Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive157

Wikipedia:Notability

There's some serious vandalism and edit warring going on over at WP:N, if an admin could go take a look and see what they think, please. Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 18:23, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any vandalism or edit warring. One user appears not to know how to edit without making dozens of revisions an hour, but that's not edit warring or vandalism. —Centrx→talk • 19:08, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Just to throw something else into the mix here that may be relevant...I've seen calls before in other discussions, incuding Jimbo's talk page, for a Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser to be done on Amoruso and Mantanmoreland. Has one been done, and if so, what were the results? Cla68 00:25, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

No, I think the place to discuss Cla68's wikistalking and disruptive trolling at this other AN/I here[1], where he engaged in identical, simultaneous trolling.--Mantanmoreland 03:39, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

September 11 attack + Tom Harrison

I am having a problem with admin Tom Harrison. He is currently engaged in an edit war, reverting the inclusion of a link, however refusing to participate on the talk page. I have asked people to discuss the issue on the talk page using guidelines and policies, instead of personal opinions on the source. Tom has refused to even respond to me after being asked twice to participate.[[2]] I just went to ask them again after their latest revert and found their user page protected from all editing. I am asking someone politely ask Tom to either stop reverting, or at least feign interest in the discussion for which he is a minority. Himself and one other user has argued the link should not be included, calling it a blog, which was refuted, then a wiki which was refuted and finally an anonymous site, which the registrars information was then provided. I am growing tired of this user simply ignoring people and reverting blindly.[3] Note, tom has not posted anything regarding any of those points, the other user brought them up and were disagreed with by myself and others.

Tom has also displayed a misunderstanding of WP:EL, stating we do not use an external link if we have a Wiki article on the topic,[4] however the EL in question is actually more detailed then possible to achieve on the article and provides a greater period of time that can be covered by a single Wiki article. WP:EL also states that the external link should contain more information that then article its being placed in would have once it reaches Featured Article status. --NuclearZer0 15:40, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I'ved asked for arbitration enforcement with regard to NuclearUmpf and his constant edit warring and personal attacks here: [5] Rx StrangeLove 16:21, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

This is the only other user who refuses to discuss the link in terms of policy or guideline. They are the ones who said it was a blog, then an anonymous site, then a wiki etc. Then refused to discuss anymore after the majority of the people stated they were wrong. --NuclearZer0 16:48, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I actually stopped talking to you after you started making personal attacks.[6] Needless to say your characterization of my arguments are not accurate. Rx StrangeLove 17:16, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I do not see the personal attack there, however I do notice that noone agreed with any of your points and even PTR agreed to the link as long as it was made specific. Do you realize noone but Tom is taking the link out? Do you have anything to say regarding Tom reverting and refusing to participate on the talk page? About Tom ignoring the request to participate 2x? That is what this AN/I is about, an admin refusing to use the talk page yet reverting anyway, refusing to even state their point, and not following WP:EL. I ask you again to go back to the talk page and use policy as your reasoning instead of your personal opinion. --NuclearZer0 17:21, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Where's the personal attack in there? -Patstuart^talk|edits 18:13, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Did you look at the edit summary? "My personal problems"? Rx StrangeLove 19:35, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

• As usual the onus is on the editor seeking to include content to provide a justification and persuade those who disagree. You haven't. They rightly note that the timeline you want to link is contentious. The solution may be to do our own timeline which conforms to policy, i.e. misses out or adequately contextualises the contentious elements. Guy (Help!) 17:54, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Timeline of the September 11, 2001 attacks Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:09, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

That timeline is not as detailed and further WP:EL states that external links can be used if they present more information then that of which can be included in the article in question if it was to reach Featured Article status, this surely fulfills that. We have articles on the Geneva Convention, are you stating we should never link directly to the Geneva Convention on outside websites, hows about the Declaration of Independance and other historical records? WP:EL is quite clear on this and I have yet to see anyone disagree. --NuclearZer0 18:24, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

• I have according to WP guidelines stated my case, the arguement against its inclusion has not been based on any policy or guideline but just that the people do not like it, which is not adequate. What if you were in a situation where someone on the article for China did not want it included that China was in Asia, what do you do if two people disagree with 7 on this? Do you leave it out? Even if they do not present a reason that fits a policy or guideline, they just dont like it. I would be happy to discuss it, but as I have pointed out to you, Tom has no participated on the talk page regarding this, which is what this AN/I is about, not the link itself. If Tom is just reverting to maintain "concensus" then that means RX is actually alone in not wanting the link, and the concensus is actually completely against him. Further reason Tom should not be reverting and refusing to use the talk page. --NuclearZer0 18:00, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Dispute resolution is ↔ over there. User:Zoe|(talk) 22:14, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Referred from WP:AE. Over the last 7 days, the contended link was added 18 times by 5 editors and removed 17 times by 7 editors, without any attempts made at the normal DR process (3rd opinion, RFC or mediation). I left a comment advising DR on the talk page and decline to enforce Nuclear's arbitration probation as he was only one of 12 editors edit warring. Thatcher131 01:47, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Continuing discussion at closed TfD?

I know that when Wikipedia:Articles for deletion discussions are closed, any new edits to them are generally reverted by administrators, and discussion continues on their talk pages. What about Wikipedia:Templates for deletion? Specifically, there is Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 December 12#Template:Cquote, which was speedily closed, but continues to be edited. As a reasonably green admin, I'm loath to revert without asking, since it isn't necessarily doing any harm, and especially since the discussing parties seem to both be experienced admins (User:Omegatron, User:Mzajac), however the closure notice does seem to say "No further edits should be made to this page" ... ? AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 21:36, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I've always wondered: what harmful effect will further edits to the actual page have? Continuing the discussion on the tfd talk page, the template talk page, or participant's user talk pages would be unneededly breaking up discussions. As long as further discussion on the tfd page itself isn't disrupting anything, I think leaving it is okay, especially since you closed it as speedy kept after only 27 hours. Although I think the speedy closure was the right decision (there was a definite consensus to keep, and I'm going to assume the tfd notice looked terrible when transcluded in articles), there is still plenty that could have been left unsaid in 9/8 days, and continuation elsewhere could leave later readers confused. Þicaroon 22:29, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I wasn't the closing admin - I participated in the discussion, which made that verboten, and anyway, probably wouldn't have been BOLD enough. :-). AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 23:46, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I can think of precious few reasons why you'd ever want to shut off discussion. This doesn't meet any of them. Let the discussion continue on the talk page or something if it's really so imperative that the main TFD remain further unedited. --Cyde Weys 00:21, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Please stop MetsBot

User:MetsBot. This bot is not just doing what it says. It replaces not just signatures. More arguments on User talk:Mets501#Why go through people's user space? — Sebastian 22:34, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe you mean User talk:Mets501#Why go through people's user space?. Þicaroon 22:39, 13 December 2006 (UTC)tw

It's subst'ing templates. That looks fine to me. Can you show us specific edits where this bot is doing something outside of subst'ing? | Mr. Darcy talk 22:40, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Of course it's subst'ing templates. But not just the ones it says. Also, did you read why I think it's creating more harm than good? — Sebastian 22:50, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Your rhetorical arguments on server usage - and yes, I did read those - don't carry weight with me, because I can't prove or disprove your argument. What would be compelling would be some diffs showing where the bot is subst'ing templates that are not listed at Wikipedia:Template_substitution#Templates_that_should_be_substituted and that don't include "substitute and delete." | Mr. Darcy talk 22:56, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that using transclusion in signatures is a seriously bad idea. It means that discussions (which should be a historical record) can change arbitrarily without records in the history, for one thing, and there are massively more instances of a given signature on a busy talk page than of any template in project space (plus we work to remove a lot of them, like {{fact}}). I have yet to see a compelling reason for using transclusion in sigs. Guy (Help!) 23:02, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, Guy, this was an edit conflict. We can discuss this when the bot is stopped. — Sebastian 23:13, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Why can't someone please just push the button? There's no argument against pushing the button. It always can be resumed later. I protest against this disrespectful dismissal of what a seriously concerned user perceives as an emergency. — Sebastian 23:12, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I'll gladly push the button if you provide instances of bad edits by this bot. You've been asked twice, and have failed to do so. | Mr. Darcy talk 23:21, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

1. It does not do what it says it does;
2. It creates more server load than it saves. — Sebastian 23:24, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

1. Repeated assertions of the same claims are not evidence. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:34, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Neither of those are the diffs that have been requested. I understand that you have some serious concerns, but you're gonna have to meet us half-way if you want someone to take action. EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:37, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

OK you may be right that the bot does the right thing. Maybe I have been just overly scared. But it isn't meeting half way, if you request of someone who feels he is in an emergency to start doing research first. I feel administrators have an obligation to respect polite requests to stop a process if there is no reason why it couldn't be stopped for a moment. By refusing to help you only pour oil in the fire. — Sebastian 23:47, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm also not quite convinced that the only reason to stop a machine is after it has done damage. If you were a parent, and you saw a truck running towards your child, would you have to wait till it rolled over your child? — Sebastian 23:51, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Sebastian, it's quite clear that you don't have a specific complaint against Metsbot. Several of us tried to help you, and I went so far as to look at the bot's contribs to see if I could find a problem. There's no evidence it did anything wrong. It's time for you to let the matter drop. | Mr. Darcy talk 23:54, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) OK this example may be a bit far fetched, but you have to understand what goes on in someone who's confronted with an unstoppable machine. Is there a better forum to discuss this? I don't want to spam this noticeboard. Please reply on my talk page, I'm outta here. — Sebastian 23:57, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

The preferences page specifically says not to use templates in your signature. I doubt the fact that it's in the User namespace not the template namespace makes any difference. The bot is doing a good job. People with illegal signatures are the problem here. --Tango 23:32, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict again - i hate discussing on big busy pages like this) OK this example may be a bit far fetched, but you have to understand what goes on in someone who's confronted with an unstoppable machine. Is there a better forum to discuss this? I don't want to spam this noticeboard. Please reply on my talk page, I'm outta here. — Sebastian 23:58, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

It's not an "unstoppable machine" at all, any one of the dozens of administrators who've read this thread could have stopped it any second, had there been and compelling reason to. There isn't, and you failed to produce any. It's doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing, and it's doing a good job. --Cyde Weys 00:17, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you to all for responding for me in my absence. —Mets501 (talk) 00:24, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Disruptive anon

71.219.132.57 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) (previously 71.219.141.151 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) has been adding an unsupported category (Chaos magician) repeatedly to Kurt Cobain (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). He has also engaged in personal attacks and attempted privacy exposure (see User_talk:71.219.132.57 and this edit summary). —Hanuman Das 02:13, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Very questionable move

Someone has moved the page Demon to "Satanic Spirits" without any discussion whatsoever. Could someone revert this before it causes even more damage? --Sofeil 02:15, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Done. --tjstrf talk 02:28, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

User Shantz1

Shantz1 has over the course of a few months been inserting material promoting homejobsite.com. He was given a "final warning" for it in september. I suspect 216.59.251.61 to be his sock puppet due to edits on "Work at home". Darwin Peacock 02:18, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Radu Duda, Prince of Hohenzollern-Veringen - possible sock puppeting?

I have reasons to believe that User: Marina C (2), User:Marina E.Cummings, User:Lovellester, User:Carter Zoll, User:Roger Preston, User:Iapethus, User:GRANBRO, User:Nicolae Zanetti, User:Arkadiam, User:Bernardbblois, User:Morgandy Aithne, User:Marestefanpopnicu, User:Tobias Greene, and User:MarinaC are all one and the same person. I may be wrong, but all of them focus on the same small set of articles related to the Prince of Hohenzollern-Veringen and the rest of the Romanian Royal Family. Also, all of them seem to share an identical POV, which I find quite idiosyncratic, all of them being in favor of Radu Duda and of the Romanian royals. If anyone could, please, check and see if they are one and the same person, that would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance! JamesP2003 02:19, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Have any of the users done anything, such as edit warring, voting, or entering in discussion, in a common goal? Just having multiple accounts is in no way illegal, it's all about how they are used. --Wildnox(talk) 02:24, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

For instance, User:Lovellester and User:Iapethus have engaged in conversations on the Discussion pages of the Prince Radu, Michael I of Romania, and Prince Charles of Wales articles, with the goal to create an apparent consensus about the below-mentioned edit wars (see, for example, the following Talk messages [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13]). Then, using the unacceptable primary sources represented by these so-called emails (which, as we know, can be forged) from the above-mentioned Discussion messages, both of these users entered into edit wars. They tried to alter accordingly the Prince Radu, Prince Charles of Wales (therein joined also by User:Carter Zoll - see this edit), Michael I of Romania, and Princess Margarita of Romania articles to suit their common POV (see, for instance, the edits [14], [15], [16], [17], and [18] done on the Prince Radu article; similar edit wars happenned on the other three articles). I can give you more such examples about pretty much all of these users, but for the sake of time and effort, I hope these examples are enough to prove their attempts to break the Wikipedia rules by sockpuppeting. JamesP2003 03:29, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Is it possible to remove an IP address from the notice/Incidents archive?

I hope an admin can help with this.

Apparently a Wikipedia user has caused problems with other Wikipedia users. There is an incident in the archive with this users Wiki name and IP address.

The IP address is not his, but rather my companies.

We have discovered this user may have caused problems elsewhere on the Internet, and our searching shows he seems to have done the same here.

We would very much like to disassociate ourselves from this behavior. While I can't speak about specifics publicly in detail, though I wish I could, you may read 'disassociate' in very liberal terms and it will be clear what I mean. This will not happen again from this user/IP address.

While we do not care if his Wiki user name remains, as it should, we wish greatly to have the Incident archive post edited to no longer reflect, via the IP address, any negative association with our company.

We would appreciate it very much if a Wikipedia admin could contact me for further information and directions on how we can resolve our problem.

Thank you very much.

Netmask 03:38, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Persistent insertion of a commercial link by Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg

On the Grosses messer page, WP contributor Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg persists in adding an external link (Example of a traditional grosses messer) that feeds into an online catalogue page, complete with ordering instructions and prices, maintained by a maker and vendor of reproduction swords. His reason? Because, he says, "...in a search for a picture of the weapon. I was unsure about the legal status of the photo so I added the whole link." When warned (on my talk page) that adding blatant commmercial links to a WP article appears to violate WP:EL policy #4, he replied, "it was the only picture of the weapon available and thus gives an adaquate reason not to follow it." He further insists he has no commercial or other interest in such a link but is justified in inserting it, "since a picture of the weapon would be helpful to the article." To prevent further acts of what might be considered vandalism, i.e., willful violations of WP:EL policies, and after encountering three reinsertions of the commercial link by Al-Silverburg on December 13th, it seems the matter should be referred to cooler heads at the WP Administrator level. Could a decision be made whether persistent insertions of purely commercial links are considered vandalism, or whether such links are justified because a contributor believes they would "be helpful to the article" and he says "it was the only picture of the weapon available"? Thanks, Jack Bethune 04:11, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Let's take this back to Talk:Grosses messer; other admins, come on over if you want to weigh in, of course, but this is really more of a content issue. JDoorjam Talk 04:20, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

As I have already told Jack I had never even heard of the site until I googled "Grosses Messer" looking for a picture, since I was unsure of the legal status of it I decided just to add the entire link. I will also mention that I did not appreciate how Jack began our interaction by immediately accusing me of link spamming which was not only a violation of good faith but was also completly unwarranted. I also attempted to explain my position by stating that guidelines may at times be ignored if their is good reason which in this case there was. I will admit that my reaction has not been appropriate at every turn but I feel it was almost justified considering such incivility on such a mundane detail.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 05:57, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Highly offensive userpage

This user's page [19] is blatantly offensive to Muslims, pagans, and homosexuals, to name only a few groups mentioned therein. My reading of [[20]] regarding "Polemical statements" seems to indicate that Dwain's page is in clear violation of the userpages policy. 141.154.220.74 21:32, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

His user page does not seem offensive at all; nor can I see any mention of muslam. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 21:36, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There's the quote. That said, he doesn't say much more than what a lot of people say about Christianity, and "to name only a few" seems groundless. --Kizor 21:48, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Matthew, see the quotation on the very top of the page for what is being referred to there. Newyorkbrad 21:39, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yes, and the reporting IP probably also means the bolded "quotes" towards the bottom. 141.154.220.74, please first try to resolve this issue by discussing it with User:Dwain himself before alerting administrators. Sandstein 21:44, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

That's because it's not User:Pitchka, but User:Dwain, which is where the user actually complained (contribs show this). I have no idea why the link is different, but Dwain also maintains a very polemical Freemasonry page linked from his user page that borders on libel, as he has inflammatory statements regarding Freemasonry placed right before a list of Masons on Wikipedia. MSJapan 21:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it appears to be both: User:Pitchka seems to be the main account that does most of the 'real' editing, but that account's user and talk page redirect to the secondary account, User:Dwain, which is used mainly for userspace edits. the user also signs with a piped link that reads 'Dwaian', but links to 'Pitchka', which redirects back to 'Dwain.' Is that kosher? It seems like it would just cause confusion, as above, and make it more difficult to access the contribution history of the editor you're dealing with. -- Vary | Talk 21:57, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the quotes should be removed. He's entitled to his opinion, but this is a bit too much. Khoikhoi 21:52, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

He also seems to enjoy in a little libel himself every once and a while. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User%3ADwain&diff=92489363&oldid=92436162 and here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Dwain&diff=prev&oldid=92436062 Ours18 21:53, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Given the precedent regarding this sort of behavior I think an indefinite ban is in order. We wouldn't tolerate this kind of misbehavior from a new user, why should we tolerate it from User:Dwain? The Mirror of the Sea 22:03, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

This man is a dick. However, the views he is expressing on his userpage are typical devout American Catholic opinions - you can't block him for that. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 22:07, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

It has been made clear that maintaining a userpage with controversial material designed to be polemical is trolling and can be punished for as such. Need I also mention that he deliberately libels Wikipedians who are also Masons? That seems like deliberately disruptive conduct. The Mirror of the Sea 22:16, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I was saying that his userpage, as it stands, is not offensive but religious. If he's disrupting the wiki, sure, ban him, but blocking him for being devout and/or redneck isn't a good idea. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 23:00, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I find it offensive. I find it to be a deliberate bit of trolling intended to incite disruption. That is not what wikipedia is for. After all the stuff that went on in the userbox wars, it seems patently obvious to me that polemical and uncivil material is not welcome on wikipedia, in ANY space.--Vidkun 00:06, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Calling it a "typical devout Catholic opinion" is a bit of an over-generalization... My experience with Dwain/Pitchka has been that he has virtually no understanding or regard for WP:CIVIL, but if we start indef blocking for that, there are an awful lot of editors and admins who wouldn't be editing here anymore. I do think one of his accounts should be blocked though because he edits from both of them and it is damn confusing if you aren't watching very closely to discern those accounts are the same person. To be clear, I've never seen him do any abusive sockpuppeting, but unless he has a very good reason for running two accounts he should be given the option of keeping one active and having the other locked. He can link to the contribs for the other account from the userpage of whichever account he choses to stick with. From what I see there is no good reason he has two accounts.--Isotope23 22:57, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't want to see any user blocked for his religious beliefs or lack thereof. As far as I can see, the paramount issue here is the use of two accounts for one editor, which I believe is verboten. Let's ask him to stick to one account, and handle any mainspace issues as they occur. | Mr. Darcy talk 23:16, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

On the subject of highly offensive userpages, does this qualify? riana_dzasta 03:41, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I think it is -- Samir धर्म 07:23, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Whoa, whoa, slow down here. Indef ban? I've seen people put pornography on their pages and not get indef banned. He was expressing his personal opinion, albeit it with the tact of a hammer. Wikipedia policy says he needs to remove it, but an indef ban is going way overboard. Patstuart^talk|edits 07:35, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that recommendation was based not just on the user's userpage content, but on his refusal to remove the offensive material. He has removed several messages about the content from his talk page without responding to them, and with edit summaries like 'removed devil worshiping anons statment'. I agree that an indef block might be a bit harsh when the user has never been blocked before and has made constructive contributions, but this is about more than just userpage content. -- Vary | Talk 14:28, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Get some perspective. It looks like all the complaints really are about "just userpage content". There have been admins and would-be admins who have posted their disdain for Christians on their user pages and elsewhere. I do not share this guy's views, but they are his business and well within the range of statements to be found on userpages. I, for one, consider the tolerance here for the posterior orifice who professed his admiration for Osama bin Laden infinitely more offensive than this (yes, the tolerance expressed here for it, not just the box itself). Lots of people have alternate accounts: as long as they are not used in the same conversations they are not sockpuppets and not against policy. Not everyone in the world is "politically correct" and you need to deal with it when it creates a problem in articles, not just its existence on userpages. alteripse 14:51, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, his name is Dwain. He chose the username Pitchka, and then discovered that it meant something offensive in some other language. He didn't want to abandon the account, so he created the account Dwain. (If that's not exactly how it was, it's still fairly close, I think.) Yes, he has things on his user page that are confrontational. I don't endorse them, but I don't find them any more offensive than some of the things that other users have posted on Wikipedia about Christians. As for blocking him, that's absurd. He's a good-faith editor, who sometimes gets annoyed when people are trolling and harassing him. A few months ago, he removed a message or some messages from his talk page — something which is not forbidden by policy, and which many administrators do — and within hours, users were descending on him, reverting, sending him template warnings about vandalism, and making him even more annoyed. I've seen numerous insults aimed at Christians here on Wikipedia, and I have never even considered blocking the users. I think we need to move from an "I'm-not-going-to-let-him-get-away-with-it" mentality to one of "it's-not-urgent-to-get-rid-of-it-and-I-don't-want-to-make-matters-worse." I would suggest that someone who hasn't already been hassling him might suggest nicely that it would be better not to have those quotations since they might offend some people. AnnH ♫ 15:52, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I completely agree. During the userbox wars, it was flat out verboten to have polemical attack user boxes, be they anti Christian or anti anything else. Listing a number of people for whom you have distaste (based on their associations) and then accusing them of trying to prevent verifiable information from being added to wikipedia is assuming bad faith. Repeatedly referring to those who have attempted to discuss the polemics as being devil worshipping vandals is BEYOND overbaord, and shows that the editor is more concerned with disruption and insults that what is or isn't encyclopedic.--Vidkun 20:25, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

And that my friends is grounds for an indefinite ban. Such behavior is completely unacceptable and given the fact that Dwain is unrepetent, I believe his time here is done. The Mirror of the Sea 04:10, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I do have to wonder if that's a good idea in this situation, as historical precedence rarely favors indef'ing users in such instances. Also, Mirror, I find the fact that you're a new user who immediately jumped into administrative level action, and who has the words "free timecop" (a known GNAA troll who's offline stalking an admin of ours) on his userpage, to be rather suspicious. -Patstuart^talk|edits 08:57, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Please don't insult my intelligence, Patstuart, it doesn't take that long to figure out how Wikipedia is run. I'm entitled to display "Free timecop" on my userpage, as the policy page on userpages states that you can show "your opinions about Wikipedia." I am illustrating my opinion that the block was illegitimate. Mirror, Mirror, on the wall... 02:43, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

(personal attacks, removed) --202.213.148.223 11:57, 11 December 2006 (UTC) (timecop, lol @ wikipedia, trolled for life)

(personal attacks, possibly from Timecop, removed)--61.114.193.102 12:47, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

The only real issue I see here is that he still edits from User:Pitchka and as I said above, one of his two accounts should be locked from editing because there is no valid reason for him to have 2 active accounts. Other than that I have to agree I don't think an indef ban of the user is even close to warrented here.--Isotope23 14:32, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

FYI, Pitchka in some of Slavic languages means "cunt". There are also more examples: Swear words#Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian. "Pitchka" is read same as Serbian "Pička". Btw. Im not involved with anyone here, this username just caught my eye while I was browsing ANI. Shinhan 07:20, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Today's featured article

There are penises on Fundamental Rights, Directive Principles and Fundamental Duties of India. Cannot work out how to delete them. They seem to be floating above the text. Could someone with more technical experience take a look? -WJBscribe ^{(WJB talk)} 02:28, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

It looks like that image was used in {{Politics of India}}. User:HappyCamper got there to revert it about 10 seconds before me [21] ;) BigDT 02:36, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Any ideas about the painting of female genitals now super-imposed over the article?-WJBscribe ^{(WJB talk)} 02:38, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

That was from {{Rights}}. That too is gone ... though someone should face being eaten by a clown for protecting it without reverting it. [22] ;)

And it looks like there was another one in {{fnb}} that User:Can't sleep, clown will eat me got. FYI, to patrol for search things, take a look at [23] ... this is Special:Recentchanges set on the template namespace. You can easily look for redlinked users and find them. BigDT 02:46, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Two additional templates were affected by this, and all have been vandalized using deceptively phrased edit summaries and creative use of includeonly code, just as they were last week. The entire lot has been semi-protected for the time being, please feel free to adjust as necessary. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 02:52, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

The day's featured article should be move-protected as well, as there has also been pagemove vandalism on a couple of the recent FA's, and there is no valid reason why anyone would move them. Newyorkbrad 02:55, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Agree wholeheartedly. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 08:36, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

For those of you who haven't been familiar, this is the same vandal that's been hitting over and over again for weeks now. He's been hitting high-use templates, requiring us to protect them all. He often uses deceptive edit summaries, and sometimes logs in to do it. I heavily suggest, that from now on, before any article is put on the FA list, that we semi-protect any templates that are transcluded onto it, including templates that are transcluded onto the templates, and so on and so forth. This has been going on for weeks, and it needs to stop. -Patstuart^talk|edits 13:48, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Excellent idea, this is incredibly damaging. riana_dzasta 13:56, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Well d'oh... of course.... *nods* in Patstuart's direction, well spotted there. (→Netscott) 14:00, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Same here, and we need to have the IP access folks o thecase. Fast. It's the only solution, I shudder at thinking what would happen if they hit e.g. {{Infobox Cricketer}}, {{Infobox Politician}}, {{Methodism}}, {{Politics of Canada}}... Circeus 18:38, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Are those typos red-links a cunning double-WP:BEANS bluff to send the vandal astray? :-) Seriously, don't give them ideas. Though if this is the same vandal that managed to vandalise the "#R" button in the editing toolbar, that's actually quite inventive. Carcharoth 20:58, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

The vandal doesn't seem to look at this page. If he did, he would already have stopped using redlinked accounts... Circeus 22:19, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

You know, even better than having to track down all of these templates to semi-protect would be if we had non-vandalized versions. Now that would be nice. --Cyde Weys 22:23, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm starting to think, with the dozen or so attempts at vandalizing the article within an hour of it going live, that they are specifically out to force us to protect it. Circeus 01:03, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Technical question: Is it possible to protect an article from the addition of images without changing the editability of the text? If not, is this a feature that should be requested of the developers? Newyorkbrad 01:06, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't really see how that'd be possible. Adding an image really is just adding something to the source. I suppose you could hash out a list of images in the article, and disallow new edits to the wiki source if it changes the list of images at all ... but really, that'd be very ugly, and probably not worth dev time. Also, you'd still have to somehow deal with template vandalism. The real solution is just to finish up those non-vandalized version flags that the devs have been working on for awhile now. --Cyde Weys 01:08, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

This is a question for any recent change patrollers who browse special:recentchanges: do you watch article-only changes, or do you include all namespaces? Vandalism to articles is regularly reverted within seconds, but I've seen vandalism to talk pages and wikipedia talk pages that sits for several minutes, as if there is a significantly smaller amount of people watching those spaces. By extension, it means a significantly smaller amount of people then the normal amount of rc patrollers see edits to templates at all. This might be the explanation as to how template vandalism can sit for a while. (Or my theory could be completely off base. That's possible too.) Picaroon9288 01:21, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd take issue with the statement "Vandalism to articles is regularly reverted within seconds". I'm reverting vandalism that is hours or days old in several articles every day, and ocassionally deal with vandalism that has been sitting around for weeks or months. I often see vandalism being reverted that misses the two or three other vandal edits that preceeded it. The bots can't help it, but live editors need to be more careful about looking at the recent history. I'm apparantly the only editor that reverts vandalism on many of the articles on my watch list, and I shudder to think of all those articles that are not on anyone's watch list. In other words, it is my opinion that we are not doing well in the fight against vandalism, be it in article space or elsewhere. -- Donald Albury 14:56, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

And there are also human mistakes as well. It took me ages to work out what was wrong with this version of Carol Ann Duffy, but I eventually realised that two or three closing </ref> tags were missing, and corrected matters with this edit. The article history shows it had been in that state for a week, since 20:52 on 6 December 2006, and that two registered editors had edited in that time, one to revert vandalism, but they had failed to pick up on the formatting errors made on 6 December. Carcharoth 10:41, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes. I do it too. I see a problem in an article, or something I want to correct or add, and I edit without thoroughly examing the article. I tend to focus on thing at a time, and not see other problems. That's why having more than one set of eyes watching an article is important. Unfortunately, there don't seem to be enough of us to go around for all aricles. -- Donald Albury 12:15, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Questionable question for ArbCom candidate

There have been a series of disputes over the past couple of weeks regarding whether a disputed question should remain on an ArbCom candidate's question page or be deleted. My suggestion is that in future elections there be a designated Election Official who could resolve these disputes. In the interim, I suppose this noticeboard is as good a place as any to elicit consensus on whether this question from User:Tsunami Butler should remain on a candidate page or be deleted. Newyorkbrad 22:21, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Editors are completely entitled to ask whatever questions they want. Candidates are also entitled to not answer questions they deem to be trolling. Indeed, I could see a candidate choosing to answer that question as arguably a negative. JoshuaZ 22:25, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

...not to say that it is a very interesting question even from the point of view of its logic, being doubly loaded. A possible answer would gove an interesting insight in candidate's way of thinking. That leaves me wondering: is Tsunami Butler a shrink?  :-) `'mikkanarxi 22:57, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't see anything wrong with that question. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:37, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

There's probably something wrong with it somewhere along the lines, but there's no reason for it to be removed. If he asked a question that contained a personal attack or broke some other policy, ok, remove it, but there's nothing wrong with permitting this one to be asked. BigDT 00:41, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't see anything wrong with that question Consider the source: the user's contributions shows his/her single-minded interest in Lyndon Larouche, part of an seemingly endless series of single-purpose editors that those articles attract. --Calton | Talk 05:10, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Speaking as someone who was on the other end of this ... hell no, questions shouldn't be removed. The very thought that the elections can be impacted by removing questions by someone acting in defense of said candidate is ludicrous. We definitely need impartial election officials for all such elections in the future to deal with issues such as these. Since it is too late for these elections, I say we take a very conservative approach and only remove questions that are clearly beyond the pale. This question doesn't even approach the pale. And remember, the candidate always has the option of ignoring the question.

I just want to emphasize how important it is to have fair elections. The electoral process is sacred, and we shouldn't do anything that even gives the impression of something below-the-board going on. That is why it is so wrong that another administrator actually wheel warred over whether my question about a candidate's statement could be asked. It disgusts me that someone would even think of doing such a thing. And I hope, for all of our sakes, that it never happens again. --Cyde Weys 00:55, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

If electoral process is "sacred", then "what is your response to those critics who say that Wikipedia has aspects of being a cult"? ;) --BigDT 01:16, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

we prefer to think of ourselves as a new internet movement.Geni 02:55, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

While the question isn't relevant to the ArbCom election, it's still an interesting question. Wikipedia is listed on List of groups referred to as cults with a solid reference. -Will Beback · † · 08:16, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, that is an opinion piece, seen here. That is one journalist wondering whether Wikipedia can be thought of as a cult. This is precisely why people should assess the sources, not just whether there is a source at all. Carcharoth 11:19, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Leave it to the candidates. Any 'impartial election monitors' could disagree over whether a question should be displayed or not too... and there'd be nothing preventing regular users from warring over it as they have this time. IMO any and all questions / comments should be left entirely alone by everyone except the person adding them and the candidate. --CBD 12:12, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I find myself in agreement with CBD. A candidate's question page is the sole responsibility of the candidate. We don't need an additional layer of bureaucracy for Arbcom elections. Mackensen (talk) 12:18, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

"CBD and Mackensen agree. Film at eleven!" :] --CBD 12:28, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Ha! If this isn't consensus, I don't know what is...Mackensen (talk) 12:35, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, not quite a consensus, because I still think an Election Official would be helpful to deal with, if not this particular type of question, trolling like was occurring on Avraham's question page a few weeks ago. But we have a year to figure that out before next time. Newyorkbrad 15:23, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

The same here. If we have clerks, stewards and all sorts of officials to keep the RfAr discussions more or less decent, I don't see why we should not have officials who would keep election pages in order. ArbCom elections do not appear to be a less sensitive topic than most of ArbCom proceedings. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 15:33, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Ghirla, you really don't have standing here, as you were one of the people trying to remove my question to an ArbCom candidate. --Cyde Weys 17:27, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, thinking it inappropriate, he decided to remove it because there was no designated person he could speak to about whether it belonged or not. So I think it's fair for him to point out that having a designated person(s) to make such decisions would have avoided that controversy, among others. Newyorkbrad 17:31, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

He has close ties with various people involved in that question (especially the person the question was about). It's indefensible of him to think that he could somehow play the role of neutral elections official when everyone knows he wasn't neutral in that situation. He's just trying to cover for himself now by blaming a lack of elections officials when the real fault was his inability to determine that he was too involved to have standing to neutrally address the question. --Cyde Weys 00:25, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Cyde, please don't hijack the discussion to ad hominems and ready assumptions of bad faith, OK? Contrary to your insinuations, I have no interest in "playing the role of neutral elections official" or any other official role in Wikipedia now or in the future. I hope we may return to discussion of content (rather than personalities) now. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 08:25, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Bosniak

Take a look at all of User:Bosniak's edits from the 13th of December 2006 onwards ([24]). He is inserting this on a lot of user pages and on articles.

It is interesting how Serbs promoted invented word "Serbophobia" on the internet. First they introduced the word to wikipedia, and then thousands of other scrapper sites copied content from wikipedia, and now Google yields thousands of matches for this invented word. Of course, while Bosniaks wanted to do the same, and create an article Bosniakophobia, Serbs quickly jumped and voted "NO!". And of course, attempts to create Bosniakophobia article failed thanks to Serbian activism on wikipedia! They don't use wikipedia for educational, but for their nationalistic/politic purposes. It is sickening to see Serbian propaganda and lies poisoning Wikipedia

Some of the users he is sending the message to are completely random and have never interacted with him, or Bosnia related articles before. Is this bad faith behaviour or is this sort of thing acceptable on Wikipedia. It just seems to me that it is User:Bosniak who is causing trouble, not Serb editors. Any comments? - Ivan K 07:33, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I received it.. I'm trying for the life of me to figure what it is going on about :-\ thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 08:18, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I was about to post this very same same thing, but you beat me into it; I was one of many on the spamlist. I feel inclined to rollback all that ranting and warn the user, but I'd prefer a neutral admin to do it. Is there a relevant policy—such behavior is awful from whichever side it comes, and I'd like it to stop in the future. Duja► 08:22, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Coredesat and I just reverted all of the messages. JDoorjam Talk 08:32, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! - Ivan K 08:33, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

This is not the first time that Bosniak (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been warned, and blocked, for disruptive behaviour. He was only recently unblocked for some of the behaviour reported at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive149#Block request for User:Bosniak. —Psychonaut 12:45, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Do not connect this user with other Bosnians on this Wikipedia; that is incorrect and not human. His username shouldn't make us bad, or worse than Serbs (I've never said anything bad about them on English Wikipedia nor anywhere else). --Emx 22:12, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh yeah, enough of your Serb-loving comments. Show some fairness, objectivity and neutrality for once, please. I was communicating to people who were affecting articles such as Srebrenica Massacre, Bosniaks, Markale Massacre, etc. Most of them were Bosniaks, although some of them were Serbs and their loyal friends. Some users have complained about YOU rolling back and deleting comments that I left them, here are some of many example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Bosniak#re:_comment_on_my_talk_page and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:JDoorjam#My_User_Page By the way, user Psychonaut is Serb and he defends Serb interest on Wikipedia, just so you know. Peace Bosniak 01:38, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I calmly explained how the editor's behavior violated several policies here, and he has not only resumed his page-spamming, but he's also making wild accusations against myself and a couple other editors, and he even posted to ANI. Last I checked, I wasn't Serbian. I think a longer block may be necessary, because he's not heeding warnings or advice. --Coredesat 04:35, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Why people always have to be compared by nationality? --Emx 15:41, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Pkulkarni (talk · contribs)

I first blocked Pkulkarni on the 7th when it was discovered that he was running a large sock-farm to disrupt articles and attack other users. [25]. He continued to create more accounts and I increased his block to 2 months. Today 5 more sock accounts were discovered by Dmcdevit. See this. 4 of these accounts have been created after my second block. In light of this continued disruption, I have indef-blocked Pkulkarni. If anyone feels that an indef-block is too harsh he/she is welcome to reduce the duration of the block. - Aksi_great (talk) 10:35, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Looks like the correct decision to me. Proto::► 12:57, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Good call. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 19:15, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Agree with the indef block. Still might be a good idea to keep an eye out for sockpuppets, though, given his persistence. --Coredesat 14:25, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

A possible resolution to the edit war on Palestinian exodus

Per the rationale described here, I suggest that Palestinian exodus be unprotected, but that the following editors involved in the revert war be prohibited from editing this article for the next month: Zero0000, Amoruso, PalestineRemembered, Isarig, Nielswik, Humus sapiens, Huldra, Shamir1, ManiF, Shrike, Ian Pitchford (and any other users I missed). This remedy should improve the editability of the article for most users, and should allow uninvolved editors to work towards an article that is more consistent with WP:NPOV than the protected version, which was arbitrarily selected from two competing versions in an edit war. John254 19:45, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

On a more general note, our current tools for dealing with ongoing edit wars (where each editor is well-meaning, but the sum of their efforts negative) are rather too granular (blocks, protection, or nothing). A one-article "daisycutter ban", where every editor who had edited a contended article in the last n months would be prohibited from editing it for the next n months, might be a way to break the logjam and let some fresh brains tackle the problem. But I'm not aware of community consensus for anything like either what you describe or my more general version, and really WP:VP/P is a more plural venue for obtaining said. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:06, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. Therefore, even if there is no consensus for a general policy authorizing the use of this remedy in most cases, we can still unprotect Palestinian exodus, but prohibit the users involved in the revert war from editing the article, if there is a consensus for this remedy on this particular article, as shown in the discussion here. John254 21:34, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm all for creativity and flexibility in applying admin measures like that, below the arbcom level. If we as admin-community have the power to wield the strongest of all sanctions, the indef ban, then a fortiori we should have the power to hand out lighter but better focussed sanctions such as partial/temporary bans, revert restrictions, probations and the like. For a similar idea, see my proposal for an individual 1RR restriction for certain articles to be imposed in a different case, above under #User:Tajik and User:E104421. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:11, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

The trouble is that there is no policy basis for banning individual editors from certain articles unless these editors are on probation. Applying bans as proposed will amount to placing all Wikipedia editors on probation. Beit Or 09:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

User:DaffyDuck619 back again as User:220.237.67.250

Recently blocked User:DaffyDuck619 (see above) is back again as User:220.237.67.250. I have blocked the anon (logins are still possible). Is there any way to track new accounts coming from this IP? Could someone also check that I have done this block correctly, as it was my first time doing this sort of block to an anon IP. Thanks. -- Samuel Wantman 21:10, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm looking at the talk and blocks page, and it's fairly obvious to me that near every edit that's happened from that IP is from Daffy Duck. What makes you think it's a shared IP (I'm not sure someone didn't put that on the top erroneously). Patstuart^talk|edits 22:33, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I took the tag on the page at face value. If it is not a shared IP, there is still the guideline on the block page that says that anon IPs should not be bloced indefinitely. So what is supposed to happen when a indefinitely blocked user moves to anonymous edits? -- Samuel Wantman 08:36, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I took a long look at the history, and it was clear to me that every edit was from Daffy Duck. Perhaps we just put a long hard block on it, like 2 months, and if he feels sorry, he can appeal the block (though he's been a problem user for months now, and it's unlikely). That would be my take. -Patstuart^talk|edits 14:18, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Backlog of articles for speedy deletion

There is a 147 article backlog in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion. Admin help appreciated. — ERcheck (talk) 04:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• I just deleted ten and made another one a redirect. If each person around handles five entries, we'll have it down to a manageable size in an hour or so. | Mr. Darcy talk 04:32, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Still 119 articles left, not to mention images. — ERcheck (talk) 05:16, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
    • I've cleared out atll 165 images, and I see the articles are down to 38. I'm going for a lie down now. Proto::► 10:33, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Joke edit protected by spamfilter

Someone made a joke edit in the article Bob Costas in part "Costas captured the gold medal in powerlifting during the 1996 Olympic" [26], when I tried to revert it a Spam protection filter stopped the revert claiming that a saturday night live database link which is being used as a reference for a previous legitimate edit on this bullet:

• Bob Costas has been impersonated several times by Darrell Hammond on Saturday Night Live

This is true and wasn't added by the vandal, the snl database link doesn't appear to be spam, and when I search for it in the blacklist here the snl database website isn't listed. how can this be fixed? ▪◦▪≡ЅiREX≡^Talk 10:53, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. -- Szvest ^{Wiki me up ®} 11:17, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Docued

User:Docued is once again creating articles with unoriginal and possibly unfree content (see earlier report). Also, he/she has now created a number of articles with notability issues (for instance, P.Kerim Friedman, Catarina Alves Costa). See Special:Contributions/Docued.--Media anthro 12:15, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• Note: The articles are on films or filmmakers associated with the company which Docued is employed. — ERcheck (talk) 13:54, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• Looks like these articles are fodder for a mass AFD, though it won't be me doing it. Goodnight. MER-C 14:09, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Someone already removed the prod notice from John Marshall (filmmaker), but I just wanted to make sure that he doesn't get swept up in the mass purge. Of all of the articles User:Docued created, John Marshall is probably the only one that meets notability requirements as he was an extremely prolific and influential filmmaker. I believe that this is adequately documented on the page itself, but please let me know if anyone has further concerns about his notability. Thanks.--Media anthro 14:18, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

203.214.91.215 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

This is the IP address of blocked (for 24 hours) user:downwards (see discussion above). This should be blocked too, as the editor is defying his block by just not signing in.--Thomas.macmillan 15:05, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• user:downwards was unblocked by the blocking admin, so it's not really an issue. If he keeps up the incivility bordering on WP:NPA like he did in reponse to the block, then there is a problem, but right now I don't see anything that warrents further action.--Isotope23 15:44, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Upon further review, it's not clear that User:Downwards was wrong in restoring the deleted categories, so I removed the block, and I've asked User:Thomas.macmillan to review the relevant guidelines and to cease removing the disputed category, at least temporarily, until we sort this out. I also started a conversation at Wikipedia_talk:Categorization#Subcategorization_question to try to see if there has ever been an actual consensus on this issue. While I removed the block because I felt that the initial reason for the block was invalid, Downwards' subsequent behavior is definitely a concern, and worthy of a re-block if he keeps it up. | Mr. Darcy talk 15:50, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

IP Address of Vandal who is not signed in

When I find a vandal, is there a way to determine if his IP address has been involved in prior vandalism. An act of vandalism that I reverted here seems to be from someone who is experienced with the system. If possible, reply to my talk page. TonyTheTiger 16:54, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Just check their contribs. This is also in the wrong place, there's no admin intervention in an incident needed. – Chacor 16:59, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Light current

Light current (talk • contribs • logs • block user • block log) :There's been some disagreement over at the reference desk- see Wikipedia_talk:Reference_desk#Disrupting_the_reference_desk_to_make_a_point. My personal opinion here is that Light current is either completely clueless or is intentionally trolling, and I've given him a stern finger-wag. However, my supply of AGF is probably running out with this guy so I wonder if anyone else has opinions. Friday (talk) 03:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

There was a situation before at one of the content policies that appeared to involve trolling from Light current. The warning was a good idea. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:10, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. Good luck. See his block log. A warning was proper though. Considering the numerous ones he's had in the past, I wouldn't mess about if he continues however. pschemp | talk 04:44, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Light current doesn't really strike me as bad, but he sometimes acts in a juvenile manner. Dragons flight 04:55, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I concur. He either does not have, or does not use, good judgement about what to say. At a certain point, however, even if we assume the best of intentions, something has to be done. -- SCZenz 04:58, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know I have responded to all current criticisms and taken corrective action (including deletions). If there are any other outstanding issues, please let me know. 8-)--Light current 05:15, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Light current, be aware that it is common for people to be banned from places they disrupt. I hope you have decided to stop the nonsense. Guy (Help!) 09:51, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I have responded to all the issues raised. If you raise a specific issue that has not already been dealt with I will respond.--Light current 14:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Friday, you asked for opinions, so here is mine. I don't see how Light current is being disruptive. You unilaterally deleted a non-offensive question about HRT from the Science RD; Light current re-instated the question; and then Light current and StuRat discussed the issue with you on StuRat's talk page. For you to say that Light current is "completely clueless or is intentionally trolling" is unjustified, and very close to a personal attack. Gandalf61 17:07, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Friday is biased in this matter, and should recuse himself from any actions, as he indicated he would do: "But, I'll admit I'm personally irritated at him too, so if action needs to be taken I'd prefer someone else do it" [27]. That was a good idea, it's too bad he didn't do as he said, and leave this matter to other, calmer heads. StuRat 02:58, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Did you check his contributions? Particular gems include making a masturbation joke in response to a RD question. He's been quite unresponsive to complaints on his talk page. Well, unresponsive is not the right word- he responds, as a chattering child might respond. But thus far he's failed to modify his behavior. Friday (talk) 17:12, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I am familiar with Light current's contributions. Do you have a link for the masturbation joke ? If you are thinking of the "popping your collar" remark, I found that quite funny in context, but I don't believe it was one of Light current's answers. Gandalf61 17:25, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

How do you know it was related to masturbation? THat interpretation is purely in your mind!--Light current 23:12, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Not off the top of my head. Here's another recent off-topic sexual remark that someone complained about here. See also the numerous complaints on his talk page about his RD activities. He seems to honestly believe in his right to use the RD as a chat board. I'm not opposed to a certain amount of that, but here's a user who's been getting and ignoring complaints for some time. He's exhausted my patience, but I don't know if he's exhausted the entire community's patience yet. Note that mostly his remarks aren't that bad in isolation- you have to look at the overall pattern of disruptive behavior to see the problem here. He seems to enjoy being a pest- if there are little or no useful contributions to offset this, the answer looks obvious to me. But, I'll admit I'm personally irritated at him too, so if action needs to be taken I'd prefer someone else do it. Friday (talk) 17:35, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

He has not been "ignoring complaints", he has discused them, and, where appropriate (and given the opportunity to do so), he has reverted his edits. StuRat 03:38, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

So you can't remember what you meant by the "masturbation joke". Is it possible you are conflating the activities of several RD users, and attributing them all to Light current ? As for the "photography" example, Light current's remark was challenged on the RD talk page, and Light current says he would have amended it, but we will never know if he would have, because you didn't give him a chance - you deleted his response 7 minutes after it was raised on the talk page. That does begin to look like stalking behaviour to me. You say that Light current irritates you - my opinion is that this irritation has led to you no longer being objective about his behaviour. Gandalf61 19:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I remember it fine, and the diff is here. Why are you objecting to me quickly deleting irrelevant (and possibly, slightly offensive) content? Doing it slower doesn't mean it gets done better. Yes, I've been reviewing his contributions- so have others. This is so we can remove the more juvenile and off-topic remarks he makes, since he's demonstrated no judgment of his own. I guess one man's "stalking" is another's "damage control". However I intent to continue to remove rude, irrelevant, and/or unhelpful comments from pages as I see fit. This is neither a playground, a chat board, nor a forum for free speech. Friday (talk) 20:42, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I have posted to Light current's talk page before, mostly over the same sort of problems. See archived threads here and here for examples. One comment in particular was very illuminating: "When you have as many edits as I have, esp on Rd, then you can tell me what to do. Until then, I advise you to keep your counsel. 8-)" (28 October 2006) [28] - despite the smiley, this either displays the wrong attitude, or a worrying lack of judgement over the right time and place to make jokes. This lack of judgment is evident at the Reference Desk as well. There also seems to be a pattern of behaviour along the lines of pushing the boundaries and defying authority up to a certain point, and then claiming innocence, and saying that he has "responded to all queries". Overall, the attitude and behaviour is often (but not always) juvenile and immature. Ultimately, I would say stern warnings (when needed) from uninvolved parties may be the only way to get the message through, along with some mentoring. Of course, the behaviour may improve over time as the user gains experience in life and Wikipedia. And it would be unfair to single out Light current. There are others that exhibit the same sort of behaviour. Possibly showing these sort of users other areas of Wikipedia they could contribute to would work well, as then they really will encounter people who will tell them exactly what they think of silly behaviour. Carcharoth 17:47, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Agree that there are other problem editors with the same sort of behavior. LC seems to be buddies with some of them. But, we have to start somewhere. Agree that warnings are reasonable but they have thus far been ineffective. Whether the "innocent child" routine is genuine or not I don't particularly care- the disruption is the same either way. He also made some reference to his edit count to me, as though he believes this justifies his behavior. Anyway, he's characterized my telling him his behavior needs to change as "stalking", which I guess translates into "leave me alone and let me do what I want." A block might help him understand that his behavior really is a problem, but it's hard to point to a single edit that clearly warrants such action. Friday (talk) 18:04, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

What about an WP:RFC for user conduct? If enough people agree with what they think the problem is, the message might get through. Carcharoth 18:27, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth: User_talk:Light_current#RFC. He says he understands that many people think his editing is frequently inappropriate. Time will tell I suppose. Friday (talk) 21:50, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I tried to reason with him about a month ago (archived at User talk:Light current/archive7#comment at RD/science with a related thread starting at Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 13#Joking on RD with no apparent improvement on his part. This is where the "When you have as many edits as I have, esp on Rd, then you can tell me what to do. Until then, I advise you to keep your counsel." quote came from. When it became clear to him that I'm an admin he backed off (somewhat), but has been pushing the edge ever since. I fear RFC may be the only recourse. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:01, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I have blocked this editor for 1 week. See my explanation at User_talk:Light_current#Enough. As always, I invite others to review and adjust as they see fit. Friday (talk) 23:58, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Good decision. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:19, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

It appears harsh at first glance, but I understand the logic. When a user clearly alludes to masturbation and then tries to convince people that it's all in their own heads, that's trolling. LC often seems bent on arguing that nobody can prove what he's talking about, and that the judgement and common sense of others may be faulty, so there's nothing anybody can do; I've talked to him before about the fallacies of this approach, but I guess the lesson didn't sink in. Unfortunately, I'm not sure a long block will make him behave better—but I also have no idea what else to do. -- SCZenz 02:05, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Not convinced it will help either, but it will make the trolling go away temporarily. Or, at any rate it'll confine it to his own page where he can talk to himself all day long as far as I'm concerned. Thanks for the feedback, glad I wasn't completely unreasonable here. Friday (talk) 02:21, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, but a week seems a little harsh to me. Light current has shown that he can talk the talk (ie. he says he understands what is wrong and will try better in the future), but I would say judge his actions during a probationary period. Unblock or reduce the block length, and make clear that disruptive behaviour during the probationary period of a week will result in the block being reimposed. ie. Make clearer to him what sort of behaviour he needs to avoid, and then watch for a week to see that he does avoid that sort of behaviour. Again, mentoring is really what is needed ere, with someone to politely tap the shoulder and say "ahem, do you really think that is suitable?" Carcharoth 03:40, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

To clarify, both nonsexual jokes and the serious discussion of sexual topics, such as masturbation, are allowed on the Ref Desk, but there do appear to be significant objections to sexual jokes. That's fine, but the editor should then be asked to remove the post and given a reasonable opportunity to do so. Instead, Friday removed it himself, depriving User:light current of the opportunity to do so, then used this post later as a justification for blocking this editor for a week. Note that User:light current did not restore the comment, and shows every sign of being reasonable in this matter. Furthermore, Friday's actions regarding the Ref Desk have been needlessly rude, as he himself admits: [29] and disruptive recently, including his suggestion that the Ref Desk be deleted entirely. StuRat 03:14, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Very good point, it's not nearly as serious as if you had asked him and he had refused- friday did it himself and then blamed him. LC posted it in the first place of course but he should have a chance.. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Froth (talk • contribs) 20:17, 6 December 2006 (UTC).

As an addendum to all this, I am serious that users who use Wikipedia as a chat room or discussion place, should be encouraged to take that behaviour to genuine discussion forums. Lord knows there are enough IRC chatrooms and bulletin boards out there, and Usenet as well. Carcharoth 03:31, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support block. I like User:Light current and I think he enjoys editing here. But he has to realize that his reference desk behaviour is crossing that murky line from making funny comments to being disruptive. If he shows a willingness to tone down his RD commentary on his talk page, I'd be in favour of unblocking -- Samir धर्म 04:36, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support block. This guy has been trolling, and the block will reduce disruption. Hopefully it will only be needed once. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 05:01, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
• I'm a non-admin, but I support the block. Comments like this are not acceptable, especially in light of given question. Were this isolated, it would not be a problem, but he was warned, and continues to lawyer around with things like "you can't prove I meant that". I'm also worried by comments like "I've responded to any specific issues", which seem to be his way of saying, "I'm only going to respond to past questions, and not necessarily fix my behavior in the future." Friday had every right to remove offensive comments on sight; we don't just let ugly comments sit on the board, just so a user has the chance to go back and remove them later to prove his genuineness. Patstuart^talk|edits 06:20, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• I support. This guy is disruptive, and incivil. Viewing his comments on AN/I should tell you that in an instant. I probably won't remember to recheck this so if you have a comment on my comment, leave a message on my user talk. ⇒ SWATJester ^Ready Aim _Fire! 08:02, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose this block. User:Friday has admitted he is biased in this matter, and the "punishment" here is way out of line with the "crime": "But, I'll admit I'm personally irritated at him too, so if action needs to be taken I'd prefer someone else do it" [30]. StuRat 09:25, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• I am a non-admin, and I oppose this block. Light current's reaction to criticism of his RD posts has been persistent but polite. I have seen no evidence that he has broken WP guidelines or policy. He has not been disruptive. Friday has over-reacted, and has allowed his feelings of irritation to override his judgement. He has abused his admin powers to pursue a personal disagreement with Light current. He has escalated from his initial AN/I post to a week long block in less than 24 hours. If Friday thought a block was necessary, he should have proposed this course of action, given Light current a chance to defend himself, obtained concensus on the term of the block and asked an uninvolved admin to enact it. Gandalf61 09:44, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• I agree with Gandalf61. StuRat 11:22, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• So what you're saying is that it's OK for a user to post out-of-context comments about masturbation, camera voyeurism, and other inappropriate subjects, and then, when confronted, not to be penitent, but to lawyer, refuse to admit fault, to argue, and to obfuscate ("you don't know that's what I meant"). I'm sorry, posting nonsense like that, then pretending you did nothing wrong, after repeatedly being asked to stop is totally unacceptable. I'm sorry, he should know better than that. And, I know you're frustrated with Friday, but the fact is, that is an ongoing problem; this is far from the first time this user has been a problem in such areas. Patstuart^talk|edits 10:59, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• An Admin should be neutral, but User:Friday appears to "have it in for" User:light current, resulting in his imposing a week long block for what is, at best, a minor problem. It appears as though User:Friday was looking for any excuse to impose a block. User:light current has been willing to remove any of his posts which are found to be inappropriate, if given the chance. User:Friday, however, has not given him that chance. StuRat 11:22, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

In what areas? The ref desk? I don't recall having ever seen you there.

• The ref desk is going to die this way. A one week block?! I sometimes wonder what LC is talking about, but I don't find him disruptive at all. I still don't get what he is being blocked for. It's all about one single remark that he himself agreed to remove (had he been given a chance) and when Friday is asked for another example he restates the same one. Other examples given are from his own talk page. His own talk page! Is that a reason for a block? A one week block? Much more disruptive is factually wrong information, because that looks like a useful answer. That is not the case here. This is about a silly remark. If this sort of deletionist behaviour continues at the ref desk and those who protest it are blocked (in stead of the other way around) the ref desk will become dull, many useful editors will leave (there are too few already as it is) and the ref desk will die. I have already noticed this happening, as I predicted it would. And it's going to get worse. This censorship has to stop. No need to block me. I've done that myself. After thousands of edits over the last year I have decided to stop contributing to the ref desk. And this is probably my last contribution to this page too. It's all too childish for me to waste time on. If people get blocked for a week for something like this, I'm out of here. To those who say 'good riddance' (there will be those): I didn't get two of my three barnstars for my work at the ref desk for nothing. DirkvdM 13:15, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• You are going to block yourself? From this it looks like SCZenz blocked you, not yourself. This is not censorship. The reference desk needs to be kept on topic and focused. The more 'playful' and 'stream of consciousness' it becomes, the less useful it is. As I've said above, there are plenty of other places to joke around at, but WP:RD is not one of them. FWIW, I too think the 1-week ban is too harsh, and I also think Friday needs to provide a clearer reason, and Friday should have left it to an uninvolved admin to impose a block, if needed. Carcharoth 13:47, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• That block has ended. He is saying he will not participate in the Ref Desk in the future, even though allowed to do so, because of his disgust at the level of hostility aimed at certain Ref Desk contributors from certain Admins, such as User:Friday and User:SCZenz. StuRat 14:21, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Yup. You beat me to it once again. Btw, this is a nice example of how some people don't understand certain types of humour. Which is no reason to delete it. One note to what you said: I don't care if it's admins who do it. Any deletions (by others) at the ref desk are baaaaaad because there are about a thousand edtis per day there, which makes it impossible to keep track of deletions. If that issue is somehow resolved, notify me. I might return. DirkvdM 15:07, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose one week block: Support 12/24-hour block: I did not see any warnings on User talk:Light current so I was going to oppose any block pending adequate warning, but then I discovered that LC has prematurely archived the warning and lots of relevant discussion on this topic with this edit. I find that disingenuous and it speaks to the need for administrative disincentive for inappropriate behavior (dare I say disruptive? don't mean to dis anyone). I have myself found some of LC's post to the forum frivilous and I personally have decided to ignore any questions posted by him. That is based on what I saw as "crying wolf", i.e. asking questions that he really had no desire to have answered, just for fun. I hinted at such in this edit. I considered that LC was disrespectful to the fact that I had gone to the effort of giving him a legitimate answer to what I thought was a legitimate question. As I myself just consider LC overly playful I did not see fit to warn him otherwise. That Friday sees his behaviour as more serious is a matter for those two to sort out but to the degree that LC ignored the warning then he can have the block but one week is WAY excessive; 12 or 24 hours is better. --Justanother 13:26, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Note: SCZenz even removed (not 'archived') a warning template I placed on his talk page. When I asked other admins about this, the answer was that one can do whatever one likes at ones own talk page. Even though this was a bit more than just 'disingeneous'. DirkvdM 15:07, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that calling SCZenz' attempts to improve the desk according to his own understanding of purpose and policy; calling those efforts "vandalism" is baiting and he was justified to remove it. "Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism." I also think that admins that "don't like the reference desk" should give it a wide berth. I am not judging anyone there, I am simply making a comment. I further hope that LightCurrent (and others) can come to understand that the banter and off-topic junk on the Desks is an enjoyable aside to the real work of answering questions and is never to be started or encouraged as an end-in-itself. I hope that LC gets something out of all this effort and remains on the Desk. --Justanother 16:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose one week block. I feel very strongly about this, as an RD regular. I think sometimes LC is over the top, but he's shown suitable contrition in response to the recent discussions. I regularly do RC patrol and report vandals. I see persistent, malicious blankers and offensive posters receive blocks much shorter than 1 week. And they are non penitent. Shorten this please. --Dweller 14:00, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose block. Even if one accepted that Light current needed blocking, a one-week block is inappropriately harsh. Yesterday a spammer who created two articles spamming a website, who deleted spam tags from them, recreated the delteed articles twice after admin deletion, listed the article on the req for page protection page to try to protect it from *me* and the deleting admins, forged my signature, and then lied about it, requested a review of the block, got one, blanked the user page and requested another one, got the same--a week's blocking.

Furthermore, even if one accepted that Light current needed blocking, the action for which he was blocked was under active & general discussion and it was premature to do so prior to some conclusion of that discussion, especially in the absence of clear, uncontradicted and unambiguous guidelines about the behavior for which he's been blocked.

So I would appeal to Friday to rethink the week block and lift it, undoing the self-action, and parole Light current to time served. -THB 15:00, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Opposeblock as clearly excessive. This is an unwarranted abuse of admin powers by user:Friday, who has previously proposed eliminating the reference desk: "I'm probably going against years of established practice here, but I fail to see how the reference desk adds encyclopedic value. It's a time-waster- why don't we just ditch the whole thing? Friday (talk) 18:36, 29 November 2006 (UTC)" It is very hard to assume good faith when an admin proposes eliminating the reference desk then applies grossly excessive penalties to frequent contributors. Edison 15:10, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Agreed, Friday should recuse himself from all matters related the Ref Desk, as his extreme bias against the Ref Desk negatively affects his judgment in such matters. StuRat 15:34, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: Just a few remarks and I'll probably bow out of this. As for warnings, there were months of warnings prior to this from different people. Light current has been blocked for trolling before. This was blatantly obvious trolling yet he kept up his "innocent and clueless" routine. He's just looking for a reaction out of people- check out his attempts to engage in conversation after the block, acting like he doesn't know what he did wrong. I did start the discussion here well before blocking, and so far there seems to be admin consensus for the block. So, I'm not personally inclined to change it, however my standard offer still stands: if any admin disagrees with this and wants to change it, I invite them to do so. I don't "own" my blocks any more than we own our edits. I realize a week seems harsh here, but he was very obviously trolling and this has been an ongoing problem, apparently for quite a long while. I acknowledge this is a tricky situation- hardly any of Light current's edits, taking in isolation, seem remotely blockable. This is why I sought input from others before and after the block. Also, please- let's not let this turn into a perceived "admins versus reference desk" fight- I blocked one particular editor- discussion of other editors who are also problems are not relevant to this situation. If anyone cares to notice, after some initial disgust at the sorry state of the reference desk and me questioning whether it adds any value to the project, I've decided it IS valuable, so I've jumped in and started trying to help answer questions. I thank all the people who do useful work at the reference desk, or in any other part of the project. Friday (talk) 15:29, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

You say let's not let this turn into a perceived "admins versus reference desk" fight, after having said "there seems to be admin consensus for the block", thus implying that you ignore the opinions and consensus of non-Admins, and in particular Ref Desk contributors. Can't you see how ignoring the opinions of non-Admins causes just the type of problem you claim you want to avoid ? If you want everyone to work together, then you need to respect the opinions of everyone, not just Admins. StuRat 15:45, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Attention! I'm going rogue and starting a wheel war!

Er, by which I mean that I'm lifting the block on Light current. Per THB, I'm paroling him. I don't think that the block was undeserved, but I do think that LC has acknowledged ([31]) that some of his comments were inappropriate for the forum in which he made them and that his judgement has not been up to snuff on occasion.

I think that leaving the block in place will shed more heat than light, as the mounting evidence here would suggest. LC is often a useful and productive contributor to the Ref Desk, and – providing he can restrain his occasional impulse towards off-colour humour and borderline newbie-biting – it would be a shame to lose that. I fear that we may have rushed into a block just when LC was starting to 'get' that the weight of opinion did not support his behaviour. I think it appropriate to give him a shot at reform. Note that I do not use the word 'parole' lightly, and I do expect that LC will make every reasonable effort to temper his remarks. His block will be restored (by me or by someone else) if he doesn't avail himself of this opportunity.

Note also that I expect other parties (both to this specific incident and those involved in the broader Ref Desk discussions) to refrain from sniping, kicking LC or others while down, taunting, gloating, oh-so-'clever' remarks, or anything else that might be taken as a lapse in civility. I'll be all over any sort of 'I-told-you-so', namecalling, 'You-don't-have-a-right-to-talk-about-Ref-Desk-because-you're-not-there-as-much-as-I-am-so-sod-off', or other petty ugliness like stink on cheese. We're at the Reference Desk. We're supposed to be there to help our fellow human beings, and we're doing it because we're nice, friendly, helpful people. Is everyone clear on that? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:34, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

TenOfAllTrades, thank you for opening the door to lift his block. It would have been better had Friday done it, but Friday did leave the door unlocked and let it be known that it was unlocked, so that's a good thing. -THB 15:41, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Endorse block on general principle. This seemed like a reasonable judgement call by the admin, and it isn't a horribly extended or indefinite block, so we shouldn't be second-guessing it. - Crockspot 15:51, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
• It is hard to assume good faith when Friday applies an exceptionally long bloc for a minor offense on the part of a frequent contributor to Reference desk after Friday has said "I'm very serious. I stay away from the reference desk but have dropped in a few times lately due to reports of problems there. I was rather shocked at what I saw. I suppose we must let each editor contribute in their own way, but I've not seen a bigger time-waster here than the RD. This is an encyclopedia- the goals of the project go no further. When I buy a copy of Brittanica, I've bought an encyclopedia. I don't expect that this includes a guy who will come to my house, hold my hand, and read it to me. Is it reasonable to expect a reference desk? Not in my opinion. We're an encyclopedia, not a forum, and not a place to get other people to do your research for you. Friday (talk) 20:38, 29 November 2006 (UTC)" Edison 16:15, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• • Please note that my request to be utterly civil and courteous and to try to put this behind us wasn't actually solely for the pleasure of hearing myself type. It would be appreciated if you stopped quoting that remark on talk pages and noticeboards in an attempt to push Friday out of this discussion. If you look upward about six comments, you'll see that Friday has reconsidered his opinion on the Ref Desk, and is actually endeavouring to be a helpful participant there. In the same comment, he also explains that the block was not for a single incident, but for a pattern of behaviour — which we all hope and expect has now been remediated – from an editor who has received many warnings about his conduct. I will also note that Friday has expressed support for my approach to handling this block, and that he seems to be a pretty reasonable guy. I expect that he would have done exactly what I did had I sent him a polite message—I was just impatient at the bickering here. It is not appropriate to kick Light current while he's down, nor is it appropriate to try to lynch Friday while he's being reasonable and accomodating. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:48, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the idea is that if an admin is only starting to understand a project as radically unique as the RD, maybe he shouldn't be allowed to assert his admin powers there. Which I don't necessarily agree with by the way --froth^{T C} 20:32, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Hey, can I assert my opinion into this one? I don't know if it's valuable here, but it looks like there's a long history of Light Current managing to find a way to get blocked, then unblocked. And the one time he wasn't unblocked was by Pschemp, and he's still bitter about that. In other words, perhaps we need to make it clear that infinite patience doesn't exist, and constantly walking the oline between appropriate and inappropriate, then acting like "poor persecuted me" when he called on it, won't be tolerated forever. That being said, he is a long-time contributer. I dunno: it's "yes, we love you at Wikipedia, no, you can't make masturbation and porn jokes out of context at ref desk after being warned for it." Patstuart^talk|edits 17:01, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm confident that enough people have seen this pattern of behavior to ensure that it won't be allowed to continue unchecked. (can't keep my big mouth shut, sorry). Friday (talk) 17:23, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Why are we so soft on a user who continues in a pattern of pushing the line? LC's actions appear childish and are frustrating when they happen again and again. i see this block as a cumulative effect of LC's own actions. Friday was right to block in such a situation, although, possibly a week was too long, but I do not know enough of this users background to judge. Regardless of the length of block, if these actions continue then the blocks should become progressively more severe. LC's claims of innocense, given the masturbation link posted by Friday above, are laughable. Go to usenet for toilet humour. David D. (Talk) 17:43, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Strong oppose block. Friday has a clear conflict of interest- see their back-and-forth in the latest archive of the RD talk. Other than that I would have said that he deserved it anyway (after due process, not this one day AN/I fiasco) but lately he really has been quite good about responding to criticisms and having an open mind about his behavior. Also, I'd like to say that I appreciate that friday is starting to understand the point of the RD. Admittedly it seems overblown and unnecessary at first glance but there really is a huge demand for it and light current is overall a positive contributor. I'd hate to lose him over this --froth^{T C} 20:14, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Well just to round off this discussion, I would like to say that all this apparent waste of time has indeed shown something:

We all make mistakes, some more than others. He who never made a mistake, never made anything. Let us not judge too harshly, lest we be judged in the same manner. Peace on all! 8-)--Light current 23:25, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh yes, I'd like to thank all my supporters for defending me and pleading for me. And I will try not to hold it agianst anyone who supported my blocking. I think we ahave all leaneda little from this unpleasant episode. 8-)--Light current 23:47, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm coming in late to this, but I have to say that I oppose the block. I do think Light current is too flippant on the RD, and it would not hurt for him to be mentored, but I'm trying awfully hard to wonder why so many admins are suddenly hopping into the RD and tsktsking when they aren't regular participants. The RD has been running fine for months now, there is nothing wrong with the way those of us who do frequent do things there. We need to quit warring over this, guys. Try talking first, blocking second. I would support an RfC on Light Current. User:Zoe|(talk) 00:51, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Light current, rather than giving somewhat veiled threats to those who opposed you, is it possible you could just admit wrong-doing, say you're sorry, and promise to stop in the future? Amazingly, you seem unable to do this. Already on your talk page, talking about the censorship on RD (having masturbation comments removed, what awful tyranny). Two ounces of penitence goes a long way. This is the kind of half-hearted backdoor response that's gotten you blocked 7 times. Patstuart^talk|edits 04:10, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't see how his opinion on censorship, listed on his own talk page, can be grounds for a complaint here. StuRat 13:27, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I was responding to his above comment. i only came back and added the thing about censorship later when I found it. -Patstuart^talk|edits 15:21, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - I am a completely neutral party here, having never even been to the RD. However, I just want to chime in and note that, after reading this report and the one above about the block of DirkvdM, it seems to me that a number of users view the RD as a fiefdom and a lot of the debate here has been about "people who frequent" the RD and letting them do things their way, and criticisms of users who "don't usually hang around" at RD but nonetheless voiced opinions in these matters, as though they had no right to do so. Seems a little skewed to me.--Dmz5 05:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Update: Since Light current was unblocked, I noticed a set of edits to You have two cows such as this one where the edit summaries made it sound like he was removing jokes. (Light current is currently upset at WT:RD that people have been criticising joke answers to articles.) However he was removing content from an article about a set of jokes. The removal was reverted, so that's not an issue. But, I really have to wonder about WP:POINT here. I'm not doing anything about this myself, due to the complete uproar caused by my recent block on Light current, and my own questioning of my remaining supply of AGF. However I bring this here in case others have opinions on this. Friday (talk) 01:49, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

My edits at You have two cows have nothing at all to do with my recent blocking. i dont know why Friday is continuing to persecute and stalk me in this manner.--Light current 02:00, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I note with regret that Light current has opted to try to push the envelope of WP:POINT (and also made at least one attack on Friday) since I unblocked him as a gesture of good faith. I have restored the remaining six days of his original block. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 05:14, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Based on Light Current's recent edits to his talk page (where he's making a production out of his block with countdowns, selectively deleting comments, and so on, I'm contemplating protecting his User and User talk pages for the remaining duration of his current block to help keep him from stuffing his foot any further into his mouth. Thoughts? - CHAIRBOY (☎) 02:11, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

That seems quite excessive, to me. Allowing him to vent may actually be a therapeutic thing. And what's wrong with a countdown, exactly ? There should be far more tolerance for what a person says on their own user page and talk page than on Wikipedia in general. StuRat 07:33, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

What's wrong is that the user simply refuses to ever admit culpability, no matter how many people tell him to knock it off. While I'm not going to accuse Light current of being a dick (I don't really know if he is one), I can point out the famous WP:DICK addage that "if enough people tell you you're wrong, they probably have a point". Light current needs to learn to stop trying to game the system at every turn, and then complaining about the unfairness of his blocks. He needs to learn that Wikipedia is a community, and he needs to abide by community rules, and not his own WP:FREE rules; that's why a talk page block would work. -Patstuart^talk|edits 07:42, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

StuRat & PatStuart, I appreciate your feedback. I've decided to institute the protection, and I'd like to respond to your concerns (Stu). First, the block isn't meant to be therapeutic, blocks are to prevent disruption. They aren't punitive, they're to stop a problem. The intent with temporary blocks is to break the chain of disruption long enough that the user can reset and be productive on their return. Pat's quick summary above is very accurate, and reflects my concerns here too. Not only is this user failing to acknowledge any culpability (note that on his user page, he talks about how "responding" to criticism should somehow equal changing behavior, yet makes no attempt to) but there's also the matter of his/her editing of his or her talk page. A blocked user is allowed to edit their own stuff when blocked primarily so they can have an opportunity to discuss the circumstances of the block and appeal appropriately. Instead, Light Current has used this to create grudge lists, working to categorize bad faith edits, announcing alternate interpretations of policy, and nest building in general. I think LC has the capability of being a valuable editor, but his or her shennanigans in user space are going to draw a legit lightning bolt. Also, a couple of posts from other users may be lending to LCs opinion that he or she is a victim of some great conspiracy, and that's hardly conducive to becoming a good editor. I'll protect it now, and ask that any admins who disagree contact me before unprotecting so we can discuss it. I'll make a point of checking for messages frequently. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 22:05, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

If Light current is blocked, then why is his userpage protected? His user talk page is one thing, but why did you protect his user page, Chairboy? Picaroon9288 22:21, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Howdy, Picaroon! Did both at the same time per above for the same reason. I've got my fingers crossed that he'll come out of the other side of the block intact and that he'll take Zoe up on the mentorship offer. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 22:23, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I can't imagine how he could disrupt anything besides his own pages if you lifted the page protection. BTW, how long is the page protection in effect ? StuRat 23:04, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

It's only to be protected until his block expires, of course. I've answered your other question above. Regards, CHAIRBOY (☎) 23:15, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, now I see what you mean, Chairboy. I think I misread/didn't read closely enough the comment of yours which I replied to. (Well, that's what happends when you skim a 7,500 word section in ten minutes!) Picaroon9288 23:11, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

This ban is way too long, and regardless of the reason blocking his user page is unacceptable. You said that blocks aren't theraputic, they're to prevent further disruption... well isn't blocking his user page "to keep him from stuffing his foot further into his mouth" more theraputic than to prevent disruption? He should be able to say whatever he wants on his own pages. You're talking in circles because such an unreasonable action is undefendable --froth^{T C} 00:05, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi Froth! I appreciate your comments, but I'll respectfully disagree. We don't get to say "whatever we want" on our user pages. This isn't a blog, it's an encyclopedia. I've been corresponding with Light Current in email, and I've expressed my hope that he can use this opportunity to turn things around. I'm not sure I understand your other point above, as I mentioned before the block is not intended to be therapeutic. I've protected his page to help him, not punish. I told him in email that I'd rather he be a succesful wikipedia editor who hates my guts 6 months from now than an indefinitely banned editor who likes me. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 01:27, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment: If the block is intended to prevent further disruption and not to be therapeutic then I do not get the point of blocking him from editing his own talk page. I can understand feeling that he needs a break and suggesting that he take one. Enforcing that he do so even to the extent of blocking his access to his own talk page when he obviously does not care to take that advice amounts to punishment. You cannot even say he is using his talk page improperly, IMO, as he is using it to discuss wikipedia issues and if someone does not want to see his remarks then they simply need avoid his talk page. For the record, I also suggest that he take a break but if he chooses not to then that is his choice and if it contributes to further disciplinary action in the future then that is on his head also. --Justanother 18:04, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah that's what I meant chairboy --froth^{T C} 21:14, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback, guys! I've talked this over with Light Current, and he's on track to coming back as a productive editor in a couple days when the block expires. The almost 50 edits he made to his talk page during his block before the protection was pretty darn crazy and he might have spun a bearing without intervention. The page protection is the inanimate carbon rod that governs his fission reaction, and it'll drop shortly along with the block. Keep the shiny side up, and let's get back to work. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 23:39, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't see anything wrong with making a large number of edits on his own pages. And 50 doesn't seem like a lot to me, in any case (then again, I have over 15,000 edits, so I may be biased). StuRat 01:56, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I've unprotected his user and user_talk pages as the block is now over. Regards, CHAIRBOY (☎) 22:11, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

What if a Userpage is being used as a blatant advertisement

I have been looking through Wikipedia trying to find a policy that covers this. This userpage User:ViraltheShow appears to be nothing more than an advertisement for their service and company and links to promote it. Ordinarily, if this was an article, I would put a speedy delete on it and move along, but how to handle if it is the user account. This user has no edits to anything other than their userpage and it is pretty obvious what they are doing here, but never having dealt with this before, I didnt want to make a mistake. Any direction? Can U put a speedy delete on a userpage, or should this be addressed in a different way? Caper13 07:00, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Speedied the userpage. Someone else can decided what to do about the user in question, I am going to make a pizza dough. Viridae^Talk 07:08, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I speedied the page again after the user recreated the page. The user has been warned. Gdo01 07:45, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Speedied again and Salted. Never seen a salted userpage before. Is this a first? Viridae^Talk 07:58, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

So what? If it stays on the userpage, is it a big deal? Trollderella 07:49, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Read WP:NOT. Wikiepdia is not a free webhost. That includes your userpage. Viridae^Talk 07:58, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but on the other hand, see WP:Enforcing every rule, all the time, wastes a lot of time, annoys a lot of people, and makes you look like a petty rulemonger, especially if no obvious problem is being caused. Trollderella 08:16, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

How does this in any way benefit the encyclopedia? If it did, or if it was a valuable contributor I would be inclined to overlook it. But it doesnt and its not. Viridae^Talk 08:51, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Considering it was recreated 3 times, after being warned twice, and they have made no useful contributions in the larger encyclopedia, I support an indefinate block on this account. Viridae^Talk 08:02, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Seconded, we need no more spam. Doc Tropics 08:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC) PS - did you mention "pizza"?

Mmmm, pizza...Oh, sorry. Just to let you know that {{prod}} now applies to user pages. And yeah, giving a free pass to user pages of the sort not allowed in article space to the sort of unvarnished spam, self-promotion, and other MySpace-like pages is a ridiculous notion. --Calton | Talk 12:24, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Indeed I did mention pizza - wasnt half bad either :P Gotta love home made. Viridae^Talk 21:28, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• Since the user now has zero remaining contributions after deletion of problematic / spam content, I think we're wasting our time even discussing this. See ViraltheShow (talk · contribs). Guy (Help!) 12:28, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I indef blocked them. Viridae^Talk 21:32, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia conspiracy page

EveryStateLine (talk · contribs)'s talk page is currently a theory that the U.S. federal government is "infiltrating" Wikipedia to make it a puppet of the current administration and names several established users as "federal contractors". I had previously removed this post from the village pump, but it may qualify as a personal attack page. - BanyanTree 15:51, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• Not any more... Guy (Help!) 16:02, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

The page also contained a direct personal attack against Fred Bauder. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 16:05, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

You caught that CHAIRBOY, most of the Federal Clowns are too slow to ever catch something that subtle. --Eve of Destruction 19:38, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

For those not familiar with the subject, this is a returning vandal, which is why he was indef blocked. -Patstuart^talk|edits 16:08, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

*passes out tinfoil hats* Syrthiss 16:09, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I left mine on the grassy knoll. Guy (Help!) 16:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Aha, that's exactly what you want us to believe, isn't it? You probably never even had one! *twitch* EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:14, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to the ref desk to ask them what metal is the most effective for lining a TFH... | Mr. Darcy talk 16:45, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but per the new guidelines, we're not permitted to give opinions. ;-))) Anchoress 16:55, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Nothing to see here... move along.--Isotope23 17:40, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• Cplot (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) sock. Please list them at WP:RFCU. Mackensen (talk) 16:51, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • And yet MONGO is going to be desysopped for having properly dealt with this person. User:Zoe|(talk) 17:20, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• • If you don't mind, please also list these socks at Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Cplot. The list is big, but it is nice having a master reference to go back to for his edit pattern. --StuffOfInterest 19:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Yeah but WP:DENY. He's now happily enjoying his sock puppet page. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 20:52, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

jpgordon, WP:DENY would be the most appropriate approach under other circumstances. However, these are actual Federal agents who are fightened to death to have this pointed out again and again. You can stop glorifying the sockpuppets, but everytime something gets posted again and recorded in the Wikipedia history that's a problem. --Party Music 22:36, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• It can be nuked when he gets bored with creating a new account after every third edit. Guy (Help!) 21:44, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Ifeldman84

This user, in both Benny Sela and Mizrahi Jews, reverted rv's made by both Sirmylesnagopaleentheda and I, without even having an edit summary (not even "rv"), and without saying anything in the acticle discussion page or in my talk page! Benny Sela: [32], he stopped when Amoruso said that I'm correct. Mizrahi Jews: [33], [34], [35]. He hasn't stopped yet reverting the reversions. I contacted him in his talk page (User talk:Ifeldman84), and he said: "next time, if you do a "revert" (as you claim) i will ask my friends to block you from editing the English wikipedia. end of discussion, dont try to edit my talk page". From what I understand I cannot talk to this person, who doesn't have the minimal respect rules in order to be here, so I'm commenting in the Admins' noticeboard. ⌠Yellow up⌡ 16:44, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I blocked the user 24h for the whole pattern of behavior ... but I'd like to have another admin review it. I may have been a little harsh. It seems to be that Ifeldman84 is pushing a dangerous POV (dangerous in a Wikipedia sense), one which should probably be nipped in the bud before it escalates. Again, would appreciate another opinion. ([36] is what struck me as dangerous. Something like that should be added after a consensus, no?) | Mr. Darcy talk 17:03, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Darcy. His whole attitude should be condemned here: reverting edits without an edit summary, controversial edits, and threats of telling "his friends" to block me. ⌠Yellow up⌡ 17:06, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, warning him first would have been nice, but given the obvious malice behind his edits, I don't think anyone will fault you for the immediate block. --Scimitar 17:10, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I agree that a "first and final warning" would have been a better approach. FWIW, I haven't been able to find any reference to Sela's birth, so it's not clear that Ifeldman84 had any justification for adding Sela's name to the list in Mizrahi Jews anyway. | Mr. Darcy talk 19:51, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

User:The Transhumanist (AWB) unilaterally changing shortcuts

User:The Transhumanist (AWB) not only has changed the shortcuts for WP:CR and WP:CUR without even mentioning on either talk page, he has also been editing other people's comments on dozens of talk pages to match his new shortcuts. Seems like a recipe for mass confusion. --Milo H Minderbinder 18:51, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Looks like he just got AWB approval and decided to take it out for a spin. A mass revert of everything that account has done should be implemented. Users familiar with the shortcuts as they were (CR used to point to cleanup review, now points to copyright) will find they're linking to the wrong pages. --*Spark* 19:03, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Hey, AWB's a hell of ride. Mackensen (talk) 19:09, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Got it. El_C 19:24, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I was just going to post that you and I had gotten them all. You're too quick, El_C. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 19:26, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

/bows El_C 19:32, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

So, having a Macintosh, I don't use AWB. Is there a way we can disable it so this guy can't cause even more work for us? ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 19:34, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

The account is separate one just for AWB usage, so I suppose an admin could just block it. I don't know the guidelines for blocking AWB accounts, first time out of the gate you could chalk it up to inexperience with potential impacts of mass changes. --*Spark* 19:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that's necessary at this point. El_C 19:47, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

He could be removed from the AWB checkpage. He seems to have caused plenty of drama with it so far. --W.marsh 19:49, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Both transhumanist accounts are now removed from Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage. Alphachimp 19:52, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

That other account that was on there I no longer have the password to. --The Transhumanist (AWB) 00:07, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I just left him a note asking if he's done all of the reverts yet. (I hadn't seen this thread - he changed a page on my watchlist.) Has this already been done? | Mr. Darcy talk 20:13, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, all of the reverts have been done. All 200 or so. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 23:56, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

174.  :) --The Transhumanist (AWB) 00:01, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry 'bout that. I did stop as soon as I got the first message to my talk page, and I offered to help the admin who was rolling them back (User:Nihonjoe) on his talk page. I then began discussing with him my next series of edits so as not to make another error. I handled the error in stride, and will be more conservative with the tool in the future. May I have my AWB access restored please? My next series of edits will be to add a category tag to the Basic Topic Lists that are not yet tagged, to the Category:Basic topic lists. The Transhumanist (AWB) 23:29, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Alphachimp, if you want to restore the access, I'm fine with it. I believe The Transhumanist has learned the error of his ways. (^_-) ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 23:56, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

St. Mark's School of Texas

St. Mark's School of Texas (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) This school's page has been SProtected, but it seems the students (or maybe just one) have gotten smart enough to register multiple accounts ahead of time to get around that. It seems every time there's vandalism on this one the same vandal username also hits numerous other articles (latest is Enobler02 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Presumably these are coming from within the school. Would it make sense to run a checkuser and block IP's? Fan-1967 19:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

RFCU filed at: Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser#St. Mark's School Vandal, including the 7 socks I'm sure about. Fan-1967 21:27, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Sex and personal information

Someone probably desperately looking for sex has left his/her telephone number and e-mail address at the Wikipedia:Notice board for Dutch wikipedians and the Wikipedia:Notice board for India-related topics/INCOTW/Other. I don't know whether the phone number and the e-mail address belong to the person him/herself, or whether he/she is pulling a prank on someone else. Should we err on the side of caution here and remove this personal information from the article's history? Aecis ^{Dancing to electro-pop like a robot from 1984.} 19:55, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Versions with personal contact details deleted. - BanyanTree 20:06, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

6 month block of 64.56.135.200

I have blocked 64.56.135.200 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) for 6 months. The IP had previously been blocked for one month in May, then for 3 months in September. On the very day this 3 month block expired, two days ago, the IP immediately began vandalising again. I've no idea who's behind this IP, but whoever they are, they seem singularly determined to remain blocked. The rapid and persistent childish vandalism, the fact that the IP seems to be static, and the gap in editing from June to September all suggest a school IP, but I have not been able to confirm this by WHOIS nor determine what school it might belong to. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 20:39, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

http://64.56.135.200/ redirects to http://webmail.hsd.ca/ and http://www.hsd.ca/ is the website of the "Hanover School Division". 68.39.174.238 21:27, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Profane tirade on article talk page

A school district IP (User talk:67.132.117.2) just left some profane comments here: [37] Looks like this IP is a repeat offender and has been blocked before. Cla68 21:18, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

1 month's block instituted. —Pilotguy (push to talk) 21:35, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Move of salwar kameez page

A relatively new user, Wikinger, decided unilaterally that the Salwar kameez article should be moved to Salwar kamiz and did it by setting up redirects. Without any discussion. I removed the redirects and left a message on his talk page saying that salwar kameez gets 580,000 google hits, salwar kamiz gets 15,000, and we use the most common English transliteration. His reply is that ee should always be replaced by i; he's in the process of restoring his redirects. HELP! I don't think he's a native English speaker and he has no idea of how disruptive this is. Could someone please rollback his edits and give him a warning? Zora 21:40, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I was wrong - sorry. He isn't restoring the redirects. I guess I'm hyper-caffeinated and high-strung today. A warning would be nice, but perhaps not necessary if he refrains from any further moves. Zora 21:52, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Does he spell tree "tri"? 69.4.153.248 02:27, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

User:24.39.123.238 & implied legal threats

24.39.123.238 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)

I'd like a second admin to take a look at this situation. I only became involved as part of a 3RR-block request... but now some legal threats are being tossed around. I'd really appreciate it if an uninvolved admin could take a look and review my choices. Also, I'd appreciate it if someone could review the article being talked about and check for anything that might be considered "liable". Thanks, ---J.S ^(T/C) 00:41, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I personally see nothing wrong with your actions (except that he should have been blocked sooner :P). The article is probably in need of a partial rewrite and doesn't read as the most neutral thing in the world (although I admittedly know little about the subject), but I don't see anything libelous or actionable. —bbatsell ¿? 00:57, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the discussion on the article's talk page: there's no need to be defensive about your actions. Regardless of whether the user is right or wrong about wanting certain information in the article (I'm not in a position to tell), his/her behaviour on the talk page is uncalled for. This user has violated just about every policy and guideline we have, from No legal threats to Assume good faith to No personal attacks. A cooling down block is definitely appropriate. Any account would long have been indefblocked for this behaviour. Aecis ^{Dancing to electro-pop like a robot from 1984.} 01:00, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

If anyone wants to extend the block, Godwin's Law has been invoked. ---J.S ^(T/C) 01:02, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, but it looks like a good block to me. I'd say you were being generous with only a 24 hr block.--Isotope23 01:51, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

New section

The article on Long Beach, California has been deleted and replaced with a single offensive word. Alanraywiki 01:26, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

This has already been reverted, but in the future I'd suggest Boldly reverting and reporting it at WP:AIV if the vandalism continues.--Isotope23 01:48, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Bobthehun2

Given the annoying back and forth trading of warning templates, I feel this is better reported here. This user has tried my patience. After being called on attempted votestacking on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Metalocalypse trivia, the user has gone a parade of trolling both on my talk page and the deletion page. The user acts ignorant as to the meaning of votestacking, insisting the term doesn't exist despite being directed to WP:SPAM. Having finally given up on removing my votestacking links, user has instead turned to adding warning templates to my page for incorrect and often random reasons. A block would be nice. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 01:42, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

His behavior has only gotten worse. He's taken to blanking the discussion again to supress the links that show he's been vote stacking. The few discussion attempts he's made are non-sequitor arguments citing edits made an hour after I've called him on the vote-stacking. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 02:23, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Fox hunting

While checking through CAT:RFU to see what I can help with, I came upon a request for removal of autoblock from 71.33.155.98 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). A user named SparkyFox (talk · contribs) was blocked for vandalizing the above article, as did the IP. I put 2 and 2 together and realized that the IP and the blocked user were one in the same (blanking the entire article on fox hunting to a POV rant about how it's evil). While both the anonymous and registered accounts were blocked, they also filled their talk pages with rants about how they're going to say Wikipedia stole money from charity sites. SparkyFox is indef'd, but the autoblock on the IP was lifted. Should something be done about this problem user in this situation?—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 02:52, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Open proxies -- big backlog -- 69 that can be blocked in the meantime

Hi. There was already a backlog of 2+ weeks at the WikiProject on open proxies when I dropped 100+ suspects on the list. So now there's an even worse backlog.

69 of these are obvious open proxies because they were the same vandal/spammer (maybe a spambot) hitting the same article talk page, (Talk:John Lott) using IPs from all over the world. Take a quick look at the talk page's edit history, then look at all the IPs hitting the NPOV section. Then look at a few representative diffs and you'll see what I mean: [38], [39], [40], [41], [42], [43], [44], and [45]

As far as I can tell, these are, at a minimum, a case of long-term abusive editing even if they're not open proxies.

I did a detailed analysis of the vandals hitting that page and noted which were blocked and which ones weren't; I left this on the article talk page in the "Only 25 out of 94 open proxies hitting NPOV section were ever blocked indefinitely" section.

There are just 23 "verified users" qualified and authorized to process open proxy reports. There are over 1000 admins who can block abusive editors.

Suggestion: perhaps admins could block these 69 accounts with sufficiently long blocks until the verified users catch up with the other reports. Alternately, if you feel so moved, you could block them indefinitely for abuse. If you do either, you may want to annotate my reports or else leave some sort of a message at WT:OP so the verified users know they can skip these for now.

I'm not an admin, so I will leave it to your judgment as to whether and how you want to act on these. --A. B. ^(talk) 03:31, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Vote stacking on MFD

StuRat (talk · contribs) did not like the way discussion at Wikipedia:Reference desk/guideline was headed, so he created a fork of it, essentially taking the people who agreed with him along to write a new page without involvement of those who do not agree with him. He's been using parliamentary-style eight-hour votes for the wording, convinced of the idea that supermajority voting is recommended or endorsed by WP:CON. Needless to say this is not a useful way of arriving at consensus; hence, his fork is now on MFD here.

StuRat has been vote-stacking this MFD by canvassing several people agreeing with him before (but none that disagreed with him) to "vote" on it. I feel this is disruptive. [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] (Radiant) 17:17, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Um Radiant, I am on that list but I don't recall ever agreeing with StuRat on anything. Soooo... I feel that you're misrepresenting me. Anchoress 01:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I have frequently disagreed with StuRat, so notifying me of an issue on RD is perfectly appropriate. Edison 05:09, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

As one of those canvassed by StuRat, I was surprised to be notified by him of the MfD. I had been peripherally engaged in the most recent discussions at the Ref Desk talk pages, and StuRat had canvassed me for my opinion on several previous ocassions over the last day or so. In the MfD, StuRat does seem to misunderstand several points about how WP works, so it is possible this is a genuine misunderstanding here, rather than deliberate vote-stacking. For the record, I voted merge. Carcharoth 17:29, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Also note that a least one person on the other side of the debate has only solicited votes from those who they think will agree with them, such as User:Hipocrite submitting an RFC against two of us in the "supermajority" and only contacting those in the opposition minority for comments: [57], [58], [59] (in addition to contacting the two of us who were the subjects of the RFC). So, is there a specific rule against this type of behavior ? If not, then it shouldn't be brought up as an issue here. StuRat 23:03, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

It's worth noting that I've explicitly advised StuRat in the past that attempting to stack discussions isn't a good way to handle disagreements: [60], [61]. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:36, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

And probably worth noting he's ignored your comments. Honestly, everything on the ref desk these days is being decided by a small group of editors who harass anyone with a different opinion. I've half a mind to make a nomination to delete the whole project, it has become quite disruptive to Wikipedia. pschemp | talk 18:55, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd support that. Seems like it's outside the scope of Wikipedia and if the users there want to continue providing the service, they should do so via a separate project. | Mr. Darcy talk 21:40, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

You have a good suggestion there, maybe the Ref Desk has somewhat outgrown Wikipedia. What steps should be taken to make this happen ? StuRat 22:21, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Nonsense. The RD has not become disruptive, those who do not particpate there and want to make it over into the way they think it should be are the ones who have become disruptive. User:Zoe|(talk) 22:28, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your support, Zoe. Still, I hate to see such unnecessary conflict, no matter what the cause is, and, if moving the Ref Desk outside of Wikipedia into a separate project would accomplish that, I would be willing to do any work necessary to accomplish that goal. StuRat 22:49, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Zoe, that is correct. People have been "sent in" to "fix" the reference desk, one of whom is a sockpuppet. Although admittedly the sockpuppet has not been disruptive, the others have been, and it's disturbing. -THB 01:01, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I've attempted to count every vote during stroll polls to determine whether a supermajority exists. I now understand that, while a supermajority is often used as an indicator of consensus in many area, like determining who should be an Admin, who should be on the ArbComm, and AFD, and RFC, several people object to using a supermajority to determine a consensus on the Ref Desk. I will, therefore, only refer to the results as a supermajority from this point on, and not a consensus, in an attempt to ease any conflict. StuRat 19:07, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

The way to ease conflict is to listen to the people who don't agree with your little group rather than blowing them off and attacking them, not to have more polls and count votes more process wonkily. pschemp | talk 19:12, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

First, it's not a "little group", it's the majority of the people on the Ref Desk Talk Page. Second, I do listen to the opinions of everyone, and respond, and have found that the supermajority wanted something different than what I wanted in a number of cases, and I've respected those results. However, there are some who just refuse to participate in the process. It's difficult to accomplish anything if you need to build a consensus, and you have several people who refuse to participate in building that consensus. For example, they've deleted the straw poll results, launched sockpuppet attacks, deleted the contents of the page where we recorded those results, and now are trying to delete the page itself. This makes it quite difficult to proceed. Instead of continuing the revert war they started by deleting the supermajority content, I thought it wiser to move to another page, so they can do whatever they wish with the old page, and tempers can cool down a bit. Then, once we complete our proposed rules for the Ref Desk, and they complete theirs, we can once again work to merge them together. StuRat 22:33, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Please note that XFD/AFD is not - most categorically not - a vote. Closing admins do not just number crunch: they look at the arguments as well. Moreschi 19:12, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

And I believe I've also looked at the arguments for each side of an issue. For example, I've often had a poll where a yes or no answer was expected, but, based on responses, formulated a more nuanced "yes, but..." or "no, except..." answer to the question under consideration. Once I take a read on the consensus, I'm also quite willing to reconsider if people tell me I've read it incorrectly. There was a rule interpretation I took to be a supermajority, but was then asked to look at it again after more input came in, and I saw that there was no longer a supermajority either way, so removed that rule interpretation from the list. And, at this point, we are only building a list of proposed rule interpretations for the Ref Desk. These are not carved in stone. After the list is completed I will ask for more input on additional rule interpretations people might want us to consider, changes that should be made to the current rule interpretations, etc. StuRat 22:46, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

This is just part of a multi-pronged attack including a vfd [62] and an rfc [63] all of which are baseless. -THB 21:12, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree that StuRat's behavior is disruptive in some ways- the vote stacking mentioned above is part of that. However I'm not the most unbiased person, having been the target of what I considered a bit of harassment by StuRat. I invite uninvolved admins to review. Friday (talk) 01:21, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not an admin and I'm not completely unbiased, either, but I'd like to point out that this discussion should probably not be focusing entirely on User:StuRat. I could be wrong, but it appears (based on perusal of the history of Wikipedia:Reference desk/guideline) that he and some other Reference Desk regulars were attempting a reasonably orderly, consensus-based construction of some useful Reference Desk policies and guidelines, when their process was somewhat rudely barged in on by User:Radiant! and User:Hipocrite summarily making some fairly sweeping changes in directions different from that of the fledgling consensus. (Examples: [64], [65].) Naturally StuRat was upset by this, and while I can't condone vote-stacking, I can certainly sympathize with his frustration. But AN/I probably isn't the place to discuss all this further; there are already ample discussions going on at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Reference desk/rules, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/StuRat, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/THB, and of course Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/guideline. —Steve Summit (talk) 05:23, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Yet again, an energetic RD editor is being victimised. In my view, both Rick's MfD and Hipocrite's AfC are intended to provoke StuRat. Those of us who were there know exactly how Radiant and Hipocrite hijacked Wikipedia:Reference desk/guideline. For those who weren't there, Steve Summit has provided edit history links above. No amount of wiki-lawyering and Newspeak double-talk can disguise the fact that this is simple playground bullying. Gandalf61 10:07, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• And yet I note that on that guideline, you are part of the discussion and part of its continual improvement - so you are not in fact being bullied, you are being cooperated with. How is that a problem? Note the difference between StuRat's version and the current one. The former was a set of sentences, each individually voted on, that was not allowed to be modified by anyone without further vote. The latter is a descriptive guideline that gives a consensual view of refdesk operation. I invite you to look through our other guidelines and see which of the two methods is commonly used. (Radiant) 15:00, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

The bullying of StuRat is Rick's MfD, Hipocrite's AfC, your accusations here of vote-stacking, and now, in addition, Hipocrite's completely outrageous accusations at RD Talk. This follows a repeated pattern of singling out an energetic RD editor and either hounding them until they leave or provoking them into a blockable misdemeanour. Seen this wolf pack behaviour too many times now to be fooled by the old "we're just trying to improve things" routine. Gandalf61 20:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• The bullying is the deletion, by the minority, of supermajority votes, deletion of those rules agreed to by supermajority, blocking of users in the supermajority, filing RFC's against members of the supermajority, filing an AFD against the page containing the supermajority rules, etc. The minority appears to be determined to get their way "by any means necessary". StuRat 15:10, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• • Have you considered that the minority may in fact have the same goals as you do, but is disagreeing with your methods? Note that "supermajority rules" are disliked on Wikipedia, we prefer consensual guidelines instead (and no, that's not just a matter of semantics). I am unaware of any deletion or blocking related to this issue so far. (Radiant) 15:45, 14 December 2006 (UTC) (I am, of course, aware of some blocks related to other issues on the refdesk, but not related to the proposed guidelines)

• OK, it's surprising you forgot, since they were your own actions, but here's a reminder...this is where you deleted votes to establish a supermajority: [66], [67], [68], here's where you deleted requests on your talk page to stop doing that: [69], [70], and here's where you deleted the supermajority rules for deletion proposal, without discussion: [71]. StuRat 17:54, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
• Deletions are done with the admin delete button, and are logged here. What you're talking about is removal of text from a page, not deletion. And I might add that you've made similar removals yourself, e.g. here, so you may want to take a look at WP:KETTLE. (Radiant) 08:49, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

• One quibble: I can not say (and I'm not sure how you can) that the current state of Wikipedia:Reference_desk/guideline represents a "consensual view". (It certainly doesn't yet accurately reflect mine. But no, I haven't edited it yet, either.) —Steve Summit (talk) 15:19, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• • I stand corrected, it's not consensual yet (hence, the {{proposed}} tag at the top). So let's reword it until it is. (Radiant) 15:45, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Mathew hopkins (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This account has been on a vandalism spree within the past 24 hours, with no useful contributions and adding nonsense mostly to user talk pages. Please block him infinitely ASAP. --Slgr@ndson (page - messages - contribs) 02:32, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Moreover, BAMEXP (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) also looks suspicious (a sockpuppet or a friend, perhaps?). Please block him too. --Slgr@ndson (page - messages - contribs) 02:57, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Both blocked, in the future, you can report this sort of thing on WP:AIV for faster response. Essjay (Talk) 03:03, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

As expected, all of the below are  Confirmed to be the same user:

• Mathew hopkins (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• George Bush wants you (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Fuzzy lumpkins39 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Huggy bear bear (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• AnGeL of DeAtH (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• BAMEXP (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Ashleigh tech n9ne (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

If someone would like to do the honors and block and tag them all as confirmed by checkuser, it would be appreciated. I've hit the IP with a week block. Essjay (Talk) 03:11, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

All of them blocked and tagged. - Aksi_great (talk) 07:51, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Penis vandal back

User:Fairxento added a particularly graphic image to several templates. I have reverted them and am listing the issue here as this has cropped up a number of times lately. BigDT 03:45, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Gross. The templates and images were (supposedly) all protected in advance - it looks like templates were moved/created anew? Sandy (Talk) 03:47, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Need help - it's been there a while. Enzyme_inhibitor. Sandy (Talk) 03:49, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

The templates were semi protected. That doesn't stop registered users with accounts older than 4 days. pschemp | talk 03:51, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Look at his contributions. Why wasn't he already blocked after moving Google around? Good grief ... BigDT 03:53, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

The moves were not automatically reversible by any RC patroller, but admins shouldn't have any trouble with them. I dealt with those now. Titoxd^(?!?) 03:54, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

• sigh* - How about some vagina vandalism for a change? Penis vandalism is so last week. pschemp | talk 03:55, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Please, no ideas. Fairxento started back when Down syndrome was mainpage. Sandy (Talk) 03:57, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I noticed. He should have been blocked then. If I'd have seen his contrib list earlier, I would have done so. pschemp | talk 04:00, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I know this goes against the spirit of Wikipedia, but can we fully protect all the templates used on TOFAs in the next couple days in the hopes the penis vandal(s) will get bored and disappear? Most of the templates don't need editing anyway. -- tariqabjotu 04:03, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I thought that was already being done? Here's something I thought about ... what about having a bot auto-move-protect any template that is in use in more than some arbitrary number of places (like 2). There's almost never a good reason to move an in-use template. BigDT 04:05, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Apparently this hasn't been happening. Hence, the vandalism we're discussing now. I was referring to full protection, not semi-protection. -- tariqabjotu 04:11, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Just do it. It's similar to protecting pages with {{c-uploaded}}. Titoxd^(?!?) 04:14, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I didn't realize there was a main page article involved. I saw the offending member on WP:AFD when I nominated an article for deletion. I didn't check to see what other pages were involved ... I just posted a message here and started reverting. ;) BigDT 04:16, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

One suggestion to anyone who is interested ... add [72] to your shortcuts bar. This is the recent changes page for the templates namespace. If you see an offending body part, go there and you will instantly see where it is coming from. BigDT 04:05, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Through my time RC patrolling, I didn't even notice the Namespace pulldown. Much thanks. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 06:49, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Sent to checkuser, possible open proxy. MER-C 06:33, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Scrotum currently on the front page. Anchoress 06:39, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

It's gone now. Anchoress 06:43, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Wtstoffs frivolously tagging images

User:Wtstoffs is frivolously tagging many of the photos I personally took and released under CC licenses as copyright violations. Can anything be done about this? If you check the URLs he's putting in the notices you'll see they have nothing to do with my photo. —Chowbok ☠ 05:28, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I have reverted the changes and added {{test2}} to his talk page. BigDT 05:55, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

And he's reverting them back. Would some administrator like to block him? I've had enough nonsense for one night. BigDT 06:00, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Done by Samir. --²¹⁰physicq (c) 06:21, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Sockpuppeting hoaxer should be looked at.

Lordtortville (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and Lord Tortiville II (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) have uploaded Bailey's Creek Fisherman's Challenge and Fisherman's Choice, irrespectively. I strongly suspect both are hoaxical vandals, given the former accounts edits to there articles, namely (their?) schools. Example: these edits. Also I suspect their relations to other vandals on that page, which have maliciously vandalized users' pages. 68.39.174.238 07:37, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

More info, this edit by LT II is strongly suggestive of [73] this edit by Bluechevylover (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). This info thanx to User:Mavarin. 68.39.174.238 08:11, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

SndrAndrss update

Regular readers may remember User:SndrAndrss has been blocked pending him learning to use talk pages. He sent mail to me by "Email this user"

Hello!. I'm sorry that i am keeping doing vandalism on your pages, i will remain kinder in the future. I will contribute to the lexicon in the coming weeks

Sincerely, Sondre

I replied

Hello. It is not your edits that are the problem so much, but that you ignore people talking to you on your talk page?

Have you seen your talk page? It is at

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

It is full of people asking you to explain stuff you did, or to not keep doing things. It is expected that you make some attempt to reply to other people, even if you disagree with them.

No reply as yet. He doesn't seem to have understood what the problem is, still. Morwen - Talk 11:16, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

When did you receive the email? It seems that we still have to wait a little bit before making a decision. He hasn't edited since Dec. 11th, which is the same date of the message you left him at his talkpage. -- Szvest - ^{Wiki me up ®} 11:35, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Yesterday evening (going by server time). Morwen - Talk 11:47, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

In this case we have to wait and see until the block expires. He's not formally asking to be unblocked anyway. At least he recognizes vandalism. So let him learn. You did the right action by the way. Cheers. -- Szvest - ^{Wiki me up ®} 11:52, 15 December 2006 (UTC)