Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive666

Ongoing personal attacks by Channarichan

Resolved

 – blocked

The User : Channarichan had been attacking me personally on my Userpage. I reported to the wiki administrator and he was warned not to do it again. He wrote this on my Userpage today:

"plz...like i cant report your ass you little worm....stop diggin up false irrelevant statements...it only makes you look bad for yourself.."

This needs to stop. --BobbyCtkr (talk) 02:25, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I only see the one incident on your user page and the warning to him, not a second one. When was the second incident after the warning, on what page? Was there an IP edit somewhere I'm missing?

Thanks. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 02:45, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

(replying to myself) This ( Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Geopolitical ethnic and religious conflicts#User:BobbyCtkr , diff) appears to be the issue. But does not appear to warrant further admin action at this point, IMHO. It was spurious, but not worth actioning, in my opinion. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 02:51, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Presumably this edit is the one that triggered BobbyCtkr's report here. --Danger (talk) 03:44, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Looks like an edit war in slow motion on momo (food). However, Channarichan has made several insulting edits to BobbyCtkr's page, including ethnically based personal attacks [1] (most have been deleted). They have received a final warning regarding personal attacks. [2] I would block, but am theoretically involved. --Danger (talk) 02:54, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

• I have blocked Channarichan for a short time. It was made very clear to him with a uw4im template [3] the previous time that personal attacks were not acceptable, and this time he replaced the other user's userpage with this. Black Kite (t) (c) 10:09, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

User:SqueakBox and paid editing (again)

Unresolved

 – Split 77kb+ thread to Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents/User:SqueakBox_and_paid_editing_(again) --slakr^\ talk /

Thread timestamped per consensus. HeyMid (contribs) 10:50, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

• The subthread is closed, but User:SqueakBox is now speaking up to acknowledge that he was wrong not to disclose his COI and to pledge to undertake no more paid work. See thread here. Does this represent sufficient clue, and is the community inclined to put faith in his pledge? He wants to know how this can "be resolved other than through [his] being blocked forever for a mistake that wont be repeated." Would a finite block be more appropriate? Some version of Wikipedia:Standard offer? Time served? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 23:53, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

  Enough already. Tell him to take a hike for a few months, and apply then for an unblock.

  The discussion was open for weeks, which is the longest I have ever seen any such discussion kept open, and Squeakbox ignored repeated requests to come clean. Then as soon as it's closed, Squeakbox posts again to his talk ... but even then it takes a further poke from Moonriddengirl before Squeakbox starts to give a plausible explanation of what's been happening.

  This is a blatantly bad faith exercise in trying to game the system. We bent over backwards to give SB time to provide a convincing explanation, and even after three weeks he still couldn't play it straight even when the door was closed. SB is just wasting everybody's time. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:23, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

  If we should set an expiry time of his block, say 6 months or so, I think it's better to keep the block indefinite, as it currently is. An indefinite block is not technically in place infinitely or permanently; there is a way for constructive editors to come back, but it requires that the editor addresses the reasons surrounding their block. My personal opinion: Keep the block indefinite, and point the user to WP:OFFER. If the user then shows a minimum 6 months of constructive editing at a sister project (such as Wikinews, Wikisource, etc), they can come back and file another unblock request referring to their contributions at that project. HeyMid (contribs) 15:57, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Unblock proposal by Themfromspace

This is going nowhere fast but I still think SqueakBox can be a constructive contributor if we set up some clear and precise conditions for an unblock. I propose the following.

1. SqueakBox is restricted from carrying out any paid-editing requests that have originated on external sites such as freelancer.com.
2. SqueakBox is required to disclose any conflicts of interest he may have on article talk pages. This includes situations where he has a close personal connection with an article's subject and situations in which the article's subject has at any time requested him to edit.
3. SqueakBox is restricted to editing from a single account.

The last restriction is to make sure he doesn't sock around the other ones. Should he violate any of these conditions he can be reblocked indefinitely. If he agrees to these conditions I say unblock and move on with things.

• Support as proposer. Modifications to the above are welcome, such as time limits on the restrictions (6 mos? 1 year?) ThemFromSpace 04:00, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. Per my comments above. After three weeks of evasion by Squeakbox, followed by yet more weaseling when the 3 weeks was over, I see no reason to trust any assurances from SB about future disclosure. I think it would be more accurate to say that this is going nowhere very very slowly. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:20, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose has demonstrated amply that they shouldn't be trusted. Any conditions built on trust are a waste of time with this person, and a slap in the face to the editors that haven't treated those around them with such contempt (shouldn't this proposal be at the bottom of this page?)Bali ultimate (talk) 04:26, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose; good faith only goes so far. I'm slightly bewildered by the unblock proposal. He should disclose COIs, not edit for money, and ideally not sock. So the unblock restrictions are precisely the same rules that he submits to as an editor anyway?. Ironholds (talk) 14:41, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

• Paid editing is not against the rules. :) I believe that a greater level of restrictions have been proposed here as there is a perception that he is compromising Wikipedia's best interest in advancing those of contractors. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:58, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

• In which case we encounter the second problem - we have no reason to trust him. He may as well pledge not to undertake any paid editing he expects us to find out about for all the value it holds. (also, the paid editing guideline didn't go through? Sweet. Time to open up la bank account...) Ironholds (talk) 15:02, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

• Nope, didn't pass. And I'm inclined to agree with you and the two above you; he's been at best evasive at worst downright deceptive in this matter. I'm not really familiar with him as an editor overall. I don't know if there is reason to believe that there's been more of this than we know or if he has other contribs that might balance against these issues. That said, at some point we have to decide what conditions might apply to unblocking. Is WP:STANDARDOFFER a good approach? How will we know he'll stop then? Should we recommend that he come back after a certain time and request unblocking with certain conditions imposed at that time? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:10, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

• If it helps, I've got 600 articles to my name (just over, actually). While I have no reason to trust him, the community (for some godawful reason) trusts in my judgment - I'm perfectly prepared to step up and go "I'll screen through everything he's done each day and check any articles created, edited or expanded are done so in a neutral fashion and pass WP:N and the associated guidelines". A warning to him that all my mentees tend to screw up and get banned within a month :P. Ironholds (talk) 15:46, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose Had more than enough time to come clean, and refused to do so. -DJSasso (talk) 16:02, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose I do not feel comfortable unblocking him. Eventually he should consider going with WP:OFFER. HeyMid (contribs) 16:08, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
• Suggestion Although there have been some problems with this user which have led to a loss of trust, Wikipedia is known for giving second chances. (And third and fourth and fifth chances too.) I suggest Squeakbox help out on some of the other Wikimedia projects for a while and then make another unblock request in a few months. That would give him a chance to keep involved in the overall project and to rebuild trust here.   Will Beback  talk 

Levineps in violation of his editing restrictions

Levineps (talk · contribs) is completely banned from, among other things, making any page moves, as described in his community sanctions visible on his user page. He violated this recently, as seen here. This is not the first time he has done so, though it has been several months since he was last blocked for a violation. AN discussions regarding previous violations and blocks can be found here. postdlf (talk) 04:28, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

• Considering it was an article he created less than 1 minute before he moved it, I think we can give this one a pass. I see no issue with his actions here at all. I don't see why, within mere seconds of screwing up the title of an article he himself just created, and which no one else has edited, he has to jump through any special hoops. If you have evidence of him moving other articles, which do not fit this pattern, please present them. This seems a purely technical and inconsequential violation, and not worth even mentioning, let alone warning or sanctioning for. --Jayron32 04:55, 18 January 2011 (UTC) ed: My bad --Jayron32 05:09, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

That's not what I'm seeing in this article history, Jayron. Am I looking at it incorrectly? It looks to me like this is a violation of his restricitons. It's not a page he had created. LadyofShalott 05:04, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I totally read that wrong, looking at his contribs history I totally misread the sequence of events. This is, in fact, a literal violation of his restrictions. I have no idea what should be done about this, but if he is, in fact, not supposed to be moving articles, this is blatantly such a move. Given the millions of other editors at Wikipedia, one of them can move it instead of him, if it needs moving. --Jayron32 05:09, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

• I blocked him for a week. His last block for this was a week, but that was 9 months ago, hence my decision not to escalate the duration. The restrictions have been in place for a year and may be slightly outdated so I'm not ever so keen about blocking him, but "no page moves" isn't difficult. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 05:20, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I notice that on his user page, in the collapsed box spelling out his restrictions, there is a section at the end for logging blocks and other enforcement actions. LadyofShalott 05:27, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

(ec) I recall the multiple discussions leading up to the restrictions, and this is a good block. I understand, and agree with, the reason for not escalating the block length, but suggest that if he violates aqain in the next 3 months or so, the next block should be for a month, as if the current block was for 2 weeks. That might provide additional incentive for him to keep to his restrictions. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:32, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Three weeks or a month certainly isn't unreasonable. Hopefully, though, if he's managed to keep his nose clean for 9 months, he'll be able to keep it clean for a good while longer and anything we can to encourage that is great (carrot and stick if you like). Unfortunately, this is a cut-and-dry violation. Oh, and I logged in the appropriate section, thanks for spotting that, m'Lady. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 05:54, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Asa side note, did anyone actually look at the article in question? It was created by a now-blocked user (sockpuppetry), and is a list of the final standings for two high school conferences (in two different states). It looks to me more like a candidate for deletion, and it's unfortunate that Levineps got blocked over such a sad excuse for an article. (I'm not saying that the block was bad; it was totally appropriate.) Horologium (talk) 12:35, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

AFAICS, 2010 high school football season in the United States is not actually a list, just a pile of headings which might some day be made into a list. Pointless. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:48, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Proxy abusing editor

Today's featured article got edited via proxy a lot. Why can't we delete these proxies? Someone attacks the featured articles every time a new one come ups. Is there a filter to stop it? --Hinata talk 10:56, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Other than our pattern-based edit filters there's nothing that I'm aware of. Open proxies can be blocked on sight. Protecting the page is only done for short periods and in extreme circumstances because it goes against our entire open editing philosophy. On the plus side, TFA is generally one of the most watched pages on the site so vandalism doesn't remain for long. EyeSerene^talk 12:54, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I've been monitoring this vandal and TFAs are not the only target. Pages like Chinese American and Dallas City Hall were also targets. Many more pages continued to be targets after short protections were applied. I'd rather not go into details publicly how we're catching this vandal but what I can tell is that our first attempt was very successful. Elockid (Alternate) ^(Talk) 17:20, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Rev Dels for copyvio required

• here
• and here Fifelfoo (talk) 11:13, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

 Done. IP has not edited in the hour or so since your warning, but if they come back someone should probably block. - 2/0 (cont.) 12:03, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

For future reference just place Template:Copyvio-revdel on the article, someone will get around to it sometime.--Misarxist 13:11, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Sooner is better with regard to copyvio, but, yeah, that would work too. LessHeard vanU (talk) 14:05, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

PayPlay.FM

Resolved

 – reverted

Hello. Does this diff constitute a legal threat?--v/r - TP 14:23, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Not really; legal threats is designed to protect the Foundation and its editors and employees - that doesn't appear to be targeted at us, per se. Ironholds (talk) 14:42, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

It's fairly uncited at this point, so I've reverted back to a cleaner version.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:51, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

User:SqueakBox and paid editing (again)

Unresolved

 – Split 77kb+ thread to Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents/User:SqueakBox_and_paid_editing_(again) --slakr^\ talk /

Thread timestamped per consensus. HeyMid (contribs) 10:50, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

• The subthread is closed, but User:SqueakBox is now speaking up to acknowledge that he was wrong not to disclose his COI and to pledge to undertake no more paid work. See thread here. Does this represent sufficient clue, and is the community inclined to put faith in his pledge? He wants to know how this can "be resolved other than through [his] being blocked forever for a mistake that wont be repeated." Would a finite block be more appropriate? Some version of Wikipedia:Standard offer? Time served? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 23:53, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

  Enough already. Tell him to take a hike for a few months, and apply then for an unblock.

  The discussion was open for weeks, which is the longest I have ever seen any such discussion kept open, and Squeakbox ignored repeated requests to come clean. Then as soon as it's closed, Squeakbox posts again to his talk ... but even then it takes a further poke from Moonriddengirl before Squeakbox starts to give a plausible explanation of what's been happening.

  This is a blatantly bad faith exercise in trying to game the system. We bent over backwards to give SB time to provide a convincing explanation, and even after three weeks he still couldn't play it straight even when the door was closed. SB is just wasting everybody's time. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:23, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

  If we should set an expiry time of his block, say 6 months or so, I think it's better to keep the block indefinite, as it currently is. An indefinite block is not technically in place infinitely or permanently; there is a way for constructive editors to come back, but it requires that the editor addresses the reasons surrounding their block. My personal opinion: Keep the block indefinite, and point the user to WP:OFFER. If the user then shows a minimum 6 months of constructive editing at a sister project (such as Wikinews, Wikisource, etc), they can come back and file another unblock request referring to their contributions at that project. HeyMid (contribs) 15:57, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Unblock proposal by Themfromspace

This is going nowhere fast but I still think SqueakBox can be a constructive contributor if we set up some clear and precise conditions for an unblock. I propose the following.

1. SqueakBox is restricted from carrying out any paid-editing requests that have originated on external sites such as freelancer.com.
2. SqueakBox is required to disclose any conflicts of interest he may have on article talk pages. This includes situations where he has a close personal connection with an article's subject and situations in which the article's subject has at any time requested him to edit.
3. SqueakBox is restricted to editing from a single account.

The last restriction is to make sure he doesn't sock around the other ones. Should he violate any of these conditions he can be reblocked indefinitely. If he agrees to these conditions I say unblock and move on with things.

• Support as proposer. Modifications to the above are welcome, such as time limits on the restrictions (6 mos? 1 year?) ThemFromSpace 04:00, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. Per my comments above. After three weeks of evasion by Squeakbox, followed by yet more weaseling when the 3 weeks was over, I see no reason to trust any assurances from SB about future disclosure. I think it would be more accurate to say that this is going nowhere very very slowly. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:20, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose has demonstrated amply that they shouldn't be trusted. Any conditions built on trust are a waste of time with this person, and a slap in the face to the editors that haven't treated those around them with such contempt (shouldn't this proposal be at the bottom of this page?)Bali ultimate (talk) 04:26, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose; good faith only goes so far. I'm slightly bewildered by the unblock proposal. He should disclose COIs, not edit for money, and ideally not sock. So the unblock restrictions are precisely the same rules that he submits to as an editor anyway?. Ironholds (talk) 14:41, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

• Paid editing is not against the rules. :) I believe that a greater level of restrictions have been proposed here as there is a perception that he is compromising Wikipedia's best interest in advancing those of contractors. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:58, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

• In which case we encounter the second problem - we have no reason to trust him. He may as well pledge not to undertake any paid editing he expects us to find out about for all the value it holds. (also, the paid editing guideline didn't go through? Sweet. Time to open up la bank account...) Ironholds (talk) 15:02, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

• Nope, didn't pass. And I'm inclined to agree with you and the two above you; he's been at best evasive at worst downright deceptive in this matter. I'm not really familiar with him as an editor overall. I don't know if there is reason to believe that there's been more of this than we know or if he has other contribs that might balance against these issues. That said, at some point we have to decide what conditions might apply to unblocking. Is WP:STANDARDOFFER a good approach? How will we know he'll stop then? Should we recommend that he come back after a certain time and request unblocking with certain conditions imposed at that time? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:10, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

• If it helps, I've got 600 articles to my name (just over, actually). While I have no reason to trust him, the community (for some godawful reason) trusts in my judgment - I'm perfectly prepared to step up and go "I'll screen through everything he's done each day and check any articles created, edited or expanded are done so in a neutral fashion and pass WP:N and the associated guidelines". A warning to him that all my mentees tend to screw up and get banned within a month :P. Ironholds (talk) 15:46, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose Had more than enough time to come clean, and refused to do so. -DJSasso (talk) 16:02, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose I do not feel comfortable unblocking him. Eventually he should consider going with WP:OFFER. HeyMid (contribs) 16:08, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
• Suggestion Although there have been some problems with this user which have led to a loss of trust, Wikipedia is known for giving second chances. (And third and fourth and fifth chances too.) I suggest Squeakbox help out on some of the other Wikimedia projects for a while and then make another unblock request in a few months. That would give him a chance to keep involved in the overall project and to rebuild trust here.   Will Beback  talk 

Help this article now! Tunisia

Resolved

 – Tunisia has been covered in birthday cake. Rich Farmbrough, 19:27, 19th day of January in the year 2011 (UTC).

The Tunisia article is an article about the country. There is no history at all in the article after World War II. This is a major flaw that makes Wikipedia laughable. Here we are in the internet era and our article is less up to date than a paper encyclopedia printed in the 1970's!

I know ANI is usually the forum to complain about bad editors but this is a major flaw that needs help. If you are an administrator and like to block people or talk about administrative stuff, change for a while and go directly to that article and help add maybe two paragraphs. Madrid 2020 (talk) 21:43, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Why not add whatever you think is missing from the article? Why expect someone else to do it? Malleus Fatuorum 22:48, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

The most likely explanation for there being no information about Tunisia's history after 1956 is that there ceased to be ongoing coverage of it. It seems likely that none of the 10 million or so Tunisians cared enough to write anything about their country from about 1957 onwards. Google searches for "Tunisia after 1956" returned only 44 results (ie. barely any) and nothing in GNews. Probably we should delete Tunisia per WP:NOTNEWS, on the basis that coverage of the nation is limited to a short burst between the 10th century BC and 1956 and there is no evidence of ongoing real-world significance or wide geographic impact. - DustFormsWords (talk) 02:50, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd be against any sort of AfD, everyone has heard of Tunisia! It's a really brilliant country and I went there on holiday once. I've worked really hard on the article and it would be really horrible if you nasty deletionists came and removed all my hard work. As a compromise, perhaps we could suggest a merge with Algeria in a section on neighbours? - ManicSpider (talk) 03:23, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Could that have possibly been a really, really bad attempt at irony, DustFormsWords? You do recognize that you just insulted a nation's entire population, right? Breathes there a man with soul so dead, who never to himself hath said, "This is my own, my native land!"?  – OhioStandard (talk) 05:26, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it was intended ironically. Probably not as amusing unless you've argued a bunch of AfDs that take the format, "This organisation has verfiably distributed over a billion dollars in aid money throughout Africa but does not appear to have coverage in English-speaking newspapers and is therefore not notable." Apologies to any who didn't catch the (intended) funny. Apologies also for bringing humour to ANI, which I realise per policy is a dull and humourless place where hope goes to wither, die, and be indefinitely blocked. - DustFormsWords (talk) 05:41, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry; I have a cold and seem to have exchanged my head/intellect for an anvil. I hope it's temporary. Perhaps I'll one day understand sophisticated humor again. Best,  – OhioStandard (talk) 06:34, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

That was humorous? I'd better go and undo my A7 then. I'm really only here because I like to block people. EyeSerene^talk 14:28, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Quite sadly, I got it ... --Epeefleche (talk) 16:38, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

No, it wasn't really. Obviously it was intended to be, but it's the kind of joke that would be funny in Germany. Egg Centric (talk) 20:48, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

As with, "Our dog's nose doesn't work", etc. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:54, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually, the reason that there has been no recent coverage is because in the 1970's the region was renamed to Tatooine... >.> -- RoninBK _{T C} 18:49, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

User:Mactruth

Resolved

 – User blocked, "battlefield" material removed. Rich Farmbrough, 19:29, 19th day of January in the year 2011 (UTC).

I'm rather concerned about the user page of Mactruth (talk · contribs). While I think it can be good to describe one's nationality, ethnicity, etc (it helps to show the diversity of Wikipedians), I think this is going too far into battlefield territory and is being used to attack Greeks. I nominated it for CSD:A10 (attack page), and that was declined - correctly, I think, as it is not "wholly" attacking. But I do think there are sections which overstep the line. User:Mactruth#How propaganda works is attacking Greece and Greek Wikipedia editors. User:Mactruth#Articles of irresponsible treatment of Macedonians by Greece is another attack on Greece, and can really only be seen as deliberate WP:BATTLE mentality. I'm not sure what needs to be done, but I think something does - maybe just the removal of some sections of that page? Maybe a warning that this battlefield approach to Wikipedia is not acceptable? I'll leave it to you folks to decide - and I'll go inform User:Mactruth of this discussion. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:08, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

He has also recently done this. Granted he might have felt provoked, but changing someone's signature to call them "A Christian refugee wishing he was Macedonian" seems out of order. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:31, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. Mactruth has a long history of battleground mentality and related sanctions. One of the most unproductive agenda editors I've met in this field, and that's saying a lot. WP:ARBMAC exists to deal with users like this. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:34, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

While that may be true in the greater scheme of things, I know nothing of any long term issues and am not trying to address them - I'd just like some action on a couple of provocative/attacking/battlefield User page sections, and I don't think ArbCom is necessary for that. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:22, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

While the page might not be eligible for a speedy deletion, it certainly comes under principle 1 of Wikipedia:ARBMAC#Final_decision: "Wikipedia is a project to create a neutral encyclopedia. Use of the site for other purposes—including, but not limited to, advocacy, propaganda, furtherance of outside conflicts, and political or ideological struggle—is prohibited." I note that as recently as this morning the page was updated with this, and this was also posted today. I concur with Future Perfect that this editor is not here to build neutral content. Because they have previously been notified of WP:ARBMAC and sanctioned a number of times I've blocked them indefinitely. Review welcome, as always. Incidentally, although I haven't deleted the user page due to the earlier-declined speedy, I think under the ARBMAC principle I've quoted it probably should be. EyeSerene^talk 19:08, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I've reviewed and declined the user's unblock request - it dealt mainly with the larger conflict with Bulgarians and Greeks, and did very little to demonstrate how unblocking would benefit the project. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 21:18, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the block and have removed the ethno-nationalist soapboxing from the user page.  Sandstein  23:21, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

For the record, I reviewed and declined another unblock request. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 15:11, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes but the statemant of User:A Macedonian's user page that Gjorgje Ivanov speaks modern modern Bulgaro-Serbian Slavic language has battlefield approach as well as offensive. first of all, Gjorgje Ivanov is a president of Republic of Macedonia, second, Slavic languages originated from Ohrid Macedonia. User:Eddie1kanobi —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.125.226.44 (talk) 22:25, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Nothing near the same. And it's bad form to fake a signature. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite

Levineps in violation of his editing restrictions

Levineps (talk · contribs) is completely banned from, among other things, making any page moves, as described in his community sanctions visible on his user page. He violated this recently, as seen here. This is not the first time he has done so, though it has been several months since he was last blocked for a violation. AN discussions regarding previous violations and blocks can be found here. postdlf (talk) 04:28, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

• Considering it was an article he created less than 1 minute before he moved it, I think we can give this one a pass. I see no issue with his actions here at all. I don't see why, within mere seconds of screwing up the title of an article he himself just created, and which no one else has edited, he has to jump through any special hoops. If you have evidence of him moving other articles, which do not fit this pattern, please present them. This seems a purely technical and inconsequential violation, and not worth even mentioning, let alone warning or sanctioning for. --Jayron32 04:55, 18 January 2011 (UTC) ed: My bad --Jayron32 05:09, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

That's not what I'm seeing in this article history, Jayron. Am I looking at it incorrectly? It looks to me like this is a violation of his restricitons. It's not a page he had created. LadyofShalott 05:04, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I totally read that wrong, looking at his contribs history I totally misread the sequence of events. This is, in fact, a literal violation of his restrictions. I have no idea what should be done about this, but if he is, in fact, not supposed to be moving articles, this is blatantly such a move. Given the millions of other editors at Wikipedia, one of them can move it instead of him, if it needs moving. --Jayron32 05:09, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

• I blocked him for a week. His last block for this was a week, but that was 9 months ago, hence my decision not to escalate the duration. The restrictions have been in place for a year and may be slightly outdated so I'm not ever so keen about blocking him, but "no page moves" isn't difficult. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 05:20, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I notice that on his user page, in the collapsed box spelling out his restrictions, there is a section at the end for logging blocks and other enforcement actions. LadyofShalott 05:27, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

(ec) I recall the multiple discussions leading up to the restrictions, and this is a good block. I understand, and agree with, the reason for not escalating the block length, but suggest that if he violates aqain in the next 3 months or so, the next block should be for a month, as if the current block was for 2 weeks. That might provide additional incentive for him to keep to his restrictions. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:32, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Three weeks or a month certainly isn't unreasonable. Hopefully, though, if he's managed to keep his nose clean for 9 months, he'll be able to keep it clean for a good while longer and anything we can to encourage that is great (carrot and stick if you like). Unfortunately, this is a cut-and-dry violation. Oh, and I logged in the appropriate section, thanks for spotting that, m'Lady. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 05:54, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Asa side note, did anyone actually look at the article in question? It was created by a now-blocked user (sockpuppetry), and is a list of the final standings for two high school conferences (in two different states). It looks to me more like a candidate for deletion, and it's unfortunate that Levineps got blocked over such a sad excuse for an article. (I'm not saying that the block was bad; it was totally appropriate.) Horologium (talk) 12:35, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

AFAICS, 2010 high school football season in the United States is not actually a list, just a pile of headings which might some day be made into a list. Pointless. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:48, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Demographics of Brazil

Resolved

 – Disruptive editor blocked for socking

I invite a previously uninvolved person wielding a big stick to take a look at the recent edit history of Demographics of Brazil, in combination with the last screenful or so of its talk page. Maybe PoV-pushing (perhaps by me!), maybe 3RR: the usual mishmash. -- Hoary (talk) 08:36, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

The claims by User:Seethakathi that there has to be an English language source, that a foreign language source must be verifiable by him personally, and that foreign language sources are only allowed after being verified by a "seasoned admin", are utter nonsense. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:56, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

And the figures he wants to reinstate at the expense of a scientific paper in Portuguese are clearly absurd, incompatible with the actual Arab immigration to Brazil and with the figures for people of Arab descent in other countries. Ninguém (talk) 15:11, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I've reverted once more, and have issued a warning. He'll be in breach of 3RR if he does it again, and is editing against consensus anyway, so I see a block in his future if he continues -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:18, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Lecen (talk · contribs) has written several FAs on Brazilian history, speaks Portuguese, knows correct sourcing, has sources in that area, and is knowledgeable on the topic-- you might want to ping him. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:20, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Great idea, thanks, I'll do that. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:31, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Pinged at User_talk:Lecen#Demographics_of_Brazil -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:37, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Hello, everyone. There aren't 10 million Arabs in Brazil. The person who wrote that probably meant "10 million Arab-descendants" in Brazil. So, someone could have three Portuguese-descendant grandparents and one Arab-descendant grandparent. That is, it would be the same as to say that all whites in the United States are Germans simply because most, if not all White Americans must have at least one Anglo-Saxon ancestor.

Why I'm saying this? Well, because according to IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), between 1808 and 1883, 500,000 immigrants settled in Brazil. The numbers after that are: 1884-1893 (883,668 immigrants); 1894-1903 (862,100); 1904-1913 (1,006,617); 1914-1923 (503,981); 1924-1933 (737,223); 1934-1943 (197,238); 1944-1953 (348,443); 1954-1963 (446,752); 1964-1973 (86,457); 1974-1983 (61,302). Source: Vianna, Hélio (1994). História do Brasil: período colonial, monarquia e república (15 ed.). São Paulo: Melhoramentos, p.633 ISBN 8506019990

According to the author: "In all, from 1808 to 1983 entered 4,5 million [immigrants], not counted the Africans brought as slaves." (Vianna, p.633)

The vast majority of these immigrants were Portuguese and Italians, followed by Germans and Spanish, and then by Japanese. Other nationalities, such as Russians, Polish and Arabs were counted in the few thousands. It's simply impossible to exist 10 million Arabs in Brazil. Regards to all, --Lecen (talk) 16:09, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Ow, and before I forget: be careful with American sources. According to the CIA factbook [4], Brazil is divided between whites, mulattoes and blacks. They simply translated "pardo" as "brown" and thought that it meant someone who is descendant of a white and a black. The pardos are mulattoes, but also caboclos (and in smaller numbers, cafusos). Caboclos are the Brazilian equivalent to Hispanic American "mestizos" and in the United States "latinos". --Lecen (talk) 16:14, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

That's brilliant, thanks - it fits with my own conclusions on the Talk page after having had a look at several sources. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:29, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

You owe me $2 or a box of chocolates. For future reference Fvasconcellos (talk · contribs) can also contribute on Brazil and Portuguese-language topics, but he is very busy, so don't go pinging him if Lecen is around. My experience with Portuguese is limited to one month-long stint with strategic planning in Sao Paulo and the gardeners in my "deteriorating house with a leaky basement" (according to one prolific sockmaster), so I'm forced to rely on the cadre of "loyal followers on wiki who [I try] to control through FAC"! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:39, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I'll leave the chocs on account and hope to get the chance to hand them over some day, if that's OK ;-) My own experience of Brazil is limited to a two-week trip to Rio one December (great place, great people), though I also have a friend in Portugal. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:52, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

<grumble> OK, keep your darn chocolates, then! I'll just have to buy my own with my "deteriorating" funds. I'll give you two new choices: you can join my "loyal" [Myspacey-group] of "followers on wiki" to address my lack of a "social life beyond the wiki", or you can add to the growing ranks of those who keep an eye on that sockmaster-- she still gets around, and is quite taken with my life! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:10, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, it's a deal, I'll consider it an honour to join your list of stalkers - do I get a special badge or membership card? -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:20, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

If I told you of my secret powers, the special badge, and the Super-Sekret Cabal I control, I'd have to kill 'ya. Remember, I have legions of admins following me around, at my beck and call. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:25, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Understood - I shall seal up my lips and give no words but mum. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:34, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Mums the word. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:39, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah, but have you tried arranging them in a vase? -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:50, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

• Note: User:Seethakathi is a confirmed block evading sock of Shinas and has been blocked. —SpacemanSpiff 19:14, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Proxy abusing editor

Today's featured article got edited via proxy a lot. Why can't we delete these proxies? Someone attacks the featured articles every time a new one come ups. Is there a filter to stop it? --Hinata talk 10:56, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Other than our pattern-based edit filters there's nothing that I'm aware of. Open proxies can be blocked on sight. Protecting the page is only done for short periods and in extreme circumstances because it goes against our entire open editing philosophy. On the plus side, TFA is generally one of the most watched pages on the site so vandalism doesn't remain for long. EyeSerene^talk 12:54, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I've been monitoring this vandal and TFAs are not the only target. Pages like Chinese American and Dallas City Hall were also targets. Many more pages continued to be targets after short protections were applied. I'd rather not go into details publicly how we're catching this vandal but what I can tell is that our first attempt was very successful. Elockid (Alternate) ^(Talk) 17:20, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Rev Dels for copyvio required

• here
• and here Fifelfoo (talk) 11:13, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

 Done. IP has not edited in the hour or so since your warning, but if they come back someone should probably block. - 2/0 (cont.) 12:03, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

For future reference just place Template:Copyvio-revdel on the article, someone will get around to it sometime.--Misarxist 13:11, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Sooner is better with regard to copyvio, but, yeah, that would work too. LessHeard vanU (talk) 14:05, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

PayPlay.FM

Resolved

 – reverted

Hello. Does this diff constitute a legal threat?--v/r - TP 14:23, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Not really; legal threats is designed to protect the Foundation and its editors and employees - that doesn't appear to be targeted at us, per se. Ironholds (talk) 14:42, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

It's fairly uncited at this point, so I've reverted back to a cleaner version.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:51, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Since this is the only central location people pay attention to....

Resolved

 – 15 January 2011 is over!!! HeyMid (contribs) 09:20, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Happy Birthday to this Collaborative Project We Call Wikipedia!!!!!

Sign Here!!!!!

1. Phearson (talk) 06:13, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
2. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 09:33, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
3. FASTILY ^(TALK) 09:46, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
4. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 10:01, 15 January 2011 (UTC) - Almost over here though!
5. Reyk _YO! 10:02, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
6. It's a good thing to step back for a break, in particular here! Happy Birthday! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:03, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
7. Silverseren^C 10:10, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
8. Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:35, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
9. HeyMid (contribs) 10:48, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

   

   Pint!!!

10. 220.101 talk^\Contribs 10:56, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
11. Merbabu (talk) 11:02, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
12. Happy Birthday to us. :) SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 11:03, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
13. --CrohnieGal^Talk 11:06, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
14. Many happy returns! Favonian (talk) 11:33, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
15. Mirokado (talk) 12:48, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
16. Here's to another ten years. MER-C 14:19, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
17. --Hinata talk 14:32, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
18. Ten years? Ain't it done yet? ;-) Congrats all round AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:49, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
19. Blow 'em out! Binksternet (talk) 14:59, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
20. Ah, internet old age. Therequiembellishere (talk) 15:07, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
21. What I would give to be ten again.... Dusti^*poke* 15:38, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
22. Support Ten more years! Ten more years! Ten more years!... Kevin Rutherford (talk) 16:23, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
23. Where has the time gone. Remember when there were less than 500,000 articles? MarnetteD | Talk 16:36, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
24. Does anyone remember those heady days when there were only 3,528,629 articles? It seems like only yesterday. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:52, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
25. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:03, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
26. Baseball Watcher ^{Lets Chat} 19:27, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
27. HAPPY TENTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! --Perseus, Son of Zeus 19:33, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
28. - Dwayne was here! ♫ 19:37, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
29. WAYNESLAM 20:01, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
30. Afraid I'm at a loss for something witty to say here, though. Jclemens (talk) 20:35, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
31. Happy Birthday, Wikipedia! ~ Matthewrbowker ^{Say hi!} 20:51, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
32. Am I too late for cake? ThemFromSpace 22:12, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
33. *Kat* ^(meow?) 22:14, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
34. Don't worry guys, I brought the cake. →♠Gƒoley↔Four♣← 22:27, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

    

    Yum.......Cake!!!!

35. $sin$ Tonywalton ^Talk 01:25, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
36. happy birthday to us--Wikireader41 (talk) 02:58, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
37. WikiPedia is a wide-open encyclopedia project. Who knows where it will go? [5] The same goes for the next ten years.   Will Beback  talk  11:49, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
38. FREE AS IN FREEDOM!!!! WIKIPEDIA FOREVER!!!!--  Novus  Orator  11:53, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
39. --Meno25 (talk) 07:38, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
40. Fashionably late. -- œ^™ 17:24, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Happy B-day Wikipedia!S.V.Taylor (talk) 01:30, 19 January 2011 (UTC)S.V.Taylor

Neutral

1. Being a somewhat wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie, I'll sign just after Uncle G does :-) Back to the backlogs, for the noo. --Shirt58 (talk) 11:17, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
   • You're either ten days too early or ten months too early. If you feel such a bout of Scottishness coming on, mate, then you can remedy it by helping to decide what to do with Linburn (AfD discussion). Talking of Scots: I see that one has already done what is traditional and necessary, and eliminated the need for my doing it. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 18:43, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Too lang, dinae reid!--Shirt58 (talk) 12:11, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

1. That cake worries me.--Misarxist 16:28, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
2. I'm a little concerned that someone appears to have set fire to Dougal from The Magic Roundabout. Black Kite (t) (c) 18:24, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
3. I think Wikipedia should lie about its age. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:35, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
4. Cake might be a lie. --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 05:33, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Because m:poles are evil.--Scott Mac 15:03, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

   But will it last for another ten? Or will it be inevitably superceeded by ineffably superior and sublime NAMELESS POWERS? Just a thought. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 15:29, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

2. The rationales for the supports are not clearly explained in policy. Some of them appear to be incompatible with WP:XYZ. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:19, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
3. This isn't an incident. Minimac (talk) 19:40, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
4. I am signing here because I am an undisclosed member of the evil Doc Glasgow's cabal. Better not to ask. Mathsci (talk) 22:16, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
5. Lack of contributions to articlespace.-Atmoz (talk) 22:21, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
6. Perma Ban Cake? There's no cake in Wikipedia! - Burpelson AFB ✈ 13:50, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Signing is evil

1. Being evil is fun. --Dorsal Axe 16:44, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
2. Off to play Dungeon Keeper. Protonk (talk) 22:04, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Confused

1. How do you flush this damned thing? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 21:53, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

   It's called the Coriolis effect. Clockwise above the equator and counterclockwise below the equator. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 04:05, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

2. How do I get out of this chickens*** outfit? —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Hyper Combo K.O.!)} 00:28, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

   • "How do you get a transfer out of this chicken-shit outfit?" Harry demanded.

     "Well, you have to fuck up —"

     "Fuck up. That's my problem. All this time I tried to fuck off."

     — Footfall, Larry Niven, 1985

     No, we don't seem to mention Russell C. Geist anywhere in either Wikipedia or Wikiquote. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 01:28, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

3. So where can I buy this? RadManCF ☢ open frequency 00:39, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Running out of tildes

1. ~~
2. ~
3. •
4.  

Couldn't get to a meetup only 20 minutes away because of life

1. Dammit. Meh, I think less than 10 people actually showed up anyway :P. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 01:40, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
2. I was sick! But on the bright side, I got 500 edits in yesterday... Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 09:29, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Late to the party, but who cares?

1. The Thing ^T/_C 01:51, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
2. The cake is a lie! - Amog | ^{Talk • contribs} 09:43, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Cake division method discussion

I suggest we use the Brams–Taylor procedure. Count Iblis (talk) 13:52, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

nom nom nom - Amog | ^{Talk • contribs} 17:54, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Divide per nom nom nom--Shirt58 (talk) 12:17, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Cakes and copyright violations!

This

is in dispute at commons because of copyright concerns. A similar fate could befall the cake above. Bevare! Bevare! ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:41, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Antisemitic/pro Nazi edits from an IP

Just reverted this pro-Nazi edit, then I took a look at recent edits and found this and this, both antisemitic in that they seek to suggest that there is something less than British about Jewish people from Britain. I gave a warning for the Kershaw vandalism. The IP resolves to Hampshire County Council (so may be a school, a library, or a council office). The three edits came over five days. I think it would be worth keeping a very close eye on any further edits from this IP 86.12.167.6. DuncanHill (talk) 14:40, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Its clear looking at many of the other edits, edits such as this [[6]] and this [[7]], the IP has made that this is just petty vandalism.Slatersteven (talk) 16:45, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I blocked the IP for a month for vandalism. Its Talk: page must have at least 20 warnings for vandalism in the past 8 months. I was tempted to block for longer. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:14, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Improper move closer by non-admin User:macr86 at Talk:Ann Arbor

User:Macr86, who has no user page and a history of controversy on his or her talk page particularly in regard to moves, just closed a controversial WP:RM proposal at Talk:Ann Arbor#Revert_move (now Talk:Ann Arbor, Michigan#Revert_move). I request that an uninvolved admin review this decision and move for the following reasons:

1. Performed by a non-admin in a discussion in which opinion was strong in both directions.
2. No reasoning/explanation given for deciding to move despite the apparent lack of consensus to move (this was an article that was moved with clear consensus support recently, and this was an attempt to move it back, but, although a slight majority in favor of moving back is there in terms of vote counts, there was no consensus support to move it back, especially when weighing the argument presented in terms of being well-argued statements based in policy and guidelines.

Reference from Wikipedia:Requested_moves/Closing_instructions#Who_can_close_requested_moves:

Non-admin closure

Experienced editors in good standing are allowed to close some requested move surveys.

Non-administrators should restrict themselves to:

Unanimous or nearly unanimous discussions after a full listing period (seven days);

Where there is no contentious debate among participants;

Which do not require a history merge or history swap; and

Which do not have large numbers of subpages that need to be moved along with the move of the project page, such as voluminous archives (administrators have the ability to move up to 100 pages in a single click).

Not only is this user not an admin, but I don't think he or she even meets the "Experienced editors in good standing" criteria.

Thanks. --Born2cycle (talk) 20:08, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Got a better idea -- let's topic ban Born2cycle from naming discussions. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:16, 16 January 2011 (UTC)Never mind.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:30, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I'm the one that has posted most of the concerns about this user's closes to their talk page - so far I've queried 4 closures of theirs with them. I was hoping they would respond to some of my comments, although I had decided that I would take this here if they made another controversial close without any discussion which is exactly what they now have done. I agree with Born2cycle's comments and also ask that someone else tries talking to this user about the problems they're causing. [For the sake of transparency I am a non-admin who has been closing many requested moves and this is how I came across these. I would hope however that I am considered a "Experienced editors in good standing" and have only been closing relatively uncontroversial discussions (although I have been pushing it a bit in an attempt to clear the backlog)]. Although Born2cycle may have had their own problems in this area a quick look at this user's actions will show that Born2cycle's concerns are valid. Dpmuk (talk) 20:18, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I think your concerns are valid with the closes by this editor. Following your notice to me, I did leave a note on their talk page that their closes could be considered vandalism and they should not do any moves for a while. While I may agree with some of the moves, others are clearly wrong. But too may have questionable consensus or were against consensus. I'm not commenting on this particular close, just the actions of the closer that is being discussed here. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:26, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

As a participant in that discussion, I have to agree that was a highly inappropriate "drive-by, no comment or rationale" close. It needs to be reverted and properly closed by an uninvolved admin willing to analyze the arguments and explain the rationale for moving or not moving the page. 28bytes (talk) 21:51, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

We've discussed problems with him before, see [8] - a discussion which he didn't participate in and which involved what were felt to be disruptive moves of White Rabbit pages, perhaps also via an IP in the past. If he doesn't respond to this discussion I'm considering a block. Dougweller (talk) 21:58, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Can you please also consider 28bytes' request for a revert and unclose of the discussion/decision in question to allow for an uninvolved admin "to analyze the arguments and explain the rationale for moving or not moving the page."? Thanks. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:01, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Macr86 (talk · contribs · logs) has a short contribution history consisting almost exclusively of article titling work: redirects, page moves, and posts to move discussions, as well as a few AfD-related contributions. I'm posting to his talk page now.

I agree that it would be appropriate to revert the closure of the discussion. People were still making points, and it's a significant discussion, in the RM world, for what that's worth. I'm not going to do anything adminly, because I closed the previous discussion, so that would look funny. (My position on the move is in the discussion: I'm an observer.) -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:04, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

The Ann Arbor-specific discussion is now taking place on Talk:Ann Arbor
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The main article definitely needs to be Ann Arbor, Michigan. Whether it was a proper closure or not is another story, but it doesn't sound right. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:12, 16 January 2011 (UTC) Yea, you are probably correct. The first move had consensus from a small group. However there is no clear consensus to support the first move in the second discussion. Maybe that is what macr86 saw. So before an admin reverts that close, they really need to determine if the close was wrong. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:33, 16 January 2011 (UTC) For all we know Macr86 flipped a coin. 28bytes (talk) 22:37, 16 January 2011 (UTC) The situation appears to be that there was a close of the first move which some say was improper, which led to a discussion whose closure is also being described as improper. Maybe flipping a coin was the most rational way to decide this issue. ;)   Will Beback  talk  22:48, 16 January 2011 (UTC) Heh. Well, then we'd need an RfC on who could call "heads". 28bytes (talk) 23:13, 16 January 2011 (UTC) It's not fair to compare the first close by an admin where consensus among those participating was clear, to the second close by a disruptive non-admin editor who made a move decision without explanation despite there being no consensus in favor of the move established. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:39, 17 January 2011 (UTC) Sure it is. The first move discussion had a very small number of participants. The closing admin decided unilaterally that the naming convention is no longer valid and so discounted one of the comments entirely. A better solution would have been to relist it for more discussion.   Will Beback  talk  00:46, 17 January 2011 (UTC) No, I didn't. You can complain directly to me, if you're not happy with my earlier close. I can see that it may have been overly hasty, but I did not "decide unilaterally" anything. I was closing move discussions, as always, and this one seemed to be a case of a guideline in transition. There is ample discussion on many pages showing that the community is not of one mind regarding this state-names issue. I was doing my best to reflect the community thinking that I believe I observe, in that discussion and in many others. I'll accept that I made a bad call, but I wasn't trying to "unilaterally" anything. I've got no dog in this fight. -GTBacchus(talk) 02:24, 17 January 2011 (UTC) As a side note, more input is certainly welcome at the discussion in question. Lots of people are questioning just where the line is regarding names of US cities (Los Angeles/"Los Angeles, California", versus Albuquerque, New Mexico/"Albuquerque"). The more people in the conversation, the clearer a consensus we'll obtain. -GTBacchus(talk) 22:58, 16 January 2011 (UTC) We have naming conventions, one of the purposes of which is to avoid having to argue over the names of individual articles of the same type.   Will Beback  talk  00:09, 17 January 2011 (UTC) Avoiding arguing might have been the intent of specific naming conventions that call for pre-emptive disambiguation, but probably just a presumed unintended but welcome consequence, but how has that actually worked out for the last 10 years? I suggest that we've seen the opposite. That is, enforcement of naming conventions, at least for topics that have obvious, clear and natural names (like cities but not like highways), has resulted in much more arguing. This is why arguing is drastically reduced whenever pre-emptive disambiguation is no longer required. That has been true not only for the U.S. cities on the AP lists, but for just about every naming convention that has "loosened up" in this respect. This is why even guidelines like WP:NC-TV and WP:NCROY now have provisions to allow those articles within their domains that have clear, obvious and natural unambiguous names to have those names as their titles. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:39, 17 January 2011 (UTC) It's worked out great. Although there are thousands of US places covered by that naming convention, page move discussions are relatively rare. What arguments there have been appear to have been instigated mostly by a small number of users. Anyway, I'm not going to engage in a another 10,000 word thread about naming conventions.   Will Beback  talk  00:46, 17 January 2011 (UTC) Will, you've got that backwards. I suggest you look at the names of the users who propose most of these moves a little bit closer, and in particular pay attention to how rarely they are proposed by those of us in the small of group "regulars" who support concise names when possible. For example, you might start with this particular move at Talk:Ann Arbor which was initially proposed by a user who, as far as I know, was not involved in any of these discussions. I suggest that's typical, and contrast it with the proposed revert, which was started by one of the members of your small group of "regulars" who are dead set in their opposition to changing the U.S. city naming guideline. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:25, 17 January 2011 (UTC) I've reverted this entirely inappropriate move. If and when a consensus developed regarding moving the article, then an experienced and uninvolved admin can move it. Until then, the discussion should be allowed to continue, so a consensus develops. Jayjg (talk) 01:03, 17 January 2011 (UTC) Jayjg, as an involved editor/admin it's not really optimal to have you deciding if the move was appropriate or premature. No uninvolved admin who saw this felt there was a need to undo the move.   Will Beback  talk  01:53, 17 January 2011 (UTC) Agree Jayjig was clearly involved and has voice support for the outside conventional usage of Ann Arbor. It was not appropriate for him to undo the move. AgneCheese/Wine 02:07, 17 January 2011 (UTC) Isn't it more profitable to direct energy into deciding the name, rather than deciding whether some previous action was appropriate or not? The name is not going to be decided based on a technicality of who messed up when. It's going to be decided based on what the community consensus favors. Please remember that RM discussions are not AfDs, and "no consensus" does not default to "no move". We're going to choose the best title, based on arguments presented, so what's the point arguing about technicalities? -GTBacchus(talk) 02:11, 17 January 2011 (UTC) We had a discussion, with a lot of input, and an uninvolved user judged the outcome. Then an involved editor/admin didn't like that outcome so he moved it back and re-opened the discussion. We wouldn't need to be having any more discussion if it hadn't been for that action.   Will Beback  talk  02:18, 17 January 2011 (UTC) I'd say that discussion was still ongoing. It appears that the earlier one I closed could have used more time as well. Why don't we let the conversation run its course? -GTBacchus(talk) 02:20, 17 January 2011 (UTC) The first thing that Jayjg did after re-opening the discussion was to argue with two editors who had previously posted opposing views.[9] That seems like taking a second bite at the apple.   Will Beback  talk  02:26, 17 January 2011 (UTC) Yeah, or picking up a conversation that had been interrupted. Why assume the worst? Let's just let the discussion run its course. Your side is probably going to be the one decided on, have you noticed? Just let it happen. -GTBacchus(talk) 02:28, 17 January 2011 (UTC) Interrupted? No new editors had commented in over 36 hours. I'm still trying to figure out on what authority Jayjg decided to move the article. If he wants to move it move he should start a fresh discussion, not shortcut the process by putting it back to where he wanted it.   Will Beback  talk  02:49, 17 January 2011 (UTC) I sometimes get away from the computer for a long time. I've spent longer than 36 hours on a single trip by airplane, during which I had no Internet. The point is, it's open now, and after a suitable and finite interval, someone uninvolved will close it based on the arguments people have made, and then all will be well. Right? -GTBacchus(talk) 03:03, 17 January 2011 (UTC) In the previous move discussion, you closed it less than 12 hours after the last comment. As it happens, someone uninvolved already closed the discussion. Then some partisans reopened it. I realize that no decision on Wikipedia is ever final, but this is getting silly.   Will Beback  talk  03:10, 17 January 2011 (UTC) Yes, we've agreed that my initial close was overly hasty. I think a good reaction to that is to be very sure that we're not hasty again. I'm looking at this in the larger context of many move discussions, and there's a big conversation that people are having all over the major US cities. It's happening on any number of talk pages, and trying to rush it along on any one of them is not going to make it go away. Let's be very thoughtful and deliberate, hear the best arguments on both sides, and allow a consensus to emerge. The state of the guideline right now is that it doesn't enjoy the strong consensus support that we like for our guidelines. If we allow this conversation to happen, it can be made stronger. That's good, no matter what side one may be on. -GTBacchus(talk) 03:17, 17 January 2011 (UTC) Keep in mind "No new editors had commented in over 36 hours" because User:macr86 had improperly closed the discussion. As soon at it was re-opened, there was lots more discussion. Jayjg (talk) 05:00, 17 January 2011 (UTC) (edit conflict)Will, the "uninvolved user" who close the discussion in this case is notorious for making controversial "decisions" - so there can be no confidence that that decision was thoughtful. Look, we all know this is an important decision, and we really it need it to be properly evaluated and closed by an experienced, knowledgable and uninvolved admin. If this user had closed it without moving, I admit I probably would not have bothered to file this AN/I, but I suspect someone would have, and that close would have been surely reversed just as this one was, and I would not have objected to that, even if it was unclosed by an involved admin who favors the pre-emptive disambiguation side. --Born2cycle (talk) 02:29, 17 January 2011 (UTC) If there was a problem with the closure and move then an uninvolved admin could have fixed it. None thought it necessary.   Will Beback  talk  02:49, 17 January 2011 (UTC) After this report, there will doubtless be more editors and administrators looking in. That can only be for the best, because we'll gauge a clearer consensus. Good work, us. :) -GTBacchus(talk) 03:05, 17 January 2011 (UTC) There doesn't seem to be much support for Jayjg's move. Unless there's a consensus here that it was done in process I think the previous closure by an uninvolved editor should be restored.   Will Beback  talk  03:10, 17 January 2011 (UTC) It should really be closed by someone with more experience with the site. There is no need to rush anything here. The conversation is still happening, and it's a good conversation for us to have. Wikipedia is growing; let it happen. -GTBacchus(talk) 03:18, 17 January 2011 (UTC) You're reversing the onus here. The conversation was on-going (and still is), and there was no support for the out-of-process move by User:macr86. You don't close discussions and move articles before a consensus has developed, and certainly not while the move discussion is still on-going. And do you seriously think an editor with under 250 edits, who has made a number of disputed moves already, should actually be making this decision, or closing this extremely active RFM? I can't imagine you would. Let's see where the discussion leads, and then an uninvolved and experienced admin can make the final determination. Jayjg (talk) 05:00, 17 January 2011 (UTC) I've got to agree that the close by Macr86 was so dubious that it should be undone. Yes, they may have been uninvolved but their other closes show that they do not properly understand how to close a requested move, which given their lack of experience is perhaps unsurprising. As such I think the close by Marc86 had no validity. I think the reason that it hadn't been reversed was that no admin had, so far, taken the time to read the discussion and possibly re-close and that people were waiting for that to happen rather than simply re-opening. In the absence of a re-close, re-opening is the best option so that eventually it will be re-closed by someone with more experienced. I would have reversed it myself had I noticed it before it arrived here but as it was already here before I noticed it I thought it best to leave to an admin to reverse. Yes I'd agree that it probably shouldn't have been reversed by Jayjg given their involvement but given that it was, in my opinion (and that of others here), the right decision lets not worry about it too much as we have the right end result. Dpmuk (talk) 12:10, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Additional out-of-process move(s) by User:macr86

Note that User:macr86 also closed a discussion prematurely here: Talk: Rosalie. Then he/she moved the page prematurely. I think he needs to understand that these sorts of editorial operations are best done by more experienced editors and require consensus. -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:22, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

That's outrageous.

• The proposal was made 14:57, 14 January 2011,
• there was one Oppose at 17:56, 14 January 2011,
• a brief discussion,
• and User:macr86 closed it in favor of moving the next day at 23:25, 15 January 2011.

I have not looked into the underlying issues, but regardless of whether the decision happened to be "right" or "wrong", I suggest the move be reversed, and the discussion re-opened and re-listed.

Just how many of these blatantly disruptive closures and completely ignored warnings on his talk page have to be there before we can reasonably assume that this behavior is more about a lack of caring than a lack of understanding?

I wish I knew why sometimes quick action is taken by admins, and then there are cases like this where nobody does anything and the disruption is simply allowed to continue. --Born2cycle (talk) 04:03, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm guessing the admins assumed this was still part of the Ann Arbor-specific discussion. I've created a subhead to clarify that additional, unrelated pages are being moved by this user. 28bytes (talk) 04:21, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I've blocked macr86 to make sure that the editor doesn't make any more moves against policy. As soon as they figure out what they did wrong, they can request an unblock. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 04:52, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks SarekOfVulcan, much appreciated. 28bytes (talk) 04:59, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

The user has a history of obsessive move requests dealing with the topic of white rabbits. (Talk:White Rabbit (disambiguation)) including ignoring consensus, and trying to bypass established consensuses through other processes. 65.93.13.210 (talk) 12:36, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and by the way -- "nobody does anything and the disruption is simply allowed to continue" -- that's why you're still editing. So stop throwing stones before one of them hits your glass house. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 04:53, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Spot on, Sarek. I was going to write something similar myself, but you put it perfectly. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:45, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Not doing anything about someone who is doing nothing wrong or disruptive is the appropriate response. That situation is not at all comparable to not doing anything about someone who refuses to even engage in discussion about his or her blatantly disruptive and inexplicable behavior questioned by multiple editors. I guess it might be fun and cathartic to take swipes at vocal people you disagree with, but both of these comments essentially comparing my expression of controversial opinions about naming guidelines and their applications to various articles to vandalism are completely out of line. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:04, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

As your continual efforts to impose European-conformism to American city names in defiance of common usage. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:06, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Last I checked I was born in the USA and WP:TITLE applied to the naming of all articles in Wikipedia, not just to those about European cities. In any case any disagreement about that is not vandalism. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:12, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Since when do wikipedia guidelines override common usage? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:16, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Consistently overwhelming discussions with repeated posts of slightly-rephrased positions is pretty much as disruptive as not posting at all. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:39, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Is the fantastic definition of disruption you seem to be assuming documented anywhere? I don't mean to be pedantic, but you say this as if it's obvious that participating in a lot of discussions about related issues is wrong and disruptive. It's not like I'm just posting gibberish all over the place, though that's what you seem to be implying. I'm responding to posts and questions posed by other editors, just as I am here. I'm engaging in discussion trying to develop consensus. It might not be effective because people get tired of it, but to compare it to the obviously disruptive behavior of irresponsible RM discussion closures is out of line. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:00, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

No, you're trying to force consensus, and refuse to listen to other people's ideas of consensus. If you were listening, you'd be typing a lot less and agreeing a lot more. See WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. Anything there look familiar? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 01:46, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Force consensus? How in the heck does one do that? It's impossible, by definition! Even if I somehow managed to physically threaten people to get them to say they agree with me, that still wouldn't be "consensus", because the "agreement" would be a sham. You say I don't pay attention to what others say? How about paying attention to your own words?

IDHT? Oh, please. This is like throwing around cooked noodles and hoping something sticks.

In the unlikely event that you're serious about this, please be specific and clear about what "unsupportable allegation or viewpoint long after the consensus of the community has rejected it" you think I'm sticking to (I will consider no response to this as acknowledgment that you're not serious). Please consider that after the AP consensus decision I was pretty quiet about the whole U.S. city naming/guideline issue the entire time, for 3 1/2 years, until I opened the RFC a few weeks ago to see where consensus was. The suggestion that I continue to stick to a position and repeatedly discuss it after the community consensus has rejected it is proven to be dead wrong not only with respect to U.S. city naming, but also with respect to flora naming.

I admit to the mistake that I repeat a lot of what I say, that's definitely a weakness of mine, but that alone is not evidence of IDHT or disruption.

And there is no way that I refuse to "acknowledge others' input or their own error." (in fact, I just acknowledged my own error of repeating a lot of what I say). To the contrary, part of the reason I post so much is precisely because I pay so much attention to what others are saying, give it careful thought, and explain my perspective as clearly as I can when I respond (as I'm doing here, though in this case I'm paying close attention to the words to which you referred at IDHT, but it's my typical process). How can I respond so specifically to something I'm not acknowledging? That's absurd. You're not making any sense, just spewing nonsense irrationally.

I recognize your frustration with me is genuine, but you need to understand that it stems from a disagreement about something substantive, not my behavior, other than I'm vocal about stating an opinion with which you disagree. Isn't it curious that I'm mostly chastised by those who disagree with me... (I say "mostly" because there are some who agree with me who have advised me that I post too much, but it's done respectfully and with no irrational accusations of disruptiveness or anything else like that). So, I'm truly sorry about the frustration you feel, but that does not justify posting this kind of tripe about me, particularly in a forum like this where I naturally feel like I have to defend myself. If all my words are really the problem, you should know better than to post accusations like this to me.

To be thorough, I must also deny making statements as if they have community support when they don't. Again, I'm especially careful to avoid doing that. That's one of the reasons I so often quote specifically from policy and guideline (which presumably has community approval), but of course that's another noodle flung around to complain about me by those who disagree... as being legalistic.

Enough with the spurious accusations, please. --Born2cycle (talk) 04:35, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Or you ignore it if it suits you, such as not answering my question about why some "wikipedia guideline" should override common usage. As to how to "force" consensus, it's done by beating up the subject relentlessly until your opposition gets tired of it and goes away. A process which can take years, of course. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:47, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

"(I will consider no response to this as acknowledgment that you're not serious)" -- sorry, no such acknowledgment is forthcoming. Go read the first three lines of WP:DE. Pattern of editing? Check. Number of articles? Check. "continues editing an article or group of articles in pursuit of a certain point for an extended time despite opposition from other editors" -- you know, the further I get in this, the more I'm convinced you fit the bill. Do you want to back off for a while and see what gets worked out without you, or do you want to follow this to its logical conclusion?--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 05:10, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

So, um, you guys want to take this outside or something? I think one fight per ring is a good rule and this thread seems to have strayed. --Danger (talk) 05:16, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Very old AFD

Resolved

 – Closed as redirect. HeyMid (contribs) 20:59, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't know where to ask, but this deletion discussion has been going on for a long time. --Perseus, Son of Zeus 20:52, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

This issue probably should've been raised at WP:AN, since it seems you were seeking for a closing administrator – but I've gone ahead anyway and closed it myself, since consensus seems pretty clear. HeyMid (contribs) 20:59, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

From Special:WhatLinksHere/Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nico di Angelo, it seems that this AfD is not listed on a daily log. If it was never listed, I suggest that it be reopened and relisted. There are other AfDs at User:DumbBOT/IncompleteAfD#Non-transcluded discussion pages that seem to need attention. Flatscan (talk) 05:47, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Deletion review of Mikie Da Poet

Resolved

 – Speedy closed for patently obvious disruption, socks blocked Toddst1 (talk) 02:48, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

A newly registered user, User:PureSnipe, created the sixth (yes, sixth) deletion review of the article Mikie Da Poet; see the DRV log. Soon after I comment, another newly registered, User:Musiclover312, shows up in defense of the article (in what could more accurately be described as a long-winded rant). Seeing as how this is the sixth deletion review of this article, and both new users seem to know their way around this process very well (new users finding deletion review? not suspicious at all... hmm...), it is likely that they are not only sockpuppets of one another but a previous editor and/or DRVer of said article. Since I've already commented on the DRV and wouldn't feel right speedy closing it as disruption based on my hunch, I've brought it here in case it's worth doing a CU on these accounts. --Kinu ^t/_c 02:35, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Jon Bakhshi

I just filed this at the BLP noticeboard, but the more I looked into it, the more it seems like sock- or meatpuppetry is involved. Rather than re-post it here, I'm just leaving this pointer, since BLPN is not as well trafficed as here. Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:08, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

OneTonyCousins - incivility once again

The User:Onetonycousins has been blocked before (see here) for incivility towards other editors in his edit summaries. Despite this, he hasn't seemed to have learned to be civil. Recent examples include:

• Calling editors warnings/notices to him "usual nonsense." (see here)
• A personal attack at me in an edit summary (see here): "Way to ignore the explanation. Linking to that article is factually wrong. Nothing to do with your political bullsh*t, that's been resolved; you have your ROI. Now take your ignorance elsewhere." - this in response to me amending something to match an agreement made between other editors which he didn't even get involved in.
• The following edit summary (here) "Fixed page butchered by morons."
• Another edit summary tirade (see here): "Restored material deleted by antifootball man. Get a life, it's not wikipedia's fault that nobody gives a sh*t about gaelic games"

I believe a longer block than the previous 36 hour one should be imposed to try to get the message through to OneTonyCousins that such bad faith and snide personal attacks in his edit summaries aren't acceptable on Wikipedia. Mabuska ^(talk) 11:54, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Resposted. Mabuska ^(talk) 14:44, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Off topic discussion in Talk page

A few editors have started a discussion in a Talk page, about whether another editor is biased and should be blocked from the page: Talk:Allegations_of_Jewish_control_of_the_media#Straw_Poll:_Carolmooredc. My understanding is that WP:Talk limits the Talk page to discussions on how to improve the article, and that discussions of blocking should instead be at a forum such as ANI. More importantly, it appears the editors are using this discussion to derail (or avoid) a substantive discussion about improvements to the article. In other words, the discussion is not civil and is disruptive. --Noleander (talk) 15:11, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

FYI. I just put up a detailed Wikiettiquette alert here about Harassment about the user who keeps bringing up this issue, previous rejected even at this noticeboard. I wasn't sure if I should bring it here, and needed advice. Perhaps I should have. CarolMooreDC (talk) 15:17, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

[Late correction insert: Because I was upset by this latest attack, I mistakenly thought Jehochman originated the section, instead of merely agreeing with it, which I did correct on the harassment complaint above. I also missed the allusion to User:Spaceclerk directly below, whose attacks I complained about in November on Wikiquette alerts. He has been warned about it again. Sorry for any confusion. CarolMooreDC (talk) 12:09, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

It does seem that the talk page is an inappropriate forum. I don't see any need for punitive measures here though. User:Spaceclerk should just be warned and we should move on. NickCT (talk) 15:33, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I collapsed it, and pointed them at WP:RFC/U. That is atrocious behaviour, even done in good faith. --Errant ^(chat!) 15:45, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

What is atrocious is an editor coming to Wikipedia to push an anti-semitic POV by diddling with an article about anti-semitism. Folks, don't buy the rhetoric that is being presented here. We have a real problem going on at Talk:Allegations of Jewish control of the media. I've been asking for help for quite some time now. The participation of more uninvolved editors would help. There is an open request to rename the page that needs to be sorted. Jehochman ^Talk 15:55, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

So, open and RFC/U. And if I see that bloody email mentioned one more time in an effort to attack and brand Carol then I intend to take it to WP:WQA, not acceptable and it totally invalidates any issues you have :( also, accusations of anti-semitism are very serious and you need to provide evidence or retract them, I feel. --Errant ^(chat!) 16:01, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree that RFC/U would be a good way to proceed. Somebody already took it to WP:WQA. I have posted my evidence there, and will not cross post it here. Jehochman ^Talk 16:09, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

FYI, as I mention in the Wikiettiquette alert, a couple weeks ago User:Jehochman brought his complaints to WP:ANI and was soundly told both by other editors to stop it. As the closer wrote: An admin should know better than to come to ANI with what amounts to "I don't like this user's POV". Especially as within this topic any ANI thread is likely to be unpleasantly conflictual. Yes, we could continue talking here until the cows come home and accuse each other of POV-pushing... but let's not. CarolMooreDC (talk) 16:27, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

All of this demonstrates the risk of editing articles that are "personal" to the editors. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:29, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

• I don't see what's off topic about discussing problems with the editing of an article on the article's talk page. Jehochman ^Talk 18:22, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
  • "WP:Talk limits the Talk page to discussions on how to improve the article." By implication, barring a POV-pushing editor from an article could lead to improvement of the article, yes? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:39, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Bugs, while I agree with your comment at one level, I think, in context, such a discussion was more appropriate to other venues, such as WP:WQA. I'll also note that I do find anti-semitism abhorrent, but I lack insight into this situation, having never edited the article in question or any of those edited by the editors being discussed. Cheers, JoeSperrazza (talk) 20:12, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Except that an editor can't be unilaterally barred by a straw poll on an article's Talk page. So, that wasn't a discussion about improving the article at all. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:28, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the straw poll was an attempt to determine if editors of the page felt that CarolMooreDC's participation was helping or hindering the development of the article. If the goal was to determine what other editors thought, and what the next step should be, I do not think that was a misuse of the talk page. Of course she could not be banned by those editors there, but they could have decided that further steps were needed. Or Carol could have addressed the substance of the concerns and resolved them. There could have been productive outcomes. Concerns cannot be eliminated by suppression; the best medicine is sunshine. If Carol has been editing properly, she should be willing to hear concerns and address them. Jehochman ^Talk 20:39, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Who created the straw poll? The article talk page is not the place to discus topic bans, not do such Kangaroo courts seem appropriate. Any ban would not have been enforceable and seems to be not a discussion about the article but an attempt to remove a user by standing in a circle and shouting “you smell”.Slatersteven (talk) 21:17, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

User Jehochman is continuing to disrupt the Talk page (here) with comments unrelated to the article (see WP:Talk). These latest disruptions are after notification of the ANI (and after J partricipated in the ANI above). Jehochman's behavior is disruptive, and belligerent, and amounts to bullying. J has not yet gotten the message that he should be taking his concerns about bias to another forum (such as RFC/U or ANI) rather than disrupting the article's Talk page. I suggest that Jehochman be blocked from that article. --Noleander (talk) 21:14, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Noleander, you are a well known partisan in this dispute. Would you please give it a rest and let the uninvolved provide feedback. It's not helpful for the same crew of editors to keep restating their wikilegal interpretations. Wherever I go with concerns, the same editors keep popping up with the same wikilawyerish objections to the venue, to the form, etc. But nobody wants to address the merits of the matter. This is not helpful.

Noleander, your remark is pretty disingenous. Carolmooredc asked me a question, asked me to explain my actions. So I did, as plainly and truthfully as I could. There's nothing wrong with that. When editors are challenged, they have the right to explain what they did. [10]

Please see WP:COIN#CarolMooreDC where I have raised my concerns, at the suggestion of several uninvolved editors. Jehochman ^Talk 21:31, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

It looks to me (and I have been in this situation my self) that both ar at fault. Taking what is a content dispute to numerous boards in order to out ban each other. As Jehochman is an admin he should have steped back and not escalated a situation he is clarly involved in. I think that the 7 days avouding each otehr solution might be a good one.Slatersteven (talk) 21:43, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I would like to point out that the editor who started this also has a problem with Jehochman's edits, so perhaps mediation is the best solution. CarolMooreDC (talk) 22:28, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I starter neither the current ANI threat nor the current WQA thread. Please don't accuse me of doing somebody else's actions. I started a COIN thread after an uninvolved editor suggested that I do so. What the heck? There's a content dispute and behavioral concerns. Attempting to get those matters resolved is not a wikicrime. Also, Slatersteven, would you please declare whether you are an involved or uninvolved editor. That will help others to understand what's going on. Thank you. Jehochman ^Talk 00:36, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I think I edited the Jewish control of the media page some time ago (or a similar page at least). I also seem to recall having run ins with you in the past. But as I beleive I have blaimed the pair of you I don't see the relevance. Unless you are saying that your actions are wholey in keeping wiht good editing and adminship I fail to see why I am showing bias (and if I am not why do I need to declare an interest?). Ahh here we are ::[[11]] over a month ago, and hardly a great indicator for a strong point view one way or the other. I can’t find any other examples of involvement in this area, but I have only gone back a couple of months. So I would have to say based on this that no I am not an involved user. If I have missed any involvement please post the diffs.I take it then you reject the idea of a volantary disengagment from each otther for 7 days?Slatersteven (talk) 12:54, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

This ANI filed by Noleander is about Spaceclerk creating, and two involved editors (Brewcrewer and Jehochman) signing on to, an attack against an editor instead of responding to concerns about a Jehochman edit Noleander and I had expressed over several days. Since Noleander and I do not coordinate, he put this up at pretty much the same time I put my complaint on Wikiettiquette about Jehochman who I mistakenly thought had created, instead of just signing on to, the attack. So recommendations about me and Jehochman belong at Wikipedia:Wikiquette_alerts#WP:Harassment_by_User:Jehochman. I do wish people would stick to the real issue here: three involved editors launching personal attacks instead of dealing with issues brought up by two other editors. Thanks! :-) CarolMooreDC (talk) 20:13, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Too many places

Okay, this is getting ridiculous. This is now being discussed here, on COI/N and WQA. It'd be nice if we could get all involved to stop constantly opening discussions on different fora about each other. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:31, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Requesting Mohamed Bouazizi snowball close

This article, the subject of intense current interest due to the situation in Tunisia, has been marred with a spurious AfD notice for some time. The rationale is two words long and there has not been a single vote to delete. Please put this one out of its misery and allow Wikipedia's readers to find what they are looking for without needless deletion notices to distract them. TiC (talk) 01:31, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Just checked this article, it's not a candidate for snow close as there are keep and oppose votes. But yes, the rationale is "Recentism" just as you said. I'd say let it run it's course. KoshVorlon' _Nal^uboutes _Aeria ^Gloris 13:19, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I closed it before seeing this here. However, I would like to point out that, if you had read the rationales, you would notice that the keep and the oppose were arguing for the same result. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 19:52, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Uncivil response to vandalism warning

Resolved

 – blocked by Chaser (talk · contribs) for WP:NPA Toddst1 (talk) 16:10, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

It started as a minor content dispute over at Burj Khalifa, but 86.64.186.61 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) persisted in making his edits, despite the consensus of myself and other editors. I also sought advice from help desk. However, I am unhappy about this uncivil response (repeated in the edit summary) as a response to my warning the user about their continued disruptive editing. Astronaut (talk) 03:58, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Left a civility warning. If they continue, please let us know. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 04:20, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

IP blocked is a school district

Obviously the ban was placed for good reasons, my fellow classmates can screw around but I'm not sure but I thought I would inform the admins that the IP blocked belongs to the Corona-Norco Unified School District. So, I would advise them about this. The handle elementary, middle school, and high schools. So it would be fact that the edits would take place. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.47.14.123 (talk) 20:15, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Which IP are you talking about? We can't take any action without that information. --Danger (talk) 20:39, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

To which IP are you referring? The one from which you posted is not currently blocked. JoeSperrazza (talk) 20:40, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Unblock Request User:ActuallyRationalThinker community discussion

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

My first thoughts on this unblock request, due to the nature of the series of incidents, was to direct the editor to WP:ARBCOM. The editor continues to simply post "the first discussion said it all", which, clearly he would be unblocked if that was the case. It is a complex situation, and I would encourage all to read pretty much the entire page to understand the reasonings behind the block, and his responses since. It is up to you to determine if he's honest and sincere. Because of the nature of the block, I think it's appropriate to get a community decision as to their unblock. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 12:50, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

• Unblock - There is a sense of 'grovel or stay blocked' in that discussion that makes me a little uncomfortable. Yes, he doesn't seem to have accepted that his use of 'Jew' was pejorative, but he has accepted several times that it was disruptive. A block can surely only be expected to change someone's behaviour, not their opinion. As he puts it "...regardless of whether or not I actually am the most monstrous bigot in the world, it makes no difference to the Wikipedia Project if I can in fact conduct myself in a way that is satisfactory to the goals of the Wikipedia Project." If you ask me, he has a point. So long as his behaviour improves, and his has promised it will, his personal opinions are not something he should stay blocked for. Unblock and give him the chance to prove that he has understood the behavioural requirements.--Korruski^Talk 13:09, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose - The problem is that we are all independent actors -- no one has the time, energy or inclination to follow another editor around checking every one of their edits to make sure that the editor's prejudices aren't showing through. So it does make a difference if the editor is the "most montrous bigot in the world" as any such closely-held POV will inevitably leak through into the editor's constributions, sooner or later. We cannot, therefore, be reasonably certain that their conduct will be "satisfactory to the goals of Wikipedia." Editing Wikipedia is not for everybody, and it seems as if it may not be for this editor. I am opposed to unblocking at this time. Beyond My Ken (talk) 13:32, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose - Good wikilawyering, more of a Non-apology apology than an apology. Sometimes people's true nature comes out in "the heat of the moment". Does someone who throws around the term "Jew" when angry really get it? JoeSperrazza (talk) 14:10, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. JS makes a good point. People's true nature come out when they get emotional. When things heat up this editor starts talking about "Jews" and "cabals". Sure he's calm now but what happens the next time some "Jew" reverts his "Truth (tm)"?--Ron Ritzman (talk) 14:33, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose – I see nothing there that shows he is willing to work with others in a collaborative environment. –MuZemike 14:37, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose unblock - Agree with Beyond My Ken. This project's standards for civilized, polite and constructive discussion are incompatible with anti-semitism/racism/bigotry etc. Also after having been told that the unblock request did not deal with all the issues 2 further un-block requests with nothing new is both tendentious and in fact an abuse of the unblock template--Cailil ^talk 15:08, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose – Using edit summaries like the one he used during an edit to the Circumcision article seems to indicate this person is an anti-semite. We don't want or need anti-semites. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 19:13, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose until such a time as they specifically apologize for using "Jew" as a term of opprobium. Saying "I don't consider 'Jew" an insult" doesn't address the problem. Corvus cornix_talk 19:20, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
• Comment - FWIW I've alternated between permanently locking his talk page for practicing WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT (and wasting our time) and actually unblocking this user for a second chance. I'm entirely ambivalent on whether we'd have to block him again in a month for not working with the community, or just dealing with another bombastic personality which frankly quite a few of us have. I wouldn't oppose an unblock if other admins came to that conclusion. Magog the Ogre (talk) 19:59, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
• DEFINITELY NOT ANTI SEMITIC - I haven't looked at the full circumstances but I took a very quick look at the edit he was blocked for [12] and then his talk page. It seems completely clear to me that he wasn't being anti semitic at all - all he was suggesting is that there was a link between the users that were reverting him; in effect he was insinuating that they were likely to know one another. Now that may be a bit daft but it's not unreasonable to think that if they *did* know one another one way in which they could was by all being the same religion and thus meeting socially. If anything it's offensive that someone assumed that jew was an insult. It's a religious (and sometimes racial) term by default. It only becomes an insult if the speaker means it that way. Now as to whether he needs a block for the other stuff, I really don't know or care but if I were him I'd be very peed off about being called anti semitic Egg Centric (talk) 22:07, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
  • The above account, Egg Centric (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), was created today. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:00, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
    • So what? Incidentally the current "investigation" (which is just daft) of my account should worry people - the phrase "chilling effects" comes to mind. Had anyone bothered to look on my user page they can see plenty of edits done by IP :) Egg Centric (talk) 23:35, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
      • Yes, edits dating all the way back to January 7! Special:Contributions/86.178.52.148. It is standard practice in discussions in the Wikipedia domain to note when comments are made by (apparently) very new users, for reasons that are obvious. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:27, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
      • An SPI has been filed. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:29, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
        • • Yes, and it's also been withdrawn as groundless, not that I mind a check user either way. Anyway, Uncle G has put my views on THAT much better than I could. But the major thing for me in this case is I don't see the anti semitism. Or at least, I understand that an anti semite may make that remark, but it can also be - and most likely is - made completely innocently. Others need to decide whether the other offences justify a block (I think not but I'm not in a position to make a proper evaluation of it, which is why I haven't voted) - but I respectfully suggest that any block votes based on him being an anti semite should be reconsidered or ignored. Egg Centric (talk) 13:09, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
        • I'm amazed at the double standard here. An account makes a comment that xe doesn't know that two other accounts aren't in fact the same person, and it's used as one of the two foundation stones upon which the argument here for an indefinite block is being built upon. Magog the Ogre and Beyond My Ken accuse people of being sockpuppets, and not an eyelid is blinked.

          Really, there's a whole tottering edifice being built, with bad arguments, double standards, and downright fallacious assumptions (Several people here should learn Hanlon's razor.) on top of just two edits here. And those two edits provide a crumbly and weak foundation for what has been built. If it weren't for the fact that the account in question has done nothing but edit penis articles for one and a half years, I suspect that more people would be making a fuss about the poor logic and demonization employed against someone who is clearly just a fool who doesn't think logically and is not malicious. It's only because this person's single-issue contributions aren't worth expending the time for that I suspect that people aren't.

          And yes, that's unfair. But we're all volunteers with finite time, and we choose not to spend it arguing for unblocking a penis-only person. We have more than enough people who focus solely upon penises here at Wikipedia. However, it should be noted that a lot of the argument here is bad, and if the person blocked were not fixated upon penises and thus not worth the volunteer time to expend upon, more people would be pointing out the double standards, unsupported inferences, requests for shrubberies, and leaps to conclusions happening here.

          Uncle G (talk) 11:33, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

          • Your comment is unhelpful. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:42, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
            • It's very helpful actually, he said what I couldn't say. Egg Centric (talk) 00:33, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
      • Whatever. You'll note my comment is about whether the remark is anti semitic or not (not specifically about the block per se) so carries just as much weight as any user. (P.S. If you worked backwards you could find other IPs) Egg Centric (talk) 11:09, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
  • As an involved user, I'd like to make a couple of comments. First, it's probably best to evaluate the edit summary in the context of ActuallyRationalThinker's other comments in this discussion. This comment in particular is rather distasteful to my eye: hostility towards Jews and Judaism is clearly apparent, and it seems to display deliberate, calculated rudeness, and absence of intent to collaborate with others in a civil manner. Second, when combined with other behavioural problems (see Jayjg's AN/3RR report for some of these), I am not convinced that this editor is able to conduct him/herself in a suitable manner. Jakew (talk) 13:22, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
    • Hmm, a tough one. I agree that that edit (and discussion in general) is more troubling than the one I was looking at. I still wouldn't characterise it as necessarily anti semitic (again, it may be - it's anti-jewish practice for sure; the only question is whether it's anti-jewish practice because of said practice being done by jews or because of said practice being abhorrent to the OP) but it's closer to the line. Once again, no comment on the behavioural stuff as I don't feel experienced enough to have a useful opinion. Egg Centric (talk) 13:43, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
• Reduce to time served. The edit warring and this edit summary rightfully deserved a block. But I see nothing that would require this to immediately jump to indef. Xe would obviously be on a very short leash wrt antisemitic remarks in future. -Atmoz (talk) 23:50, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Indef does not mean permanent. All they have to do is to stop lawyering, and apologize, recognize why everybody is upset, and promise not to do it again. Corvus cornix_talk 02:25, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose per the concerns stated by Beyond My Ken. Darth Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 02:30, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
• Unblock. There was a dispute about the WP:WEIGHT that should be given to a particular aspect of the topic. An editor was concerned about the balance, and feels that zie is pounced on by a tag-team. Leave aside for a moment what anyone thinks about the substantive issues, and look at the editor's concern: that it appears to him that one particular group of people are trying to deny due weight to a viewpoint which is conflicts with their own. So he notes the influx of Spanish editors, and says "wow! Another Spaniard". When the Spaniard complains about the undue weight given to the Netherlands, the editor turns the comment around by applying the same arguments to the weight given to coverage of Spain.
  So far all we have is two sets of editors being rather unconstructive, and not working effectively to resolve the dispute ... except that in this case, the discussion was not about Spain, it was about Judaism, and the editor concerned said "Jew" rather than "Spaniard". He didn't drag it in as an irrelevancy, because Judaism's views on the topic form a major part of the article. That concern about balance and proportionality has been ignored in favour of an attempt to smear the editor as an anti-semite, and silence further discussion by the bad faith assumption that concern about an apparently Jewish tag-team is automatically evidence of anti-semitism. And then, after this editor is blocked, they are told in witchcraft-trail-style that they have to confess to being an anti-semite before they can be unblocked?
  This is an outrageous attempt to wikilawyer the NPA rules to silence dissent, and if Looie496 had not unblocked I might have done so myself. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)
  • I'm sorry to have to say this, but what you've written is completely inaccurate. "He didn't drag it in as an irrelevancy, because Judaism's views on the topic form a major part of the article"? Seriously? Have you even looked at the article? "Judaism's views on the topic" comprise exactly one paragraph, out of over eighty. Instead of actually addressing the legitimate issues brought up by other editors, ActuallyRationalThinker immediately brought up "The Jews" and "Jewish culture". When it was pointed out that this was off-topic, but he could bring it up in a separate section, he responded by mimicking the comment made to him, using the phrase "even if Jews couldn't go on living without their daily fill of infant penis-reduction surgery", and subsequently made it clear that he is not responding as part of a good faith exchange of views, but rather attempting to the "expose the unreasonable nature" of the arguments of those who disagree with him. ActuallyRationalThinker had no actual "concern about balance and proportionality", or he wouldn't have inserted that material in the first place. Rather, he was just personally (and not so subtly) attacking those who disagreed with him, and it is rather dismaying that you would claim otherwise. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:49, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Unblocking

I am about to unblock this editor, and would like to explain why first. The sole justification for imposing an indef on an editor who has never previously been blocked was the edit summary, "Wow. A third Jew, Brewcrewer--who has NEVER edited the circumcision article even once before--appears out of nowhere to join the cabal." That's offensive, and in combination with edit warring certainly justifies a block, but an indef block? I don't think so. Suppose the article had been about Scientology, and the edit summary had said Scientologist instead of Jew -- would an indef block have been imposed? I don't think so. With all respect for the opinions expressed above, I am therefore taking the initiative of reducing the sentence to time served. Looie496 (talk) 18:29, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi Looie496. The strong consensus above is clearly not to unblock. If you want to voice your opinion in that discussion (as you appear to have done) please feel free to do so, but you can't take it on yourself to ignore the consensus above, or insist your single vote outweighs the statements of the clear majority here. Please reverse your unblock so that someone else doesn't have to do it for you. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:12, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Looie496 has unblocked this user without consensus. Could somebody please reblock and start a deaminship process against Looie496? Corvus cornix_talk 05:55, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

The admin who should be sanctioned is Magog the Ogre, for making a block based on an unfounded allegation of race-baiting. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:45, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I am also rather concerned by the stunning disregard for consensus... Jakew (talk) 10:19, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Unfrickingbelievable in fact. A community discussion that is underway trumps an individual admin's choice in this situation - we've already had discussions about that elsewhere. Holy frickin' frick. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 11:44, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

• Support unblock- This editor has served almost three weeks, which is more than enough for what they said, and has done about as much abject grovelling as can reasonably be demanded. Reyk _YO! 08:59, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

• The editor looks to be a single-purpose account, dedicated to the "cause" from its very first edit,[13] and no stranger to making accusations of bad faith based on the presumed bias of other editors.[14][15] The use of the term "cabal",[16] i.e. "pro-circumcision cabal", a term which I saw used by another edit last summer, is perhaps even more ominous than his throwing the term "Jew" around, and I don't see anything on his talk page that suggests he no longer believes in such a "cabal". Given the editors' underlying assumptions, it is unlikely the editor will improve its approach, but we'll see. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:54, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
  • It does seem that "cabal" accusations by various users go back to at least March of 2006. It strikes me as peculiar wording, but maybe in regard to this subject it's a frequently-used slogan? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:18, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
    • ActuallyRationalThinker has contributed little more here than than a few sporadic instances of edit warring on matters of the penis, accompanied by aggression directed at other editors. The antisemitic comment was way over the top, and it's reasonable for the community to take that as the last straw. If this odd editing is their only work on Wikipedia, Wikipedia is none the worse with them gone. If this is an alternate account, same result. The three denied unblocked requests didn't show any evidence that they would change their ways. Despite an apology they defended the antisemitic comment as either harmless or justified, and never promised not to do it again. Unblocking them sends the wrong message, that the community considers this okay. Unfortunately, re-blocking them would send a worse message, that the community can't deal with race baiting. The best way out at this point is to give them a stern warning that they should be on best behavior, and any further inflammatory conduct will get them reblocked for good. Looie496's unblock was unwise and out of process. Checking Louie496's history as an administrator, I don't see any other incidents of contentious use of tools. Let's hope this doesn't become a pattern. - Wikidemon (talk) 17:34, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
      • For the record, I don't support taking any action against Louie496, and particularly not an administrative recall. That would be a gross overreaction to an isolated decision made in good faith, something best handled as a calm discussion. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:31, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
        • I don't support taking any action against him either, so long as he remedies the error he made, which he can still do. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:59, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
• To explain a bit more about the basis for the unblock: it was apparent to me, looking over the discussion, that a permanent block was disproportionate to the offense, and that for various political reasons there would never be a clear consensus to unblock. It seemed to me that it was necessary for somebody to step up, and I couldn't see why I should ask somebody else to do it. For what it's worth, I am uncomfortable with a number of aspects of this editor's contributions, and wouldn't be at all surprised to see more problems in the future -- but I don't think it is our custom to block permanently for a relatively minor offense merely because it worries us. Looie496 (talk) 17:23, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

What "political reasons" - is that a code word for something? And what basis do you have for saying that accusing editors of being part of a Jewish cabal is a minor offense that needs somebody with administrative credentials to step up to the plate on? - Wikidemon (talk) 17:36, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

The editor should have been kept blocked. But if he doesn't behave himself, he'll be back here pronto. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:41, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Looie496, it's clear you think he should be unblocked. What's not clear is why you think your specific views on this weigh more than the strong consensus of other editors above, or why you think you can summarily ignore/preempt that consensus. Please restore the previous block until this discussion concludes, so that we can discuss ActuallyRationalThinker, rather than having to open an admin abuse discussion on you. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:57, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

• - Wow, this is a really out of process unnecessary unblock that demeans the whole process of discussion and consensus. For what is worth, which in this case would have been nothing - I also supported the block but as the weight of consensus and the discussion cleanly was in favor of support I didn't bother to add my weight of support for it. Off2riorob (talk) 17:51, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. I agree that the mid-discussion unblock wasn't helpful. That's particularly true when ActuallyRationalThinker is a sporadically used SPA. I think an indefinite block for that one remark alone would be inappropriate, but taken together with the reverting, and the single-purpose nature of the account, it wasn't unreasonable, and it would have been better to let the discussion play itself out. Now that he's unblocked, perhaps Looie would consider applying a one-year topic ban, so ATR can learn how to edit within policy by working on articles he cares less about. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 20:13, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
  • While I'm sympathetic to your suggestion, he really should be re-blocked, by Louie, until this discussion has run its course. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:57, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

The unblock was a spectacular example of an out-of-consensus admin running wild, who even now is trying to claim that the refusals by multiple admins to unblock is somehow bad faith on their part. Corvus cornix_talk 20:25, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

• Another Comment. I understand why Looie did what he did. The edit was not anti semitic (or, at least, it probably wasn't) - but it takes balls to say so. Most right thinking people do not want to be accused of anti-semitism (nor racism, nor chauvinism, nor a bunch of other ugly things, another of his edits seemed a bit closer to the line but was still perfectly consistent with believing in a cabal that happened to be jewish [and if there is to be a cabal on circumcision not unreasonable to expect it to be jewish]) so err on the side of caution the other way.
• Incidentally this is why religious tolerance (an indisputably good thing, although many religions think otherwise) so often manifests itself as respect for religion, which is at least arguably a bad thing. Egg Centric (talk) 23:23, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

• It's clearly antisemitic. There is no "probably" -- it either is or is not, based on the text of the statement. A person with a good heart and no racist intent can sometimes misspeak, say something unaware of how others will interpret it, or be ignorant of the inappropriateness of a comment, but the comment itself is still racist. I don't think those apply because angrily accusing someone of taking an action as a member of a Jewish cabal is neither harmless nor inadvertent. That's one of the primary and most destructive forms of antisemitism throughout history. Accusing Jews of conspiring behind people's backs in order to control things sets off warning bells. Perhaps the minority opinion here that the block should have been lifted is held by some who just can't see that statement as racist. For those people, please pay attention to the fact that the majority of people feel otherwise, and the nature of bigoted statements is that they don't have to offend 100% of the population, or even a majority of the population, in order to be hurtful. If your companions say that a comment was offensive but you don't see the offense, you should realize that the comment is still one that offends. - Wikidemon (talk) 23:36, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

• FWIW, my argument for an unblock (above) does not hinge on whether the statement is or is not anti-semitic. My argument is that blocks are (supposed to be) for the protection of Wikipedia, not as a way of forcibly extracting an apology. If the blocked party has promised to modify his behaviour (and he has, several times), then whether or not he agrees that he was being anti-semitic, or has apologised should be irrelevant. All that matters is whether we believe him. I don't, especially, but I would rather give him a chance (and some WP:ROPE).--Korruski^Talk 23:43, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

• I agree with all of this, except that I am more optimistic of this user mending his ways. Reyk _YO! 00:12, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

• (ec)The comment deserved a block, but dragging it out this long is punitive rather than preventive. Keeping this user blocked is not preventing any harm to the encyclopedia. What is being required of this user is not merely an earnest statement that they understand the community finds that sort of comment extremely distasteful and that he won't do it again. He has already given that - explicitly - on his talk page in the form of a detailed bullet point list. No, what is being demanded is abject grovelling, as though trying to hold on to a modicum of dignity and self respect is a disruptive crime deserving permanent banishment. He's given at least three apologies and a firm promise to knock it off, but it seems that whatever he says it's always "not good enough! not good enough!" and there's always just one more humiliation necessary. We should either be honest and say "There is no possibility of an unblock, under any circumstances, ever" or we should be fair and accept an earnest (though possibly grumpy) apology. Reyk _YO! 00:03, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

The community felt otherwise, obviously. As I said above, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but administrators do have to respect the community rather than invoking personal veto rights. My review of the apologies leads me to side with the majority here. He did apologize for edit warring, but regarding the offensive comments his calling them "unconstructive" and noting that his "remarks have upset people" is outweighed by his defiant attitude and refusal to acknowledge that they were wrong:

• I felt I was being cornered by a clique of biased editors who..., seemed like suspiciously biased and organized behavior, and [Brewcrewer] spends an exorbitant amount of time cleaning, formatting, protecting, and writing articles that relate to Israel, Jews, Judaism, and the Holocaust...it validates the exasperation I was trying to express. (i.e. he was right about there being a pro-Jewish cabal)
• born of exasperation rather than any kind of malice that could truly disrupt Wikipedia. and I never used any language that is even remotely racist; I can only apologize for transgressions that I did in fact make (i.e. what I did was harmless).
• I take issue with Brandon's baseless and defamatory claim that my edits display any kind of "antisemitism", accusing me of such bigotry out of hand borders on libel, and doing so with the voice of an Administrator seems like an abuse of power, and "abuse blocking or banning as a means of exacting punitive revenge" (i.e. quit being so sensitive - classic blaming of the offended group, playing the victim, and telling them they're the bigots for taking offense)

His grudging apology, and promise not to do it again, is unconvincing given that he does it again in the course of making his unblock arguments - he is basically saying that he shouldn't have used the word "Jew" because people got upset, but yes, there is a cabal of Jewish editors including the person he first insulted who are abusing the encyclopedia to have their way. The lack of groveling isn't the problem, it's reiterating his original offensive statement in new words while blaming the accusers for abusing him. - Wikidemon (talk) 00:46, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

• Egg Centric, I think the concern here is that being Jewish is regarded as an ethnicity, not only a follower of Judaism. So in one sense, it's like saying "Wow, a third Scientologist," but in another sense it's like saying, "Wow, a third African American." That's why it caused offence. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 23:46, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

• To extend my example to yours (on re reading - not brilliantly - and on third thoughts apologies btw if black here is offensive, I'm not totally certain but it definitely isn't here in the UK and it feels very weird for me to constantly type out African American)... say he was editing gangsta rap and arguing that it led to shootings and domestic violence, and a few uninvolved editors who happened to be black came along and reverted him, and he expressed sarcastic surprise that they were all black - now he may be racist in pointing that out, he may not not be, he's almost certainly paranoid about there being a conspiracy against him and in my view that statement can be used in evidence of the latter but not the former. And my example is not brilliant as gangster rap is certainly not part of black identity (although most fans are black) - circumcision, on the other hand, certainly is an example of jewish identity. Anyway I just said I was going to bed in an other edit so had better do now! Egg Centric (talk) 00:17, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

• Just as a side note, some would say that the majority of fans of gangster rap are suburban white kids. (citation needed) -- œ^™ 17:17, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

• Keep in mind, his edit-summary comment about Jews wasn't his first or only irrelevant reference to Jews. Indeed, his first comments to the article Talk: page make it clear that this is a singular focus of his: Talk:Circumcision/Archive 67#Netherlands_section. Rather than actually addressing the issues brought up by other editors, he immediately brings up "The Jews" and "Jewish culture". When it is pointed out that this is off-topic, he responds by mimicking the comment made to him, using the phrase "even if Jews couldn't go on living without their daily fill of infant penis-reduction surgery", and subsequently makes it clear that he is not responding as part of a good faith exchange of views, but rather attempting to the "expose the unreasonable nature" of the arguments of those who disagree with him. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:12, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

• Yet another "I know better than everybody else" unblock that enables continued disruption rather than prevent it. The statement above is at odds with basic block policy by referring to the block in terms of "sentence" and "time served", as though blocks were a punishment and their duration dependent on some measure of guilt. They are not; they are an administrative measure to prevent disruption and should last until we are convinced that the disruption won't reoccur. I would support a recall petition.  Sandstein  23:39, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
• Ah the super vote admin action strikes again. Seriously, Looie496 you should reblock. You're actions show absolutely no respect for your fellow editors. If you don't like the way a community discussion is going, you have no right to subvert it to get your way. Really bad form. I generally hate when things like this immediately devolve into hysterical calls for de-adminships, but if you really feel that your opinion is more important than the community's consensus, you don't need to have the tools. AniMate 00:04, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
• I've contacted Looie496; he's stated he won't re-block, but he won't object if someone else does. Is that good enough? Jayjg ^(talk) 02:02, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

• So what damage or disruption will be prevented if they are reblocked? They have not edited since the unblock, they have stated they won't do it again. We're now past beating a dead horse and in the middle of making dog food. It seems like unless the exact phrasing comes out of their mouth, nothing less than total punishment of this user is acceptable. Looie496 and a few other admins saw this but some seem to not see it. 65.122.75.14 (talk) 12:49, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

• The same damage and disruption that happened before he was blocked. Your view is interesting, but the clear consensus was and is that unblocking is not appropriate at this time. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:49, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Moving forward

If we can move past the question of the unblock and what should happen in the short term, what should the outcome be for this editor? I can think of a few. Some of these are mix and match:

1. Do nothing - leave unblocked, accept promise / apology and move on
2. Informal probation - advise the editor they are under some scrutiny and that further race-based insults and/or edit warring will earn another block
3. Extract promise - block / ban until and unless they acknowledge that whatever their intent it was wrong to categorize editors as Jewish and to ascribe conspiratorial motives to groups of editors in the context of their being Jewish, or vice-versa
4. Ask for promise that this is their sole account, with amnesty(?) if they acknowledge socking and go back to their primary account
5. Topic ban from Judaism and/or penis-related subjects
6. Topic ban from making disparaging comments, complaints, etc., that invoke the ethnicity or minority status of other editors

Any others? - Wikidemon (talk) 01:30, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

• Agree with 1, 2, and 6. Neutral on 5. Disagree with 3 because blocks are for preventing disruption- not for extracting humiliation concessions, forcing people to agree with you, or punishing people for holding offensive or unpopular views. The user in question is free to believe whatever he likes about the remarks he made so long as he doesn't repeat them. Regarding #4, was there ever any convincing evidence of socking? Reyk _YO! 04:03, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I tend to agree. I was just throwing all the suggestions out there. I don't think there's any convincing evidence of socking, but rather an odd editing pattern that raises suspicio for some. Probably not worth pursuing if they don't otherwise get into trouble going forward. - Wikidemon (talk) 05:39, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

1) No "sanctions" for any admins involved and 2) Keep the guy on a "short leash". Is it really that hard to "re-block" him the instant he screws up again? It's not. Doc talk 06:10, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

See, we had a perfectly reasonable and workable solution: the editor was indef blocked, appropriately, and the community consensus was that he should remain blocked. Why is anyone interested in what the community has to say now, to "move forward", when the community's views were shat on ignored by the unblocking admin? What's the point? There are numerous situations in which the community doesn't know, collectively, what it wants done, or when no one's interested in taking the time and effort to contribute to a consensus discussion, and in those circumstances, an admin who can take the bull by the horns and enforce policy is appreciated. This was not one of those situations: the community's voice was clear, and remains clear. The fact that the unblocking admin hasn't reversed his decision is highly regrettable, and yet another slap in the face to the community. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:30, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Then why has no admin re-blocked him? (I don't think it would be a WP:WHEEL situation if they did considering the strong feelings towards this one user). The unblocking admin has expressed his desire for recall because of this mess. The editor in question hasn't made one edit since his unblocking; and blocks are to be preventative and not punitive. What damage has been unleashed since his unblock, and what couldn't be instantly remedied by an indefinite block by one of the many admins watching his every move if he dares resume the behavior that he was blocked for? To "punish" the unblocking admin is, IMHO, unwarranted. It's often an ochlocracy here, but sometimes one voice can ring out from the fray. Block him forever if he makes one more ethnic slur: then the unblockintg admin will be proven "wrong". Doc talk 08:12, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I do not advocate that the unblocking admin be "punished" in any way – and recall for a single incident is ridiculous anyway – but I do think he should feel the community's displeasure. As for the editor -- well, he hasn't edited at all yet, so we don't know what will happen, but by your logic, every indeffed editor should be unblocked, since we can always block them again. The editor's behavior was disruptive, he was blocked, he requested an unblock without showing any understanding of why he had been blocked, the request was brought here for the the community's opinion, which it gave, and then it was ignored and the editor was unblocked anyway. That doesn't sound to me like a reasonable way to run things, and I'd like to see -- at the very least -- some acknowledgment from the unblocking admin that slamming the foor in the face of the community's opinion was inapprooriate in this circumstances, no matter what his personal opinion of the original block was. Admins get the mop with the expectation that they will use their judgment in the use of their tools, and part of that is knowing when to act, and when not to. This was an occasion not to, to make his opinion known as a member of the community, and allow things to run their course. That he hasn't shown any inclination to indicate his understanding of that is distressing. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:26, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't see the definitive consensus for the indefinite block above as clearly as you do, I suppose - the consensus is to keep him blocked, but it is not an overwhelming majority. I certainly do see a few editors calling for Looie496's head on a pike (not you, I reckon); and that's what concerns me more. We don't need to lose an admin who is willing to act boldly (open to recall)[17] because of one little editor. He doesn't have to grovel about it, and he doesn't have to "reverse" himself to make it right. If the decision was so completely profound in its error: I recommend another admin re-block him, like yesterday. What's stopping this? I don't think Looie's going to do it, as he appears to be "sticking to his guns". Doc talk 08:51, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

When looking at the consensus discussion, you need to discount all comments added after the unblock. When you do that, the consensus is abundantly clear: 10 comments, 2 supported unblocking, 8 did not That's a clear consensus. As for why nop admin has re-blocked, perhaps they, too, are waiting to see if the unblocking admin might come to some understanding of the incorrectness of what he did. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:57, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Why do you need to discount all comments after the unblock? Reyk _YO! 14:36, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Because to judge whether the unblock was appropriate you have to consider community consensus at the time; it's not realistic to credit Looie496 (or indeed anyone else) with the ability to foresee what might be said in future. Jakew (talk) 16:17, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I think there is no point in continuing with this discussion. The admin has unblocked against consensus and that has been noted, as a stand alone ignore all rules situation its not even close to wheels dropping off, although IMO this situation regarding this contributor was not one that was worthy of making a stand and using his admin wild card, the unblocked user may never even use that account to edit again and if he does he will need to edit within the conditions of his unblock, so, moving on and closing the discussion seems the correct option. Off2riorob (talk) 17:42, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

• Regarding the socking accusation - assuming Wikidemon and Reyk were talking about when I was being accused of being this user's sock, Maggie and Ken, please take note: this is why I was pissed off when you were making these accusations based on sod all. Mud sticks. There's no reason you couldn't have done so discretely (I have no objection to you having a suspicion and investigating it) Making a song and dance about it on flimsiest of evidence, especially when I have a new user account and it's hard to prove a negative, just isn't on imo. Egg Centric (talk) 18:24, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
• P.S. So there's an answer to Reyk's question about #4! Egg Centric (talk) 18:25, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

• The last I knew, community consensus was what mattered, and there was definatley a consensus not to unblock. I am going to call for deadminship of the above sysop. This user needs re-blocked and remain as such until there is a clear consensus to do otherwise. Dusti^*poke* 19:25, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Policy trumps consensus. Later on in WP:CONSENSUS, it states, "Consensus is ultimately determined by the quality of the arguments given for and against an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy, not by a simple counted majority." Looie acted upon the policy that blocks are preventative not punitive and saw the indefinite time period as too long for a first-time block.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 23:55, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

This is 100% correct. Reyk _YO! 00:48, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

In this case, however, policy and consensus were in agreement, and Looie ignored the consensus, in favor of his own view. Given the extreme wikilawyering on the ActuallyRationalThinker's Talk: page, it's clear the block in this case was preventative, not punitive, and the time period in question was entirely appropriate until such time as ActuallyRationalThinker could actually make credible statements about his future actions. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:45, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Recommend closing thread and moving on. Consider compromising and give the user rope and block on next offense. If you're unhappy with Looie, give him a trophy fish for his wall. Desysopping on a first possible problem with him sounds extreme.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 23:55, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Recommend leaving thread open until issue is resolved. The user was given plenty of changes to make a clear and honest statement but refused to, Looie was given plenty of chances to undo his action, but refused to. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:45, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

• Perhaps surprisingly, User:Looie496/Recall is now certified by five admins, so Looie496 can decide to resign or stand at RfA, according to his ground rules. Fences&Windows 01:50, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Maria Pavelić issue?

Resolved

 – edit war warnings and WP:ARBMAC warnings all around. Block if disruption continues and log under ARBMAC sanctions Toddst1 (talk) 16:04, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I am asking admins to arbitrage about the article of Maria Pavelić. First sentence is what bothers me, for explanation see Maria Pavelić talk page.--89.164.140.130 (talk) 00:15, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

IP-hopping to repeatedly revert other editors in a slow POV edit war on a little-known article stub. Coming here (of all places) for a minor content dispute. Eeep... Doc talk 00:32, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Editor, single. Where would you like me to go whit this issue?--89.164.140.130 (talk) 00:38, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I have some (bad) experience editing in and around articles related to the Independent State of Croatia, and this is much more complex than a glib little boomerang remark. Articles in that area have been subject to repeated attempts to white wash the regime and the atrocities committed during WWII. I'd recommend Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Geopolitical ethnic and religious conflicts or filing a WP:Request for comment. AniMate 00:43, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually, the geopolitical ethnic noticeboard looks like it gets no traffic at all. Try an RfC and request page protection. With the article protected the edit war can stop and with the RfC you can get some outside opinions. AniMate 00:47, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your input. White washing the regime of NDH and the atrocities they committed during WWII is exactly what comes to my mind regarding this issue. The way I see it, user Wustenfuchs is changing Croatian fascist leader into a Croatian Poglavnik because it looks less bad.--89.164.140.130 (talk) 01:11, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Notifying Wustenfuchs of this thread would be nice, and it's actually required. Use {{subst:ANI-notice}} to do so if you wish: but you need to tell him about it. Doc talk 01:17, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Either way, it's an WP:ARBMAC-related slow-motion edit war that must stop. IP-hopping edit warrior, you are on notice through ANI as is Wustenfuchs. Toddst1 (talk) 03:02, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Wustenfuchs has again added Croatian Poglavnik in the first sentence. Word Poglavnik is often used in Croatia by the neo-Nazi groups to describe and magnify the name of Ante Pavelić. In the past, prior to the establishment of the NDH Ustasha movement, the word Poglavnik was rarely used. Then it was given the meaning that is not linked to any political or Croatian legal tradition. I don't see on any of two Mussolini wives(Rachele Mussolini and Ida Dalser) Wikipedia pages that says; wife of Italian Duce Benito Mussolini. --89.164.200.4 (talk) 14:37, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Also, I don't see on Eva Braun Wikipedia page that it is writen; the longtime companion of Führer Adolf Hitler.--89.164.200.4 (talk) 15:09, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

You can't have looked very hard. First sentence: "Eva Anna Paula Hitler née Braun (6 February 1912 – 30 April 1945) was the longtime companion of Adolf Hitler and for less than 40 hours, his wife". AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:22, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

• I don't think that's what User: 89.164.200.4 is talking about. The issue seems to be whether the word "Poglavnik" should be used in the lead, apparently comparing the word to "Duce" for Mussolini and "Führer" for Hitler. The Eva Braun article does not use the word "Führer", "fascist leader", or any other description for Hitler in the first sentence. I had never heard the word "Poglavnik" before today and so I take no position as to whether it is appropriate or inappropriate to use it. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 18:34, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Hello! Well, You, for user with IP adress, you can call me nazi, you can call me fascist, you can call me a communist, you can call me an idiot, this is not about name calling. I wrote "Croatian Poglavnik" because Ante Pavelić becomed famous under his title. Moreover, he worn this title as leader of Ustaše since 1929 until 1945. If someone didn't heard a word "Poglavnik", that is a problem of an individual. As I said, he becomed more famous under this title, and maybe some of you didn't hear about Pavelić at all. Another thing, all books mention him as Poglavnik, now, this leads me to the conclusion that some of you never read a book or biography about this man. Any historian or any person informed about him will know what Poglavnik means, and ther is an explanation in article Poglavnik what this title ment. And please, user with IP adress, don't tell other people what I think, you aren't psychiatrist, neither I told you what do I think.--Wustefuchs (talk) 19:13, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Look, you are obviously well fascinated and interested in Ustashe and NDH, since that is all you edit. Soo, getting an unbiased opinion from you is not very likely. You yourself have created an article about Poglavnik, you also know that word Poglavnik is too often used by the Croatian neo-Nazi groups to describe and magnify the name of Ante Pavelić. Never do they call him Ante Pavelić or Pavelić, it is always a Poglavnik for them. Just like Nazis never called a Hitler by his last name, it was always a "Führer" for them also. By simple Youtube search we have numerous results that confirm my thinking;

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Poglavnik&aq=f

So obviously I oppose that the word Poglavnik is used in the lead.

P.s. You have reverted an article, again, despite a warning that you may be blocked from editing if you continue edit war on Maria Pavelić. You shouldn't have reverted an article until consensus is reached. Yet you did so, and that says a lot about you.--89.164.200.4 (talk) 19:42, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

You are the one who reverted the article at start, with no sources. This is just a provocation, becouse I can't get you seriously wih You Tube as source... and no, like I told you earlier, all books mention him with title Poglavnik... You said that neo-nazis call him just with his title (even though this is so false and unsourced) like Fuhrer, but you can see, ther is also his name "Ante Pavelić" together with title Poglavnik... so what is your point? It seams that you are the one who is promoting his political views and at the same time provoking me.--Wustefuchs (talk) 20:23, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Who is disputing that he was known as Poglavnik? What does it matter that books mention him as a Poglavnik? They also mention Hitler as Führer, they also mention Mussolini as a Duce, right? But do we see on their better halfs Wiki pages that it is writen; "the longtime companion of Führer Adolf Hitler" or "wife of Italian Duce Benito Mussolini"? No we don't. Do you get this? It is hard to reach a consensus with a person who thinks that he is been provoked. What does it matter who reverted the article in the first place? You received a warrning that you may be blocked from editing if you continue this edit war. Yet you didn't listen, but choose to continue edit war. Regarding the link to Youtube, all those video praise the work of Ustashe, NDH and Poglavnik. So my point was proven, Poglavnik is mainly used by sympathizers of Ustashe, NDH and Pavelic. Just like Führer and Duce is used by sympathizers of Nazism and Fascism. --89.164.130.92 (talk) 20:54, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

The purpose of this noticeboard is not to resolve this content dispute. Try asking for a third opinion or filing a request for comment. AniMate 23:25, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Need protection, rounds of spanking, or whatever

Can someone full-protect WP:ACTIVIST for a week? There are redirect wars and all kinds of crap going on. I've participated in editing the page but don't care which version of the page is locked as long as it gets the situation calmed down. Hopefully a week's rest will give everyone time for reflection. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 18:22, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

• Basically - disruptive edits aimed at having the essay deleted seem to be all too present. If an essay is not deleted at MfD, then edits aimed at effecting a deletion are, IMHO, disruptive. Collect (talk) 18:37, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
•  Done I'm sure it's the wrong version, but then it always is. Next time, try WP:RFPP or WP:ALPHABETSOUP. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:40, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

• You mean to tell me there is activism occurring at Wikipedia:Activism? Whodathunk? :S -- RoninBK _{T C} 18:42, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

• It's like rain on your wedding day... --Jayron32 19:34, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

• If the word ironic comes up and it's not in italics I'm going to throw a fit. :-) --Danger (talk) 20:15, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I've suggested an RFC on this essay. Fresh eyes are required. See Wikipedia talk:Activist#RFC: general content issues. --TS 21:27, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Suggestion filed at Wikipedia talk:Lamest edit wars#Activism. Fences&Windows 01:57, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Legal threats by Gtamaster12814

Resolved

On Northwestern High School (Hyattsville, Maryland), Gtamaster12814 continued to add a source of a personal interview that was clearly unreliable. User first contacted Gyrofrog, an administrator, to claim that he "will continue to add to NWHS wiki page despite your ignorant removal." After Gyrofrog explained to him that a personal interview was not a reliable source, Gtamaster12814 decided to threaten me, claiming that I had 24 hours to readd the information or he would contact Wikipedia for my removal. Logan _Talk ^{Contributions} 00:08, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

That's not a legal threat - a legal threat is threatening legal action, not threatening to report you to Wikipedia. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 00:14, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, s/he also claimed that I was being libelous. That's a legal accusation. Logan _Talk ^{Contributions} 00:19, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

That's still not a legal threat - a legal threat is a threat to take legal action, and the user has not actually threatened to take legal action. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 00:21, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Use of legal terms like 'libel' can, I think, be violations of WP:LEGAL, but in this case, a new user who sincerely thought that what he learned about MLA citations in high school applies to Wikipedia in the same ways, I just gave him a 24-hour block for the edit-warring and a warning about using legal language and threats. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 00:23, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Logan _Talk ^{Contributions} 00:28, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, fair enough :-) -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 00:31, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Good lord- that whole article looks like an official school web site. Needs a serious neutral rewrite. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 00:31, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I have also blocked 74.46.218.29 (talk · contribs). Same ISP and location as the IP Gtamaster12814 was using. Elockid ^(Talk) 00:43, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

block request

Resolved

 – Indef blocked. Obvious troll is obvious. Fences&Windows 02:01, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

User:Wiki Wikip Wikipe is a new vandalism-only account plastering AfDs on all sorts of pages. Please block. Schwede66 17:03, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

The first nomination was correct; that article wasn't in English. HeyMid (contribs) 17:08, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

The second is a major city.--Cube lurker (talk) 17:10, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I declined the AfDs as bad-faith nominations, but I don't think it's time to block quite yet. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:13, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Come on people, AGF only goes so far. New users who never attempted to edit Wikipedia before don't show up out of the blue and start nominating articles for AFD. This is obviously the sock of a disgruntled ex-Wikipedian. --Jayron32 19:37, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

So why it's not blocked yet, it's a typical trolling account? Ibluffsocall (talk) 01:11, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

The following accounts are  Confirmed as the same person:

• Crouch, Swale (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Wikipwedia (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Hamish Griffin (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• FRGFDJ (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• George Alfred Scott (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Wiki Wikip Wikipe (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Chestcrash GD (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Groton Wood (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

–MuZemike 16:47, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I've blocked and tagged all the confirmed socks. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 16:59, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

User:Southstudentxx

I am not sure if this is the right place but I found a bunch of accounts that were recently created that are adding reviews to book articles. They are all written as 8th graders. They appear to be a school project and all the accounts are User:Southstudentxx with the numbers 1-15 (so far) in place of the xx. ~~ GB fan ~~ 19:53, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

See if you can find the teacher account and direct them to Wikipedia:School and university projects and Wikipedia:WikiProject Classroom coordination and Wikipedia:Online Ambassadors. These are not sock accounts and are perfectly legit, but it looks like they have a bit of a misunderstanding of how Wikipedia works. I wouldn't go blocking them per WP:BITE, but it would be much more fruitful to educate the teacher and let them instruct the students on how to do it "right" rather than to chase down each kid... --Jayron32 20:05, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Not sure how to find the teacher account, but it is starting up again today. ~~ GB fan ~~ 18:12, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Please accept our apology - will look at the links. This is the misinformed teacher. Thank you for your help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Southstudent2 (talk • contribs) 19:46, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

No apology needed, at least as far as this random editor is concerned. It's fantastic you want to introduce your students to Wikipedia and teach them how to contribute. The only real issue is the nature of the contributions, as we're an encyclopedia and not a repository for book reviews of this type (see [[18]] for more information). The links above should point you to resources and advisers to help you integrate Wikipedia into your class. In addition, I wanted to point you at the Children's Books Wiki (suggested originally by User:Robina Fox), which appears to collect reviews of this sort for YA literature. I haven't examined that wiki in detail, so you'd need to check it out and see if their guidelines and practices fit in with what you're doing. Thanks. Zachlipton (talk) 21:14, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

A users repeated incivility towards other editors

Resolved

 – Blocked

The User:Onetonycousins has been blocked before (see here) for incivility towards other editors in his edit summaries. Despite this, he hasn't seemed to have learned to be civil. Recent examples include:

• Calling editors warnings/notices to him "usual nonsense." (see here)
• A personal attack at me in an edit summary (see here): "Way to ignore the explanation. Linking to that article is factually wrong. Nothing to do with your political bullsh*t, that's been resolved; you have your ROI. Now take your ignorance elsewhere." - this in response to me amending something to match an agreement made between other editors which he didn't even get involved in.
• The following edit summary (here) "Fixed page butchered by morons."
• Another edit summary tirade (see here): "Restored material deleted by antifootball man. Get a life, it's not wikipedia's fault that nobody gives a sh*t about gaelic games"

I believe a longer block than the previous 36 hour one should be imposed to try to get the message through to OneTonyCousins that such bad faith and snide personal attacks in his edit summaries aren't acceptable on Wikipedia. Mabuska ^(talk) 14:45, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I believe a visit to the local psychiatrist should be imposed to try to get the message through to Mabuska that behavioral tendencies such as stalking wikipedia users aren't acceptable and may be signs of emotional imbalance. Drop the unionism and give yoga a try for a few weeks, you might develop a sense of humor. Onetonycousins (talk) 18:46, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

That comment was unusually offensive and insulting, no matter what this is all about otherwise. SergeWoodzing (talk) 18:47, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. I blocked Onetonycousins (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) for 36 hours for similar incivility in October 2010. I am doubling the block to 72 hours this time.  Sandstein  18:50, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Nice call, Sandstein.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:58, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Just to state for the record for all to see - i didn't stalk you Onetonycousins, i was particpating in a discussion opened by Mooretwin on League of Ireland intros. We reached a consensus in the end that was verified by an admin (Rockpocket) and i went to implement it - you decided to revert it even after i pointed you to the discussion. Then you got offensive. Just because you have the page on your watchlist doesn't eqaute to me stalking you. Mabuska ^(talk) 19:01, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I removed his talkpage access, because he didn't quite get the concept of "blocked for harassment". --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:27, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Good call, Sarek. I imagine the next block will be of significantly longer length, after that little exchange. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 20:39, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Bigboysssssss

I'd like some input/review on whether I am dealing with Bigboysssssss (talk · contribs)'s edits of his own user page and of Talk:Rape properly. The user is claiming that the edits were not improper (or, at least, not vandalism). I disagree, but I'd like someone else to look at the situation as well. Thanks. --Nlu (talk) 09:19, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

• The only way to apply good faith to this user's edits is to assume they are burdened with twisted social norms. Looks trollish to me. I don't see a long WP career in their future. Tiderolls 10:24, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
  • After looking at the deleted dif I would have to say he's here for "trollz and lulz". The intent of the post IMHO was to generate classic usenet style "flames". (groups like talk.feminism use to be full of crap like that) --Ron Ritzman (talk) 14:18, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Aside from the editor's claimed connection with File:Charaandlouise.jpg, isn't there a rule about not uploading photos of non-notable alleged friends? He also said something about "shagging" those stunning babes. They don't look to me like they need any carpeting, but ya never know. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:37, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm just going to flat out ask. S.G.^(GH) _ping! 13:58, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

• • • It's a a dance, BB... LessHeard vanU (talk) 14:04, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
      • Just as they nowadays say about Rock and Roll: it's music. -14:11, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

• The edit to Talk:Rape was straight vandalism. The rest of the edits are totally unconstructive, and unrelated to contributing to the encyclopaedia. I shall give a message to the user explaining what Wikipedia is and is not, and see how it goes from there. JamesBWatson (talk) 15:58, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

• I see that I was too late: the account has been indefinitely blocked while I was writing that. JamesBWatson (talk) 16:00, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

• Also indef'd on commons, for "abusing multiple accounts". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:11, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Yep. What do i want to... (talk · contribs) and Bigboysssssss (talk · contribs) are  Confirmed here on en.wiki. Also,  IP blocked. –MuZemike 01:20, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Incivility, trolling, etc

Shah 88 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Shah 88 is posting trolling insults. "Indon" is an offensive and derogatory word for Indonesians, hence this is pure trolling. There are other references to "Indonesian barbarians", etc. I'm not aware of the full history but he's recently been the subject of a wikiquette alert. While i removed his placement of userboxes on article talk pages, I haven't been involved with him and these insults were directed at other not me (I'm often mistaken for an Indonesian on wikipedia). --Merbabu (talk) 13:29, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

PS - additional diffs. [19]], [[20]], and even in his [summaries|]http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Malaysia_national_football_team&diff=prev&oldid=408566146%7Cedit summaries. He's been asked nicely to calm down. --Merbabu (talk) 13:33, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Response to ANI notice. --Merbabu (talk) 13:35, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I've issued a 24 hour block. User:ErrantX has nominated the image for deletion on Commons. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:05, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. --Merbabu (talk) 14:06, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

It occurs to me that if the graphic had said "African-Americans are trash", the indef-hammer would have been brought down swiftly. 24 hours for such blatant racism/ethnicism is way too generous. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:08, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, speaking of personal attacks, that's pretty insulting, Bugs. I don't typically hand out indef blocks to people who have clear block records after three years of editing unless a pattern is demonstrated. I'm sorry if you perceive me as being racist; certainly, I don't think I've ever done anything to support that view. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:12, 19 January 2011 (UTC)Thanks, Bugs, for clarifying. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:45, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Clarification: In no way did I intend to paint Moonriddengirl as racist. I hold the admin in high esteem. I merely argued that 24 hours seems too lenient for such outrageous ethnic bashing. Certainly the editor can be given a longer or indefinite block if such behavior is repeated. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:42, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

The user has stated very clearly as a Malaysian an attitude towards Indonesians and is not the slightest concerned that such an attitude does not fit with editing on Wikipedia - I would consider that sufficient room for sterner caution, regardless of whether the comments and behaviour was for one day, or only a few edits SatuSuro 14:50, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

If the editor learns nothing from his block, he'll be back here, and with a longer block the next time. The editor can choose to be cooperative, or he can choose not to edit here any more. It's up to him at this point. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:05, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

FWIW, his continued use of the slur here is concerning. It was uploaded to Commons after his block here and after he received notice that his prior image had been nominated for deletion. SatuSuro, you're an admin on Commons; can anything be done about an image name that embeds such slurs? Can it be moved? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:27, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Between MRG and me, we've arrived at the conclusion that it depicts Malay fans stepping on a banner or scarf that says "Indonesia". Taken in isolation, it could be the same as a Red Sox fan stepping on a Yankees pennant. But is it strictly sports, or is it more than that? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:30, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Ok so much chatter here and hes back as a sock User:Indog and in good form - sorry cannot answer about commons - will be back about 10 to 12 hours - way past my sleep time SatuSuro 15:57, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I've blocked the sock and indeffed the name account. It's so blatant I'd be likely to wonder if it was an impersonator if it were not for the slur at File:Pijak mafla indon.jpg. That makes it look more like a colossal act of burning bridges. I'll see if a checkuser can identify a range, but a rangeblock may have unacceptable collateral damage. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:04, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

 Done http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Pijak_mafla_indon.jpg&action=delete - cheers SatuSuro 16:06, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

(Having been invited here to check) It looks fairly  Unlikely that User:Indog and User:Shah 88 are related. The only commonality here is the same country. –MuZemike 18:40, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, MuZemike. I've reset the block for 24 hours, and I'll leave another admin to decide what response to his unblock request is appropriate. It looks like somebody was trying to take advantage of this situation to give him the boot, unless it was somebody sharing his anger at the subject of harassment, but either way it was not Shah. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 19:45, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Could be a meatpuppet though. Said editor had previously tried to recruit another editor to his cause in order to circumvent 3RRR [21]. Zhanzhao (talk) 01:42, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Another account

This account which was blocked last week has a similarly offensive user name, the same modus operandi, similar targets, etc. Could a check user be performed to see whether there is technical evidence to back up the behavioural evidence. many thanks --Merbabu (talk) 00:41, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Might as well add the just-blocked User:Indon babu belanda to this. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:36, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

OK. I'm looking at a rather busy IP range with other uninvolved editors who share similar user agents, but I am not seeing any proof that the IPs I am looking at are from a library, computer lab, etc. That being said, Shah 88 (talk · contribs) and Indon sial (talk · contribs) are  Likely, probably closer to  Confirmed when looking at the behaviors. Indon babu belanda (talk · contribs) is  Inconclusive, but that account was abusing an open proxy. –MuZemike 21:21, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

And another

Further - 16:10 (21st) (User creation log) . . Naughtiestboy (talk | contribs) new user account

this user and their behaviour might need to be closer examined when we see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Naughtiestboy - Why choose those three pages to do that to if it isnt the same source? SatuSuro 09:16, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Indefblocked as vandalism only account. Keep 'em coming. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 09:36, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

New trolling by Shah 88...

I'm not going to respond on a troll's page, so I'm putting it here for the opinion of others. User:Shah 88 has now posted the flags of several separatist movements in Indonesia. Here Remember, Malaysian Shah has been goading an Indonesian editor. I'm not Indonesian, so it's not getting to me, but I (and obviously Shah) know how very sensitive the issue of separatism is to Indonesians, and in a way that westerners may not understand. For Indonesians, their unitary state is like an article of religious faith.

There was also this link he posted to a Chinese Malaysian editor alleging a lack of patriotism amongst Indian and Chinese Malaysians. diff and the actual link.

I haven't been involved with this editor until I commented here about his attacking of another editor (Gunkarta) I'm familiar with. And surprise surprise, right on cue, I'm also the target of the 2 or 3 offensive vandals that have sprung up wherever Shah goes.

So irrespective whoever these alleged Shah impersonators are, the Shah account itself clearly hasn't learnt much from their 24 hour block. --Merbabu (talk) 10:39, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I've indeffed him. Given the likelihood confirmed by checkuser above that he did create User:Indon sial and his continued provocative actions, I think at this point WP:AGF is exhausted and it is up to him to convince us that he is willing and able to participate in a collegial manner, no matter who is editing alongside him. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:33, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Request for assistance from neutral admin on AE Jmh649

I have recently filed a request on AE [22] and as has happened twice in the past the same admin. has shown up. I deal with a user who is in clear violation of an arbitration multiple times, yet Future Perfect dismisses the case as frivolous. If this case is frivolous then Arbitration might as well close up shop. Is there an admin who will take the time to look at this case and the arbitration it is based on and give thoughtful reading of what is going on. I'm not sure if I'm on the right Notice Board please direct me if not.(olive (talk) 10:42, 21 January 2011 (UTC))

Having read the the request, looked at the diffs and read much of the article page, I concur that the request is not actionable. It seems to me that Doc James and others are doing a good job of ensuring the article properly reflects NPOV in describing the actual state of independent scientific research into the health benefits of TM. Principle 10 of the Arbcom decision states "Peremptory reversion or removal of material referenced to reliable sources and added in good faith by others, is considered disruptive when done to excess. This is particularly true of controversial topics where it may be perceived as confrontational." I see no evidence that the edits complained of have been "peremptory" or "done to excess", or that the sources removed were in fact "reliable sources" for the claims they were making. Therefore there is no clear violation of WP:ARBTM. We have to distinguish legitimate article improvement from disruptive editing; Arbcom have never even remotely suggested that the former should be restricted by provisions designed to deal with the latter. EyeSerene^talk 12:06, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Olive, I think what the admins on AE are trying to point out is that the case did not say "You may never remove content that cites a source", it said "You shouldn't regularly remove content that sites a source without good reason". We would never say the former - not everything that can be sourced is appropriate for an article. Jmh649 has explained his reasons for those removals and they seem soundly based on Wikipedia policies. He's also pointed out places where some of these removals were discussed and in each case he provided, the consensus was that his actions were proper. If the community decides that the material isn't appropriate for the article or including it violates a policy, then Jmh649 is well within bounds to remove the material. Shell ^babelfish 12:08, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid there's an active double standard in play here and no Doc is not representing the research accurately fairly or honestly. One would have to spend some time with the studies and the body of research to see what he is doing. I'm shocked that not only is he getting away with this, but that the arbitration is being interpreted differently dependent on who you are. I don't refer to the comments here. Thanks for your comments. I appreciate the time spent. (olive (talk) 12:58, 21 January 2011 (UTC))

Notification

I wish there was a way, editors could know when a monarchial bio articles is facing an RM. The idea of having to have hundreds of such articles on my watchlist, is daunting. GoodDay (talk) 20:26, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

New user neutrality board

I've gone ahead and set up Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard/users (WP:NPOVNU). I've done this in response to concerns that we see all the time, namely that editors have no clear recourse for dealing with accounts that persistently and aggressively push a point of view in violation of NPOV, but who violate no other policies.

The point of the board should be as an alternative to a user RfC, or one step before it. In the case of users who don't realize they're perceived as regularly violating NPOV, the board could act as a gentle corrective, perhaps making further dispute resolution unnecessary. My thinking is that we could try it for an experimental period—say, six months—then decide whether it's worth keeping. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 20:59, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh lord, I fear there are more problems with that than its worth. Lets give it a try, may be my concerns are unfounded The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 21:13, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think this is a good idea at all, and have explained why (briefly) on the talk page. I'll see what others think before commenting further - I think debate is probably better conducted there than here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:16, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Not opposed to this, yet. The issue should be handled at RFCU but that is almost never helpful. This alternative, maybe. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Why not? What's wrong with any idea that is an experimental alternative (apparently optional) step before our very first completely toothless step in DR? ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 23:15, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

SlimVirgin proposed this board in the middle [Later clarification: someone else's] (failed) WP:COIN which I believe was retaliatory against me for a Wikiquette complaint. The editor repeatedly has stated he wants me to stop editing certain articles, even though his POV is clearly very strong. So look for a battle of the edit diffs there! For this reason alone I think it should AfD until it is approved by the community.

The board has this tag, but does not link to the specific policy under which it was created so we can learn what that policy is. A search of the word “trial” was not helpful. Please direct us to the appropriate spot here and in the template. CarolMooreDC (talk) 23:45, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

{{Trial policy}}

Hang on, Carol, what you posted above was misleading, because it implies I brought a complaint to COIN against you. I commented on COIN that a neutrality board might be a good idea, but nothing more. The board idea is not connected to you or any other user. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 00:13, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

{insert reply} I corrected the unintended confusion to make it clear that another editor (whose WP:ANI against me had already failed) originated the WP:COIN where I first saw your proposal. You have not stated that you brought the proposal up anywhere else before proposing it there and creating it within 24 hours or so. You still haven't made clear exactly under what guidelines this board was originated. It sure sounds like anyone can start a noticeboard and I got a very narrow and specific one I'd like to start. :-)

It should be noted that in May 2009 SlimVirgin more formally proposed the rather similar Wikipedia:Neutrality_enforcement - to be applied to the Israel-Palestine issue. The proposal failed with a red X. So maybe it's easier to just do the proposal and ignore the screaming from other editors later. I'm just waiting for someone who wasn't under attack when it was created to Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Miscellaneous it. CarolMooreDC (talk) 04:34, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Can I point out that there appears to be a serious problem with this, as has just been noted on the 'neutrality board' talk page: this 'noticeboard' is proposing to implement a policy that doesn't as yet exist. It appears to be based on the assumption that someone working within Wikipedia policy can still be 'tried' for 'non-neutrality'. This runs counter to basic Wikipedia norms as I understand it, which suggests that the content not the contributor should be the concern. Unless and until Wikipedia policy is changed to reflect this (which I would oppose most strongly), this 'board' has no justification to start touting for business, and has about as much credibility as a recent attempt at a 'talk page straw poll' kangeroo court (which incidentally seemed to be involving some of the same issues, if not necessarily the same people). AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:44, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

That template was thoroughly misleading, it gave the impression that board had some kind of weight or recognition in policy. I've replaced it with a {{proposal}} template. Fences&Windows 01:17, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Now to the content - what is this for? We already have venues for dealing with neutrality. SlimVirgin seems to be getting ahead of herself. Fences&Windows 01:20, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I didn't add that template, and I don't mind which template is used. There's a discussion about the board at WT:NPOVNU. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 01:35, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Whoops that was my bungle, open to trout. No intent to mislead any one The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 16:25, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Need more noticeboards discussion

Yes, we're badly in need of more noticeboards. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 05:17, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I lolled. I admit it. un☯mi 05:21, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

You're quite right; I suggest Wikipedia:Creation and maintenance of noticeboards/noticeboard. Though really we might just need a noticeboard per user; something like Wikipedia:Noticeboard/User:Example, Wikipedia:Noticeboard/User:AnotherExample etc. Maybe every time someone posts to that board, the relevant user could get an orange notification flash up when they log in... Rd232 ^talk 14:10, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

"It is the third worry—that Wikipedia has become ossified and bureaucratic, discouraging new users from contributing—that is the greatest cause for concern. In recent years its most active contributors have become obsessed with obscure questions of doctrine and have developed their own curious jargon to describe the editing process." The Economist, 13 January 2011. MastCell ^Talk 17:36, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

True that. I've wondered sometimes whether it would be helpful for newbies in particular to have just one obvious place to go for help with absolutely anything, instead of being forced to navigate the morass of possible places, and in the process having to squeeze their concern into one of a number of well-defined boxes, where the options make great sense to experienced Wikipedians but probably rather less to newcomers. Wikipedia:Grand Central, perhaps, would either resolve the issue immediately if it's trivial, or else move it to the right place. Either way, it would include a note on the best place to go in future. Rd232 ^talk 17:56, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I quite like the "Grand Central" idea. An anything goes (as long as it's about Wikipedia) discussion page. New editors would be encouraged to go there with questions and queries. An effort should be made to keep things civil and friendly, perhaps any flame wars that develop could be encouraged to move on elsewhere. I'm aware we have similar pages, such as the Village Pump, but these don't serve the same purpose in my mind. Rehevkor ✉ 18:07, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, someone's going to point out the existence of Wikipedia:New contributors' help page and Wikipedia:Help Desk, so it may as well be me... those pages, for me, focus on more practical/technical/basic issues, and are already busy enough. Grand Central would focus more on all the other stuff - "what do I do about..." content and behavioural issues of all types. I'm also wondering if there couldn't be some clever way to set something like that up so that it wouldn't be a single, really busy, hard-to-edit page (like ANI, only maybe worse). Perhaps something involving transclusions from user talk pages or subpages. Rd232 ^talk 19:12, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

At least you left Wikipedia:Editor assistance/Requests for me to point out. :) Franamax (talk) 22:16, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Technical gizmos like new noticeboards can't possibly fix this problem, which stems from more ingrained aspects of the editing policies, resulting in a general sourpuss attitude among the regular users. If you really want to do something about the problem, the first place to start is delete all the user-talk page templates. Look for "Weiterbewegung" in the ANI archives from a few weeks ago for why this is necessary. 67.122.209.190 (talk) 06:32, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

It's now Wikipedia:Advocacy/Noticeboard

Now with 4 for and 4 against, SlimVirgin has decided it's been "Consensed" to call it the Advocacy/Noticeboard. The name change being the only thing with any thing like that kind of support. Oi! CarolMooreDC (talk) 04:37, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I generally think that experiments are a good way to go, but I'm really not sold on the concept for this board. To the extent that it's useful, it duplicates COIN and NPOVN. Beyond that, it's just another parent to whinge to about "inconvenient" editors—you know, those editors some people would like to evict from certain articles because the sources are on their side and thus they "win" an "unfair" share of content disputes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:06, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Having a noticeboard as a subpage of an essay is a bit strange. What is the main topic of this noticeboard? If it is neutral point of view then it should be a subpage of that policy. If it is "advocacy" we should strengthen commmunity consensus on the advocacy page (at least rework it and get it up to guideline status) before creating the "advocacy noticeboard". I think this latter idea would be a good goal to push towards. ThemFromSpace 08:25, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

"What is the main topic of this noticeboard?" It appears to be Carolmooredc (talk · contribs) 212.183.140.51 (talk) 08:48, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I have to admit that it does look like this was in reposnse to a failier of a COI report when it was pointed out that a uiser was not in fact in brerach of COI but may have been in breach of advocacy.Slatersteven (talk) 13:24, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Taking the fullness of the context into account, the board creation looks dangerously close to harassment of a specific user. At any rate, Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Advocacy/Noticeboard. Rd232 ^talk 13:32, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/dispute resolution might be a more useful way to go, so I've created that. Rd232 ^talk 13:52, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Bad faith assumptions abound here: I suggest that editors opining look beyond the obvious COIs in some of the statements above (and suggest that those issuing such bad faith assumptions knock it off). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:11, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Notice it is up for deletion

The article is now up at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Advocacy/Noticeboard . CarolMooreDC (talk) 19:53, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Latest socks of Limbeone

The latest in a long series of socks of blocked Limbeone (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) seem to include UniversityNet (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), AcademicAssoc (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), GroupAccad (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), AcademicNet (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), HistoryUnit (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Can someone do the honours with an WP:SPI and blocks, please? The modus operandi includes references to "Central European Waste Management" and "Frederick von Strasser", but the succession of press releases last month seem to be the only internet references, and the predecessor companies' names also appear fictitious, so I believe the whole thing to be a spoof. Regardless of the vandalism, the string of edits by new accounts yesterday seem fairly strong evidence of socking. - David Biddulph (talk) 12:53, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

See also this and this previous ANI reports. - David Biddulph (talk) 13:01, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I have filed the SPI. In the future, couldn't you just do it yourself? It's quite simple now, with the newest process that uses on Delta's bot. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 14:37, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Whoops I seem to have filed a duplicate, my one has diffs of evidence though, Burpel your one has just a link to this ANI thread and some comments--Lerdthenerd wiki defender 14:53, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Truthtell9986 is the master here, actually. I just closed the case at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Truthtell9986; all were blocked and tagged. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 15:31, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Pixel size of a thumbnail for an infobox

Before I find myself in a full-fledged edit war, I want to get others' opinions on what an appropriate size for an image in a high school infobox should be. User:Veldin963 uploaded a self-taken photograph to Haddon Township High School and put it in the infobox. He made the pixel size 400px before I repeatedly attempted to reduce its size (at first to 200px, but the past several edits to 265px as a "compromise" of sorts). Now he doesn't make any edits at all unless it's changing the image size back to 400px.

The reason I'm bringing this issue here is because, in the foreseeable future, this issue will never go away. I personally think 400px is obscenely big for a thumbnail in an infobox. If people want to see the photo more clearly, all they have to do it click on it. Can others please chime in and settle this once and for all? Thank you. Jrcla2 (talk) 14:06, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

WP:MOS#Images says that lead images should not really be greater than 300px. Have you tried to talk to this user about the issue? --Errant ^(chat!) 14:33, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but I couldn't find the part of MOS that stated that, so I didn't really have a factual back-up when trying to address the issue. It was more akin to "I know I'm right, but I don't have (can't find) the link to prove it". Jrcla2 (talk) 14:40, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Considering the blandness of the photo, smaller is better. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:47, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Not to mention it looks like a grainy cell phone pic. Jrcla2 (talk) 14:50, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

At first I thought it was the school's loading dock area. In any case, the current size of 265 seems tolerable. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:11, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (infoboxes) - 300 pixels is the recommendation. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 14:56, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

The current image at 265px fits nicely in the infobox. I see there has been no attempt to first resolve this issue yet on the article talk page. Kudpung (talk) 15:02, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant to say that 300 pixels is the maximum - as it happens I agree with Kudpung that the 265 looks nice, and that it should be discussed on the article talkpage. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 15:04, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Once this discussion is wrapped, can't we just copy/paste this conversation to the talk page as future reference for other editors? Jrcla2 (talk) 15:18, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

It looks it pretty much is wrapped. Maybe just a summary note, citing the maximum allowable size of such a picture? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:47, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I've linked this discussion on the talkpage for you: [23]. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 15:57, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Generally, setting any specific pixel size is annoying. It's best to not specify any pixel size at all, so that the user's preferences control it. The MOS used to say something like that but has apparently been edited. Certainly in the absence of an actual consensus about the image size for that school, I'd say to omit the image size and leave it at the software's default. 67.122.209.190 (talk) 16:17, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Which you did, and that was good. At any size, the place looks like an old abandoned grocery store, but presumably the uploader is proud of his school (or his picture, anyway). But there's no reason to go outside the default size, especially on a low-notability building. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:46, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Possible legal threat

The following talk page edit appears to be a legal threat:

"remove, not sourced, slander Darkstar1st (talk) 16:41, 19 January 2011 (UTC)"[24]

I asked the editor to delete this comment.[25] However he has not done so, nor replied.

TFD (talk) 18:17, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Unless I misunderstand, Darkstar1st is suggesting the Tea Party was being 'slandered'. Since he/she presumably doesn't represent them, I can't really see how this could be a legal threat. A bad choice of words, and possibly violating WP:CIVIL, but not worth fussing over, surely? AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:24, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

tfd, this is the 5th ani, in 8 months you leveled against me. do you have a problem with my editing, or politics? the tp as astroturf is laughable. Darkstar1st (talk) 18:27, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Strictly speaking and based on the grammar used, it's an invitation to slander Darkstar1st... a_man_alone (talk) 18:28, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I never said that the TPM is "astroturf". But you should not accuse other editors of slander. Calling their views "laughable" is also uncivil. TFD (talk) 18:35, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I think this clears up the original question. No one believes this is an actual threat to take legal action therefore there's no need to handle it per WP:NLT. Any debate centers around is it uncivil and if so how uncivil was it.--Cube lurker (talk) 18:41, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Incivility and ridiculous hyperbole, yes. Legal threat, not really, no. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:42, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

TFD, you really need to ease off on your efforts to drag Darkstar1st to ANI. It's giving the appearance that you're taking every opportunity to "catch" him in some technical violation or another. What you're doing is bordering on harassment at this point. I understand you don't like him, and you two have obvious political differences, but try to relax a little. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 18:54, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Edit warring again over the placement of the Jared Lee Loughner pic

UGH. This is starting to get ugly. Need some eyes over there to stop the edit warring.--Jojhutton (talk) 18:59, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, this has been going on for days now and a comment was even made on Jim Wale's talk page User talk:Jimbo Wales#Loughner question over the free use the image has which even after the debate was closed as no consensus continues to be debated. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 19:14, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

A bunch of American editors think their lunatic killer is somehow more important than other countries? No surprise there then. Black Kite (t) (c) 19:34, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps assassination attempts are more commonplace and ordinary where you come from? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:02, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Unlikely, handguns are illegal here. Perhaps a lesson to be learnt from, oh wait ... Black Kite (t) (c) 20:04, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Right. Where handguns are illegal, they restrict themselves to bombs, which is a big improvement. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:08, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Right ;) see A Right to Bear Glocks?. And see Assassins (musical). Cheers, Jack Merridew 20:12, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

The picture has now been moved from the infobox to the section on the arrest, and that appears like the right thing to do. I asked Wales the question (an hour before the discussion was closed) since I figured he would give an interesting and insightful answer... which he did. Everyone interested in this matter should read it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:47, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't see a rationale as to why it is the right thing to do, absent any clear policy or guideline on the matter.--Jojhutton (talk) 19:50, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

It's in the discussion, and Wales also makes the point that those who argue that a free replacement should be easy, should put their money where their mouths are and get to work on finding one. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:55, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Loughner has been a normal citizen until recently, a free image clearly exists, end of argument. We're not talking Osama Bin Laden here. Black Kite (t) (c) 20:05, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

"A free image clearly exists"? Prove it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:10, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't agree with that either. If there was a free pic already uploaded, then I can see the rationale of not using this pic, but since there is none available to use at the moment, this pic is all we got, and can't assume there are free ones available.--Jojhutton (talk) 20:17, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

No, our policy asks only if a free image is possible to obtain; if yes we have no legitimate fair use claim. There is nothing that lets us keep a non-free image till a free one is obtained. Policy is clear on this. Policy is also explictly clear in that for BLP subject we almost always assume a free image is available. Photographs of this man almost certainly exist, it is completely possible we may be able to obtain one in time. That is enough. There is no need to prove a free image exists, just like there is no rush to obtain one. Jimbo gave some good advice I think; there is ample time to get us an image, but the mugshot is definitely of interest in another part of the article. And the FUR for that part of the article is very sound. --Errant ^(chat!) 20:26, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I protected the article while this is being settled. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:54, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

OK; me, I'll just edit something else ;) and wave at Wikipedia:Appeals to Jimbo. Cheers, Jack Merridew 20:08, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Admin Fainites intervention

After a discussion I had with administrator Fainites on his talk page regarding his decitions, I had come to a conclusion that reporting the incident here would be more appropriate. Resumingly, Fanites has intervened in a situation where he ended up severily punishing one side and providing support and protection to a continuos disruptive behavior by another user.

• It all begin on January 8th, when Faintes blocked User:Слободни умјетник for reverting 3 times (logical block, here), but fails to block User:DIREKTOR that made a total of 7 reverts in those same 24 hours. (see: revision history of Yugoslav Front)
• In the following days discussions took place on article´s talk page, and several other users and a bot edit the article (all minor edits). User Слободни умјетник makes a first edit (after block) on January 15th where he simply corrects the articles translation to another language, and is followed by DIREKTOR´s reverting of him, 3 other editors and a bot. Next, Слободни умјетник reverted direktor´s reverting, and direktor reverted Слободни умјетник. At the end, Слободни умјетник end´s up blocked by Fainites for a week, and direktor has his version protected.
• Also, and during the time discussions took place, Слободни умјетник has civily participated, but direktor has been in the meantime canvassing as seen here, further edit-warring on other related articles, as seen here, phalsely acusing other users of socking (here and here), even after a clear indication by Fainites not to phalsly acuse of socking, as seen here, joining several coments with clear ethnic provocation donne in several ocasions on the discussions on article´s talk page.

Resumingly, how can User:Слободни умјетник be blocked for a week for one "revert of a revert", and User:DIREKTOR is not blocked and his version protected after edit-warring several users 9 times on that article, 5 times on a related one, phalsely and purpously acusing of socking even after his attention being called for this, canvassing, and exploring ethnical prejudice in several ocasions? Anyway, all this is well explained in a conversation I had with Fainites on his talk page: User talk:Fainites#Article_protection. FkpCascais (talk) 15:33, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think there is any complaint against Fainites personally, from reading that discussion he seems to have been very patient in explaining his decision to you. You are asking AN/I to review whether Fainites was correct in his underlying decision, rather than alleging personal misconduct in his admin capacity, am I correct?--Wehwalt (talk) 16:00, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

You mean the explanation how this edit is "editing the infobox" (and woth a week long block) while all others done by direktor are acceptable? He has been patient, but he has failed to explain it. He has also failed to correct the situation, so it may be considered personal missconduct and admin abuse, specially if we have in mind how a new editor receved such a hard punishment thus indirectly being disencouraged to edit further, and a problematic and disrupting editor receved protection. FkpCascais (talk) 16:11, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

For background - this and this is how it started. I don't have much to add to what is on my talkpage. I blocked Слободни умјетник the second time because, after I had stopped the earlier edit-war about the info box and helped along a discussion on the Yugoslav Front talkpage about the infobox in which all parties have joined, Слободни умјетник chose to change the info-box again, before the discussions had reached a satisfactory conclusion. DIREKTOR and Fkp are at least seriously discussing the issue and making proposals. I appreciate that I was concentrating on the infobox war and other edits have been reverted as collateral damage as it were. However, in the circumstances the continuation of the edit war over where the Chetniks go in the infobox seemed particularly egregious to me.Fainites ^barleyscribs 17:06, 20 January 2011 (UTC)Fainites ^barleyscribs 16:55, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Fkp does not fully understand Wikipedia policies and guidelines (WP:BRD). User:FkpCascais feels that he should be allowed to team-up with a pal and game the system by using WP:3RR to push any edit they like. What we're seeing is essentially rage at being thwarted in the attempt.

Edit-warring is NOT a means by which we achieve article changes, Fkp. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 19:05, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

• Ah, an ANI complaint about User:DIREKTOR - it really is 2011 in Wikiland. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:51, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

It is not against direktor, but against admins that tolerate and protect his disruption. You also had a similar one last year, didn´t you Less? FkpCascais (talk) 21:51, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

And no Fainites, Слободни умјетник did not "changed the infobox", he only did two edits, one simple edit (first edit) and a revert (second edit) an from what I understand you want to show the second edit (the reverting of direktors reverting of several users) as "editing the infobox". FkpCascais (talk) 01:52, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

On first inspection, as an uninvolved admin, it appears that Direktor hasn't done anything wrong here. Everyone pushed a little hard by our usual standards, but Слободни умјетник pushed the hardest and the only person to clearly pass the line by which I'd sanction someone.

The WP:ARBMAC arbitration case sanctions could allow us to be more interventionistic here and sanction all of you, technically, but I don't know what that would prove. It wouldn't be preventive - Direktor and FkpCascais seem both to be doing about the right thing now on content / actual edits fronts.

I think this was a good call by Fainites. If it wasn't, then you need to convince us with a better history including diffs; having stepped through all the disputed edits on the article, but without extensive context and references review, I conclude that it appears that he acted properly. If you think he didn't, you have somewhat of a burden of proof to demonstrate so in detail. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 02:59, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

The diffs are well provided. The story is quite clear. Direktor by doing 7 reverts in less than 24 hours, further reverts in other related articles, canvassing and making phalse acusations of socking has donne nothing wrong? And Fainites blocked another user for "editing the infobox" when he didn´t edited the infobox? Strange... FkpCascais (talk) 05:25, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes he did edit the infobox again in the middle of discussions Fkp. You did first on the 10th and I reverted you. And yes - I could have blocked all 3 of you for edit-warring earlier but you and DIREKTOR stopped, apologised and were discussing constructively. Fainites ^barleyscribs 09:09, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

FkpCascais, looking at what you've provided you haven't proven your case. Unless there are some other diffs you can provide, I think this should be marked as resolved. AniMate 09:23, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

No Fainites, that is NOT "editing the infobox" as all here can see, but reverting. Anyway, if you consider that edit to be "editing the infobox", so should be considered the previous one from Direktor, here. AniMate, again doing the best to close a thread where direktor is in question. FkpCascais (talk) 11:57, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Two can play that game: FkpCascais, again trying very hard to get DIREKTOR sanctioned in order to one-up him in an edit dispute.--Atlan (talk) 13:38, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

No, and I already said, I am trying to sanction admins that provide support for direktors disruption. Atlan, I was wandering when are you going to defend him. Same team as in other previous reports. FkpCascais (talk) 14:39, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Fkp - technically, I can see what you mean. But this isn't a technical decision. The point is - the version at the end of the first edit war was, I thought, the one with the Chetniks in the Axis box and the note saying nominally allies 41 - 43. It should not have been changed during the discussions. The proposal I made put them in their own column. I am not supporting anybody's disruption. I am trying to broker an infobox you can all agree on so there is a reduction in edit warring. It is painfully obvious you people are never going to actually agree about the Chetniks but the situation of swapping them from one side to the other or having them, bizarrely, under both Allies and Axis has to stop. You are all supposed to be mediating about the Chetniks as we speak and you are all barely civil to each other at the best of times. No admin doing their best is going to satisfy all of you all of the time.Fainites ^barleyscribs 15:24, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I still can´t see a valid reason for one user being blocked for a wrong reason, while another user has far more disruption being tolerated. The content is not important here, but each other actions. And I doubt any of your last two sentences has anything to do with me. If you have any complain regarding me, please present evidence for it, otherwise please don´t leave open acusations in the air, with the purpose of distracting from the actual problem here. FkpCascais (talk) 16:10, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

To date - a number of uninvolved admins have reviewed (both what you posted, and going back to the article history), and everyone other than you seems to agree that the one blocked editor was the worst, and that though you and Direktor did some things wrong it's not worth sanctioning.

I understand that you think Direktor was worse. You've said that, several times. To date, you aren't convincing us.

If you have some stronger evidence to present either on Direktor doing something wrong or Fainites, then please present it. We are listening. If you've already presented all you had - our conclusion consensus seems to be that we don't agree with you, and that the actions so far were correct.

You and Direktor can discuss the content further on the talk page and figure out where to go with it, within the restrictions of not edit warring and so forth that I think were clearly communicated and understood. We're not telling you that the content outcome must go his way. You're free to figure that out participating as much as anyone else. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:11, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Indefblock template: do we use it or not?

Resolved

I've been commanded on my talk page to stop placing indefblock templates on the userpages of accounts that are blocked indefinitely. I want to know once and for all: if someone is blocked indefinitely, does this template get placed on their userpage or not? Or do we have special rules for special people? If the template is deprecated, it should be submitted to MfD. If it is in use, it needs to be applied consistently. There is no policy or guideline I can see that says placing this template is limited only to administrators and I see no policy or guideline that says placing it at all is "one of the worst practices on Wikipedia" and that there's no reason for it. Either we have the template and use it consistently or we deprecate it and stop using it. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 15:04, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

It's not deprecated, but neither is it something to be dropped on userpages as soon as the block hits. If the blocking admin thinks it's needed, she'll put it on -- otherwise, leave it. Over here, you placed it on the page of someone who was unblocked a few hours later. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:10, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Should we update the blocking policy to clarify that it's only to be placed at the discretion of blocking administrators? - Burpelson AFB ✈ 15:19, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Probably then. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 15:27, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Um, no. Changing policy because of one person's case of WP:IDHT is suboptimal. I've updated the template instructions. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:34, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Slapping these tags on a user page often carries more than a hint of Schadenfreude. They certainly don't stimulate calmness and reflection on the part of the user. Best reserved for cases where there the user has done serious, ongoing harm. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 16:36, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Urgh. Indefblock redirects to {{Blocked user}} which has lots of parameters which makes it quite a useful template in communicating information about a block. It is not manadatory, nor is it exclusive to indef blocked users (based on how the parameters are set, the text changes to indicate block length). The deal is, the admin that blocks the person knows about the situation well enough to know if and when such templates should be placed. Unless you are the person doing the blocking, don't add it. Period. There's no compelling need to place this willy-nilly on the userpage of every blocked user, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have its uses. The fact that someone is placing this template and not even knowing that "indefblock" is a redirect shows that they lack the depth of knowledge to be dealing in this area... --Jayron32 16:38, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Uh, I didn't know it was a template redirect now, and I've been dealing with it for several years.

Please don't assume that admins can be entirely functionally aware of all the gotchas out there. We have several thousand active users here, working diligently to surprise us in new and exciting ways ... 8-( 8-) Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:19, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Automated creation of incorrect categories

User:Rich Farmbrough is again creating pages based on some script (I hope, it is the only decent explanation for the mindlessness of many of the creations), which generates a lot of incorrect stuff. This is the same thing that happened with previous script based creations he did (see the ANI archives for other examples of this).

In its current incarnation, this lead to the creation of categories like Category:Ice T albums (we already had Category:Ice-T albums), Category:Siouxsie and the Banshees albums) (there was Category:Siouxsie & the Banshees albums already), Category:Booker T. & the M.G.s albums for Category:Booker T. & the M.G.'s albums, and so on. Some have been redirected yet, some still need to be cleaned out. Thirteen categories he created between January 11 and today have been deleted. But this isn't a new problem, he created a number of similar categories in December as well, e.g. Category:Records albums. Over 200 were created and deleted at that time, but he doesn't seem to have learned from that experience.

The Category:Various albums was created, deleted, and recreated, apparently because some infoboxes list the artist for albums as "Various". We now have three articles with this stupid category, with the category explanation "This category contains albums by Various."

This is the umpteenth example of this editor creating a mess for others to clean up, because his scripts aren't tested enough and his edits aren't checked manually (or not good enough).

Can we please have an edit restriction on any automated, semi-automated, or appearing-to-be-automated page creation (articles, categories, templates, ...) for this user? Fram (talk) 10:12, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. I am finding this all a little bit insane. I have had to delete a fair number of duplicates—overall, there is a gross amount of duplication going on through this process. Nearly every category I check has some sort of problem—either a duplication, or an incorrectly spelled name, or something. The user is also creating categories for labels that do not have articles on WP, while consensus at CFD has generally been that if a label has no WP article, it should not have a category for its albums. More care and/or thought needs to go into the creation of these categories, so please, yes, no more of this category creation via script. It's creating more problems than it is solving. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 10:39, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

• Comment: Wikipedia:BOTPOL#Mass_article_creation technically only applies to articles; I'd suggested extending it to categories the last time this happened, but didn't make the effort to really push it as a proposal. In any case, given that existing policy and Rich's existing editing restrictions, it seems entirely sensible and a small step to amend those restrictions and declare that for Rich, the policy covers mass creation in any namespace. In addition, somebody might make the effort to propose amending the policy, which seems a sensible move to me. Rd232 ^talk 11:56, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
  • All good ideas, in my opinion. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 13:25, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

• Comment:
  • December The creations in December were all of categories that had members and yet were non-existent (red-linked categories). They were done in such a way that if the category became empty it was categorised as such and could be dealt with. In most cases that meant deletion.
  • January Some of the categories created needed emptying, which has been done by an assiduous user. I deleted those that were emptied, however many had been created before, and I therefore re-created them as category redirects. There is an automated process that moves articles between cat redirects and their targets, since people have used these categories before it seems wise to have the redirection.
  • Note: There is a lot of inconstancy over naming of record label articles, also there are notable labels (e.g. Compost Records) for which there are strangely no album articles, and (e.g. Authentik Artists) for which there are album articles but a persistent deletion of the label article. Also Category:Siouxsie and the Banshees albums is the correct location, (speedy rename being requested). Rich Farmbrough, 12:53, 13 January 2011 (UTC).
    

• Comment. I don't think it's much of a defence to say that the December creations were just "red-linked categories" and thus it was OK to create them. Some of the categories were obviously inappropriately named, and many were misspelled duplicates of pre-existing categories. Users need to use judgment and put some thought into creating categories—like making sure a category does not exist for the same thing already—as opposed to just creating something because it was red-linked. When you see two categories—Category:Ice-T albums and Category:Ice T albums on the same article as I did earlier today, you know someone's putting close to zero thought into the application of what they are doing. This type of problem was repeated many numerous times. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 13:25, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

"The creations in December were all of categories that had members and yet were non-existent (red-linked categories)." So why did you create and delete e.g. Category:Universals Records albums twice in two days? Someone repopulated it between the first deletion and second creation? Or wasn't your script list updated yet? Or the misspelled Category:Warnern Music Group video albums, which you created, modified three times, then deleted one minute after your last modification, only to recreate it three hours later and redelete it one hour after that again? Anyway, if categories are redlinked, the answer is not to automatically create these ctageories, but to check whether they are actually needed or just e.g. misspellings. That would avoid the creation in the same minute of Category:Switchblad Symphony albums, Category:Swithcblade Symphony albums and Category:Switchblade Symphony albums... No one has a problem with you generating a list of potentially needed categories, such a list is useful. But the automated creation clearly leads to many problems which could be very easily avoided, like the creation of misspelled categories. Fram (talk) 13:46, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes as you can see, as part of that exercise, extensive tidying up took place. The remaining categories from that exercise are

1. Category:1971 live live albums 0
2. Category:1976 Christmas albums 3
3. Category:1978 studio albums 0
4. Category:1997 (band) albums 1
5. Category:22-20s albums 5
6. Category:Alternative albums 0
7. Category:Anti-folk albums 23
8. Category:At the close of every day albums 0
9. Category:Christian alternative rock albums 46
10. Category:Northstar hip hop albums 0
11. Category:Samba albums 29
12. Category:Slapstick albums 0

perhaps you would like to resolve these flawlessly. Rich Farmbrough, 15:39, 13 January 2011 (UTC).

No thank you, I have cleaned up after you often enough. Fram (talk) 15:51, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Well these categories are nothing to do with me, I did not create or delete them, nor did I categorise anything in them. I was just suggesting something positive for you to do. Rich Farmbrough, 16:59, 13 January 2011 (UTC).

Thanks, but I have enough positive things to do here, like creating articles and so on. I guess that most people who have had to tag, correct or delete your incorrectly created categories also have enough positive things they would rather do, but maintaining an encyclopedia doesn't just involve creations and additions, but also removing the mess created by others, and making sure that they'll create less mess the next time around. Your latest category creation of this type, Category:Chikayo Fukuda albums is already up for deletion (not by me, by yet another editor who seems to have problems with your creations), so you are still continuing this mess, despite the obvious objections of many people (and who in his right mind wouldn't object against the creation of a category like Category:Spigot Records, In-Effect Records albums? Fram (talk) 19:02, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

• A particularly brutal example from today: Category:Mr. Bear Records, reissued on Spigot Records albums. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 14:38, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Rich Farmbrough has now recreated Category:Yngwie J. Malmsteen albums, which was deleted at CfD (Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 March 23), created by Rich Farmbrough yesterday, and deleted by Good Olfactory this morning. He added it to the article Rising Force[26], which already had the correct Yngwie Malmsteen cat as well, and removed it again from that article some minutes later[27], at the same time changing the correct link to Jens Johansson to the redlink Jenshansson (presumably by trying to remove all instances of " J" from the article). That same removal of " J" resulted in changing the correct French interwikilink to an incorrect one as well. Note that all this happend with the edit summary "(Correct caps in section header.)", which was one thing that didn't happen at that article. Can someone please just stop this loose cannon now? Fram (talk) 19:31, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Rich even said to someone on his talk page offering to help clean up after him re the creation of bad categories Also might be worth watchlisting them in case I re-create them. What the hell? I've gone ahead, based on discussion, continuity with prior issues and a large dose of oh-for-god's-sake boldness, and amended Rich's editing restriction to prohibit unauthorised mass page creation in any namespace. I would expect the restriction to be temporary by virtue of soon being superseded by an amendment to Wikipedia:BOTPOL#Mass_article_creation. I would be heartily grateful if (a) we didn't waste any more time on this particular case of this problem; (b) Rich accepts the amendment; (c) someone else does the heavy lifting on moving forward the policy change. If/when it happens, the new restriction should be removed as redundant.

Of course, if anyone feels that this was too bold, and requires more discussion before reaching this outcome, well, go nuts. You won't be doing Rich any favours, since that will entail closer examination of how his behaviour, however superlatively good faith, too often skates disruptive editing. Rd232 ^talk 20:57, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

UPDATE: did it myself. RFC at Wikipedia_talk:Bot_policy#Wikipedia:BOTPOL.23Mass_article_creation. Rd232 ^talk 19:10, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Please do something. I don't know what I was thinking when I volunteered to help. I think the intentions are good but it has become quite painstaking to go through each one. And instead of just checking/correcting them, I also attempted to populate them, too. Whether red-linked or not, I'd check "what links here" for the label to see what other albums might be there that hadn't been categorize. Not a bad thing to do, I guess, for completeness, but much more of a laborious undertaking than I realized. The latest thing I'm seeing done is the addition of album categories to film articles because it has a soundtrack section (see Rocky II as an example). Thanks. --Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars (talk) 21:18, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

The population is cool, but not essential, the categories will eventually be populated. Thanks for your help so far anyway. Rich Farmbrough, 01:07, 14 January 2011 (UTC).

I fully support Rd232's amendment. But yeah, as Starcheer... says now we have the issue of tons of movie article being placed in "albums" categories because the article has a section about a movie soundtrack. I would venture to say that this would be a miscategorization. Perhaps a redirect like Rocky III (soundtrack) could be categorized in this way, but not the article Rocky III. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 00:39, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Just to ask the late arrival question... How are these categories being added? Manually, by script, or by 'bot? (One would think that category creation/addition wouldn't be done by a 'bot as it requires a degree judgment on appropriatness...) - J Greb (talk) 00:45, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

To me, it looks like script, though I am not sure. I believe it has something to do with what appears in the album template on a page, since he always seems to copy exactly what it says there, whether or not it is spelled correctly. It's not by bot I don't think—it's done through the account User:Rich Farmbrough. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 01:09, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

That's a good point Olfactory. Excellent in fact. Rich Farmbrough, 01:07, 14 January 2011 (UTC).

Rich is also repeatedly creating categories like Category:EMI albums which have explicitly been merged and deleted via CFD. He has not learned from this ANI report and seems to continue to do what he was doing before, though at a slower pace. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 00:44, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

The idea is to resolve these issues properly, rather than relying on the somatic information, if someone is creating an album article and they put in a label description that seems sensible to them they will recreate the category, or at least have to hunt for the correct one. By having a category redirect these problems can be avoided, since a.) they will see the correct category if they look and b.) Russbot will correct it if they don't. Rich Farmbrough, 01:07, 14 January 2011 (UTC).

Yeah, but you didn't create a redirect! You created a new category. You've now done it twice for this particular category and countless other times without even realizing you were creating a duplicate. Maybe you should do some hunting before you create a category in the first place. ... Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 01:09, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Or it can be built into the infobox, with a switch reading the proper parameter and adding the category. Anything not in the switch list - that is the existing categories and known likely alternate spellings and typos - gets put into a tracking cat - "Album articles with unclear lable information". It may not be the nicest solution, but it keeps scripts from (re)creating bad categories. - J Greb (talk) 01:17, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Note that the didn't only repeatedly create the EMI category, but that he also created the now empty Category:EMI Music albums as well, which is one more to delete. Fram (talk) 08:23, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

There is actually significant subtlety over EMI record labels, with nearly 100 listed on WP alone (Thorn EMI group was composed of several hundred companies), including the massive HMV, Harvest, and Columbia labels if I am not mistaken, and 1.3 million songs in their current holdings. It is by no means obvious that Wikipedia wishes to categorise some, many or all these together as your tone seems to imply. Rich Farmbrough, 15:16, 14 January 2011 (UTC).

Do I understand well that RF can create (OK) and delete (as an admin) their own pages at their own will? Not even a Speedy needed then? (Deletion of self-created pages documented: "The Category:Various albums was created, deleted, and recreated, apparently because some infoboxes list the artist for albums as "Various"." as fram wrote above), Oh these admins. -DePiep (talk) 02:40, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

As a note, and a note it is: RF is an admin and also an edit filter manager. They know what language is allowed an not. This person can block me!? -DePiep (talk) 02:53, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

If an admin is the creator and sole editor of a page, I don't see a problem with him deleting it himself, especially if it is a very recent creation. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 04:14, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

What is the status here?

Honestly, how long are we going to let a person run a bot that is so fundamentally flawed? Someone needs to dig up Kurt Cobain and inform him that, sorry, MTV Unplugged in New York is now an Iron Maiden album. Tarc (talk) 22:56, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, Rich's editing restriction was extended now to cover creation of categories by script, so I assume he won't be doing this by script anymore. Right Rich? Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 07:47, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I hope that's correct. But even if Rich does desist from doing this particular sort of task, the latest episode is a further reminder of the folly of letting an editor use an unauthorised bot which doesn't even identify itself as a bot. Unless that wider issue is tackled, we'll just have more of these problems popping up in different areas.

I don't know why Rich believes himself to be exempt from the two basic rules of bot usage (prior approval of the bot and seeking consensus for the bot's tasks) ... but it's astonishing that this has gone on so long. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:36, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh, just block him and be done with it. Does anyone believe that his creation of exactly one category per minute between January 16 20:45 and January 16 21:40 was not script-assisted automated category-creation, throttled to be at one a minute only to give a slower (non-bot like) appearance? Fram (talk) 12:27, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

My understanding is that he is now working on fixing some of the problems he created. The list he is working off of is here. (When I saw the list I thought, "holy crap"—it does give you an idea of the scope of the problem we have been dealing with.) Anyway, I asked him if he was still using the script and he said he was not. I have checked most of the recent creations and they aren't problematic like the script-assisted creations were. I am happy for him to continue if he's fixing what he broke. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 22:35, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Why, after so much drama already, is this editor running what appears to be an unauthorised bot right on the edge of what was explicitly banned? It's time that RF got a bot account, and sought approval from WP:BAG in the same way as other bot owners do. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:27, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Are you talking about right now? As far I can tell, he has not used a bot nor a script to create categories since this discussion began. He's (manually) working on this list, he tells me, so the real issue at this stage is if that is OK or not. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 04:11, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Taking a very small skim... I have to ask where and how he's generated/generating this list... looks like a few "Doesn't look like an preformer" are actually preformers. And I swear I see at least one "Change the category title to a redirect" hash sign included. - J Greb (talk) 04:24, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

It would be nice if Rich were actually commenting here so he could answer our questions. Maybe he needs to be invited back here. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 04:35, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I invited Rich back to comment. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 04:39, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

The reason I didn't comment here is that there was little to be served by doing so. There is a huge task in cleaning up the cats which will have to be done manually, and there are thousands on the list. Certes many are false positives, and doubtless, given band naming conventions, there are more that are not on the list - as I remarked to Good Olfactory this is a first cut. I'm not sure why J Greb " has to ask" ' where and how he's generated/generating this list... ' certainly the question would be welcome on my talk page as one of curiosity or collaboration. Putting it here looks like an attempt to keep the ANI running. Rich Farmbrough, 10:06, 19th day of January in the year 2011 (UTC).

The long and the short Rich is that the list you compiled looks like a 'bot result - little or no evaluation done, just raw data. And I'm sorry for asking it here, but this is where the general discusion is happening and the list was pointed out to the rest of the community. - J Greb (talk) 11:57, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

The list is merely, as I said, a first cut of examining all the album artists categories. And it is fairly raw, also needs updating. For these reasons it is in my userspace rather than being dropped off at WP:Albums. Many of these will be perfectly fine categories, and some that I have skipped will be wrong. However a good fraction of these need some kind of fix up. Rich Farmbrough, 18:57, 19th day of January in the year 2011 (UTC).

• This is ridiculous. If a bot account functioned the way whatever Rich is running off his main account is, it would have long since been blocked and not unblocked without assurances from the owner that it will be much more careful. This is just the latest in a string of issues caused by Rich, whom, I hasten to add, I respect deeply, but who is editing so negligently that it's disruptive. He's racked up the best part of a million edits by leaving an unattended AWB bot running 24/7 for months editing much faster than the rules allow, then there was the tagging of the Main Page (yes, the front page of the website, the one that's viewed by 6 million people a day) with {{uncategorised}} with AWB and now this. When are we going to apply the same rules to Rich as we do to everyone else? If this continues, I seriously think it's going to have to go to ArbCom if he won't follow the rules of his own accord and the community won't make him. Sorry, Rich, I've a lot of respect for you and you've done a lot of good here, but the rules are there for a reason. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 04:34, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

  What is ridiculous is that an issue that was being discussed between me and Good Olfactory on my talk page gets dragged here by the user who's actions recently caused the departure of an esteemed colleague. I am certainly glad to see this particular "incident" is not gathering the same level of hostility from bystanders, it is still wearing and unnecessary.

  The difference between a polite and friendly conversation started by Good Olfactory, and involving people who actually work on the albums (notably Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars), and bringing something to ANI speaks to collegial behaviour vs. battleground behaviour. For myself I prefer the former. Rich Farmbrough, 10:06, 19th day of January in the year 2011 (UTC).
  

  Rich, thanks for explaining your views on the tone of HJ Mitchell's comment's.

  However, HJ Mitchell is not the only editor to express concern about your use of a bot which from your main account, without prior approval per WP:BOTPOL. That's a legitimate ANI issue, and it would be helpful if you would respond to the substance of those concerns. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:46, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

  It's not a comment on the tone of HJ Mitchell's comment's, and I'm sorry you would read it that way. In terms of the suggestion about running an AWB bot I assiduously avoided having AWB source for years, partly because I didn't want to accidentally end up developing it, partly because, I didn't want version control issues but mainly so that I could categorically deny suggestions that I had "hacked the source." I was eventually forced to do that or be blocked. I certainly have not "left an unattended AWB bot running for months 24/7 editing much faster than the rules allow", although I understand that impression may have been formed. My average edit rate is about one edit per four minutes. Rich Farmbrough, 17:56, 19th day of January in the year 2011 (UTC).
  

  Personally I do not care how these edits are being made, only that they stop...either voluntarily by you or involuntarily via block. If edits like the one I noted at the beginning of this sub-section are still happening, then your contributions to this project are dipping into the "net negative" category. Tarc (talk) 18:02, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

  If you read the thread, you will see that that is exactly what happened, once Good Olfactory began discussing it with me. Rich Farmbrough, 18:07, 19th day of January in the year 2011 (UTC).
  

Blocked 72 hours

I have just blocked Rich for 72 hours for (repeated) violation of his edit restrictions. Clearly, they are not working, and I propose amending them by cutting the Gordian knot thusly:

• (a) Rich is banned from using AWB to carry out any tasks not specifically authorised via BRFA;
• (b) Rich is banned from applying general fixes and automated redirect replacement via AWB, except where the redirect replacement is an authorised task
• (c) all existing authorisations are revoked and must be re-applied for.

The intention is for simple, straightforward tasks like Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SmackBot 43 to be permitted with a minimum of fuss and risk, whilst more complex tasks are discussed with due care with respect to the risk of things going wrong again. Rd232 ^talk 20:24, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Will this prevent things like the addition of unsubstituted date parameters in templates, which had happened in the past, and seemed to be solved or avoided, but which happened again at least the 18th at 19:37[28] and 19:38[29] and was mentioned at his talk page at 19:59[30]; which then happened again at 22:24 the same day[31] and which I again mentioned on his talk page at 22:37[32]; and which happened yet again yesterday at 17:43[33] and 17:44[34]? It doesn't seem as if just mentioning this on his talk page has any effect, and neither had the previous blocks any lasting effect apparently. Fram (talk) 08:30, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

• Please accept my apologies for reverting Fram's comments above. I rolled back from my watchlist and must have hit this entry instead of the one I was aiming at. Completely unintended, sorry. Struway2 (talk) 09:07, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
  • We'll let it go this time. But if it happens again, we'll have to apply an appropriate punishment. Such as forcing you to watch every episode of Gilligan's Island with no commercial breaks. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:23, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
    • "Small" chance of that.[35] Doc talk 09:32, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
      • That will definitely be on my "don't miss" list. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:44, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

• I know this has been suggested before, but I really gotta ask, do we really need the bother of him here? I understand that Rich has (currently) 855,633 edits on Wikipedia, making him one of the most prolific editors here and has done alot of good, but his blocks (all of which have happened since September 2010) have been about AWB or mass-creation (at least from what I can tell) and I am not seeing much effect they have had on him. If not an outright block (of the indef kind...there I said it), then some sort of ban on using AWB (which seems to get him in trouble) and mass-creation. Just seems that it could put some of this continous problems (and ANI threads) to rest. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 09:29, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Is a bot allowed to run when its operator is blocked? User:Femto Bot is still running. One can also wonder why a task that was approved to run with a frequency of "Estimated number of pages affected: Currently 1 per run, frequency likely to be weekly or monthly" currently runs every 7 hours, and whether updating the same 55 pages for one project every 7 hours is really an effective use of resources, but that's a different discussion. Fram (talk) 21:02, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I've blocked the bot for 72 hours, I don't know the specific rules, but it seems logical to me that if someone is blocked for misusing bots the bots have to be blocked as well. I invite any admin who disagrees to unblock - I won't take offence. ·Maunus·ƛ· 21:04, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Femtobot does a number of things, you only pointed to a BRFA approval for one of its tasks. Rd232 ^talk 21:28, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but the only edits it did where for that task (it also archives RF's talk page and so on, but that was not relevant to my post). Fram (talk) 08:29, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Please just indef block him until some indication that things will really change

Thanks to User:USchick, who nominated one of the pages for speedy deletion, I just stumbled upon an example of mass article creation from September 2010. Over 100 pages were created (all of them in the Category:Queen's Awards for Enterprise, most of them empty (apart from a date) and unsourced, and since then not improved (it wouldn't be so much of a problem if he created the framework automatically, and then filled the contents manually). A typical example is The Queen's Award for Enterprise: Export & Technology (Combined) (1975). These were a violation of WP:BOTPOL#Mass article creation. Furthermore, as far as I can tell, we have e.g. the articles The Queen's Award for Enterprise: International Trade (Export) (1967), The Queen's Award for Enterprise: Innovation (Technology) (1967), and The Queen's Award for Enterprise: Export & Technology (Combined) (1967), but in reality until 1976 there only existed one award, the Queen's Award to Industry[36]. This means that we have three incorrect empty articles for that year alone, and that we lack the correct article. So that's 100 empty and possibly incorrect articles created in violation of the bot policy (23 page creation in one minute, 22:56 on 21 September 2010, is not manual...). Note that even when the article has contents it is highly unreliable, e.g. The Queen's Award for Enterprise: Export & Technology (Combined) (1971) and The Queen's Award for Enterprise: Export & Technology (Combined) (1972) have the exact same content and source? Note also in those examples how the accessdate for the source is always today, thanks to some parametrised dates..

How many more instances of such incorrect runs have gone unnoticed in his hundreds of thousands of edits? No idea, the sheer volume of his edits make any decent scrutiny next to impossible. But the more one looks at them, the more it becomes clear that the error rate is way too high and the policy violations way too frequent. Looking at his response to the block, all I see is "Your link 15 is manually corrected by me.", "The white space edit are due to AnomieBot getting there first.", and "Also the edit to Fitness boot camp does create a substantive change" (when asked what that would be, no answer followed). When the blocking admin stated "I'm tired of your excuses and playing the victim; man up and take responsibility for your actions.", his full answer was "I think I do. There is, however, an old adage, "If it ain't broke don't fix it". While I think there are limitations to that particular saying, it is born our of experience." I have corrected more than 60 of the categories he created, and many more are still in need of such correction. I now will nominate the 100 pages mentioned above for deletion. Many other people are also busy correcting the mess he created. This is a never ending problem (see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Rich Farmbrough), and short blocks are not helping at all. Fram (talk) 10:25, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

RFC?

If the following hasn't yet been tried, what about starting an RFC/U on Rich Farmbrough? RFC/Us have proven to be successful and helpful. Given the fact that the amount of (expanding) editing restrictions, ANI threads, blocks of both Rich Farmbrough and his bots, etc seemingly haven't helped, I don't expect any further editing restrictions or blocks to be helpful. HeyMid (contribs) 14:28, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't have confidence in an RfC being helpful here, it is not as if Rich Farmbrough isn't aware of what people believe is wrong with too many of his edits (AWB, bot, scripted, ...). It would just mean a month more talking about this. If other people feel that an RC truly may be useful here, they may of course create one, and I will leave my input there, but I don't think that it could achieve a lot. I may be biased by having followed some rather unsuccessful Rfc/Us, like the one about Gavin Collins, community banned a few months later, A Nobody (community banned half a year later), Benjiboi (indef blocked a year later), or the (only?) one I started, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Guido den Broeder, who was later banned, unbanned and rebanned... RfCs for well-established users with a wide range of problematic edits rarely have any success, in my opinion. They are better used to address one specific problem. Fram (talk) 14:50, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

My question wasn't whether an RFC/U would be useful or not – my question was whether starting an RFC/U would hurt anything or not. I'm well aware that several (or many) RFC/Us haven't proven to be successful, but, if I recall correctly, Nyttend's RFC/U was successful and useful. If an RFC/U on Rich Farmbrough were to be filed, I would not be the filer, as I'm very little knowledgeable about the dispute and bots. Also, Rd232 recently started an RFC regarding mass article creation by bots here. HeyMid (contribs) 16:40, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm normally a keen recommender of RFC/Us, but in this instance, the substantial repeated discussion already had at AN/ANI kindof-sortof amounted to an RFC/U. Combine this with the complexity and relative obscurity of the issues (most users don't know that much about bots/AWB) and the abundant prior feedback and Rich's attitude, and I can't see RFC/U achieving anything. However if Rich wanted one in preference to other alternatives, I'd support that, if during it he agreed not to operate Smackbot/AWB. Rd232 ^talk 04:12, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Copying content from userspace

I'm not sure of any other place to put this, or even if this is reportable. A user, Edgars2007, who by the way appears to be a native speaker of Latvian, copied content from an unfinished user page of mine (which has now been finished and "published" to Wikipedia [probably not the right words, but oh well]) to a new page that he/she "created" - List of cricket grounds in New Zealand. The content that he/she published to the page was incomplete and contained elements that were incorrect. The user does not appear to have created or edited any other pages concerned with cricket, and upon looking into it, I found that one of my edits, created at 08:50 on Jan 20, was identical to the page that he/she "created" at 09:23 on the same date, 33 minutes after my edit. I have not interacted with this user before, and he/she did not inform me that he/she was posting my (incomplete) work. I have since completed the page in my userspace and published to the page. While I am not really concerned with it, as the information would have been published any way, I do not really think it is 'right' to copy what really is my intellectual property. I am wondering if this could be looked into or if anoyone else has an opinion on this. Thank you. Bozzio (talk) 03:47, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Marked as copvio, since it's not attributed and breaks WP-licenses. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 03:58, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

While copying from another user's space is considered rude, I'm not aware of any prohibition against it. User space is completely visible and subject to the same licenses as the rest of Wikipedia. The attribution issue is being discussed at Talk:List of cricket grounds in New Zealand. Flatscan (talk) 05:32, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

You should be aware that all of the pages on Wikipedia – not just articles, and including pages in userspace – are covered by the GFDL. (It's part of Wikipedia's terms of use.) Another Wikipedia editor is free to copy anything that you've saved anywhere on Wikipedia at any time, as long as they follow the terms of the GFDL. In this particular case, the other editor failed to do so; one key requirement of the GFDL is the identification of the original author of the work. Had Edgars2007 properly credited you as the original author when he copied your draft, there would have been nothing wrong with him reproducing your work (incomplete or not) elsewhere on Wikipedia. (For that matter, the material could be reproduced anywhere else in the world, on- or off-line, as long as the copies and derivative works remained GFDL-licensed and continued to adhere to the GFDL's terms.) If you don't want to make drafts or intermediate versions available to other Wikipedia editors, then you should prepare them elsewhere. While you (as the author) retain copyright over the text that you write, the GFDL is an irrevocable license under which anyone else may use your intellectual property. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 05:25, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Co-licensed under CC-BY-SA and GFDL, per WP:Copyrights. Flatscan (talk) 05:32, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

And if it's unattributed, it's copyvio, see Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia. I've seen an editor blocked for consistently refusing to do this. Dougweller (talk) 10:35, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, that's weird. I was just coming here to post exactly the same question. A user just created Template:Userbox no-design-many, a word-for-word copy of my User:Alzarian16/UBX2 with the ID lettering changed. Same approach for that? Alzarian16 (talk) 19:05, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Curious — in general, couldn't a simple yet substantive change to the text solve everything? If you modify the text in a significant manner, it will be obvious that you've contributed to the content on the page, and you'll thus be attributed by everyone and everything that follows the terms of the license. Nyttend (talk) 01:04, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

That would probably work, since a List of authors doesn't require fine attribution for each word, but the page history would be misleading. I think it's better to fix things properly, even if that requires admin tools. Flatscan (talk) 05:26, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

This is how Wikipedia will die

[37] The users who want it to be an encyclopedia will be driven out, while the fringe POV pushers will remain.

So what admin action do I want? A review of the indefinite block and ban of jps (see above diff). Timotheus Canens wrote: >>You have declared your intent to edit "through anonymous, untraceable, unblocked proxies" to fix what you perceive to be "egregious errors", presumably in articles that are within the scope of your topic ban, namely, pseudoscience and fringe science.<< It looks to me as though Timotheus Canens assumed bad faith by presuming that jps meant articles within the scope of his topic ban. Without that assumption, the justification for this indefinite block and ban falls apart. Cardamon (talk) 07:53, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I do see that jps threatened to edit anonymously, although long ago he was told twice to never do so. Cardamon (talk) 08:45, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

If they were not articles he was banned from then why the need to edit through "untraceable proxies"? The rest of us manage to edit just fine through our normal connections. --Golbez (talk) 08:06, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not at all familiar with the history of this, but the comment which lead to the block does appear to be a clear statement of intent to use IP accounts to evade arbcom restrictions to me. Given that the editor was only topic banned (though they've recently been blocked for 3 days for evading this ban), there's no reason for them to have not used their main account to edit in areas unrelated to the block if that's their intention. All up, this looks like a good block to me. I'd also suggest that a) if Joshua P. Schroeder (talk · contribs) wants the block lifted he should ask for this and b) it would have been good form for you to have discussed this with Timotheus Canens (talk · contribs) before bringing the matter here. Nick-D (talk) 08:07, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

It really makes no difference which articles. A banned editor isn't allowed to click the "edit this page" tab for any reason, regardless of whether they use a registered account or an anonymous IP. Period. The only exception is at the beginning of their ban period where they are allowed limited access to their talk page, and even then, if they misuse this privilege for anything other than appealing their block or ban, that privilege is usually removed. Enough is enough, regardless of the editor's POV or value to the project. In this case JPS, sad to say, has revealed a spirit that just won't work here. Maybe he'll grow up someday. I hope so. -- Brangifer (talk) 08:15, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

@Nick-D I brought it here because I wanted to get multiple opinions, especially from those who have not been involved in this fiasco. While there is probably some acceptable way that jps can ask for the block to be lifted, note that his Wikibreak enforcer was set to January 16, 2012 at his request. [38] Cardamon (talk) 08:28, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Second Cardamon. As all of you commenting here should know, JPS has a wikibreak enforcer running for the time of his topic ban, which amply explains why he cannot edit any kind of articles with his main account. I also see no way in which this block is preventative - in fact, its purely punitive, in direct violation of WP:BLOCK. And what it punishes (but not prevents) is the thought "crime" of a user who might, in the future, anonymously improve Wikipedia content. What a crime. This block is pure process-wonkery, and should be reverted on that alone. If you want to wonk processes, find a process that supports knowledgable mainstream editors and hits fringe POV pushers, not the other way around. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:30, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Stephan, first change the rules regarding sock puppetry and block evasion. Don't subvert them. An admin should know better. -- Brangifer (talk) 08:38, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Given that JPS was not long-term blocked, I fail to see how this is relevant. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:41, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Just a comment from someone who's been on the receiving end of jps' worst behavior. An example: when I first was editing wikipedia I got in a dispute with him over some pseudoscience issue - so, he started writing offensive things on my talk page while sockpuppeting as an IP, in order to bait me into a block (most of my early blocks were due to him or another editor he worked with, before I figured out that game), and when an admin hinted to me that the IP was him (which I'd already surmised, incidentally) jps then attacked that admin for 'outing' him as a sockpuppet. how twisted is that? I don't particularly want to see jps effectively banned, but he's got to learn (somewhere) that he just can't use any ugly means he wants to to achieve his otherwise reasonable ends. There's a line where the cure becomes worse than the disease, and sometimes jps doesn't even pay that line lip-service.

Frankly, the guy needs to show some humility. If he did that I'd be a lot more sympathetic with his position and would like to see him work his way back into the project (because he does good work where he doesn't lose perspective). the question is how to get him to do that - I had no luck trying to talk him through it before his block. --Ludwigs2 09:11, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Frankly, the guy needs to show some humility - that's the key of the issue. Wikipedia has moved and is moving from a consensual model to an authoritarian model. And people who don't abide by the authority usurped (no doubt with the best of intentions) by ArbCom and its minions, or who question the wisdom of this change, will be targeted just for that. Next expect WP:IAR to be abolished - it has already been hollowed to near uselessness. We should all have voted for Gianno in the last election... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:23, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

That's what he said.Fainites ^barleyscribs 09:59, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Per Cardamon and Stephan. Also note that the throw-away nonsense that started all this silliness has now been thrown away: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Talk:Enneagram of Personality/FAQ, vindicating JPSs original actions which were criticised. The person who wasted everyones time creating that page is, needless to say, unsanctioned in all this William M. Connolley (talk) 10:10, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

A deletion "vindicates" gross incivility on multiple pages, and threats to sock from untraceable addresses? Interesting take on all this, I must admit. Collect (talk) 11:10, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Like I say: vindicates his original actions which was to get this worthless page removed. Its also interesting to see who stirred up trouble by trying to keep the worthless page William M. Connolley (talk) 12:46, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry but are there more difs to this action which would allow editor unfamilar with all this a way to look at what brought all of this about better? This reasons for the indefinite block I'd like to know if JPS actually did use any other accounts to circumvent? If he just said he would but didn't, wouldn't this be a punitive block? It seems like there is more to this that's not being said here. Would someone fill in the needed blanks to explain how this all came to fruitation? Thanks, --CrohnieGal^Talk 12:56, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest we take a more comprehensive look at the problem and take appropriate action, as it is not just this particular case that is troubling. Let's start a Wiki-Project in which we critically look at the case of JPS, User: Likebox and some other users who are indefinitely banned for escalation of trivial disputes. If we try to just argue here for a few days, we get nowhere and that repeats itself every time a new similar case is dicussed here (nowhere times ten = nowhere). So, we need to take the time to put toghether a convincing case that something is deeply wrong that is not based on one particular editor in one particular incident. Then we can ask Jimbo to take a look and he can intervene, e.g. by reforming the ArbCom system. Count Iblis (talk) 13:39, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

The usual people have lined up on the usual sides. If you're blocked, you don't get to edit. Period. Even through untraceable proxies. Calling for overthrow of ArbCom because someone is terminally unsuited to edit here? That's rich. ++Lar: t/c 15:35, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Nobody is calling for an overthrow of ArbCom because of your presence here. In fact, nobody is calling for an overthrow of ArbCom at all, although a considered view of the role it has grown into would certainly be worthwhile. There is no evidence that JPS edited while blocked, and there is no evidence that he intended to edit while blocked. Quite possibly he will do so now. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:01, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, history shows that systems that fail to adapt to reality die out. Thing is that SA or anyone else for that matter, can edit through untraceable proxies, whether we like that or not. This dispute is thus very silly. It reminds me of the discussion about a template I had to remove. When it was clear that the consensus was against the template, I said that I will replace it with an invisible one. Most people understood what I meant by it, but some people, those who are so much indoctrinated by Wiki-ideology that they can't see plain facts anymore, didn't get it.

In this case, it is quite obvious that anyone who cares about curbing back pseudoscience will act when he/she sees it being promoted on some prominent website. Then, because Wikipedia happens to be a very promiment website, such a person will act also here, topic ban or no topic ban. The issue of how Wikipedia is edited, what its rules are etc., is up to Wikipedia; this should be of no direct concern to concerned people who see big problems with the content in some articles. If we forget about this dynamics when making our rules, we won't be a prominent website for long. Count Iblis (talk) 16:05, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

If jps has been prooven to have evaded his block (i.e. socking), he should remain blocked. GoodDay (talk) 16:03, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

• PS: To jps, If you are gonna go (or have gone) through with your sock-puppetry threats? I'd recommend instead, that you should 'get a life' and 'move on' from Wikipedia. If one was blocked for being a DICK, one shouldn't react to it by being a bigger Dick. Show some dignity, proove you're better then such threats. GoodDay (talk) 16:53, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I've been looking at this drama from afar and have no opinion on the original topic ban. However, I feel that an indef block because someone might sock is unwarranted. I watchlisted the Enneagram of Personality page specifically to be on the look out for open proxy edits, yet have not seen a single one. Have there been any open proxy edits to pseudoscience pages recently? I am not aware of any. Until or if jps ever uses open proxies to edit a pseudoscience page, I see no need to block the account permanently. If such edits do appear, they need to be carefully scrutinized to make sure its not an imposter trying to get jps sanctioned. Sailsbystars (talk) 16:26, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Assuming we want to buy into the "blocks are preventive not punitive" myth, this block fails. From a logical perspective blocking a user account does nothing to prevent editing by anonymous proxy. Thus the block is in no sense "preventative," and is a textbook case of a punitive block. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 16:39, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

By that argument we should not ever block anyone, no matter how egregious their behavior. Nope. Making SA work harder to disrupt things because he has to use anonymous proxies is a win. Even if we never spotted SA by his style and blocked that proxy. Which we will, he can't help himself. CU is imperfect but that doesn't mean we shouldn't use it. (Unless we change the rules... you wanna stop proxy editing? Require validated real names.. Never happen but it would work) ++Lar: t/c 16:48, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Also keep in mind that some editors are simply more trouble than they're worth, and banning such individuals does nothing to harm the project and hopefully frees up more of our time to sort out more interesting issues. Rklawton (talk) 17:11, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Yep, and who cares about science anyway? So, let's get rid of all these disruptive science advocates here. Count Iblis (talk) 17:47, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I fail to see how a non sequitur furthers this discussion. Rklawton (talk) 17:52, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Purple carp with castanets. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:06, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

re: sock-puppetry. jps (under the ScienceApologist username) has a long history of using sock-puppets, going back at least to when I began editing here. He was never one of those intractable puppet-masters, but he would use them both to make less-than-savory edits and to circumvent sanctions. A quick search of administrative pages (ANI, arbitration results) for ScienceApologist + sock-puppet should give you a decent sampling. For a specific case, the last time he got in major trouble with ArbCom followed exactly the same pattern evidenced here - he received a topic ban for the same general kind of behavior, he declared that he would ignore the arbcom ruling as unjustified and authoritarian, he tried to break the topic ban by sock-puppetting and had his topic ban elevated to a short site ban.

don't get me wrong, I think jps has mellowed a lot over the years - I'd gotten to the point where I actually liked working with him. but there's no denying the history.

@ Stephan: If you really believe what you say about authoritarianism, then I expect you will also be calling for the immediate restoration of Martinphi (talk · contribs) to good standing in the project. Martinphi and jps used the same tactics in the same ways on the same issues (in fact, I'm pretty sure that Martinphi modeled his behavior after jps'). The only difference between them is that the two are from opposite sides of the pseudoscience mess; banning either of them would represent the same kind of ArbCom authoritarianism. However, you and I both know your not going to ask for Martinphi's restoration, not for love or money, which makes it pretty obvious that ArbCom authoritarianism is just a smokescreen. You just don't like people on your side of the fence being subject to authority, but believe authority is really good to use on everyone else. Kant is rolling over in his grave. --Ludwigs2 17:44, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

@Ludwigs You wrote: >>For a specific case, the last time he got in major trouble with ArbCom followed exactly the same pattern evidenced here - he received a topic ban for the same general kind of behavior, he declared that he would ignore the arbcom ruling as unjustified and authoritarian, he tried to break the topic ban by sock-puppetting and had his topic ban elevated to a short site ban. << Part of this is quite untrue; in March 2009 he received a 3 month block after making a couple of constructive edits to Parapsychology on March 9, in defiance of a topic ban. I don't believe he was accused of sock-puppeting at that time. (While blocked, he rewrote the Optics article in another place, and received special permission to have his greatly improved version of it proxied into Wikipedia.) Cardamon (talk) 19:58, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm remembering that he had (like this time) threatened to use sock-puppetry, and misremembering him as actually having done it. But regardless, I assume you recognize the explicit game. He does something sufficiently against Wikipedia standards to get himself sanctioned, and then tries to argue that he should not be sanctioned because he does productive things. I'm wondering how that would go in a real-world workplace? "Yeah, boss, I did punch a coworker in the nose. But he was annoying me, and you know I'm the one who gets those quarterly reports out." Wikipedia is the only place I can think of where that logic would work even once.

Besides, you've basically laid out an argument for site-banning him permanently - when he's allowed to edit directly he gets in trouble, but when he's forced to edit by proxy he does great work. is that where you meant to go with that? I'm thinking 'no'...--Ludwigs2 20:34, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Note that jps has also done great work when editing directly - for example taking Redshift to a featured article. When he was blocked from Wikipedia in March 2009, and worked on a sister project, he was partially insulated from the poke - and - complain crowd (who also played a role in precipitating the current debacle); this may have contributed to his productivity at that time. However, the course of action you suggest almost appears designed to kill any remaining desire he may have to contribute to Wikipedia.

But I suspect we've lost jps. I think what is happening is this: as people who want Wikipedia to be an encyclopedia are forced out or discouraged, the remaining people who want Wikipedia to be an encyclopedia will find the editing environment will more hostile. As the editing environment becomes more hostile to those who want Wikipedia to become an encyclopedia, new ones will join at a lower rate, and the remaining ones will quit or be forced out at a higher rate. These two things together form a positive feedback process that, once well underway, will be very difficult to stop, especially since some Wikipedians will be trying to accelerate it. If the process goes to completion, the end result will be a Wikipedia conclusively taken over by fringe POV enthusiasts, quacks, flacks, crackpots, ideologues, extreme anti-elitists, and process wonks who don't really care about content. The results of this will show up in article space. And that is how Wikipedia is likely to die. Cardamon (talk) 21:54, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm suddenly reminded of the proposal I made a while back to give banned users a means to still have a voice, in a limited arena (their user talk page, with a special template of the {{help me}} type). It recognised the reality that banned users often don't easily go away, and may occasionally have a valid point, and if they can make such points in a way that anyone wants to listen to and/or act on, that's not so bad (or else they're just harmless talk page comments bothering no-one...) - and perhaps less disruptive than the alternatives. It would also help such users find a route back, by showing they can use that very limited voice in a reasonable way. Rd232 ^talk 20:03, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

All chronic block-evaders should be banned from Wikipedia. Repeat socking is deceitful & down right pathetic. GoodDay (talk) 20:10, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

• Last time I checked, being right in a content dispute does not magically insulate someone from sanctions for misbehavior.

  It takes a few clicks to disable Javascript in the browser and take out wikibreak enforcer. For someone to pretend that using wikibreak enforcer actually, irrevocably, locks one out for the specified period of time is either quite technically ignorant, or outright disingenuous. Besides, even being unable to edit from one's main account is no excuse for using "anonymous, untraceable, unblocked proxies". Especially when said inability to edit came from the editor's own choice and nothing more. It's a textbook violation of WP:SCRUTINY.

  We are talking about a user who has done thing X before, who was sanctioned for it, and who is now saying that he will do thing X again. AGF only goes so far. Some people seemed to have missed that last sentence in the block rationale, which I will repeat again here: "This block will be lifted, and the topic ban reset to its original expiration date, when and if you provide credible reassurances that you will not engage in tactics designed to circumvent, evade, or game your topic ban." It is not too much to ask, in my view, someone who threatens to engage in disruptive activity he has previously engaged in to withdraw that threat before he returns to editing. The block merely makes sure that he has some incentive to do that. T. Canens (talk) 20:24, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I understand the logic behind the block and I can't really dispute it, except insofar as to suggest that he was venting. He had not actually engaged in the conduct he was threatening, and he should definitely withdraw that threat. Yes, being right in a content dispute is not exculpatory, but should be reason for leniency. ScottyBerg (talk) 20:33, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Again, I'm curious how blocking a named account somehow prevents editing through proxies. (I'm certainly not endorsing the latter.) Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 21:42, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Blocking his named account shows that he lost his rights. Now any his opponent can report his alternative accounts (yes, they are traceable) and revert all his edits claiming them to be "vandalism edits" by definition, even if they are legitimate. He would be much better off by editing mainstream science for a while and then appealing his sanctions. Biophys (talk) 23:00, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Of course it cannot stop him from using proxies in a technical manner. Indeed, if someone is really determined to edit, there's pretty much nothing we can do to keep them out, barring a drastic change in policy.

Rather, the block provides an incentive for him to stop using proxies, if he still wants to retain the account: if he uses proxies, his account will remain blocked, whenever his proxy IPs are discovered they will be blocked too and then the account will in all likelihood got a "hard" indef; but if he stops, his account will be unblocked. Moreover, it deters others from resorting to the same tactics, by making clear that such methods are unacceptable and will have serious consequences on their standing in the community. In many ways, it's just like Scibaby socks: we block them, not because it will stop Scibaby from continuing the disruption - pretty much nothing will, but because we don't want to give others the perverse incentive to sock until we run out of patience in order to get unblocked. It prevents others who are not as determined as Scibaby from resorting to the same tactics when they see that it will be fruitless. T. Canens (talk) 00:18, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

• I suggest that this thread be closed. The "admin action" requested by the initiator, "a review of the indefinite block and ban", is not an admin action and cannot take place here, but must occur by way of an appeal of the arbitration enforcement action as indicated in the applied arbitration remedy.  Sandstein  00:20, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

(@ Timotheus Canens): Thanks for explaining your reasoning. I strongly disagree that Scibaby's actions have been "fruitless" but that's another issue for another day. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:28, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

JPS wrote: "If I happen to see egregious errors in the meantime, I'll be fixing them". We should thank him for willing to spend his time to do this, as this is what Wikipedia is ultimately all about. The issues relating to topic bans etc. are not fundamental to how Wikipedia works and are thus not relevant to someone correcting some obvious problem. Now, obviously topic bans are necessary in some extreme cases and in some subset of those cases you'll see problematic gaming of the topic ban. But here we define "problem" as something relating to some problematic edits in some article. What we've seen lately is a different kind of gaming; there has been gaming of the Arbitration Enforcement system by Admins to impose sanctions on controversial editors, like e.g. in case of WMC and in this case. Count Iblis (talk) 00:31, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Reopening

Seems that there's something to discuss here, after all. T. Canens (talk) 01:32, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Per the prior Arbcom rulings on arbitration enforcement blocks, unblocks should only happen either after Arbcom involvement and overturn, or via a noticeboard discussion that results in a clear, substantial, and active consensus to unblock (see Template:uw-aeblock).

While there's certainly disagreement about the block, there is nothing like a clear, substantial, and active consensus to unblock on this or other noticeboards. If that develops, any admin can then act on it, but the conditions don't exist right now. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 02:17, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Of course this is an inappropriate/battleground statement by JPS. However, this is hardly a "personal attack", "legal treat" or something else that would require an immediate block (even for a year). If he was caught with actual sockpuppetry, then additional block/bans would be warranted. But simply declaring such intention may only show his frustration, nothing more. Biophys (talk) 02:16, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Could someone please explain how or if the indef block is an arb related block? While the 1-year topic ban was legitimately enacted under the pseudoscience arbitration, is not the indef block a regular administrative action? I just read through the pseudoscience page, and the longest block permitted by discretionary sanctions is one year. Sailsbystars (talk) 03:32, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

User:Comet Egypt

Blocked, Talk page access blocked, has been told to email if he wants to be unblocked, but is back as an IP talking on his own and other people's Talk pages - mostly about his block, but also asking people to make changes for him ([39]). -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 23:51, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I reported the IP to AIV for being a self-admitted sock. There is also some discussion at the ref desk talk page about Gud music only (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), which some editors there think might be another sock of that user. That might be worth a look, though I've not investigated it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:52, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

204.112.104.172 (talk · contribs) blocked for block evasion. Is that all?  Sandstein  23:55, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

That's the same IP he was using some time ago. Is it possible to block the IP in such a way that it also blocks any registered users that are on that IP? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:57, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

User:Comet Egypt also emailed me not long after his block, so I wonder if he's emailed anyone else, and did that account ever get email access revoked? -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 00:02, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

He was advised to e-mail arbcom, and he was given the e-mail address, so he doesn't need e-mail access here. He shouldn't be e-mailing anyone here except for arbcom, and it's a safe bet that he has not done so. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:10, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Comet Egypt and Gud music only are  Unrelated. However, Gud music only (talk · contribs) and Money is tight (talk · contribs) are  Confirmed. –MuZemike 01:08, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Gud and Money have not been blocked. Should they be? Or should they just be cautioned to stick with ONE account? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:10, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

SOP is to block the sock and warn the master. Who would have thought that God and Money were related? ;) Franamax (talk) 01:22, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Although now that I look at it, they're not really socking abusively, so just a warning I guess. Franamax (talk) 01:25, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

• I blocked the declared IP of that editor back in August when they were spinning some nonsense:[40]. If this rubbish is still continuing, I would suggest we just ban them and get it over with. Fences&Windows 03:15, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

The events leading up to your block of the IP have been explained, imo to a reasonable degree of plausibility. Speaking as one of the primary executioners of the account, I always have a dilemma when some editors complain about what I do as an administrator. On one hand, I have to inform them of what their avenues for appeal are. OTOH, with some editors I would really like to let them know that they really, really shouldn't go to AN/I, because I can see from their editing and discussion style that they will get absolutely creamed there, I could be totally wrong about the subject of complaint and they would still get picked on instead. But trying to give that heads-up could be seen as intimidation. I agree with CE's utalk lockdown, but that became necessary due to their inability to manage continued discussion from multiple editors of something that should have just been left behind. It depends on your interpretation. If you are convinced it has all been trolling, then yes, banning is best. I can construct a working model where maturity and understanding are factors which can be mitigated over time (lots of time). Keeping in mind that I made the initial indef block, made clear that I would not unblock by myself anyhow, and was later appealed to as the "reasonable" interlocutor... Franamax (talk) 09:14, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

How to handle an enthusiastic newbie that mass splits article

TopoChecker (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Topochecker seems to have the goal to create/change the maximum number of articles that contain the word "state" in the title. As I have been involved with him in several move discussions I don't think I should be the one telling him. Also concerned about wp:bite ^walk victor falk ^talk 00:34, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

They seem to have rather rigid ideas about whether a promontory can be in a peninsula category etc. and they are creating single-sentence stubs and chopping articles up that might be better left together. I wouldn't worry too much about biting, anyone who can make 2000 edits in their first 10 days probably knows a fair bit about how the site works. If you could gather together some epecific examples of problematic edits that might help. I'm concerned at their pace and agenda, but I'm not sure where admin action is directly required. Oh, and you're supposed to let the named editor know when you start an AN/I thread. Franamax (talk) 04:00, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

@Victor - My goal is to improve consistency and accuracy, and I perceived a lack thereof on some state articles. That I edit state articles thus is accidental. Accidental also was finding your post here. If you have concerns with the Indian state articles that I created, I suggest you engage at WP India in case you really have interest in the topic.

Other interaction related to articles about states:

• Talk:Chihuahua#Requested move - Chihuahua (state) you think Chihuahua should be the title of the state article and claim it is primary, whilst 94K traffic go Chihuahua (dog), 11K to Chihuahua, Chihuahua and only 19K to the state article, despite the fact that the state article has the plain title. I suspect drop of traffic to the state article after Chihuahua is moved. Your first claim for the state to be primary is to say the dog is named after the state. But WP:PRIMARYTOPIC does not talk about what is named after what. When you were told that the state might be named after the city, you started to look for new reasons why it could be primary.
• Talk:Washington (U.S. state)#Requested move - Washington (state) you supported my request as all the other user on that page did.
• Talk:Victoria (Australia)#Requested move - Victoria (state) you supported my request.
• Talk:Superior (proposed U.S. state)#Requested move you write 'Snowppose User:TopoChecker should reflect upon whether " ...(state)" is always the best disambiguator.' - I think with this comment you left the basis of fruitful interaction.
• Talk:Jaoli principality#Requested move you opposed.

@Franamax, I responded at Category talk:Peninsulas of Australia. Sorry if I made a mistake.

@Both: I asked for clearance of my edits related to the princely states of India Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics#Princely states of India. Thanks to User:Boing! said Zebedee whom I met when working on Bharatpur State and who pointed me to WP India. I will stop splitting articles and stop creating new state articles until clearance is given to the kind of edits I described on the India talk page.

I may be away for the weekend and beginning of next week. TopoChecker (talk) 08:51, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Apologies for not notifying you. Have a happy weekend ^walk victor falk ^talk 13:55, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

"Meatpuppet" witch hunt on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Automobiles

I'm concerned with what appears to be an ongoing assumption of bad faith on the WikiProject Automobiles discussion page and related areas. Background: User:OSX started several simultaneous merger discussions which proposed that articles on hybrid and electric cars should be merged into the corresponding articles on their non-hybrid counterparts. Someone opposed to these mergers notified Autoblog Green, which published an article discussing the issue from the anti-merger POV. Note that the Autoblog Green article does not tell new users to join, though it does say "head over to Wikipedia and contribute if you've got some clout there." (Note that this appears to be attempting to elicit wider participation from established users.)

The pro-merge faction on WP:AUTO was not at all happy about this. One pro-mergist claimed that another specific Wikipedia user was the source for the Autoblog Green article. OSX then retaliated by opening a sockpuppet investigation and openly accusing the user of a "rock-bottom meat puppetry attempt". He then unilaterally removed the comments of everyone who, in his opinion, had been "canvassed." I am not aware of any precedent for this (unless known banned users are involved), so I have reverted that change. Note that one of the alleged "meatpuppets," User:Cazort, has an edit history going back to June 2009 and covering a wide variety of subjects.

I find all this highly problematic. It stinks of article ownership — the impression is that WP:AUTO would prefer that "outsiders" not comment on its discussions. That isn't how Wikipedia works; everyone has a right to participate. I'm posting here to see whether it's possible to generate consensus on which of the actions taken during this incident, if any, were inappropriate, and what if anything should be done about it. *** Crotalus *** 16:26, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I would not consider myself in the pro merge camp. I have opposed about half of the proposed mergers, but I still think that this email tip to a green car blog is highly problematic. As I have said before the fact that it was sent anonymously indicates that the sender knew what they were doing was inappropriate and wished to avoid scrutiny. The language is similar enough for me to be confident that it is Mariordo who has specifically avoided denying that he sent it. The publication of these blog posts has brought in a number of single purpose accounts all opposing merger, this is a problem when we are trying to develop a consensus. Debates should not be decided by who can drum up the most off Wiki support by emailing sympathetic blogs. --Leivick (talk) 16:35, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

WP:DR. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 17:10, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

The blog is clearly inciting a case of meatpuppetry to affect the outcome of the merge discussion, which is completely unexceptionable. Probably the best course of action is to then place a not-a-vote notice at the top, tag all SPAs, and then allow an uninvolved editor to close the discussion after a couple of weeks. It's unfortunate that the blog did this, but it is something that can be worked through. —Farix (t | c) 18:16, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

So it's unacceptable for third parties to comment on Wikipedia's article inclusion standards? Why? We're supposed to be the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Does that only mean "anyone who is willing to spend hours mastering Wiki-jargon"? How many TLAs should people have to memorize before they're entitled to an opinion? If a substantial number of our readers think that having these as separate articles is a good idea, why not take that into account? We're not talking about unsourced fancruft here; these are major products that have been reviewed and discussed multiple times by reliable sources. Given that, whether to merge or not is a decision that should be made with our readership in mind. *** Crotalus *** 19:26, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

It is wrong to canvass for support for or against an issue, regardless of whether the canvassing occurred on or off Wikipedia. The solution I gave was a way to deal with the canvasing without bitting anyone in the process. —Farix (t | c) 20:45, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Comment: The original canvassing is from this site and the poster has photo of self in car at bottom of page.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 18:55, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

It seems to me that there are two ways to deal with this. One would be to react in a punitive fashion towards the new users and anyone who is thought to have brought them here. The other way would be to try to communicate with these new users, explaining to them how discussions are conducted here and what kind of arguments they might want to use or avoid if they want to influence consensus. Or is their input irrevocably tainted by having seen a "canvassing" page? *** Crotalus *** 19:28, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

The fact that these SPAs were canvassed means that their votes are, in all likelihood, not being made in a neutral manner. Because of this, the discussion has already been skewed and canvassed SPAs certainly do not represent consensus in Wikipedia. I almost think we should have a rule that you have to have a minimum number of edits to be able to participate in an AfD (so long as it isn't an AfD about a page you created). Silverseren^C 19:52, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the issue is that these votes were acquired by canvassing a particular group who the canvasser thought would support their position. This creates are real problem. I don't have an issue with new voices, but I don't want debates skewed based on who can solicit the most people to come vote for their side. --Daniel 19:58, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Comment:Is that you, Leivick?---North wiki (talk) 00:40, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Why would you ask? It is obviously me I just changed my sig, it still links my user page. --Daniel 05:22, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Silverseren's idea about a minimum edit count rule for AfD (500 edits?). I believe that it would help cut down on sockpuppetry there and compel those that are really determined to have to contribute to the Wiki in a positive way (something we don't get now).
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 20:14, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I think 500 might be a little high. 100 edits sounds like a good amount to me. That, at least, would show that you are unlikely to be an SPA. Silverseren^C 20:20, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Just to point out two things: one, this case isn't an AFD, it's a merge discussion; and two, this seems to have gotten off topic a bit. What should be done about these accounts with regards to this incident? — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 20:23, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Merge/Redirect discussions are really only one step removed from AfDs. We just don't have a specific system set up for them, that's all (beyond RfCs). Silverseren^C 20:29, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

(EC) I believe this sort of thinking has been rejected before due to the fact that AFD's are not a vote. Admins are tasked to weigh the strength of arguements. As long as that still stands I can't see an arbitrary edit count bar being accepted.--Cube lurker (talk) 20:24, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, but it's always been true that it is difficult for an admin to close opposite to what the majority of voters have stated. There have certainly been a number of cases where discussions were closed based on the votes themselves. Silverseren^C 20:29, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I think this is getting a little OT. The discussion at WP:CAR is not an AfD nor is this the place to discuss changes to AfD policy. This issue is about off site canvassing. --Daniel 20:32, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Comment:Is that you, Leivick?---North wiki (talk) 00:40, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I am not sure what the consequences are for offsite canvassing, because it is difficult to prove outright, but at least four editors including myself are very confident that Mariordo is behind these deceptive acts of canvassing.

• At GreenAutoblog (archived version) the anonymous tipster writes, "I consult Wikipedia often and a few years ago did my bit in trying to upgrade the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_hybrid". Coincidently, Mariordo attempted to clean up the plug-in hybrid after beginning significant editing to that page in March 2009, which is a "few years ago" now. The anonymous tipster clearly wrote that they attempted to upgrade an existing article that at a point in the past was a featured article, but no longer is. No other editor has made significant edits to this article after 2009 besides Mariordo and the confirmed sock puppet Nopetro who has many similarities with Mariordo (not making any allegations here, just pointing out some similarities, of which many exist). On the topic of sock puppets, BenB4 was the editor who originally promoted the plug-in hybrid article to FA (it is now delisted). BenB4 is a confirmed sock puppet of Nrcprm2026. So we currently have two separate confirmed sets of sock puppets that have edited the same article extensively, and now another user (Mariordo), a user who has a history of completely disregarding WP:Canvass (see below). If these are the same users (again I am not making any allegations, just pointing out potential links), it is possible to come to the conclusion that sock puppetry was previously the preferred method of garnering increased support in discussions, and canvassing is now the preferred means of doing so. The editing patterns of all these users are very similar, and at least one of the confirmed group of sock puppets claimed that English was not their first language, and have a Spanish connection. Mariordo also claims that English is not his first language, and he too speaks Spanish as a first language. There are very few other editors with such a strong interest in hybrids and electric vehicles. Both Nopetro and Mac (also a sock puppet) have made significant edits to the same pages that Mariordo edits prior to his arrival at this project, for example flexible-fuel vehicle, which is one of Mariordo's good articles. There are others, but I need time to go through the contributions of all these editors for comparison.

• In the discussions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Automobiles#Mass article merger, Mariordo uses the obscure term "glider" no less than six times, and is used twice more by the anonymous tipster. No other editor has used that term in any discussion pertaining to these mergers. As pointed out to me by another user, this term was a favourite of Mac, a confirmed sock puppet.

• Other GreenAutoblog terminology and syntax used by the tipster is verbatim to Mariordo's, but not of other editors. For example, "environmental performance", "environmental and social impacts", "green fancruft", "contributing to reduce dependence on imported oil", "mainstream", et cetera. The argument that electric and hybrid-electric vehicles "reduce dependence on imported oil" has been an argument that has been exclusively pushed by Mariordo (there are about three separate references to this argument). None of the other opposing voters have used this argument, they have argued on different grounds.

• On GreenAutoblog, the tipster confuses the "Honda Accord Hybrid" for the "Toyota Accord Hybrid", and Mariordo made the exact same mistake here.

• The tipster also links to the exact discussions with hash tags linking to the exact section headings. Not that many people follow WikiProject discussions except editors of the encyclopaedia themselves. There is a very limited number of potential people who would have done this, and all other evidence points to Mariodo (especially the admission to making significant edits to the plug-in hybrid article).

• American spelling again points to an American author, and Mariordo claims to reside in the United States.

• Mariordo has a strong history of canvassing votes on Wikipedia in these discussions. During the Talk:Toyota Camry Hybrid merger in mid-2010 he was warned about this. In the second proposal in late-2010 at Talk:Hyundai Elantra he again resorted to canvassing to gain an unfair advantage (soliciting only those who supported his view in the previous Camry discussion). Then in the current merger discussions he sneakily asked a couple of other users to join in. Since he now knows that he can't really get away with canvassing in the way he has done so before (I've always reported it), I suspect this off-site canvassing is the latest attempt of doing so.

Daniel, you mentioned on the WP:CARS talk page that you "could go deeper into [your] reasoning if needed" in regards to the reasons why you suspect the "anonymous friend" is Mariordo. Do you have anything further to add? OSX (talk • contributions) 23:27, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Comment: OSX, I think it is important not to take those terms out of context. I'll take two quotes from the e-mail from 'anonymous' to AutoblogGreen: "those opposing the mergers argued that those vehicles are notable enough to have their stand alone articles (some of them had been available for years) and these cars feature environmental performance content not found in the regular parent article." "Reading through the long discussion is amazing, info related to the environmental and social impacts of automobiles is called green fancruft, ..." As far as I can read, apparently, the anonymous tipster used the term 'fancruff' as a quote of those editors agreeing merging various articles who littered the discussion using such term in a dismissive way. In my opinion, the tipster is not the one who would use such a term. I also think terms like "environmental performance", "environmental and social impacts" are quite popular among anyone who is concerned about the environment and regulatory side of the automotive industry. -North wiki (talk) 00:31, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm surprised why there are no discussion about the clearly demonstrated assumption of bad faith exhibited by editor OSX and his "unilaterally removed the comments of everyone who, in his opinion, had been 'canvassed.' " and his repeated use of 'meat puppetry' in discussion page, which I think, shows disrespect and dismissive attitude, see here and here.---North wiki (talk) 00:50, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

There nothing wrong with pointing out similarities with other users and making a case of "meat puppetry" if there is reason to suggest so. I have given a number of reasons to support my suspicions, and another three editors have openly spoken to me about theirs. I have reason to believe that Mariordo has engaged in meat puppetry, even though he has specifically denied doing so. What others have pointed out already, is that while Mariordo denies being the person behind the "WikiLeak", he is in full support of the leaker's actions. OSX (talk • contributions) 01:19, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Historically, removing potentially canvassed votes is not supported as a usual or usually tolerated response. OSX, while I agree that there's been canvassing, I believe that was not the right response.

Putting up a warning label on the discussion to provide context to canvassed contributors is normal. Asking closing admins to keep canvassing in mind is normal. Notes that particular contributors have few or no edits outside a particular thread ("This is a new user," etc) are normal.

I know where you were coming from, and agree there was a problem with canvassing based on the evidence so far, but the best practice here is to do those things, not remove them.

OSX - as a recommendation, to defuse the conflict here, I recommend that you restore any still deleted comments and take those other responsive actions I listed above.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 03:03, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi George, thanks for responding. I deleted the comments under the impression that it was okay, but since you've confirmed that things should be done differently, I will accept that. Another user already restored the comments yesterday. Cheers OSX (talk • contributions) 03:09, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I am one of the involved editors, and am quite disgusted with the way this entire process is turning out. The bad faith shown by a group of editors who believe that any merge of content is akin to anti-environmentalism is quite shocking. One of the users flushed out by the blog posting (High voltage41) has also posted vaguely menacing notes on mine and on another talkpage. I would welcome it if a few admins took a look at three or four of these merger discussions (they're not all about green cars, by the way - but no one else has resorted to this kind of behaviour to defend their interests) and then making an informed and unbiased decision which could set some sort of precedent. Then I could finally get back to useful editing.  ⊂| Mr.choppers |⊃  (talk) 03:59, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

OSX opened yesterday a investigation here [41] accusing me of WP:MEAT/Sockpuppet, so I do not believe necessary to defend myself all over again here. Just because it is pertinent to this discussion, please see here a sample of OSX bad faith, because there is no record of inappropriate canvassing by me as he asserted above, only in his mind. That formal canvassing accusation raised by OSX ended up in nothing: one admin explained that my behavior was within the policies, and another admin had to call your attention for making threats and a list of demands (not counting the votes of the alleged canvassing).

Finally the editor who opened this discussion raised the issue of the misbehavior of OSX and some other editors at WikiProject Automobile, and OSX moved the discussion towards the Meat puppetry process ongoing in another page. I believe dealing with the resulting canvassing from the blogs publications in this page is proper, and applaud the warning tagging done in on discussion section. Nevertheless, OSX managed to deflect this discussion in another direction, away from the alleged witch hunt against the editors opposing the mergers and particularly against me. When that point is addressed I will be willing to provide all the diffs to show that OSX has effectively assumed a position of article/discussion ownership, has blanked edits contrary to his position in similar discussion, made threads of unilaterally disregarding other editors votes (so this is not the first time he does so - just check the second link I provided at the above), made retaliatory canvassing to compensate for my proper notifications to regular/main editors or the creators of the article being discussed, made plenty of uncivil and aggressive edits against me, and his blatant disregard of several wiki policies justifying his behavior in alleged wikiproject guidelines (which he does not understand do not supersede wiki policies), and even making up his own rules (i.e. he does not understands that consensus is not counting votes). Just let me know once the discussion returns to the main issue at hand to provide the evidence.--Mariordo (talk) 04:17, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Mariordo, I have not deflected any discussions at all. Any editor is welcome to propose a merger at any time. The mergers that I have targeted are based on what I feel will be the hardest to argue (hybrids and EVs), so I have proposed several at once and will continue to periodically suggest mergers of articles that I would like to see merged. Whether you like this or not is irrelevant, as many things happen here that I don't like. Since I initiated these merger discussions, the votes have been slowly falling the way of supporters. In my original discussions at WP:CARS, support sat at barely above 60 percent. Now just about every regular WP:CARS editor that has participated agrees that the pages should be merged, except in the cases that these are too long. Editors who opposed the Camry merger are now supporting other similar mergers. This probably frustrates you, but that is how Wikipedia works. Wikipedia does not really cater very well for niche interests as it is general-purpose website—specialty websites exist for the enjoyment of fans.

While I have heavily participated in these discussions, I don't "own" them. I really don't care what diffs you show (i.e. me removing the canvassed votes, which has already been dealt with). As has been noted before, blame-shifting and flatly denying sound evidence against you is nothing less than frustrating. The seriousness of your suspected off-site canvassing is a gross violation of what this community stands for, and I think you have lost a lot of respect as an editor.

I have also never said that consensus is counting votes. What I said was, "Not once in my time at Wikipedia have I seen a "no-consensus" declaration given to anything over 65/35." This not counting votes argument is just a convenient line for you to shout because opposition in general, far outweighs the support. If you feel that a debate is ignoring your voice, you should pursue a dispute resolution. This is a well-tested processes, designed to avoid the problem of exchanging bias in one direction for bias in another, which is what the disappointing off-site canvassing has achieved.

The evidence is extremely strong in pointing towards you. The anonymous tipster's language is identical to your style, but very different to the style possessed by the other opposers (of which there were only three, and these editors haven't been particularly active in these discussions). Other editors have suspected you and only you, so you can't ignore this. As mentioned above, you have been the only main contributor to the plug-in hybrid article in the last few years, and the tipster admitted to making recent large-scale edits to this page on GreenAutoblog. OSX (talk • contributions) 05:24, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

OSX is clearly mistaken in his statement "the tipster admitted to making recent large-scale edits to this page." The tipsters actual words were, "I consult Wikipedia often and a few years ago did my bit in trying to upgrade the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_hybrid." As OSX points out, Mariordo's edits to plug-in hybrid have all been RECENT, not "a few years ago." Also, since Mariordo does a great deal more than simply "consulting" Wikipedia, and since he has gotten GA status for many articles recently, don't you think he would have described himself differently if he had been the anonymous tiptster? Once again, with his comments in this line, OSX is attempting to assign blame to Mariordo for rule-breaking Mariordo did not commit. OSX is doing this specifically and intentionally in an attempt to silence Mariordo, because Mariordo has been a successful champion in denying OSX virtual ownership of several articles. Since OSX has been unsuccessful in gaining complete control of these articles, he is now attempting to remove Mariordo from being able to oppose him in the future, thus achieving his goals of article ownership. As demonstrated above, OSX is breaking a number of Wikipedia rules in the process, and should be punished accordingly. Ebikeguy (talk) 14:13, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I think this conversation is getting confused because Mariordo has not made a clear confirmation or denial of the allegations. Did you send this anonymous tip? If you did, why did you send it anonymously? If you didn't, why have you not made this clear earlier? We can dance around with accusations and evidence, but without a clear confirmation of your stance it really is largely a waste of time. It would go a long way to showing your good faith if you could clear this up. --Daniel 05:31, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Mario has clearly denied the allegations here. Ebikeguy (talk) 14:13, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

' What I said was, "Not once in my time at Wikipedia have I seen a "no-consensus" declaration given to anything over 65/35. ' I think this is a clear reflection of misunderstanding of consensus. The decision, within Wiki (as far as I understanding), is not simply by counting the votes(about 8-4 at that time, in my recollection). The merits of arguments from both sides must be considered and be taken over and above the number of votes. Using words like 'majority' and 'minority' and confusing majority vote as consensus shows a lack of willingness to consider the merits of argument from the opposing side and find a middle ground approach that is acceptable to both sides. -North wiki (talk) 15:04, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

"Now just about every regular WP:CARS editor that has participated agrees that the pages should be merged, except in the cases that these are too long. Editors who opposed the Camry merger are now supporting other similar mergers. " I would strongly disagree statements like this which, from my point of view, is a distortion of reality. By using words like "regular WP:CARS editor", are you excluding editors responsible for a substantial edits in the articles being merged? I think this is a divisive approach and does not reflect the current state of discussion about the merging. I'm willing to see what's the evidence available to support that 'editors opposing the Camry merger are now supporting other similar mergers'. ---North wiki (talk) 15:14, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Can we mark this resolved now since the behavioral issues have been resolved? —Farix (t | c) 22:14, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Is there any discussion of the "ongoing assumption of bad faith on the WikiProject Automobiles discussion page" by some editors? ---North wiki (talk) 23:33, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

This discussion has not been resolved. No action has been taken against this case of external canvassing. Should votes from SPA users and IPs, and also editors who participated who were recruited from the blog be discounted? What is going to be done against the meat puppet in light of the strong evidence? And how do we stop this from happening again? OSX (talk • contributions) 00:10, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

You are correct in stating that this discussion has not been resolved. You are incorrect in the reasons you state. This discussion has not been resolved because OSX's violation of rules regarding ownership of articles, harassment and Wikihounding of Mariordo have not been addressed or dealt with. Stop trying to distract from the true intent of this discussion, OSX. YOU, not Mariordo, have been accused of wrongdoing here, and these accusations are both correct and demonstrable. Your baseless accusations against Mariordo are being dealt with elsewhere. Ebikeguy (talk) 02:42, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I believe OP started the discussion about OSX, not Mariordo. I suggest those who want to discuss Mariordo start a new thread. ---70.31.19.216 (talk) 03:14, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

FYI: There is already a discussion opened by OSX at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mariordo, so I believe it is for the participating admins to decide whether that discussion shall continue there or bring the content to the ANI page and continue here under a new section (so the discussion in this thread can concentrate on OSX behavior).

Request for closing merge discussions. Also I would like to request the admins to decide on a timeline and procedure to close the merger discussions at Automobiles#Case by Case. With OSX consent we agreed in a two week period for the Ford Fusion Hybrid and the Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid, and the Honda Civic Hybrid is long overdue (though I believe the wider the participation the better, so I rather prefer to leave it open for another two weeks, since the beginning of this conundrum I do not understand what is the rush). Considering all the contentious issues and the participation of some SPAs, I believe that it is strongly recommended that the closing is done by any of the admins familiar with this case. Thanks.--Mariordo (talk) 18:05, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Help with content blanking

According to 76.83.14.207 (talk · contribs), the term Afro-Mexican is a Wikipedia construct, more specifically that there is no such thing as "Mexican" ancestry, and is blanking sourced parts of the article while screaming at me in the edit summaries. Per WP:BRD I have directed the IP to discuss the proposed changes on the talk page and gain consensus for the changes, but they seem determined to continue to revert while accusing me of original research. I do not vouch for the accuracy of the article, my only dealings with it was to remove unsourced individuals from the list as part of WP:BLP, however as I'm logging off for the night I wanted to make sure that others were aware that someone with a strong POV was hacking away at it. --Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 00:40, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

It looks to me that this has the much same problem that has caused controversy at White Argentine: The construction of an article around an 'ethnic category' which is almost entirely unrecognised by its supposed 'members'. Frankly, I can see no way to see this as anything other than a violation of WP:BLP policy if it mentions any living individuals without explicit self-identification with the 'ethnicity', and probably fails to justify itself in any case, as a violation of WP:SYN and/or WP:NPOV. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:59, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree, articles like this are a BLP minefield. When I came across it, it contained a long list of individuals that supposedly belonged to the category (see here). I removed the names and images that weren't explicitely sourced in the article or on the associated individual's article, leaving a very small handful of entries. I agree that the article does need review and that there remains BLP issues with it. I would be estactic to have others watchlist it and help clean it up. That doesn't solve the current issue with the IP edits as the changes they are making do not effectively address the issue either and introduce further problems. But I really do need to log off, I'm fielding some pretty nasty looks from RL people. --Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 01:14, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I'll put it on my watchlist, but frankly I think what is needed is a more general clarification of policy regarding 'ethnicity' articles. Some of them are poorly sourced, many are based on dubious 'ethnic categories', and one or two are so complex in their inclusion criteria that even those that write them don't seem to understand them... AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:19, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Hello, there's been a misunderstanding of sorts here. First of all, I have told the user named Ponyo that the term "Afro-Mexican" is NOT used to refer to people of mixed African and "Mexican" heritage. The article itself contains a note that says "Citation needed" after the part where it says that an Afro-Mexican is "African descended people elsewhere who have part Mexican ancestry". I put the word Mexican in quotation marks because, although considered an "ethnicity" by people who are ignorant on race, Mexican is not a race, so what is Mexican descent? Is it mestizo, criollo, Amerindian? There are white Mexicans, mestizo Mexicans, indigenous (Amerindian) Mexicans, etc. I have told Ponyo in the talk page of Afro Mexican that he needs a citation to prove that the word "Afro Mexican" is used to refer to people of mixed African and "Mexican" ancestry. He has responded only once and didn't even respond to what I had told him, he just told me that I shouldn't "blank sourced info I don't agree with". I responded to Ponyo, telling him that he needs to prove (with a trusty source) that the term "Afro Mexican" is used in the way he claims it is used, and I told him that the pictures I put in the article are of actual Afro-Mexicans, but he has yet to respond to this. Well, I put pictures of Mexicans who are of African descent (and who were born in Mexico, raised there, or both), like Alvaro Carrillo, and he removed them all! He doesn't seem to be reasoning with me, he keeps ignoring my reasoning and explanations and keeps telling me the same thing, that I'm removing and "blanking" sourced info. Well, there is a section in the article called "Notable people Afro-Mexican descent" and in that section there is a section on "Entertainers", and with the exception of Tona la Negra, all the people there are American celebrities of mixed African AMERICAN and "Mexican" descent. And there are sources there, but all those sources say is that those Americans in the "Entertainers" section are indeed of mixed African and "Mexican" descent, the sources do not say that an Afro Mexican is someone of mixed African and "Mexican" descent. As of yet, he has not given a citation (in other words, he has not yet given proof) that says that the term "Afro Mexican" is used to refer to mixed African/"Mexican" people. So please, I wish to change certain aspects of the article that appear to be original research, since no sources are provided, and the sources that are provided don't address the issue of the usage of the term "Afro-Mexican". Also, I didn't say that "Afro-Mexican" is a Wikipedia contruct, I said that it is used here in Wikipedia for conveniance, since, in the Spanish language, the term is rarely used. And when it is used (such as on the Internet), it refers to people from Mexico who are of African descent. I have gotten angry and written in all caps because Ponyo kept removing the images of other Afro-Mexicans that I added and has not given a source regarding the usage of the term "Afro-Mexican" even though I have asked him repeatedly to put a citation or to show me where the citation is, because he says it's there, but I can't find it, the only citations I can find are the ones I already told you about: the ones in the "Entertainers" section, which don't answer the question as to whether an "Afro-Mexican" really is someone of mixed African and "Mexican" heritage.--76.83.14.207 (talk) 05:00, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I would rather not see any attempt to apply simplistic labels to people, especially doubtful ones. It's the basis of racism. HiLo48 (talk) 05:12, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I appreciate that you took your time to review the issue, but you are doing the same thing as Ponyo, you are not addressing the real issue, which is the usage of the term "Afro-Mexican".--76.83.14.207 (talk) 05:38, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I would appreciate it if you would stop naming me as somehow being responsible for this article. I did not create it. I do not categorize or attempt to pigeonhole people by ethnicity/descent. My only dealings with the article was the removal of individuals from the list that were unsourced and to point you to the talk page when you started making bold changes to the article per WP:BRD. You are welcome to discuss your concerns on the talk page, and I also suggested starting a request for comments to pull in additional interested people to the discussion. You obviously have very strong opinions regarding this subject, and discussing your concerns with others in order to determine consensus on the issues at hand is the way forward, not simply blanking content and modifying the text to reflect your personal beliefs on the matter. --Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 16:07, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Something fishy on Pelican State beach

Without intending to be insulting to the uploader, File:26 pelican.JPG is one of a series of not very good images of a man on a beach and I would not use it to illustrate any subject. The file was uploaded to Commons today. Geographically unrelated IPs have been adding the image to various articles, which seems, well, odd. The IPs that I've noted so far are 75.212.88.129 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), 75.87.252.190 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), 80.178.14.162 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) and 205.143.67.250 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). If anyone wants to do some digging, the image is also used on the French-, German-, and Spanish-language Wikipedia. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 01:51, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I dunno, I would have offset the man a bit more to give prominence to the horizon but IMO it looks kinda nice. Tarc (talk) 01:56, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

It seems harmless enough. If DC is concerned, the best bet might be to take it to a discussion page on Commons. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:30, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Photographs of places which contain a person as a prominent subject is a related discussion. The uploader in that case is different, but the issue is the same: deliberately adding images posed to feature this one individual without clearly identifying him in many articles on California beaches. Bugs, I disagree that Commons is the place to discuss this - as far as Commons would be concerned, they are properly licensed images that could be useful. The issue is that they have been uploaded precisely to saturate many articles here with the what is recognizably the same person. — Gavia immer (talk) 02:42, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I thought it was the quality of the photo that was at issue, and which could be discussed at commons. While it's true there's a guy in the photo, I downloaded it and blew it up and he's not identifiable. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:45, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

To me, the biggest issue is the saturation-bombing of one person's appearance in a large number of articles. The middling quality of the images is also an issue, but it is a much smaller one. I uploaded cropped versions of the previous uploader's images, but I'm not going to have free time to do that for these for a while; eventually, I will end up doing that, though. — Gavia immer (talk) 02:53, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Adding another one: 89.204.153.210 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). Having read through the thread Gavia immer pointed out, it is clear that Commons users Albianmoonlight and Sfcamerawork are one and the same. I don't think we need someone using sockpuppets to spam Wikipedia with their amateur photos - I mean, we've got Shankbone for that... Delicious carbuncle (talk) 03:23, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Funny. But I must ask, since I'm an ignoranimous: What rule are these photos violating? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:43, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I do not know that they are breaking any rules, per se, but the addition of the same poor quality image to many articles runs contrary to the guidance of WP:IMAGE. Don't you find it odd that IPs seemingly originating in different countries are all interested in the same image? What about the sockpuppetry on Commons? I have worked out what's going on here, but in the interest of WP:BEANS, this is a possible vandal tactic - add the same innocuous Commons image to many articles on several different wikis and then change it to something like File:Virgin Killer.jpg. That is not the case here, but when something abnormal like this is brought up, one should probably look a little deeper than wondering which rules are being broken. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 04:00, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

This is apparently related to a gallery in San Francisco. Perhaps someone from the WMF could walk over and ask them to cut it out. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 04:22, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I see what you're getting at, and I would certainly like to see an admin comment on this situation before this discussion disappears, as it's not clear what course of action should be taken, if any. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:37, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I started a sockpuppetry case, since this shows no signs of stopping. Any Commons admins want to weigh in on what can be done about this? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 04:49, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Just as a heads-up, I merged the SPI Carbuncle linked to into another case, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Superbrightidea, that had already been opened. There's a bit more going on here than we see, I think. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 14:14, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I hope it's not bad that I've removed this image from the other language projects. Particularly their placements at the top of other language versions of Solitude (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). And it is highly likely that this image will ever be deleted off of the Commons unless it can be proven that the image isn't actually in the public domain.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 07:17, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

You could use Xanderliptak's tactic and issue a bogus legal threat to the Wikimedia Foundation. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:29, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

There's a new user at Undertheconcrete (talk · contribs). Corvus cornix_talk 03:34, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, lots of socks here: I've blocked all of them (I think), but proxies might also be involved. Suggest we keep an eye out for any instances of the image being added; maybe someone can put something into an edit filter? The key question is whether this chap is out to help the encyclopaedia; I don't think he is: he's here to display his artwork to as many people as possible. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 22:13, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Tendentious editor

Unresolved

User:User1389 is continuously making disruptive edits in regards to the flag used by the Kingdom of Serbia. Ironically he does provide a source for his reasoning in the summary, but that source completely contradicts his point and only validates my own. I have brought up these points on his talk page, but so far he has completely ignored any communication and prefers to conduct an edit war, as follows: [42],[43],[44],[45] to list a few. This is also the case on the List of national mottos, where I've quite clearly tried [46],[47] to inform him that Serbia does not have an official motto, i.e. not sanctioned by the government, I have even asked him to provide a source at least, which he has still not provided. To date he ignores this and inserts a motto anyways. Buttons (talk) 18:57, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Users can no longer create accounts

Hi, it seems that users caannot create accounts any more. If you look at the new user log here, you can see that new user accounts are no longer being created. Also, when we on the ACC team try to create accounts, it gives us an error message. Does anybody know what to do? Reaper Eternal (talk) 19:39, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm still seeing new accounts being created, per this log. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 19:41, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

It appears to be fixed now. It had been like this for the past half hour and I posted right at the end. (Notice how all the accounts used to be created due to unification of SUL and not actual new users.) Reaper Eternal (talk) 19:47, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Legal threat from an IP

See [48]. What do we do about legal threats from IPs with no edit history? I find it hard to take this one seriously (from an IP blocked 31 hours for trying to replace the picture on Jimbo's user page with one of Hitler) and I have simply declined to unblock and quoted NLT. Is any more action required? JohnCD (talk) 19:58, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

No, it's a sock of a banned user, and also dynamic. RBI. Lock up the talk page if it continues, but don't bother with anything else. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 20:06, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think more needs to be done at this time. If the threats continue, the block can be extended and/or talk page access revoked - but I don't think any additional action is required at this stage. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 20:08, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Ranting, personal attacks by User:91.76.20.199

At Talk:Tibet, Repeated, un-warranted, untrue personal attacks directed both at me and my talk page. See "I don't know what your roundtable is (probably, CPC in Beijing?", a threat to sock, and another attack on my talk page, and finally another accusation that I only allow "pro-Chinese" comments, when I have only removed his rantings and nothing else. I also suggest a range-block to prevent him from "switching to other IPs". --HXL's Roundtable, and Record 22:02, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

TMI by a minor

Thread seems resolved so I have commented it out since it's about a minor. Still available as a comment. If they're not to be identified on WP full stop then that should apply to WP:ANI, and for reasons obvious if source is viewed the last couple of posts still make their idenity clear. Been WP:BOLD, this may be against the rules, not sure where I'd check. Egg Centric (talk) 00:12, 23 January 2011 (UTC)