodology of anthropology for example is predicated on this premise, and if there is a field within the social science that doesn't work on the same assumptions, I am unaware of it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:03, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

More trolling by already blocked ipsock of Mikemikev
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
If anthropology is, as you claim, based on "the psychic unity of mankind", how would any inherent psychic differences (which are certain to exist) fit into the model? Or is this just more "feel good" marxist snake oil? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.180.46.1 (talk) 08:06, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Can this be closed?

It's obvious that it's only being used to argue content issues and nothing is going to get resolved here. Silverseren^C 08:54, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Concur. Leadwind (talk) 00:28, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Disruptive IP

Resolved

 – Nothing to do here -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:12, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Why does this IP keep getting "final warnings"? Look at the contribs page for this user, nothing but vandalism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:99.17.216.47

Please consider a ban/block on this IP —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bofum (talk • contribs) 16:25, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

The multiple warnings are because it is an IP and dynamic IP addresses are regularly reassigned to different people. So someone who got a warning today should not be assumed to be the same person who got a warning in, say, March -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:27, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Additionally, I wouldn't consider 14 edits over two years to be particularly disruptive in the big picture of things. —DoRD (talk) 16:31, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

No, and the IP hasn't made any edits since March 17, so there's nothing to do here -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:32, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

So then why the empty threats of "final warnings"?Bofum (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:07, 9 May 2011 (UTC).

To force the disruption to stop, and barring that a block is normally levied. (Also, AIV refuses to look at users or IPs without a full slate of warning templates.) —Jeremy v^_^v ^{Components:V S M} 01:14, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Your first sentence is correct. If they're told to stop, and they stop, that's the end of it. Your second statement is not necessarily correct; it depends on the circumstances. If it's a random IP, generally yes. If it's an obvious sock, or otherwise extremely abusive, they will typically put the guy on ice straightaway. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:59, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Outraged

Resolved

 – User:Tillie Jean blocked as a sock of User:Michael Paul Heart by User:Tnxman307. Fences&Windows 16:57, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I am Catholic. I had heard that Wikipedia was a "poor mans encyclopedia". I read with interest the building of the article on Tahash. It was filled with interesting information and with references that anyone could look up and read. I also have read the comments (loosely so-called) made against the article by those who condemned the article as not having been researched to even having it called racist, to letters that were plainly swear words and yet it seems the administrators who were supposed to monitor what was printed let it go. The article has now been reduced to next to nothing and the vandals (I know how you define "vandal") that have done this are allowed to get by with it. The hoodlums who did this should take their talent for destruction and find a wall and use their "spray cans" on it, for such the vandals seem to be. How many good articles are going to be allowed to be destroyed by the administrators of Wiki, while they sit back and seem to enjoy the viciousness of these people? This does not seem to be a "poor man's encyclopedia". It seems to be a way for bigoted people to beat up verbally those who really try to inform. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tillie Jean (talk • contribs) 16:40, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi! Wikipedia administrators don't monitor every article (how could we?). Rather, all Wikipedia volunteers- including yourself- can make changes to articles. I don't see any 'vandalism' by looking at the article Tahash, and your comment, although it contains lots of insults, isn't very clear about what you think is wrong with the article, so it will take some time to try to understand your complaint. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 16:54, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Don't see how religion or racism really plays into this. The article version Tillie Jean seems to prefer (by User:Michael Paul Heart) is here. It was edited down by User:Steven J. Anderson. This is a content dispute centring on the reliability of the sources used in the previous version. Fences&Windows 16:56, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Sigh, and I was working on a witty comment about socks. Ah well. The article is better now than it was before, it used to be a mess. Dougweller (talk) 17:01, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I've taken a look at the article's history. It looks like User:Steven J. Anderson thought that a lot of the information in the article came from unreliable sources or was a synthesis of sources (Wikipedia isn't a first publisher of original ideas, so that doesn't work here the way it would in other places). Tillie Jean, your best choice would be to read the rules I just linked for you, then go to the article's talk page to discuss which parts of the article you think are well-sourced and should be restored. I don't have enough knowledge of this subject area to be helpful, but you could ask at Wikipedia:WikiProject Judaism and see if there are more knowledgeable users willing to look at the two versions of this article and participate in making the article better. You should also familiarize yourself with the idea of assuming good faith. As far as I can see, no one is making any personal attacks here, and everyone is trying to make the encyclopedia better- the two people involved with the editing dispute have different ideas about what's best for the article, and the administrators you're insulting have, for the most part, never noticed this article before today. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 17:04, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't notice that you were one of the two people involved in the editing dispute, but with a new name. You don't need to do that- if you're right, then just discussing your disagreement with other people politely is generally enough to get the best edits into the article. If you're wrong, then the right thing to do is to just gracefully accept that. Either way, starting a new account doesn't change your rightness or wrongness, so it's just confusing for other people. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 17:08, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Note that this isn't the only sock puppet of Michael Paul Heart (talk · contribs) - there have been at least two others. Dougweller (talk) 17:43, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

The article as I found it was an endless coatrack of trivia, original research and novel synthesis. I made a few feeble stabs at trying to remove some of the more egregious material. Once I saw that the editor mainly responsible for its then-current state had departed the field of battle due to another dispute leaving this jeremiad (summary: Other editors are opposing my edits, therefore Wikipedia sucks, therefore I'm depriving you of my irreplaceable contributions.) I concluded that the most efficient, sensible, orderly improvement I could make to the article would be a massive reversion to an older version. I welcome improvements to the article, but as it was, it went on forever about nothing. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 21:42, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I think you made the right decision. There are many parts and sources of relevance in the other version, but it seems better to try to rescue them from the big version than to try to rescue the big version by cutting away the irrelevancies. --OpenFuture (talk) 21:56, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Request for taking administrative action against an editor using gutter language on Wikipedia

Resolved

 – Initiator User:BehnamFarid (BF) indef blocked; big WP:BOOMERANG. Tijfo098 (talk) 05:34, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Hereby I draw the attention of the responsible individuals to the identification by User:Kwamikagami of my statements with "bullshit", here. The background to the issue at hand is as follows: having participated in the discussions here, yesterday I noticed that User:Kwamikagami has proceeded with changing the name of the entry at issue without there being any consensus for this action. On enquiring from User:Kwamikagami for the reason for his action, this user has responded by saying that "The count is irrelevant.", implying that the investment of my considerable amount of time in taking part in the discussion at issue had been a futile activity, at least from the perspective of User:Kwamikagami. Only later, after reprimanding this User for his use of the expletive "bullshit", has he informed me that the move request at issue has been the second in a series, about which I did not know and cannot be reasonably assumed to have known. Be it as it may, it is my considered opinion that a person who is inclined to serve himself with such term as "bullshit" in communicating with other editors, must not have any place in Wikipedia. If I have understood it correctly, Wikipedia is not a gutter, unless things have quietly changed since I joined Wikipedia some five years ago. I therefore hereby request that appropriate administrative actions be taken against User:Kwamikagami. I have experienced the behaviour of this User as revolting. --BF 11:49, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Civility standards on wikipedia have definitely eroded in the last 5 years. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:53, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

BF, I don't think you've notified Kwamikagami of this discussion. Please do so.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:55, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

You may not be aware of this, but in English "bullshit" is a relatively mild word, and it even has a technical meaning (related to "nonsense") that was explained very well in the little book On Bullshit. It appears that Kwamikagami used this word because he wasn't fully aware of the situation, and that he has apologised since he became fully aware. So I don't really see much of a problem. Hans Adler 12:00, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Wehwalt: You are absolutely right. However, I have experienced the behaviour of this User so revolting that I have earlier notified him that I would no longer place comments on his page. I am very sorry, but I cannot force myself to communicate with individuals who allow themselves to identify may remarks with "bullshit" --- it is beneath what I consider as being tolerable. --BF 12:05, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

[lost in edit conflicts] BF, I did apologize. I apologize again. I did not understand that you did not understand the situation, and I assumed that you took your position purposefully. I would never have said that had I realized it was an honest mistake. — kwami (talk) 12:26, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yes, I even linked my use of that word to bullshit#In philosophy to make my meaning clear. Since BF apparently thought I was jumping the gun and moving a page that was under discussion before consensus had formed, I understand now why he was pissed off. It simply never dawned on me that he might be unaware of the context he was participating in (that he was demanding consensus to revert a non-consensual move, while in the middle of a discussion objecting to the move being made after a move request was closed as 'no consensus'), so I did assume he was BSing me. — kwami (talk) 12:11, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

BF, that's a bit hypocritical. In terms of the name-calling, you started out by calling kwami a pre-programmed machine and accusing him of perpetuating a falsehood. You clearly feel strongly about this issue, which is fine but you might want to calm down a little. Obvious fervour rarely leads to sane discussions on Wikipedia and your case is much more likely to succeed if you refrain from stuff like that. Akerbeltz (talk) 12:16, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Given his misunderstanding, I don't find his language unreasonable. If I had preemptively moved the page as he thought I had, I would have deserved it. — kwami (talk) 12:20, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

This request is BS mountain out of a molehill. Tijfo098 (talk) 12:17, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Hans Adler: For me, and for all people with whom I am in daily contact, "bullshit" has the literal meaning it conveys. I and members of my family aside, the overwhelming majority of my associates are from a Calvinist background and they are extremely strict in their use of words (for instance, they never conjoin the word "God" with any inappropriate word, following one of the ten Commandments). Personally, I believe that it reflects very badly on our contemporary culture when expletives are used so casually. Recall the horror that Bernard Shaw's play Pigmalion caused for the use of the word "damn" in it. It seems that we have moved very far from the norms that until not long ago defined civil societies. --BF 12:18, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

If your feelings are that tender, it might be better for your blood pressure to find some other past-time, this is the real world BF. Akerbeltz (talk) 12:21, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I believe the objection in Pygmailion was to the word "bloody" and that Higgins uses the word "damn" several times without any great notice being taken of it. You may be thinking of H.M.S. Pinafore--Wehwalt (talk) 12:23, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

• Think of the children

  Heavens-to-Besty, Aunt Bea, what's the wiki cumming to? Barong 12:24, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

  • Words that you still can't say on over-the-air TV are not "mild". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:25, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
    • This is not a mild-fucking-project ;) Barong 12:48, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
      • No problem in UK over-the-air tv. Dougweller (talk) 16:52, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

BF has a persistent history of personal attacks and aggressive, arrogant behaviour of just the kind he has been displaying here. It is instructive to read through his contributions to the move debate that triggered all this ([51] and subsequent postings in the same vein), and note that he was previously blocked for personal attacks against that same user (2 weeks last year) and has multiple prior blocks for similar behaviour. I am minded to block him again. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:27, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I do find this complaint rather silly, given that he effectively calls others' arguments bullshit even if he doesn't actually use the word. But raising a frivolous ANI request isn't usually blockable behaviour. — kwami (talk) 12:34, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Akerbeltz: Please do not take my statements out of context! Above I explained the background to the issue at hand clearly and unequivocally. I repeat: having spent a considerable amount of my time on a discussion (whether I feel about the matter, strongly or otherwise, it not relevant here), I was shocked to be told that counting was irrelevant! If so, why should I have wasted my time? Please also read all that I have written on Kwamikagami's page and the chronological order in which I have written them. Further, if it is your conviction that I am being hypocritical, please do not hesitate to take action against me in response to what you conceive as hypocritical in my behaviour. The issue under the discussion here is whether for whatever reason an editor can describe the statements by another editor as "bullshit". Once this issue has been resolved, we can proceed with the contents of my texts of Kwamikagami's page. --BF 12:29, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Actually, when you bring an issue here, your behavior also comes under scrutiny. Posting here does not authorize you to drive the agenda. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:31, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

And BF, you've been here long enough that you should understand that counting *is* irrelevant. Discussions aren't votes. The side that drums up the largest number of supporting opinions does not win. We consider the quality of the arguments more than their quantity, and also how they fit with WP guidelines. — kwami (talk) 12:37, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

So, erm, shall we close this thread now, given Kwamikagami's acknowledgement above? Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:33, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

(redacted -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:59, 8 May 2011 (UTC))

Oh wow, that is certainly a nasty personal attack if I ever saw one. I sense a boomerang about to hit home. --Saddhiyama (talk) 12:55, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Does giving alleged initials violate WP:OUTING? I think regardless, we will have to wind up this thread shortly due to the enforced absence of a party.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:59, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

(ec)I don't see where the admin gives his name or initials on his user page, so I would think the answer is YES. There are also various threats in that deleted comment. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:05, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I've RevDeleted several edits - BF, if you do that again you will be blocked -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:02, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to Boing and others. Given the fact that the "very reliable source" he was prepared to rely on is a criminal who used to follow me around with some very real, very nasty real-life attempts of intimidation, my tolerance level for such postings is indeed low. I've blocked him for a week for his earlier attacks against Kwami and that other user he's been in a feud with since last year. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:03, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

He went on to argue about my warning for outing on his Talk page, and repeated his posting of personal information there. So I have upped his block to indef and have revoked his Talk page access, and as suggested at Wikipedia:Unblock#Protection I have emailed ArbCom to let them know. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:13, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

As a note, I denied his request for unblocking on unblock-l, and refered him to the bans appeal subcomittee if ArbCom. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 22:21, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Since when did Brandt become a reliable source? /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 22:40, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Dken5

An editor, dken5 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), has recently uploaded an image to the Commons with a clearly invalid license (sourced to an online quotation site) and added it to the Milton Friedman article. They have also directed a few personal attacks at other WP editors and appears to be engaged in edit warring. Would an admin please look into this? Thank you, --Eisfbnore ^talk 20:19, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, we can't do anything about Commons, and the attacks occurred a month ago, so that's sort of stale. Also, the edit warring seems to have stopped. My suggestion is to start a talk page discussion with him about whatever the edit warring was over and if a nice cup of tea doesn't solve the problem, come back here or to WP:AN3 if he breaches 3RR. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 22:42, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

That editor rates an indef just for this (view edit and summary). Just my opinion, but there it is. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 01:51, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Addendum: I just noticed that edit is a month old. I don't know if that matters. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 01:53, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and I just dropped an ANI notice on his talk page. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 02:02, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Hey I just got word of this. What exactly is the problem? And Eisfbnore, please save yourself the time. I have not personally attacked. It's just you guys on wikipedia take your "jobs" too seriously. If you guys don't like the photos put up, then find better licensed ones to put up yourself. But my goodness, coming here in a panic move before discussing the situation with me? LOL. Talk about overreacting. All of this from what may have been a mistaken add of a Milton Friedman picture? I take it Eisfbnore doesn't like him very much. Anyway, I'm not an expert on exactly labeling the pictures so if one of you could help me, that would be appreciated. Thanks Dken5 (talk) 05:22, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

problems with diffs not showing in red text

I've already brought this up at the helpdesk [52], but with no responses, I thought I'd mention it here as well. Has anybody here found that diffs are no longer showing up in coloured text when comparing new & old? If so, have you found a cause and solution - because I haven't. a_man_alone (talk) 14:50, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

In my experience it's an intermittent, short-lived glitch. I don't know the technical aspects, apologies. Tiderolls 14:53, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

There are two threads at VPT concerning this: WP:VPT#No colour shading on diffs and WP:VPT#Is the lack of colors on diffs being worked on, or not? —DoRD (talk) 14:57, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll watch it there. a_man_alone (talk) 17:31, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Are you using IE? Prodego ^talk 17:34, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes; IE8, XP32bit. It's a fresh install too - les than three weeks old. a_man_alone (talk) 20:55, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm also using IE8 (not a recent install, though) and I'm also seeing these oddities randomly. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:00, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm having problems too and I'm also using IE8 with Vista. I've lost toolbars in the editing window and in preference (though that one comes and goes) and popups. Popups at first came and went but are now gone completely. My problems just started in the past 4-5 days. Other little oddities have been happening too like to edit sometime it's on the right and sometimes the left now. I don't know what's going on but it's really frustrating since I don't know about these things. Are the software people doing this with new work? I already put in my problems over at the above link and now I'm just hoping this will clean itself up. CrohnieGal^Talk 12:24, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Likewise for me it's just in the last few days. I'm using the "classic" screens, and maybe my problem is unrelated to all this, but what I'm seeing is that a "diff" page will show up all in white with no highlighting, and the "split" down the middle may not be even. Usually it corrects itself when I click the "refresh" button. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:28, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Very frustrtating isn't it? I really miss my popups and toolbars. The other odd stuff going on I can live with. I'm not yet having the problems with difs like you mention but maybe I should go take a look. If you want you can add your problems to my new thread here, that goes for any or all of you. Let's see what is going on with IE, there are a lot of editors reporting problems. CrohnieGal^Talk 12:53, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Update, the dif I show above says that the problems with IE has high priority to be fixed. Please see the comments at the dif above. Hopefully soon things will go back to normal. CrohnieGal^Talk 12:57, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

The descriptions of that bug sound like what I'm seeing. As long as they're on it, things should be back to abby-normal soon. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:20, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Less than noble editing

It may be a good idea if several responsible admins put these pages on their watch lists Annuario della Nobiltà Italiana‎ and Libro d'Oro; there seems to be some very dodgy editing and feuding on going on there. Giacomo Returned 18:37, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

There's several SPAs involved there. Edward321 (talk) 13:13, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ch interpreter (2nd nomination)

Resolved

 – Closed now. Tijfo098 (talk) 11:32, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I think this nomination is overdue for closure; it has been open for 9 days now. At this point the discussion seems to have run out of new evidence and some overly involved editors are transforming it in WP:TLDR repeating the same points. Tijfo098 (talk) 08:47, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Jean moukarzel

Can an administrator review Jean moukarzel and workout what is going on with it ? Mtking (talk) 08:01, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Looks like a G3/G7 to me.[53] Someone should probably close that AfD. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 08:12, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Looks like someone had removed a chunk of text along with half the infobox - I've restored to an earlier version. But yes, going on that diff, it could well be a G3/G7 -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:18, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Speedily deleted - G3/G7 -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:00, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Mtking (talk) 09:18, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

User:GaneshBhakt

User:GaneshBhakt constantly uploading non-free images from Press Information Bureau, Government of India. Their COPYRIGHT POLICY clearly said that

Material featured on this website may be reproduced free of charge and there is no need for any prior approval for using the content. The permission to reproduce this material shall not extend to any third-party material. Authorisation to reproduce such material must be obtained from the departments/copyright holders concerned. The material must be reproduced accurately and not used in a derogatory manner or in a misleading context. Wherever the material is being published or issued to others, the source must be prominently acknowledged.

Even inform him User_talk:GaneshBhakt#Copyright it need to permission and I and other users added tag for permission. He remove that tag. - Jayanta Nath ^{(Talk|Contrb)} 09:24, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

All images are free, as I have repeatedly said. Hypothetically, even if PIB uploads third party images, it is because they are not copyrighted or have some rights reserved because PIB ain't an idiot that it'll upload unfree images. GaneshBhakt (talk) 09:37, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Also, every image I uploaded are from government functions, and PIB is authorized to click pics. So there is no need for any confusion regarding the copyright. Also, another user asked me about the copyright and I gave him the same satisfactory answer, and he ain't bugging about it no more. And, FYI, the "reporter" is biting me. GaneshBhakt (talk) 09:42, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

That license would seem to be incompatible with Wikipedia's requirements, in that "material must be reproduced accurately". We require the right to modify content. As Wikipedia:File copyright tags points out, "For a file to be considered "free" under Wikipedia's Image use policy, the license must permit both commercial reuse and derivative works." --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:11, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

The images are now all listed at Possibly unfree files. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:12, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Blanking on the Oswestry School page

An annonymous IP editor keeps blanking setions on the Oswestry School page. On their last edit they stated "Extensive revisions made on behalf of the current wishes of Oswestry School"

Even if this editor is action on behalf of Oswestry Schoool am I correct in thinking that individuals and organisations do not have editorial control over their Wikipedia pages? Unknown Unknowns (talk) 09:53, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

You are indeed correct. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 09:58, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

However that article currently appears to have some extensive copyright problems and the user would probably be right to blank most of it; consider carefully what you wouldst restore. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 10:04, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Or even remove it ourselves. :) I have done. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 10:47, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

For Unknown Unknowns' benefit, you should see WP:LUC to answer your question and for your own reference. It's specifically talking about articles created by someone with a conflict of interest, but its language about not having the right to control content should apply in any situation. -- Atama頭 16:44, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Something strange going on

As I've been monitoring the new user log, in the last several minutes three new users have appeared editing under what appear to be real names; however, their userpages are advertisements for businesses. Specifically, the users are User:MelParson, User:JonHardy, and User:MartyWalen. I find it very hard to believe that this is mere coincidence, especially given they're all badly formatted in the exact same way; could someone look into this? The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:07, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Can't assume a relation just through camelCase spelling of usernames. I've seen this before, all you have to do is tag their user pages for deletion (or blank them as inappropriate) and give them a message welcoming them to Wikipedia and tell them not to use their user page for advertising. Whether the users are related in some way doesn't necessarily matter right now (unless they start abusing WP:SOCK). — Moe ε 18:27, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

User:Tnxman307 appears to have blocked all three accounts. — Moe ε 18:29, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Yup, they're all the same person. Blocked and spam baleeted. TNXMan 18:31, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

@MoeEpsilon; that was my concern. I deal with userpage spam all the time, but seeing three accounts with real names in CamelCase names and promoting businesses in the exact same format raised my suspicions. It was way too obvious for SPI, so I figured I'd bring it here so someone could block the quacking ducks and head off any more of it at the pass. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 19:00, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, seeing as Tnxman307 is a checkuser, I would assume he knows that the accounts were related and blocked them. There have been times were the accounts were created in a similar manner and there was no major disruptions in terms of WP:SOCK, but if they want to get an unblock, there's a message which tells them how. No outstanding issue with it. :) — Moe ε 20:04, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

List of Walker Texas Ranger Episodes

Praise2jesus4ever has been vandalizing this page by rewriting information and episode titles. -67.171.250.39 (talk) 21:20, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

• Well meaning edits are not vandalism
• You have not attempted to talk to Praise2jesus4ever
• You have not tried to discuss these changes on the article Talk page
• You have not informed Praise2jesus4ever of this report here - I will do that

-- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 21:42, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

They are not well meaning edits and that right now the mess is too big for me to revert right now. -67.171.250.39 (talk) 21:58, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Looking at the edits individually, they appear innocent in nature. He doesn't look like he is trying to harm anything, he is new to Wikipedia. I left him a message telling him not to experiment with the wiki syntax in the mainspace and to try in the sandbox first. — Moe ε 22:27, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism, again

Hey admins, time to get busy; there's a bit of a backlog. I need one of you who's willing to Revdel some nasty stuff to pull the trigger. Drmies (talk) 03:04, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

207.170.247.22

Moved to User talk:Jayron32 § 07.170.247.22

 – Seems to be a conversation between just the two of us. – AJL^talk 06:07, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Yobot and inconsequential changes yet again

Despite two recent blocks and several recent discussions in which multiple uninvolved admins have commented that it is a violation of the bot policy and the AWB rules of use, Yobot (talk · contribs) (operator Magioladitis (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)) is once again making inconsequential changes. Would an admin please block it and leave it blocked until the operator agrees to cease the task in question and not re-start it once the heat dies down.

For those not familiar with the matter, Yobot has repeatedly made hundreds of edits that have no effect on the output, such as changing "{{infobox actor" to "{{infobox person" (the former redirects to the latter) and now changing "birthplace" parameters to "birth place", contrary to WP:BOTPOL#Bot requirements and WP:AWB#Rules of use (point 4). On the last two occassions, the nominator has loudly argued with the blocking admin and those who dared to agree with said admin (disclaimer, I was the blocking admin on the first of these) before assuring everybody it wouldn't happen again, only to restart the task a few days later when everybody's moved on. They have also unblocked the bot several times (a violation of the blocking policy) and repeatedlty restarting it when concerns have been raised on the talk apge (which stops it, because it's an AWB bot). Meanwhile, they continue to accuse myself and Courcelles (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), who blocked the bot last time, of admin abuse, of failing to understand the blocking policy and of misinterpreting the bot policy and perform the same task on their main account using AWB (which is technically block evasion).

This has gone beyond a joke. An admin needs to block the bot so it can't be restarted and leave it blocked and Magioladitis' conduct is in need of serious community scrutiny. I hate airing my dirty laundry on the drama board, but I don't see what else I can do. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:48, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Did you read why I was unblocked? I was asked to send the matter to the WP:BOTREQ where it was judged that the task is OK to proceed. So simple. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:57, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I am almost sure that you like th drama. Yobot was unblocked by the very person who blocked it and the task was resumed only after I got a green light in BOTREQ. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:58, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Leaving your increasing incivility to one side for the minute, Courcelles' log summary for the unblock was "reblock at once if problems resume" (emph. mine). Hardly a ringing endorsement. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:03, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) I'm a tad uneasy about the existence of User:Magioladitis#Comments on administrators who blocked Yobot. GiantSnowman 23:06, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

At some point I understood what Courcelles was talking about and I went to BOTREQ as I was instructed. H J Mitchell is just another story. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:09, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Bot requirements fulfilled. The task serves the purpose of infobox standardisation. Check the edits of User:WOSlinker too and probably others. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:11, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I'll get to work on that RfC/U then. Your conduct, for a bot operator and an admin, has so far been shocking and, at times, nothing less than decietful. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:13, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

You are welcome to comment there. Please take some time to read our arguments before commenting. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Magioladitis (talk • contribs) 23:15, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) Maybe others will see it differently, but I don't see a consensus at Wikipedia:BOTREQ#Category:Infobox_person_using_deprecated_parameters to allow the bot to make inconsequential changes, in fact I saw one person who was supporting the changes clarify that they opposed them if they were not being made in conjunction with other changes to the page. To be clear, are you saying there is a consensus somewhere to the contrary? Monty₈₄₅ 23:14, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Who is this person? -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:26, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

It's just an interested member of the editing community. Why do you ask? --Diannaa ^(Talk) 23:40, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Because I don't see this person in the discussion. Why you don't tell me? -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:43, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Are you citing Monty845's lack of involvement in the discussion as a negative? —David Levy 23:47, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I initially read it the same way, Diannaa, but Magio is asking "Who is this person [who you mention in the discussion]?". To respond, Magio, I think Monty was referring to Rd232 who said: "What's the rush?" Indicating he didn't think edits with only infobox changes should be committed. At least, I read it the same way Monty did, above. Killiondude (talk) 23:50, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Thnaks for the explanation. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 00:01, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Killiondude. Now I realise that my question could misunderstood. I think Rd232 agreed to the task. After their agreement I resumed the task. I can stop the "birthdate" to "birth_date" change and only clear the last column of the task (the uncommon cases). -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:04, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't think you've quite got the point. I know you think I'm having a go at you. I'm trying very hard not to, but nothing I say will change that impression. However, the point is that bots should not be making edits that don't produce any change to the page, like changing "birthdate" to "birth_date" (both of which seem to be recognised) or "{{infobox actor" to "{{infobox person" when the former is a redirect to the latter. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:18, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Here's another question. Why is it that anytime someone objects and stops the task on the Yobot account, do you immediately continue with the same edits on your main account? example. Blocking or stopping the bot does not mean "go and do this task under another name", it means stop. Courcelles 00:21, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Most of the infoboxes will be simplified or completely merged to infobox person. We first change the parameters on the articles and then the infoboxes themselves. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:23, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Courcelles, did you read the discussion in WP:BOTREQ? -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:25, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Here are my opinions of the matter at large.

1. Yobot does not have explicit consensus to make edits that are insignificant (do not change actual page output for readers). At best there is divided opinion. This is after reviewing the discussion on WP:BOTREQ and Yobot's talk page.
2. Magioladitis should not unblock their own bot, especially when it's been blocked for the same reason multiple times. The reason I'm referring to is making inconsequential edits as Courcelles and HJ have both blocked for at different times. Yobot block log
3. Magioladitis should not continue to make the edits that resulted in the bot being blocked (see #1 of this list). There are actually several hundred edits made just in today's ordeal, after Yobot was blocked. This has happened in the past as well.

I would hope that the community sees things similarly. HJ's post at the top has some links to current community policies regarding AWB usage &c. Magioladitis seems to be breaking these rules of use. Removing AWB usage might be in order. Killiondude (talk) 00:48, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Please show me 1 unblock that is related to the story above. What exactly do you want to be done with the infoboxes? Nothing? Fine. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:56, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

This edit doesn't change the visual result. Niether does this. Go ahead and stop everyone who tries to make the code readable. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:03, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Go ahead and stop this task too: Wikipedia:BOTREQ#.22Fixing.22_about_2600_redirects. Don't try to attack only me explicitly. There are more people to stop everywhere. They all disturb your watchlists. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:07, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Here's another editor bypassing redirects. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:08, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You've been around long enough to know about WP:OTHERSTUFF. We're discussing you and your actions right now. Your multiple postings in attack of people who don't agree with you doesn't help your case, either.

No one is saying the infoboxes can't be fixed. That's creating a false dilemma. I'm sure your bot (or any other) can do it when it's making actual changes to a page.

I may have been wrong about the unblocks you've done in relation to Yobot making insignificant edits. That didn't happen in those cases, but it did happen in others. I'm not sure where the community stands on bot operators unblocking their bots in general.

While we're on the topic, however, it seems you have had a long history of doing what landed everywhere here on ANI. I found this large thread in your archive where several users (other than the ones found in our current situation) were complaining of something similar. Again here. And here. There is a long history of you and your bot making insignificant edits without consensus on a large scale. Killiondude (talk) 01:15, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

If you see the story 1 year later you 'll see that I was proven right if almost all of them. Lifetime is now fully deprecated by the community, DABlinks were standardised, many of them were deleted or updated, all wikiproject banners now use the same conventions and many more. Moreover, I worked more than a year in improving AWB too. This enabled AWB's genfixes to be used in large scale. Some of the "trivial edits" are now part of other bot's tasks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:23, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Comment: I participated in the Botreq discussion, and whilst I initially opposed the request, was somewhat reluctantly persuaded to support it. However it was certainly premature to declare a consensus in favour, and quite unwise to do so given the prior history. At this point the drama overshadows the actual issue, but it would be helpful if more people participated at Wikipedia:BOTREQ#Category:Infobox_person_using_deprecated_parameters. Rd232 ^talk 01:22, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Since I feel guilty to getting you into this I am OK to do the changes only if something else is happening and see how many are left. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:25, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I am not going to make another long drawn out comment other than to say that I think that HJ is blowing this issue out of proportion. These edits are being done to clean up, consolidate and standardize the Infoboxes. Whether the edit renders a change to the page is irrelevant. The bot is removing deprecated parameters and or doing other changes that are needed. I realize that many editors don't like janitorial tasks but all this "I'm tired of my watchlist filling up" argument needs to stop. --Kumioko (talk) 04:17, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

• I'd have to say that I am with Kumioko again. If his edits are inconsequential, then why are we complaining? If they are detrimental to the project, perhaps someone could explain precisely how his edits make Wikipedia worse. I am just not understanding how the edits Yobot makes are somehow making articles worse. I am just too stupid to see it. Please explain this to me, in simple terms. What about the edits the bot is making need to be undone or fixed? --Jayron32 04:26, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

The main objection seems to be that it clogs up watchlists. Make of that what you will. --Closedmouth (talk) 11:12, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

In User:WOSlinker/Infoboxes everybody can see the status of this task. (Page created November 4, 2010 based on a prelinimary version found in my subpages and created September 7, 2010) The relevant discussion is in Template talk:Infobox person/birth death params (started March 26) and the discussion on bot's task is in Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Category:Infobox_person_using_deprecated_parameters (started May 4). The task is active for a long time now and received feedback from many editors. We already eliminated most of the most weird or disambiguous parameters and rewrote many of the infoboxes, simplifying their code, removing unneeded or unused parameters from both infoboxes and pages. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:18, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

• What's the problem here? This is useful stuff. 'Inconsequential' is trailing whitespace characters or two full-stops. This is about deprecated templates and their parameters. Give the bot free-rein to do good. Barong 10:55, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

  Most of the arguing here is two way, while the rest are mostly onlookers. I hardly see any support of either direction regarding bot policy and inconsequential edits (a few in one direction here, and a few in the other there). I think this is something that needs to be discussed by the community at large. Personally, I hardly see how standardizing a redundant template is inconsequential, regardless of whether it produces the same visual output. I just don't see how we have a rule against gnoming, simply on the basis of whether the account is automated. What really grinds my gears though, are the editors here demanding magioladitis should cease performing these activities with their regular account. Throw bot and AWB "policy" all you want, those have absolutely no bearing on manual tasks. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 10:57, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

  I think the key thing to understand here is that it's not about no-net-change to the rendered page; this is damned useful refactoring of messes under-the-hood. You see it, but HJ, wtf? It's useful work. I don't care what account does it. Barong 11:02, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

  It's not useful in any sense of the word I'm familiar with. If a template accepts both "foobar" and "foo_bar" as the same parameter, a bot changing it is not useful. Nor is it useful to change X to Y when X redirects to Y anyway. We're not talking about the odd page here and there or a few edits an hour, we're talking about hundreds, even thousands of articles in each go. Then somebody complains and stops the bot and a few days later Magioladitis starts it up again or just keeps doing it with their main account, which, contrary to your statement above, does matter—it's called sock-puppetry. And to those who say I should just hide bot edits from my watchlist, I don't want to do that, because I want to see what useful bots are doing and when policy is being violated by useless ones. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:37, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

  Soon some of the parameters won't be on the code of these infoboxes. If we first remove the parameters and then clean, for some hours the pages would be without valid parameters. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:50, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

  HJ, see who I am. The old template and parameter names are deprecated, and the idea is to phase them out. This is part of that; refactor the usages and then mebbe delete the redirects. More importantly, the real template can then be simplified to not support the old names of parameters. That sort of shite snots up a lot of templates and makes them harder to maintain, results in much transclusion overhead that burdens the servers and limits the usage of other templates. I opined on the bot-discussion page: Go-Go-Go. I've not looked at the back and forth about accounts and blocks, so no comment. But the task being performed is a good one (aside from the 2010 year thing). Barong 12:57, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

  My apologies for not reading your userpage, mate. Good to have you back. Now you know my level of clue when it comes to templates, so explain to me in simple terms what the point of this all is. If foobar and foo_bar are both accepted as the same parameter by an infobox, what is achieved by sending a bot to change them all to foobar? Surely the point of the template accepting both is precisely so that doesn't need to be done? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:40, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

  No problem; is a very new account. See thread above and in AC-land.

  Templates accepting alternate names for the same thing are "bridges". A template editor would prefer to not have to maintain that. These bridges get built as an interim step so that the old template can be redirected to the better template. This whole proces of standardizing templates is about the management of complexity. We have tens of thousands of shitty templates that are poorly made, but more recently much more robust templates have emerged. These are complex things and supporting multiple parameter names is a lot of extra code-goop, that ultimately needs to be pruned-back. This is why it's highly beneficial to refactor the codebase (the articles) to use the preferred names of things. Once that's done, less backwards comparability needs to be maintained.

  So, really this is a needful task; work with this fellow, who I don't know, to let this happen. Sincerely, Barong 13:59, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

  Floydian, the edits on his own account are done using AWB, so AWB rules of use are clearly on-topic. Fram (talk) 11:15, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Bot edits and AWB edits need checking just like any other edit. They are not errorfree. Approved bot tasks however often have had a check of a trial run, and we cam be more certain that they are a) wanted and b) generally correct. I have seen to many bot runs which were filled with errors, or tried to change articles against consensus or against WP:MOS#CONSISTENCY and WP:MOS#STABILITY. (These are general remarks, not specifically or even mainly about Yobot). The same applies to AWB. The speed and scale of such edits (bot and AWB) make it much harder to keep our normal WP:BRD model, and often create a "fait accompli". Continuing the edits that got your bot blocked on your main account with AWB is ignoring bot policy (which applies to AWB as well) and is basically avoiding a block by using another account. People are more wary of blocking an editor than blocking a bot, but editors shouldn't exploit that in such a way. And the conversion of the template and the accompanying changes aren't errorfree, e.g. Gianni Capaldi is not born in 2010.. Fram (talk) 11:15, 9 May 2011 (UTC) Magioladitis above said "Go ahead and stop this task too: Wikipedia:BOTREQ#.22Fixing.22_about_2600_redirects." Thanks for providing that example, if I had seen it in time I would have tried to stop it. Redirects that worked perfectly allright were changed to end up with the exact same result but nicer syntax. However, a redirect without more edits can be moved over by any editor, if needed: a redirect with more than one edit no longer has that possibility. So these changed helped no one or nothing, but removed some functionality for most editors. Why should we allow such bot edits? Things like interwikibots, vandal bots, copyvio bots, ... are very useful, but that doesn't mean that all things done by bot or AWB (or other script) are useful and helpful. Fram (talk) 11:32, 9 May 2011 (UTC) One also wonders if things can't be made more efficient: 4 edits in three hours time to the same article, only for cosmetic changes? Seems a bit strange...[54] Only articles only got three visits[55] Fram (talk) 11:32, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

These comments are really constructive. I noticed the "2010 births" and I was planning to fix it but I wanted first to report it as bug on AWB's bug page. The series of edits is because my find and replace isn't 100% perfect. Trying to be on the safe side I don't catch everything and improve after observations. I wish all had comments like Fram's. This would help AWB and Yobot to improve in performing more complicated tasks in the future. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:38, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Magioladitis, when you add infoboxes to articles about persons, please provide "name" as one of the standard parameters when the article has a disambiguator (since if no name is given, the article title is used instead). Recent examples: [56] and [57]. Fram (talk) 13:54, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Check my comment in your talk page. These weren't done by any automatic script or bot. Any suggestions are welcome of course. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:04, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

To HJ, I understand that you don't like your watchlist filling up, I really do. But accusing other editors of sockpuppetry for using an approved bot as well as their normal account is not cool. Especially for an admin. Further, editing articles is what we are here to do and if you choose not to hide bot edits then thats up to you, but its not up to you to stop the bot so your watchlist is more convenient to check through. If your watchlist is too big then trim it or be happy in the result that even small edits can make big affects on the articles over time (if we watch the pennies the dollars will mind themselves). Most of us don't care about a few paultry edits from Yobot hitting my watchlist. I spot check them occassionally but rarely find anything worth mentioning. Additionally, Magio always checks Yobots edits so chances are he would catch them himself anyway. I cannot say that about most the other bot operators. As for them being useful edits I even agree that occassionally there are some that have no effect. By and large though they are useful; even the Infobox ones that you think are inconsequential. We edit here by consensus and one editor saying they don't like their watchlist filling up is not a significant argument to show that there is no consensus for the bot task. There is a reason for these edits which has been explained to you repeatedly. Here are a few:

1. They make the infoboxes more efficient
2. it makes the codeing of the infobox logic easier to read and use
3. it expedites the Infobox standardization process
4. it reduces the occassions of other users copying and pasting the deprecated code from one article to another which makes the problem worse
5. It removes articles from the cleanup categories that show these articles as having deprecated parameters
6. Redirecting articles is no big deal but redirecting templates, especially complex ones, can have undesired consequences (like breaking) especially when Wikipedia data is ported, copied or used in other applications or websites outside Wikipedia or even some of the sister projects. This could include displaying incorrectly or not at all, slowing down the rendering time for the page, etc. So reducing the number of template redirects in articles is a good thing to do.

Additionally, since everyone is citing the AWB rules. The AWB rules state that if the change affects categorization (which most of these infobox template changes do) then they are allowed. Even if said changes do not render any changes to the page. Also, there are at least 20 bots that run changes either on Wikipedia or using Wikipedia resources which do not render changes to the page including all the bots that run the toolserver apps and reports (I have a list of some and some will severely impact WP if they are stopped). So the remifications of the "doesn't render any changes to the page" and that includes bots is a far reaching one. If the determination is that bots cannot run changes that don't render any changes to the page then it won't just affect Yobot, it will affect us all. The bottom line is that Yobot received bot approval for the task and one user not liking it is not an anti consensus. --Kumioko (talk) 13:45, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Kumioko, could you please provide one or two actual examples of a redirected template breaking anything? You have made the same claim in a previous discussion as well, but I don't believe that you have then replied to my request for an actual example of such event. Fram (talk) 13:51, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

As for the rest of your reasons; the majority start from the idea that there actually is a problem that needs fixing, and continue from there: HJ Mitchell wants to be convinced that there actually is a problem. Only the first two arguments, and if evidence is provided the sixth, actually address that point. And coming back to the second; the code may be easier to read when only one parameter is allowed for e.g. birthdate, but editors need to remember less when "birthdate", "birth_date", "date of birth" and "bdate" are all accepted. Ease of use for template and bot operators is less important than ease of use for editors, just like ease of use for editors is less important than ease of use for readers. This leaves us with the first argument: infoboxes become more efficient. Do you have any figures indicating the difference in efficiency? Fram (talk) 13:59, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I'll give an example of why making these "unnecessary changes" is beneficial, even though visually the page is the same.

Lets say you have a template, and it used to display images using a "picture" parameter. Now one day we go and standardize templates so that every single template that displays an image uses an "image" parameter instead. As a temporary stopgap, we would change the code to support both parameters. Lets throw some example code in here.

{{#if:{{{picture|}}}|[[File:{{{picture}}}{{!}}thumb{{!}}Image caption]]|}}

becomes

{{#if:{{{picture|}}}{{{image|}}}|[[File:{{{picture}}}{{{image}}}{{!}}thumb{{!}}Image caption]]|}}

But this won't work... What if somebody comes along, innocently, and sticks in an image parameter without noticing the picture parameter already entered (some infoboxes have an exuberant number of parameters). We'll have to fix that; lets make sure image overrides picture.

{{#if:{{{picture|}}}{{{image|}}}|[[File:{{#if:{{{image|}}}|{{{image}}}|{{{picture}}}}}{{!}}thumb{{!}}Image caption]]|}}

as opposed to:

{{#if:{{{image|}}}|[[File:{{{image}}}{{!}}thumb{{!}}Image caption]]|}}

That's 70 bytes to 119 bytes; a difference of 49 bytes. Keep in mind this is about as simple as template syntax can get. A template such as {{convert}} has several hundred possibilities to process. Each time these templates are used on a page, the entire template is processed. Templates with redundant parameters, used across several thousand (or hundred thousand) articles becomes a significant strain on the system. This is one of the reasons high-use templates are locked down from editing.

Cleaning up this code helps cut down the impact of editing the template, as well as the code that is processed on an article behind the scenes. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 21:53, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

In my opinion, rather than narrowing the possible parameters to one, we should simply support "all" (within reason (e.g. any which are used more than 100 times)) of them in the templates. This could be done with a few edits to the relevant templates, rather than thousands of edits to articles. Because most of the templates use another infobox template and simply pass the parameters along the chain, it should be very simply to code in support for multiple parameter names, it's done (I believe) like this:

|image={{{image|{{{picture|}}}}}}

Your example is indeed complicated, but needlessly so, and it seems to be down to poor template coding, and is not as simple as it gets (please do correct me if I'm wrong). - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 22:11, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

A good move would be to change all templates to support bare filenames without "File:" or "200px" etc. We have some parameters that are really uncommon (uses in only 1 infobox) and they should go. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:17, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely, I agree the very uncommon parameters are unneeded and can be removed. However, when it comes to removing parameters that are used in thousands of articles, it's often simply not worth it. Especially when your bot keeps making mistakes (although I know you put a lot of effort in to perfecting it, some mistakes are inevitable). One of the reasons for the dislike of cosmetic changes is because people can not see the net benefit of making one thousand stylistic changes if it results in even two or three (but more likely ten, twenty, or more) errors which result in poor output for the reader. A couple of issues have been brought up on your talkpage about mistakes. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 22:25, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

The bug reported by Fram was fixed. The others are result of not making changes automatically but working manually in AWB's edit box. My mistakes and not bot's/programm's mistakes, which were done under the pressure of making the work done. It's my belief that if we finish fast then we 'll have less drama and less days of watchlists displaying these changes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:29, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

The cause of the bugs are not really at issue, it's simply that there are errors being made, and the net result is that this is simply a waste of time, with (for some) no foreseeable benefit. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 22:43, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Kumioko, please don't make me out to be the villain preventing Yobot from valliantly saving Wikipedia, because I'm clealry not the only person here qwho has a problem with what this bot is doing or with its operator's conduct. I would add that using your main account to do what your secondary account (approved bot or not) was just blocked for is sock-puppetry and block evasion and Magioladitis is lucky that that (as well as numerous other policy violations) has been let go in an attempt to settle this issue. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:20, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

You have to decide first of these edits shouldn't be done at all or that shouldn't be done by a bot. If not at all I would like to know your point of view. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:37, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

• I think everyone should read Barong's explanation above about why Yobot's work is useful and needed, it bears noting. I still have seen not a single (as in, zero) person who has explained why Yobots edits might be harmful to the articles where it is applied, and we have at least on previously never-involved person (Barong) who has explained why it is useful for template maintenance and standardization. So, for the people who want to stop Yobot: What is it about the edits which harms the articles, such that that harm outweighs the benefit explained by Barong? --Jayron32 14:44, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

FWIW Cosmetic fixing of stuff is rarely without consequences. In my own organisation I discourage it unless there is another reason to fix stuff. IOW I do not allow someone to refactor code unless they are specifically working on that particular section of code for some other reason. The problems being that the refactoring may result in bugs, it may cause an edit clash with someone else working in that area, it peppers unnecessary edit history into the files. From what I can gather here the result of the refactoring bot is to fill peoples watch pages up with stuff that no one cares about watching, and in so doing may push stuff that someone does need to react to out of sight. For example of article X is vandalised by E and the bot B does some tidying up, one will see the tidying up bot listed in the watch pages and not bother checking that some other edit occurred before hand. IMO the edits by this bots should rarely result in watch page updates. John lilburne (talk) 14:54, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) That's why users have the option to ignore bot edits in their watchlists; having a bot do the task actually IMPROVES the problem of watchlist-cloging, since users have the option to ignore bots. If a user were to do the same needed edits manually, rather than by bot, they could not be ignored and would instead clog up watchlists worse. --Jayron32 15:03, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

AFAIK doing that doesn't address John's point about later bot edits hiding earlier human edits from watchlists. Rd232 ^talk 15:07, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but a human doing the same task would similarly hide an earlier vandalism, as would a human fixing a spelling error, or adding a reference, or doing anything. Edits hide earlier edits from watchlists. That's an unsurprising fact of how watchlists work. I don't find it a convincing arguement to stop doing needed work because sometimes vandalism gets missed. Sometimes, I miss vandalism on articles I watch because someone comes along later and makes a good edit. The second person did nothing wrong, there isn't necessarily anyone to blame. It happens. --Jayron32 15:23, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

John pointed out a relevant problem; noting that the problem also applies in some other contexts doesn't exactly solve the problem, does it? Furthermore, humans rarely make trivial edits on a large scale - you need automation for that. Besides which, humans making trivial edits may well review the article history; that generally doesn't happen with semi/automated editing, I think. Rd232 ^talk 22:48, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

It's true but if we extend this logic we 'll should stop using bots. Trivial edits happen every day from tenths of editors. Some people forget to review and save the same page over and other without providing any edit summary. All these are part of Wikipedia's daily life. Until now I didn't have any complains for hiding vandalism. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:01, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Well this is one of the fundamental reasons for the existence of the relevant AWB rule. And the combination of factors I mentioned is unique to bots; most obviously, you will not find many editors making trivial edits on a large scale. This is why I'm generally firmly against mass trivial edits; I'm essentially persuaded that in this specific case, the change is worth doing. Rd232 ^talk 00:09, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) That's the general argument against this sort of editing, and I agree with it. I'm persuaded that an exception can be made because it's a one-time change and the number of articles involved isn't that big (35k, of which a good proportion will have the edits combined with other useful stuff). Rd232 ^talk 15:07, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

One argument against them is that they need a much clearer approval, and the underlying issues (bot merger, agreed-upon parameter names) probably a lot more discussion, before being forced through by bot (or AWB). Looking at user talk:Magioladitis, the latest two sections are one disagreeing with the choice of "birth_date" as the parameter name, and one disagreeing with the merger of a specific person infobox to the general one. I haven't looked into the latter, but the reply to the former amazes me: "But this is easily fixable in the future" How I read it, this refers to "changing birth_date" to e.g. "birth date". Wouldn't it be much more logical, and efficient to first generally agree upon a single parametername, and only then implement it, instead of changing them all and then seeing whether they have been changed to the "right" one. Fram (talk) 15:00, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

To Fram: to reply to your question about proof. I have seen several. There was a problem for a while where if a site outside Wikipedia used Wikipedia data and that data contained certain invalid HTML syntax that the Wikimedia servers fix like breaks, the data wasn't displayin correctly in the mirror site. When Facebook first started using Wikipedia data they had several problems relating to template redirects not working correctly. The only one I can think of off hand were the succession boxes but I can't find that discussion at the moment. There was also a problem (and I believe it still is a problem) where certain templates like {{Start box}} didn't allow Wikibooks to print correctly so the code had to be fixed to {{S-start}} to allow the Wikibooks to print correctly. There is also a related issue with max template calls on a page. I am not sure what the number is but there is a limit on how many templates can be on a page (including redirected and embedded ones) so when you have a template like WikiProjectBannerShell that uses multiple embedded templates, then you throw in other templates on the page, then you expand that to include templates that are just redirects to other templates, before long you are telling the server to tie itself into a knot. Obviously the latter issue is fairly rare but it we only recently got it sorted out on the United States article which had so many templates it couldn't render them all. These are just a couple of examples but I have seen numerous discussions relating to template code and template redirects. Another one I just remembered was Double redirecting a template. If you double redirect an article it will still work but the Wikisoftware can't handle double redirects for templates. There is an open discussion about this here
To HJ: Frankly I had a couple concerns about a couple edits myself and I left notes as such on Magio's talk page. My intent is not to make you seem like the villian and I see some merit in some of your arguments but doing so many edits it fills your watchlist (because you don't want to ignore bots) and citing a rule about not doing changes that don't render anything on the page are not what I consider valid arguments. Removing blanks, sure, making edits that break something or cause problems with the article, absolutely, but not those 2. Especially when we run lots of bots that break that rule. It seems like we are targetting one bot and ignoring others that we happen to like. If it is a rule, then it must be applied as a rule, regardless of the consequences and not applied when it benefits us. Personally I think its a stupid rule and needs to be reworded...but thats just me. --Kumioko (talk) 16:21, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Interesting. You're the second person to point out that other bots make changes that make no effect on the output, but I don't know of any, likely because they don't edit on anything like the scale Yobot does. People have also said that I should alter my preferences to hide bot edits from my watchlist, but that's not helpful because I want to know what bots like Cluebot are doing. I'm still not convinced that this problem Yobot is trying to fix on tens of thousands of pages (if indeed it is a problem at all, of which I'm equally skeptical but not qualified to judge) is best fixed by edits to tens of thousands of articles (which surely consumes a lot of server resources) rather than by a single edit to the template in question. I mean, what happens when an editor writes a new biography and uses "birth_date" instead of "birthdate" in the infobox and it doesn't display? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:25, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

If there are actual problems with some articles or some templates, change those. Don't change everything to solve a few things. Noone has complained about fixing double redirects (in articles or templates), and if a certain article or talk page like US has problems because of the number of templates and redirected templates, no one will argue against fixing that on that page. But the vast, vast majority of pages will never have those problems, so basically these bot edits are then solving a non-existant problem. And if a template contains invalid HTML, this should be changed at the template level. If an article contains invalid HTML, this should be changed at the article level. But none of the changes discussed here or in the previous discussions about bots, AWB, ... were about fixing invalid HTML. Fram (talk) 07:08, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

For instance Infobox thriathlete was using an image parameter where the input should [[File:filename.jpg | size px|caption]]. It has been observed that this leads to easily broken images etc. This is the reason we split in image, image_size,caption in almost all infoboxes. Till we fix the problem we supported both methods in that infobox and now we deprecate the old method. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:19, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Death of Osama bin Laden conspiracy theories

Resolved

 – Closed as keep. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 06:58, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Does any uninvolved admin want to take a crack at closing this, or shall we let it runs for another week or few days? – AJL^talk 06:50, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Primetech's personal attacks

Primetech (talk · contribs) has resulted to personal attacks on other editors, including myself, over a disagreement about the image illustrating Hentai, a sexually explicit topic. He has previsions called other editors he disagrees with "fappers"[58] and "strong obsession with hentai"[59], receiving a warning both times.[60][61] and has now resulted to referring to me as a "scoundrel"[62] and a "troll"[63] after the warning was issued. —Farix (t | c) 14:55, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

To complement it: He uploaded this image. Reading the name and description should make it clear why it was uploaded. --Niabot (talk) 15:03, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

To rebut it: Farix called me a troll too, actually he called me one first. Simply because I created "artwork," which may be of low quality but exhibits more effort than ejaculation of bodily fluids in forms that seem to resemble the Statue of Liberty. --Primetech 15:46, 10 May 2011 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Primetech (talk • contribs)

All I said was that images depicting Wikipe-tan in an overly sexual manner were always deleted because the uploaders were clearly attempting to troll the community.[64] So exactly what is the point of using an image of Jimbo with Wikipe-tan on an article about a form of pornography? Were you trying to depict Jimbo having sex with Wikipe-tan? And how exactly is that any better than the image that is already on the article? —Farix (t | c) 20:19, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

• Now vandalising in hentai [65] and on this page [66] --Niabot (talk) 15:56, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
  • I have blocked Primetech for 1 week given the sudden switch to particularly nasty attacks (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&diff=prev&oldid=428434716), I came very very close to simply indeffing him... but haven't had time to review the rest of his contributions prior to this sudden switch to raging & vandalising the article. Happy for any admin (if I don't get time) to up the block if deemed necessary, but it seemed prudent to block right away to prevent disruption --Errant ^(chat!) 16:00, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Admin User:Scott MacDonald. and the Pippa Middleton article

Resolved

 – BOOMERANG complete, reviewer right removed as editor uses poor sources in BLPs. Fences&Windows 19:20, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to make it clear that this is not a content dispute. I added content to the article[67] that was removed by User:Scott MacDonald with the edit summary that it was "salatios nonsense". I asked for a better explanation stating the specific Wikipedia policies that were part of my thought process in adding it, and requesting the reasoning behind the removal. I did not edit war and was simply asking for clarification.

After several other editors replied, I was told I was using "poor judgement" in adding it in the first place,[68] and that my "demand for a rule" showed I was "unable to make good calls".[69] The entire time all I did was ask questions regarding content that had been reported in several reliable sources (again, I didn't and don't care if the content is there or not, but there was no counter-argument other than "it's gossip and doesn't belong" up to this point) and I was curious because WP:BLP contains no provisions for excluding reliably sourced offers of employment for vast sums of money. Eventually, WP:NOTNEWS was quoted as a reason for exclusion, and while I feel that point could be reasonably argued, I wasn't looking for a debate on content, I was trying to get the editors that feel they WP:OWN the article to see that they were jumping the gun with their rhetoric.

Finally, because I had the temerity to ask for clarification on this process (not the content, but the process) and because it appears people have decided that their interpretation of what belongs in a WP:BLP is the Word of God and Shall Not Be Questioned ScottMac now appears to be considering revoking my reveiwer rights.[70]

Talk pages are for discussing the article topic rationally, not bullying. I have no problem with the content not being added to the article, but the process by which it was removed was ham-handed. I don't believe I broke any rules or showed poor judgement in any way, but I do feel that the response I received on that talk page was completely out-of-line and I'd like to see some kind of warning on this, because it should not be repeated. If I'm judged by the Community to be in the wrong I'll accept that and I'll surrender my reviewer rights voluntarily. Thanks. SeanNovack (talk) 16:33, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

This is silly. You added what should have been obviously inappropriate material to a BLP. It was reverted. You went to the talk page and demanded an explanation.[71] One should not have been required for an experienced user who has been judged able enough to have reviewer rights, but one was given. Indeed I,[72] and two other editors explained it to you, calmly and civilly.[73][74] Then you responded by the oddest post[75] which attempted to demand that a "policy reason" was given why the material was illegitimate "leaving aside the subject matter and just going by policy". At that I began to question your judgement. I still do. People working on BLPs need to have good judgement, not the attitude "it goes in unless rule 4bc explicitly says otherwise.--Scott Mac 16:49, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

It shouldn't have been included, I'm not sure why you felt this was an ANI matter, and you're not doing yourself any favors by the sarcastic "Word of God and Shall Not Be Questioned" rhetoric when, in fact, you asked questions and people, including, erm, "God," answered them. Also, see above re: "this is silly." Telling people to calm down and then dragging this trifling matter to ANI seems hypocritical, for what it's worth. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 16:53, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I also support the position that users with reviewer rights showing poor judgment as to what is acceptable in BLP articles should be considered for removal of the right, especially if in the ensuing discussion they don't appear to see the light so to speak. Off2riorob (talk) 16:54, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Consider the source you tried to cite the material to begin with as well. That should have been a clue as to why that material is probably just internet gossip and not encyclopedic material, not to mention WP:BLP. — Moe ε 16:56, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Reviewers should be required to understand what is, and is not, a clearly improper source for a contentious claim in any BLP. The edit proposed does not meet the minimal requirements for being a valid addition of a contentious claim. Collect (talk) 17:44, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I have removed the reviewer usergroup, per the above comments. NW (Talk) 17:50, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. The right is given much too freely it seems to me, I've seen a number of problematic editors given it. Dougweller (talk) 18:47, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Wanaku Andrea

Is a page that was created specifically to attack that individual, and multiple editors are engaging me in an edit war over the attack page deletion template. Phearson (talk) 17:33, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Nuked. Cheers. lifebaka++ 17:38, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Multiple issues, editors uncivil, personal attacks at Talk:The Andreae Family

Editors contesting deletion in Talk:The Andreae Family are being uncivil. Phearson (talk) 17:46, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

They look like sockpuppets of the same user...need a sock check.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 17:52, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Even if they aren't the same user, they are single-purpose created for the intent of defending the article about their family and some of them are making odd entries of unnotable topics.

Ededededed (talk · contribs)

Tupmeister (talk · contribs)

Heejibeejies (talk · contribs)

Anders333 (talk · contribs)

Jackbrodie1234 (talk · contribs)

— Moe ε 18:09, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Author has now requested the deletion of the page. But that does not excuse the editors for their behavior directed at me. Phearson (talk) 18:12, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Listed editors have been notified of this discussion. Phearson (talk) 18:17, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

IMHO, the user and socks are only here to vandalize (include via creation of the article in the first place). No point in engaging, they should just be blocked. DeCausa (talk) 18:22, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Agree with DeCausa.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 18:26, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

All of the following are  Likely matches to each other:

Ededededed (talk · contribs)

Tupmeister (talk · contribs)

Heejibeejies (talk · contribs)

Anders333 (talk · contribs)

Jackbrodie1234 (talk · contribs)

IPhonefour (talk · contribs)

Tupster (talk · contribs)

Beastybrodie (talk · contribs) TNXMan 18:37, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Deleted article as A7 - no evidence of signficance - "a large family dating back hundreds of years" doesn't cut it. Dougweller (talk) 18:52, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Trademark music had a similar pattern, featuring Tupmeister (talk · contribs), Anders333 (talk · contribs) & Ededededed (talk · contribs). (Now deleted.) This, this & this are clearly inappropriate. I'm blocking the lot. — Scientizzle 19:23, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

User:Shuvuhikovsky was planning to approve every article in this project (or disapprove them, I guess) for reading by people from his country (Belarus)

Resolved

 – Wannabe censor (or prankster) indef'd.

He claimed to have Jimbo's permission to add "approved" text in Belarussian at the end of any articles he found satisfactory here! I reverted and blocked him. Please comment, folks. --Orange Mike | Talk 01:11, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I would not have blocked him so quickly (although he'd already been warned by another editor) were it not for the arrogant "I have agreement with Jim Wales for permission stamp of Belaurus government approved. 'Step Away' and let me confront my work." on my talk page. --Orange Mike | Talk 01:15, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Considering that he said, " This behaviour of mine is one to be not argued. The people of Republic of Belaurus need approval for English speakers for articles. I work for Belaurus government so therefore agreement is to be tabled shortly with Wikipedia and Republic of Belaurus for permission. So please SIR, let me carry on my business and this sort of legislation will be not null and devoid," I hope for the sake of the citizens of that country that he is speaking nonsense. Good block. DGG ( talk ) 01:21, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I hope for the sake of the English language he's speaking nonsense. The above makes very little sense, and I don't think context will save it. —Jeremy v^_^v ^{Components:V S M} 01:27, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

From the sound of it, that might well have been something Alexander Lukashenko himself would say; his speeches usually make about that much sense. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:55, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

¯\(°_o)/¯ could have been worse I guess, at least it was "Belarus viewership" and not for the approval of the PRC. Good block. — Moe ε 01:40, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

eh he turned up on IRC but eventualy gave up the pretense.©Geni 01:31, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Why are you guys so worried? He approves of Miss Universe Ireland 2009. Tijfo098 (talk) 07:00, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I know that the wikipedias are run somewhat separately, but has anyone looked to see whether he is doing the same thing to the Belarussian wikipedia? (I don't know enough Belarussian (or any Cyrillic language) to guessNaraht (talk) 19:48, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I am a Belarusian speaker and confirm that the very text of the "approval" in Belarusian is a silliness. Ladnadruk (talk) 01:41, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

I am not a Belrusian speaker of the good type, (or at all) and am simply here to make a funny postage. HalfShadow 02:11, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

AIV Backlog

See here. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 23:12, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Indefinite block of Jeick

Resolved

 – unblocked. --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:03, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

I am the owner of Jeick. Since leaving a job, it appears that a former co-worker vandalized wikipedia pages while still being logged in to my account. How do I get this indefinite block lifted? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.109.92.172 (talk) 23:40, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

• Are you able to log into the account? If so, log in to it and change the password to prevent your former co-worker from using it again, and then post something on your user talk page so that we know you're back in control. Reyk _YO! 23:45, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
• Done. (174.109.92.172 (talk) 00:00, 11 May 2011 (UTC))

User:UtherSRG refusing to get the point

UtherSRG (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is an administrator here on en-wiki whose primary role (according to his logs, anyway) is tagging and deleting problematic new pages. This is not a problem; it is an area where more help would always be appreciated. The problem is that in many cases these pages are not problematic, and he has repeatedly refused to get the point.

Uther's deletions are persistently incorrect, either applying policy in a self-admittedly overly stringent fashion, or more often, crossing the line between "stringent" and "extending the rules to the point of absurdity". He deleted Jason Dormon as A7 when it appeared like so, claiming there was no evidence of significance. Ignacio Valenti Lacroix was deleted as a recreation of an article previously deleted following discussion, when in actual fact the only action undertaken on the page was his prior CSD of it. Ryeland Allison was similarly CSDd as A7, when it is beyond comprehension as to how it could fulfil the CSD criteria. Glyn Lewis was noted as a widely-published psychiatry professor who leads a department, but this is apparently no evidence of significance. Neither is the release of two albums on Universal Music, while this apparently lacks enough context to be a valid article. D S Malik's six books and 45 academic papers contain no semblance of significance, which I'm sure he'd be appalled to hear.

Occasional mistakes are fine. Occasional mistakes are to be expected. But these are not occasional mistakes - these are all from within the last 2-3 days, and he has been told about the issues. multiple users and admins, including a WMF staffer, have warned him about his attitude. His response has been most unhelpful, and are normally terse, contextless replies which give no indication that he's even accepted there's a problem, much less changed his tone as a result. This is not something new - my attention was initially drawn to him when I saw some of the helpful comments he was providing new users with. Unsure as to why their articles had been (sometimes wrongfully) deleted, they were told, for example, that he was uninterested in discussing the deletion.

Quite frankly, this has gone long enough - Uther's record over the last few days alone shows that he either doesn't understand policy or has an understanding of it so warped from the norm as to be the subject of a Twilight Zone episode. Despite multiple users and administrators telling him there's a problem, he has neither held off on acting so as to avoid screwups, or improved his behaviour and application of policy. A wall of decline notices, and he doesn't think it's worth reconsidering. I would like some general commentary on whether or not his behaviour is indeed problematic and, if so, a resolution that UtherSRG be either:

1. topic-banned from deletion work until he gets a better grasp of what is required, or;
2. initially or if he fails to follow the ban, the subject of forcible tool-removal (a far less torturous procedure than it might sound).

I'd love to resolve it with talking and asking him nicely, but asking him nicely hasn't worked; it's now time to, as I told him when I asked him to improve, move it up the food chain. Ironholds (talk) 19:15, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

RfC is the usual next step for getting more and uninvolved others' input and highlighting to the editor in question the serious nature of the problem (i.e., can lead to ArbCom yanking his admin bit, per Wikipedia:Admin#Requests for comment on administrator conduct). DMacks (talk) 19:30, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

These deletions and nominations appear to be very far out of process, and a response to a query that "I am uninterested in having discussions about CSD'd items" is outrageous for any admin. Unless he reforms his behaviour, desysopping would seem the only option. Fences&Windows 20:10, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

And that wasn't the first time he gave such a response: "I'm not interested in debating or discussing." And yet "Administrators are expected to respond promptly and civilly to queries about their Wikipedia-related conduct and administrator actions and to justify them when needed." (WP:ADMINACCT). Fences&Windows 20:12, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

• After posting this thread, a user drew my attention to the DRV here - out of process actions ignoring those who complain is apparently a long-term thing for this user. Ironholds (talk) 20:29, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

  For the sake of clarity, the DRV being referred to is "Malamanteau". —Tom Morris (talk) 20:35, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

  See also Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2010 April 18#Redirects in Chinese. UtherSRG told Mathpianist93 (talk · contribs): "Denied, and yes, exactly. English-language wiki article titles should be in Roman characters. I'm not going to discuss this." Cunard (talk) 09:46, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Surely the single most important thing that any admin must do is be prepared to talk about why they've done what they've done? To me, that's almost more worrying than the wrong decisions stuff. People can go through phases of making grossly wrong decisions (it's part of being human), or have mental blocks about one particular area of work (also part of being human) - but to fail completely to recognise that this is what's happening, to address it, or even to discuss it, is not a standard part-of-being-human response. Something does need to be done - this is not likely to change by itself. Pesky (talk) 05:44, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

• Comment Being a relatively new admin (the newest at present), I felt a little awkward leaving a note on his talk page saying I'd declined his CSD nomination, particularly since it was pointed out in my RfA that I had a less than 100% record myself. Having looked at UtherSRG's RfA to see if his knowledge of policy was checked, I note that the degree of rigour applied in RfAs was somewhat less back then (7 years ago), and suspect he might not have fared so well today. There does appear to be a fundamental lack of understanding of the purpose and scope of CSD here, for instance: [76], [77], [78], [79], [80], [81].

These are all in the two weeks... I'm not a fan of reconfirmation RfAs, but with the evidence above and apparent lack of interest in engaging other editors in discussion, perhaps Uther should explore this option? Catfish Jim & the soapdish 10:07, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Yup. I have been an ass. I get overzealous on some CSDs, particularly A7 bands and people. I've been around way too long, and policies have changed dramatically in the 7 years since I first became an admin. It is difficult to keep up with them, and my old understandings slip back as the correct modus operandi, erroneously. I'm taking this as a significant wake-up call. You won't see any gross mishandlings in the future. (I can't promise no mishandlings, as I'm only human...) Mea culpa. As for not talking, yeah, I've been an ass in that way, too. I get my hackles up, especially with ignorant newbies who don't want to take the time to learn anything about what they are supposed to do to make a good article, and who then whine when anyone sneezes at their mistakes. I wonder if there is a better way to inform new accounts as to what is expected in the creation of new articles. That all said, I'm sure that doesn't address all of the concerns posted here, but may give better insight into my failures. If y'all have further questions, yes, I will answer them. - UtherSRG (talk) 14:10, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and my Wikipedia use is sporadic. I'll go for a few days or a couple of weeks, and then not have the time/interest/access/etc, as has happened in the past couple of days. My apoogies for not posting sooner. - UtherSRG (talk) 14:12, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

@Uther: I've been here a long time, too -- not as long as you, but 6 years at the end of June -- and everything you have said is true: policy has changed over the years, interpretation of policy has changed, and best practices for the implmentation of policy have changed -- and it's sometimes difficult to keep track of the moving target, especially if you don't spend a lot of time editing. Given these realities, could I suggest then that you might want to stay away from activities which may become contentious or, at least, check in to see what the current status of policy & practice is before you make those edits? I think that doing so is likely to keep your name out of the noticeboards. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:51, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I am also concerned with the way UtherSRG uses his admin powers to delete articles. I became aware that an article on the band WU LYF had been deleted even though there were articles on them in several RS, so I created a new article which included citations to various RS including the NME, the Guardian, the Observer and Rolling Stone. Needless to say I was surprised to see my sourced article deleted via CSD less than an hour after I created it. When I tried to discuss the matter with UtherSRG he said "I'm not interested in debating or discussing". [82] He stated that all articles that have previously been deleted via CSD can only be recreated via the DRV process. I asked him to point me to where it says that in the Wiki rules, but he declined.

So, I followed his instructions and opened a case at DRV where the deletion was overturned with unanimous agreement. [83] I had thought that would be the end of it, but today things started getting curious. A new user called Romancandle99 joined wikipedia at 05:10 [84] and at 05:18 they started gutting the WU LYF article deleting most of the content and ALL of the references, [85] then soon after that UtherSRG came along and listed the now-unsourced article at AfD. Now, even though there were no sources at that exact moment, giving that he had seen the article before and we'd discussed it, he knew that it used to have sources, but he nominated it for deletion anyway. The reason that I'm bringing this to your attention is because his AfD nomination was listed at 14:55, 9 May 2011 (UTC) which is after he promised to amend his ways here.

I do hope that UtherSRG moves away from the NPP for a while, because I don't think he's the right person to be deleting new articles if "ignorant newbies who don't want to take the time to learn anything about what they are supposed to do to make a good article, and who then whine when anyone sneezes at their mistakes" is how he regards new editors. Robman94 (talk) 02:40, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I made my comment to Uther above after I have voted "keep" in the AfD (I also voted "restore" in the DRV), so it definitely informed what I wrote, but I hadn't realized that Uther had opened the AfD after the assurances he gave. I find that disturbing, as it implies not that Uther is simply rusty and needs to refresh himself regarding the current state of policy, but that his behavior is deliberate, and that he is willfully ignoring what he's been told here an elsewhere. That's not good. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:28, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

There's two different issues being conflated here, I believe. I've addressed my (perceived? real? doesn't matter... perception is reality) abuse of powers and tools above. However, AfD has always been a tool of the masses, the the last best place for garnering a consensus as to an article's validity. Anyone can nominate an article for AfD. When I see a conflict over an article's validity, even after other processes have worked, I feel that a run through AfD is the best course of action. I remember a time when AfD stood for Articles for Discussion, and still think that that mode of thinking is best for some AfD nominations. However, I have previously been chastised for putting articles up for AfD without a suggested course of action that isn't the status quo (keep - in some fashion). So yes, I nom'd WU LYF for deletion at AfD, so that a larger audience can put a more lasting stamp of approval on Wu LYF, something I don't feel an overturn at DRV can do. Might not be the best in perception, and I should have been more sensitive to that, but in the end it will be the best for the article. - UtherSRG (talk) 12:31, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Where was the conflict over the validity of WU LYF before you entered the picture? Beyond My Ken (talk) 15:33, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Also, while it is not unusual for people to nominate articles for deletion on procedural grounds, I've always seen those nominations labelled as such. To nominate an article for deletion which the nominator doesn't personally believe should be deleted, without labelling the nomination in some way as "procedural" or "pro forma" or whatever, is pretty much the defintion of a bad faith nomination. I suggest that you do not do that again, and also that it would be a good idea for you to review WP:BEFORE. Beyond My Ken (talk) 15:38, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

@UtherSRG, if the AfD nom was just to get consensus for the keep, and not to necessarily get the article deleted, why did you open the discussion with a 'delete' !vote? [86] To me at least, that sure makes the AfD look like an attempt to validate your overturned CSD deletion, rather than to gain consensus. Also, why didn't you revert the vandalism that occurred on the article shortly before you nominated it? Robman94 (talk) 16:28, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm not one to usually ask for a sysop to hand in his bit, I've been here for over three years now and never have yet. But after reading through this thread and clicking on a few of the diffs, and then noticing the user continued with similar behavior after making assurances here(thread bare and insulting as they were), at the very least they should have to go through the RfA process again. Heiro 03:53, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Sometimes, polite requests don't work. I've warned[87] UtherSRG that if he continues to perform inappropriate speedy deletions or to request them, I will open an RFC, ultimately setting in motion the process of an arbitration case resulting in desysopping unless he mends his ways. Chester Markel (talk) 05:34, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I would appreciate comments by other editors on UtherSRG's talk page assuring him that they are also fully prepared to support this action. The fear of a forceable desysopping may be sufficient to intimidate him into backing down. Chester Markel (talk) 05:41, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

That is not needed. I have already given my apologies for my actions, and said I'd work on changing my stripes. I've also promised that you won't see perfection. It'll take some time. Since part of the problem is how the community changes over time and my disjointed understandings from not catching up with those changes, do you really think that separating me further from the community will give me a better understanding of things? No RfC, no threat, is needed. I know I need to change, and change will happen. So please, be patient and work with me instead of stomping on me. - UtherSRG (talk) 12:31, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Is this really a matter of simple clarification of the guidelines, or does the issue extend further than that? I don't understand how any established editor, an administrator no less, could be this out of touch with policy. Yes, it's vastly different than what it was seven years ago, but that isn't an adequate excuse for your actions, which have been not only incessant but possibly deliberate. Kinaro^{(talk) (contribs)} 03:40, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

In particular, UtherSRG took his first logged administrative action on 23 December 2004. Here's what the Criteria for Speedy Deletion looked like then: [88]. If anything, the present CSD are far broader than the 2004 criteria, having been expanded to permit the deletion of content that couldn't have been speedied in 2004. Speedy deletions which are blatantly inappropriate under today's CSD would never have been acceptable within the last seven years since the policy was first written. The unfamiliarity with current policy explanation for an excessively high percentage of obviously incorrect speedy deletions won't wash. Chester Markel (talk) 05:48, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Mtking

I need administrative attention concerning an editor User:Mtking who has been trying to prevent me from completing two articles that I created. I just started and 5 minutes later he is tagging the page with no regard to policy for explanation, attempts to edit war with me, and has been distracting me for hours over issues concerning an article that is listed as under-construction. You can read the whole thing on his talk page [89] This guy's biting is out of control! --Rainman64 (talk) 08:14, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Also pretty sure this guy just did something to my internet... Is this Wikipedia or a battlefield???--Rainman64 (talk) 08:30, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Also appears that he has help from other editors... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rainman64 (talk • contribs) 08:35, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

It should also be noted that a editor by the name of GoodVac is acting along with MtKing [what reason they are trying their best to have me blocked just for editing a simple article]. Is there something here that I don't know?--Rainman64 (talk) 09:05, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

User:Mtking has continued in constant disruptive editing in order to prevent me from make these articles stable. I've been trying to work with the guy but he is doing everything in his power to get the pages down before they were technically up for one reason or another. I really don't know what going on here but I need some serious help here.--Rainman64 (talk) 08:48, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

• Mtking (talk · contribs) isn't the problem. Although he has made numerous CSD errors resulting from hasty tagging, I see nothing untoward with his edits at UIS (company), Paul Dorian, the AfD, and the talk page discussion (besides the COI thing).
  On the other hand, Rainman64 (talk · contribs) has a suspicious history. He made his first edit in February, creating this odd template. User returned this month to create UIS (company) and Paul Dorian. Engaging in the discussion with Mtking, Rainman64 spouted several policies, guidelines, and other Wikipedia terms and acronyms, such as WP:NPP, WP:BITE, WP:THREATEN, WP:OVERTAGGING, etc. It is highly unlikely that a new user would have such an unusual knack for these terms. Goodvac (talk) 09:41, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

That wrong Goodvac. First from the links I posted before on you and Mtking its safe to say you don't exactly have a unbias opinion here. Second, Mtking did everything wrong for start... He shouldn't have tag these articles that quickly... he did both in 1 minute. You can't read both in a minute or check the sources! He shouldn't have overtagged the page... plus, he should have said something in detail about what actually in the article was the problems... you know for example... this paragraph here sounds like or word there makes this look like. That way I could at least correct exact what the problem was. But had me doing guess work on things that might be giving off those impressions. I asked him repeatedly to explain and never added to the talk page or gave any detail of his view. In addition, every time I added or made changes to the article to improve it I assume that would do the job for the tags but he kept posting it back on the page without explanation... he was clearly baiting me into somekind of edit-war, but he didn't know I was reading the previous post from his talk page. They mentioned bitey and the link and I went from there.--Rainman64 (talk) 10:03, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Come on Goodvac, I did most of these pages in the preview edit option I post it to save and start doing the rest of the research and writing, but while I was 5 minutes later I'm debates with him over issues that I was still working on. So I post the under-construction sign to let him know to give time and patience but he obviously couldn't handle that. Look at this guy's history he goes around deleting article after article. He's doing so right now... so when he came upon the ones I was doing he wanted the same thing for them. I tried to do things like Wikipedia states so I asked him help me improve the articles and he just wasn't interested in helping, only deleting. Right now I have information that verifies the notability of Paul Dorian linked to the article. I also pointed this out to Mtking, but he went for delete anyway without completing the discussion with me. I'm sorry but what he did was very wrong. The least he could have do was withdraw the deletion on the grounds of the new evidence and help gather more but like I said before that's not his goal.Rainman64 (talk) 10:22, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

As for the articles let's talk Notability policy. I'm not finished with these articles, I was interrupted very early in its development. However, there is at least one obviously notable fact on both. That Dorian and the company are currently listed among Silicon Valley's Top 40 under 40 according to the Business Journal. That is an honor and achievement of which they were nominated and received credit for from a nationally respected business publication.

So my question is... If policy on Wikipedia states that "the person has received a well-known and significant award or honor, or has been nominated for one several times." is considered notable then shouldn't their honor above prove a level of notability enough to stop or delay deletion?Rainman64 (talk) 10:42, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Without commenting on the merits of the particular article here, a lesson I learned long ago is generally not to develop an article in mainspace. Set up a sandbox or create it first as a subpage of your user page. Work on it there in relative peace, polish it up until it is ready for release into mainspace, then release it. The better an article you can write, the less likely it is to get tagged. Mjroots (talk) 13:02, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I kinda wish someone would answer my question... Also I noticed something untrue on this deletion page that Mtking is try to claim as fact.... So let's set the record straight, I'm not Paul Dorian and this account isn't one purpose.... these articles just happened to be my first edits that User:Mtking is trying to use to in his own favor. I have no conflicts of interest besides the fact that I want to close Mtking's account. After all he seems to be trying everything possible to close mine. Plus, he recklessly ignored WP:NPP that says that "Tagging anything other than attack pages, copyvios, vandalism or complete nonsense only a few minutes after creation is not likely to be constructive and may only serve to annoy the page author." Check out his User talk:Mtking; he ignored every attempt to work with me... and all this happened in just a few hours... starting 5 minutes after I started writing these articles. At this point I'm interested in making sure this guy gets justice on him for toxic behavior. Rainman64 (talk) 13:51, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/UIS (company) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

• comment - this just seems like a overspill content issue. I don't see as Rainman has done anything wrong and as a newish user creating content he requires more assistance than anything else. The articles have been nominated for deletion so lets see how it goes. Should the two AFD discussions be merged into one like that? Please ease up on the WP:BITE and WP:COI stuff, many users come and write stuff they are closely connected to - its not a wiki-crime and actually is the way a large part of the wikipedia got written. I suggest ya all take a step back and focus on the content. Off2riorob (talk) 14:15, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
• comment looks like MtKing is a new user him/herself? This account only goes back to March 2011. MajorTsoris (talk) 06:16, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

User:UtherSRG refusing to get the point

UtherSRG (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is an administrator here on en-wiki whose primary role (according to his logs, anyway) is tagging and deleting problematic new pages. This is not a problem; it is an area where more help would always be appreciated. The problem is that in many cases these pages are not problematic, and he has repeatedly refused to get the point.

Uther's deletions are persistently incorrect, either applying policy in a self-admittedly overly stringent fashion, or more often, crossing the line between "stringent" and "extending the rules to the point of absurdity". He deleted Jason Dormon as A7 when it appeared like so, claiming there was no evidence of significance. Ignacio Valenti Lacroix was deleted as a recreation of an article previously deleted following discussion, when in actual fact the only action undertaken on the page was his prior CSD of it. Ryeland Allison was similarly CSDd as A7, when it is beyond comprehension as to how it could fulfil the CSD criteria. Glyn Lewis was noted as a widely-published psychiatry professor who leads a department, but this is apparently no evidence of significance. Neither is the release of two albums on Universal Music, while this apparently lacks enough context to be a valid article. D S Malik's six books and 45 academic papers contain no semblance of significance, which I'm sure he'd be appalled to hear.

Occasional mistakes are fine. Occasional mistakes are to be expected. But these are not occasional mistakes - these are all from within the last 2-3 days, and he has been told about the issues. multiple users and admins, including a WMF staffer, have warned him about his attitude. His response has been most unhelpful, and are normally terse, contextless replies which give no indication that he's even accepted there's a problem, much less changed his tone as a result. This is not something new - my attention was initially drawn to him when I saw some of the helpful comments he was providing new users with. Unsure as to why their articles had been (sometimes wrongfully) deleted, they were told, for example, that he was uninterested in discussing the deletion.

Quite frankly, this has gone long enough - Uther's record over the last few days alone shows that he either doesn't understand policy or has an understanding of it so warped from the norm as to be the subject of a Twilight Zone episode. Despite multiple users and administrators telling him there's a problem, he has neither held off on acting so as to avoid screwups, or improved his behaviour and application of policy. A wall of decline notices, and he doesn't think it's worth reconsidering. I would like some general commentary on whether or not his behaviour is indeed problematic and, if so, a resolution that UtherSRG be either:

1. topic-banned from deletion work until he gets a better grasp of what is required, or;
2. initially or if he fails to follow the ban, the subject of forcible tool-removal (a far less torturous procedure than it might sound).

I'd love to resolve it with talking and asking him nicely, but asking him nicely hasn't worked; it's now time to, as I told him when I asked him to improve, move it up the food chain. Ironholds (talk) 19:15, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

RfC is the usual next step for getting more and uninvolved others' input and highlighting to the editor in question the serious nature of the problem (i.e., can lead to ArbCom yanking his admin bit, per Wikipedia:Admin#Requests for comment on administrator conduct). DMacks (talk) 19:30, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

These deletions and nominations appear to be very far out of process, and a response to a query that "I am uninterested in having discussions about CSD'd items" is outrageous for any admin. Unless he reforms his behaviour, desysopping would seem the only option. Fences&Windows 20:10, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

And that wasn't the first time he gave such a response: "I'm not interested in debating or discussing." And yet "Administrators are expected to respond promptly and civilly to queries about their Wikipedia-related conduct and administrator actions and to justify them when needed." (WP:ADMINACCT). Fences&Windows 20:12, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

• After posting this thread, a user drew my attention to the DRV here - out of process actions ignoring those who complain is apparently a long-term thing for this user. Ironholds (talk) 20:29, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

  For the sake of clarity, the DRV being referred to is "Malamanteau". —Tom Morris (talk) 20:35, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

  See also Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2010 April 18#Redirects in Chinese. UtherSRG told Mathpianist93 (talk · contribs): "Denied, and yes, exactly. English-language wiki article titles should be in Roman characters. I'm not going to discuss this." Cunard (talk) 09:46, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Surely the single most important thing that any admin must do is be prepared to talk about why they've done what they've done? To me, that's almost more worrying than the wrong decisions stuff. People can go through phases of making grossly wrong decisions (it's part of being human), or have mental blocks about one particular area of work (also part of being human) - but to fail completely to recognise that this is what's happening, to address it, or even to discuss it, is not a standard part-of-being-human response. Something does need to be done - this is not likely to change by itself. Pesky (talk) 05:44, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

• Comment Being a relatively new admin (the newest at present), I felt a little awkward leaving a note on his talk page saying I'd declined his CSD nomination, particularly since it was pointed out in my RfA that I had a less than 100% record myself. Having looked at UtherSRG's RfA to see if his knowledge of policy was checked, I note that the degree of rigour applied in RfAs was somewhat less back then (7 years ago), and suspect he might not have fared so well today. There does appear to be a fundamental lack of understanding of the purpose and scope of CSD here, for instance: [90], [91], [92], [93], [94], [95].

These are all in the two weeks... I'm not a fan of reconfirmation RfAs, but with the evidence above and apparent lack of interest in engaging other editors in discussion, perhaps Uther should explore this option? Catfish Jim & the soapdish 10:07, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Yup. I have been an ass. I get overzealous on some CSDs, particularly A7 bands and people. I've been around way too long, and policies have changed dramatically in the 7 years since I first became an admin. It is difficult to keep up with them, and my old understandings slip back as the correct modus operandi, erroneously. I'm taking this as a significant wake-up call. You won't see any gross mishandlings in the future. (I can't promise no mishandlings, as I'm only human...) Mea culpa. As for not talking, yeah, I've been an ass in that way, too. I get my hackles up, especially with ignorant newbies who don't want to take the time to learn anything about what they are supposed to do to make a good article, and who then whine when anyone sneezes at their mistakes. I wonder if there is a better way to inform new accounts as to what is expected in the creation of new articles. That all said, I'm sure that doesn't address all of the concerns posted here, but may give better insight into my failures. If y'all have further questions, yes, I will answer them. - UtherSRG (talk) 14:10, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and my Wikipedia use is sporadic. I'll go for a few days or a couple of weeks, and then not have the time/interest/access/etc, as has happened in the past couple of days. My apoogies for not posting sooner. - UtherSRG (talk) 14:12, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

@Uther: I've been here a long time, too -- not as long as you, but 6 years at the end of June -- and everything you have said is true: policy has changed over the years, interpretation of policy has changed, and best practices for the implmentation of policy have changed -- and it's sometimes difficult to keep track of the moving target, especially if you don't spend a lot of time editing. Given these realities, could I suggest then that you might want to stay away from activities which may become contentious or, at least, check in to see what the current status of policy & practice is before you make those edits? I think that doing so is likely to keep your name out of the noticeboards. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:51, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I am also concerned with the way UtherSRG uses his admin powers to delete articles. I became aware that an article on the band WU LYF had been deleted even though there were articles on them in several RS, so I created a new article which included citations to various RS including the NME, the Guardian, the Observer and Rolling Stone. Needless to say I was surprised to see my sourced article deleted via CSD less than an hour after I created it. When I tried to discuss the matter with UtherSRG he said "I'm not interested in debating or discussing". [96] He stated that all articles that have previously been deleted via CSD can only be recreated via the DRV process. I asked him to point me to where it says that in the Wiki rules, but he declined.

So, I followed his instructions and opened a case at DRV where the deletion was overturned with unanimous agreement. [97] I had thought that would be the end of it, but today things started getting curious. A new user called Romancandle99 joined wikipedia at 05:10 [98] and at 05:18 they started gutting the WU LYF article deleting most of the content and ALL of the references, [99] then soon after that UtherSRG came along and listed the now-unsourced article at AfD. Now, even though there were no sources at that exact moment, giving that he had seen the article before and we'd discussed it, he knew that it used to have sources, but he nominated it for deletion anyway. The reason that I'm bringing this to your attention is because his AfD nomination was listed at 14:55, 9 May 2011 (UTC) which is after he promised to amend his ways here.

I do hope that UtherSRG moves away from the NPP for a while, because I don't think he's the right person to be deleting new articles if "ignorant newbies who don't want to take the time to learn anything about what they are supposed to do to make a good article, and who then whine when anyone sneezes at their mistakes" is how he regards new editors. Robman94 (talk) 02:40, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I made my comment to Uther above after I have voted "keep" in the AfD (I also voted "restore" in the DRV), so it definitely informed what I wrote, but I hadn't realized that Uther had opened the AfD after the assurances he gave. I find that disturbing, as it implies not that Uther is simply rusty and needs to refresh himself regarding the current state of policy, but that his behavior is deliberate, and that he is willfully ignoring what he's been told here an elsewhere. That's not good. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:28, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

There's two different issues being conflated here, I believe. I've addressed my (perceived? real? doesn't matter... perception is reality) abuse of powers and tools above. However, AfD has always been a tool of the masses, the the last best place for garnering a consensus as to an article's validity. Anyone can nominate an article for AfD. When I see a conflict over an article's validity, even after other processes have worked, I feel that a run through AfD is the best course of action. I remember a time when AfD stood for Articles for Discussion, and still think that that mode of thinking is best for some AfD nominations. However, I have previously been chastised for putting articles up for AfD without a suggested course of action that isn't the status quo (keep - in some fashion). So yes, I nom'd WU LYF for deletion at AfD, so that a larger audience can put a more lasting stamp of approval on Wu LYF, something I don't feel an overturn at DRV can do. Might not be the best in perception, and I should have been more sensitive to that, but in the end it will be the best for the article. - UtherSRG (talk) 12:31, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Where was the conflict over the validity of WU LYF before you entered the picture? Beyond My Ken (talk) 15:33, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Also, while it is not unusual for people to nominate articles for deletion on procedural grounds, I've always seen those nominations labelled as such. To nominate an article for deletion which the nominator doesn't personally believe should be deleted, without labelling the nomination in some way as "procedural" or "pro forma" or whatever, is pretty much the defintion of a bad faith nomination. I suggest that you do not do that again, and also that it would be a good idea for you to review WP:BEFORE. Beyond My Ken (talk) 15:38, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

@UtherSRG, if the AfD nom was just to get consensus for the keep, and not to necessarily get the article deleted, why did you open the discussion with a 'delete' !vote? [100] To me at least, that sure makes the AfD look like an attempt to validate your overturned CSD deletion, rather than to gain consensus. Also, why didn't you revert the vandalism that occurred on the article shortly before you nominated it? Robman94 (talk) 16:28, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm not one to usually ask for a sysop to hand in his bit, I've been here for over three years now and never have yet. But after reading through this thread and clicking on a few of the diffs, and then noticing the user continued with similar behavior after making assurances here(thread bare and insulting as they were), at the very least they should have to go through the RfA process again. Heiro 03:53, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Sometimes, polite requests don't work. I've warned[101] UtherSRG that if he continues to perform inappropriate speedy deletions or to request them, I will open an RFC, ultimately setting in motion the process of an arbitration case resulting in desysopping unless he mends his ways. Chester Markel (talk) 05:34, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I would appreciate comments by other editors on UtherSRG's talk page assuring him that they are also fully prepared to support this action. The fear of a forceable desysopping may be sufficient to intimidate him into backing down. Chester Markel (talk) 05:41, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

That is not needed. I have already given my apologies for my actions, and said I'd work on changing my stripes. I've also promised that you won't see perfection. It'll take some time. Since part of the problem is how the community changes over time and my disjointed understandings from not catching up with those changes, do you really think that separating me further from the community will give me a better understanding of things? No RfC, no threat, is needed. I know I need to change, and change will happen. So please, be patient and work with me instead of stomping on me. - UtherSRG (talk) 12:31, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Is this really a matter of simple clarification of the guidelines, or does the issue extend further than that? I don't understand how any established editor, an administrator no less, could be this out of touch with policy. Yes, it's vastly different than what it was seven years ago, but that isn't an adequate excuse for your actions, which have been not only incessant but possibly deliberate. Kinaro^{(talk) (contribs)} 03:40, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

In particular, UtherSRG took his first logged administrative action on 23 December 2004. Here's what the Criteria for Speedy Deletion looked like then: [102]. If anything, the present CSD are far broader than the 2004 criteria, having been expanded to permit the deletion of content that couldn't have been speedied in 2004. Speedy deletions which are blatantly inappropriate under today's CSD would never have been acceptable within the last seven years since the policy was first written. The unfamiliarity with current policy explanation for an excessively high percentage of obviously incorrect speedy deletions won't wash. Chester Markel (talk) 05:48, 11 May 2011 (UTC)