Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
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SirFloyd

Resolved

 – contentious off-wiki material removed, user unblocked and we all live happily ever after. Toddst1 (talk) 00:02, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

While working on the Tito article, I looked up the reliablity of an author named Bernard Meares and rediscovered this little gem. It is the article "Titoism and Totalitarianism" that user SirFloyd created on en.wiki earlier but was later deleted due to its POV content. This is apparently a wikiclone which user SirFloyd uses to, among other things, stalk users and "strategize" his moves for the real wiki. Among the findings are:

• A page dedicated to countering user DIREKTOR's edits "Wikipedia & Political Agendas".
  • In it is a section "Wiki Articles that are manipulated by Neo-Communists" which contains a list of articles that user DIREKTOR has edited at one point or another.
  • In another entitled "Propaganda Pushing Editors" editors DIREKTOR, Ivan Stambuk, AlasdairGreen27, myself, BokicaK, and Zocky are listed alongside nationality and are apparently identified by SirFloyd as a clique.
• Another page "Nationalistic Editing on Wikipedia" discusses the "House of Bona" article which DIREKTOR and SirFloyd were engaged in. While he is careful to not mention names it is obvious at whom such quotes are directed at: "Wikipedia with its current group of editors is participating in that process [cultural genocide]."
  • Attempt at canvassing for the "House of Bona" article [1].

Taking this evidence into consideration, it is, in my opinion, that SirFloyd's intentions on Wikipedia are far from good faith. His actions are in violation of numerous policies including: WP:COI, WP:HOUND (stalking DIREKTOR), WP:NPOV (creating the POV fork "Tito and Totalitarianism" after his failure at the original article), WP:OWN (using a wikiclone to evade deletion and own an article), and WP:CANVAS. -- ◅PRODUCER _(TALK) 22:50, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Sir Floyds intentions and contributions here have been very beneficial to the project. His contribution was deleted here and he is able to post it wherever he likes. He is perhaps in opposition to your group but that is good , we don't want everything from a single perspective do we. I also note that in those links you provide there is no mention at all of any specific people. I don't see anything requiring any Administration action.Off2riorob (talk) 23:09, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Are you serious? "Director Croatian, Ivan Stambuk (Croatian), AlasdairGreen27 (Croatian), Producer (Bosnian), BokicaK (Serbian), Zocky (Slovenia) Wikipedia Administrator" ◅PRODUCER _(TALK) 23:53, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

@User:Off2riorob.

• 1) being in opposition to someone is fine, its a way to ensure against POV, mine included. However, User:Sir Floyd is not reported here for being opposed to someone.
• 2) You are, as you say, a "close friend" of User:Sir Floyd. It comes as no surprise that you would support him even after this was uncovered, and its certainly not a surprise that you would judge his "lobbying" as beneficial to the encyclopedia.
• 3) Finally User:Off2riorob, I cannot believe you are being honest when you say you "don't see any mention at all of any specific people". Have you noticed this link? You see, it lists all users who dared oppose Sir Floyd as "communist propaganda pushers". Add to this that User:Sir Floyd has been attempting to WP:OUT users on this project [2] and I think you'll find this is not only actionable, its indeff block material.

Finally, I don't think anyone here is prepared to pretend he/she is stupid. It is perfectly obvious that User:Sir Floyd has been stalking editors, following them around, and marking their edits (as well as themselves!) for the attentions of his buddies. This explains much of the suspicious coordinated MEAT that's been going on in this Wiki. The purpose of all this evidently seems to be outnumbering editors with meatpuppets and bypassing proper discussion. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 23:54, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

--DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 23:54, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you are mentioned there as a POV pushing editor, I did not search all the pages. I know and respect Sir Floyds contributions here. He was in dispute with user direktor when I met him and helped him to become a good contributor here. I still don't see any issues worthy of Wikipedia Administrator action. There is nothing to assert any meat issues at all with Sir Floyd. I don't see any stalking. As I said, we don't just want one side of the story do we. So you present a six month old ANI archived thread with no action at all as a claim to Sir Floyd outing, nothing happened then, never mind now and a wikibiz article http://www.mywikibiz.com/User_talk:Ockham/Wikipedia_&_Political_Agendas#Propaganda_Pushing_Editors complaining about POV editing on wikipedia, not very startling is it. Perhaps you could try dispute resolution, or we could topic ban you both from Yugoslavian articles. Off2riorob (talk) 00:04, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Oh lol Off2riorob... We're not in any conflicts at all. I think you've conclusively demonstrated your "neutrality", not to mention a serious need to familiarize yourself with policy (WP:MEAT, WP:STALK, WP:OUT, WP:CANVASS etc.). I for one admire such dedication. Leave it for the guys here to read and decide, lets not clutter the thread up. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 00:25, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

I had one brief encounter with SirFloyd and after that it was clear to me that his motives are not good. If this does not convince others, then I don't know what will. -- Bojan  Talk  05:32, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

The GFDL says that any content of Wikipedia can be copied and distributed everywhere. If this content will be deleted the content distributed must not be deleted. Please give me the part of GFDL where the license says that the distributed content must be deleted and I will accept your position. I would invite all persons, most of all administrators, to understand the principles of GFDL in detail. Do you need that also the old dumps of database will be corrected? In this action I can only see a "programmatic" action of a group and surely I will start to open an investigation about this group. --Ilario (talk) 07:52, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Dude, GFDL was abandoned in favor of Creative Commons few years ago. But this is not the question. The question is that what Direktor stated above. -- Bojan  Talk  08:03, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

I think I've only encountered SirFloyd on the Tito article. IMO, he does have a bit of a point - some of the ex-Yugoslav users do wear extra-rosy-tinted glasses when looking on their former country. However, in my experience, SirFloyd wasn't doing anything to counter that productively. His modus operandi consisted of pushing his (IMO rather extreme) POV by listing out-of-context quotes, often from extremist and/or amateur authors. That in itself wouldn't be a big problem, because it can be countered with other quotes and sources. But, he also incessantly engaged in accusing other editors of having sinister agendas, which sort of kills any sort of productive discussion.

All that said, I don't care much about what he writes on other websites. If there are good reasons to believe that his activities on Wikipedia as a whole are a net loss for the encyclopedia, we should probably do something about it. If not, water under the bridge. Zocky | picture popups 09:46, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

In hereby calling for action on this and similar situations, I would remind readers of the WP:ARBMAC ruling, which all of us are beholden to apply. What requires action here is that s/he is displaying the most grotesque bad faith imaginable, and the most extreme Balkan nationalist aggressive POV. I would like to work on articles with editors who think I can contribute something. We can work together well. In what way is it possible to work collaboratively in the true spirit of Wikipedia with someone who derides the whole idea(l) of Wikipedia, who describes and derides good faith editors as communists, who describes our articles as communist propaganda and so on. The Balkan Wiki area is overpopulated with POV monsters as it is. If Sir Floyd is allowed to demonstrate such POV and total bad faith and continue to edit regardless, then we might as well ring fence all of our Balkan articles as POV garbage that no-one with a sane mind should read. AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 21:07, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

I have un-archived this discussion as it appears to have been prematurely archived. Toddst1 (talk)

This is pretty clearly off-wiki harassment by Sir Floyd (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) and calls for an indefinite block until such harassment is removed and ceases. Done. Toddst1 (talk) 13:01, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you, no on can be judged in Wikipedia for something which is extermal to Wikipedia and most of all no one can be judged for his point of view. It seems to me a judgement of a person derived from some other persons who has the other extreme point of view. If Sir Ffloyd is extreme I cannot see that the persons who are judging him are neutral, absolutely wrong. I would add that in the article written by him there are also official documents and I am a little bit disappointed that their are judged like "secondary" sources. Sorry, but I would have a more neutral decision here. This is a discussion to judge a person where only few users are participating and most of all the users accused by him. In this case I think that the accused persons should not be considered to give to the community the opportunity to be more neutral and to don't consider the parts involved in the original discussion. --Ilario (talk) 19:12, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

• As there are quite a few externals would the blocking Administrator please point directly to the "off wiki harassment" ones and the exact content the harassment is referring to as regards the alleged Wikipedia:Npa#Off-wiki_attacks Off2riorob (talk) 22:01, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

I Agree. Having a personal opinion about something inside wikipedia, and espressing it off-wiki is a very different thing that doing harrassment. So i suppose it's necessary the blocking Admin will point clearly what exactly he considered harassment, just in order to not make his decision an unclear or fuzzy precedent. Theirrulez (talk) 23:36, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

I did not understand why Sir Floyd was blocked. I cannot see personal attacks in that pages. He only expressed an opinion. An opinion is not law.--Grifter72 (talk) 07:12, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

I've removed the "resolved" tag. If I'm off base, please feel free to re-add, I won't object or consider that an issue. It just appears that this matter appears to remain under discussion. As far as I understand it's pretty clear that off-wikipedia behavior, however bad, does not by itself merit an on-wikipedia block. Nevertheless, off-Wikipedia statements can reasonably be interpreted as evidence that someone's presence on Wikipedia is not in good faith. Which is it? Incidentally, I have no idea what the underlying dispute is about and I don't think it's relevant to this particular question. - Wikidemon (talk) 07:31, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Npa#Off-wiki_attacks doesnt'seem to support the decision. Off-wiki attacks paragraph doesn't (of course) contemplate any sanctions like blocks, because: «Wikipedia cannot regulate behavior in media not under the control of the Wikimedia Foundation, but personal attacks made elsewhere create doubt about the good faith of an editor's on-wiki actions.» - Theirrulez (talk) 20:17, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

This is a WP:ARBMAC decision, and must be considered in that context. It is perhaps not surprising that the protesters that have surfaced since the block was made are three Italian editors (Ilario, Grifter72 and Theirrulez) that share SirFloyd's POV. I guess/suppose/am sure that the only reason that they all came here in a procession is that they all picked up the block on their watchlists. AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 21:11, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, it seems a bit of a "quid pro quo response": "You help us out with our POV-pushing, we'll help you out - maybe we can save the guy to fight another day, or shorten his block". --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 23:58, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm here as well asking a decision about this absurd unfair, discrediting and offensive attack against me posted by AlasdairGreen27 on a an Admin talk page [3], followed by DIREKTOR's attack [4], and preceded by another astonishing DIREKTOR's attack [5]. These above mentioned harassment posts were not off-wiki, but incredibly on a wikipedian users talk page.
This is to be considered as an official report. Theirrulez (talk) 22:42, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

It may be fun to use the word "attack", but commenting on single-purpose edit history is not really a violation of WP:NPA. I cannot guess why you're inserting this here, though. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 23:50, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Just a side note, here: Wikipedia:Spa#Identifying_SPAs reads

Focusing on a single broad topic: When Identifying SPAs, it is important to consider what counts as a diverse group of edits. Very broad subjects like music, medicine, sports, history, and physics are diversified topics within themselves. If a user only edits within a broad topic, this does not necessarily mean the user is an SPA. SPAs edit a group of tightly related pages or a group of unrelated pages in the same manner.

In my opinion, Theirrulez is not an WP:SPA. And, by the way, he is an editor in good standing on it.wiki (he has brought an article to WP:FA, that is to say it:Rodi Garganico) Salvio ( ^{Let's talk 'bout it!}) 01:37, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Of course I'm not an WP:SPA. This is an attempt to lead us off-topic and the last try to influence other users discrediting me. After DIREKTOR replied here above, and after the admin GTBacchus clearly warned him and AlasdairGreen27 to stop the harassment, he demonstrated that he really doesn't matter to abuse wikipedia policy keep on harassing me more and more on the same admin talk page. And probably he and AlasdairGreen27 will continue until someone can stop them.

Anyways my contribution history is available, everyone who want to take a look it's welcomed. I want to remind to whoever could be interested about my contributions history to check also my former account User:Theirrules. After that please, I need urgent explanation about what reported above: the astonishing accuses I openly received. Theirrulez (talk) 03:32, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

I would say that SirFloyd has a point about Direktor being quite biased. That's my two cents on this issue. (LAz17 (talk) 16:03, 30 May 2010 (UTC)).

Apart from Sir Floyd's incident, I would like to point out how many vehement attacks AlasdairGreen27 (talk · contribs) and DIREKTOR (talk · contribs) are used to making on other contributors, engaging in perpetual edit wars and immediately suggesting that there are planetary conspiracies. It's important to underline AlasdairGreen was called into this discussion by another user, PRODUCER (talk · contribs), just to create a firing squad ([6]). I would note that AlasdairGreen has been blocked once ([7]) for "personal attacks" and "harassment") and that he despises the Wikipedia project, having literally written (on an ARBCOM ruled article talk) he believes that Wikipedia (he says: "you know f..k all") is dominated by "the International Court of Wikipedia", formed by a panel of f..ing American Teenagers ([8]). Who at the time, few minute later, took care of removing the astonishing insult in AlasdairGreen's edit was "strangely" Direktor ([9]), coincidentally the very pair who point the accusing finger at me! How can all this be coincidence? And after talking about "clique" by others!

I would ask all of you to consider whether this is a good way to contribute to the project, since I always behaved correctly on enwiki. Theirrulez (talk) 16:05, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Who invited Theirrulez then? hmmmm I invited everyone that was relevant to the discussion per the list above. -- ◅PRODUCER _(TALK) 17:07, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I do not think you know what the word "violent" means. Please don't over-inflate this issue. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:17, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

"Violent" can also mean "marked by intensity", but if you prefer we can ask Theirrulez to replace it with "vehement"... Salvio ( ^{Let's talk 'bout it!}) 17:57, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Ask AlasdairGreen, the one who said Sir Floyd is not compatible to the project, what exactly he means for f..k you all, referring to all wikipedians... I'm just curious to know.. Theirrulez (talk) 20:32, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Let's be honest here. He said "You know fuck all about anything" not "fuck you all". Not civil but certainly he's not saying fuck you to all Wikipedians. AniMate 23:03, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Let me be more honest. He shouts that infamous and astonishing slur on the Tito talk page. ARBCOM rules there for Sir Floyd as same as for AlasdairGreen27. I want to hope. Theirrulez (talk) 04:14, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and the editor was blocked for 72 hours as a result. WP:STICK applies here. Toddst1 (talk) 15:51, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

My comments were pertinent. That is exactly the point I wanted to show:

two users, two harassments or personal attacks, one off-wiki, one inside wikipedia, both under ARBCOM ruling: huge difference in block actions taken. - Theirrulez (talk) 17:08, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Sir Floyd is not banned. Sir Floyd's block log has specific instructions to "Un-block if/when off-wiki harassment is removed/ceases." He could have been unblocked within minutes from when the block was issued. Blocks are used to prevent damage or disruption to Wikipedia, not to punish users.Toddst1 (talk) 20:00, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Please specify exactly what you considered to be the off wiki harassment and please provide a link to it. Personally I see very little harassment at all, Sir floyd has a clean block log, perhaps you could have asked him to remove whatever you saw as a violation rather than just indefinitely block him, he was very upset I can tell you. For a first infringement and off wiki at that this was a severe response to a minor issue. Off2riorob (talk) 20:03, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

See above. Blocked for only as long as the off-wiki shenanigans continue. Toddst1 (talk) 20:20, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Shenanigans? Please specify exactly and link to what you consider to be harassment worthy of indefinitely blocking without warning a user of around a year with a clean block log. User Toddst1 I would also like to ask you if you are involved in Yugoslavian issues yourself? I find myself wondering why, when the thread had been ignored by all admins and archived you unarchived it and immediately indefinitely blocked Sir Floyd after being personally contacted by one of the complainants on your talkpage. Personally I would like to suggest to you that there is minimal alleged harassment off wiki, we all know there issues regarding POV in that area, it is no secret is it, we are allowed to mention the elephant in the room. Perhaps a reconsideration of the indefinite and moving to time served with a warning for the future or something like that, or perhaps a couple of months topic ban in the Yugoslavian area? Off2riorob (talk) 20:26, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

There's a reason most admins ignore things related to the Balkans. It's a horrible area to edit in, and any administrative action always leads to loud, long, and vociferous objections from whatever side feels their ally has been wronged. Toddst1 is not involved in Yugoslavian issues. You know that, since you've obviously read the section where PRODUCER asks him to look at the archived thread at User_talk:Toddst1#ANI. He specifically states: Actually, I'm decidedly not involved in Balkan related activities and have gone to lengths to keep it that way. As for the specific harassment, he obviously thinks the specific four pages linked by PRODUCER at the top of this section constitute harassment. SirFloyd hasn't asked for an unblock and apparently has stated to you that he feels keeping the pages up at MyWikiBiz is more important than editing here. If he feels this block is unjust, he's more than able to request an unblock on his talk page or appeal this to ArbCom. Until then, why not drop this, since SirFloyd doesn't appear interested in challenging it. AniMate 21:10, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I have seen enough ANI to know that if there is anything worthy of Administrator action, whatever the field or issue is that action is taken in the two days the issue was here. Ask yourself, how many times do you see the need for an issue to be unarchived for action? Within minites of the message on his talkpage from one of the complainants Sir Floyd was indefinitely blocked. I prefer it if you left the blocking admin speak for himself, only he knows if he is involved with Yugoslavian issues.IMO this block is excessive, Sir Floyd is not here because I can tell you he was upset to be indefinitely blocked without any warning at all and he has a clean record here, it is a bit much if you ask me and I would like User Toddst1 to explain his exact reasons and the link to exactly what is the harassment for the indef. Off2riorob (talk) 21:24, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Gee, I can't tell if you're hard of hearing or if you are angry at the horse carcass. Regardless, Toddst1 has spoken for himself. As I linked above at User_talk:Toddst1#ANI he said: Actually, I'm decidedly not involved in Balkan related activities and have gone to lengths to keep it that way. So he isn't involved in the Balkans except as an administrator enforcing ArbMac. If you only want him to respond, I would suggest you go to his talk page or email him. I too have seen enough of ANI to understand how threads dealing with edit disputes from the Balkans work. Administrators ignore them because the respective sides won't stop fighting enough to allow anyone an opportunity to give an outside opinion, and when action is taken they get all sorts of hell for it. This is a highly controversial and emotionally charged area of editing, and I challenge you to name 5 administrators who are active in it. Since this block was made via WP:ARBMAC, I would suggest the best course of action for you to get it reversed would be to take it to WP:ARBCOM. AniMate 21:44, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

This is how it happened for me, I was keeping Tans talkpage clean and User Toddst1 comes along and reverts my tidy edit and then we get in a little dispute about it and this is further complicated by my attempting to help another user that user Toddst1 is in dispute with User Malke, at the same time, my friend Floyd is at ANI with this jumped up outing and off wiki harassment claim, everyone ignores it and it is archived, people know Sir Floyd is my friend, next thing I know user Toddst1 unarchived a dead thread and indefinitely blocks my friend. Perhaps it has nothing to do with it but user Toddst1 can say so himself can't he. Off2riorob (talk) 21:51, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

So now instead of wanting to know if Toddst1's motivation for blocking SirFloyd was some secret involvement in Balkans related editing, you now want to know if it is because he has a grudge against you? Can't wait to see what you try next. AniMate 21:58, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

What was his motivation then? The block is excessive and could happily be reduced to time served and a condition of some sort. Off2riorob (talk) 22:01, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

So you have changed tactics. Interesting. Toddst1 has said the block will be reduced to time served when SirFloyd removes the off-wiki harassment. He believes the articles at MyWikiBiz constitute harassment and if SirFloyd wants to be unblocked he can delete them. Toddst1 has been involved in ArbMac blocks long before you came onto his radar, so try to assume good faith and realize you're probably not so important to him that he would risk losing his adminship by performing a bad block just to upset you. Try reading the WP:ARBMAC decision, and if you feel this block falls outside of the scope of the decision rendered there, go to WP:ARBCOM and ask them to reverse it. AniMate 22:27, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I think the issue is a bit more complex Animate. You are right when you say Off2riob has to assume good faith regarding Toddst1 decision. I'm sure of Toddst good faith, and I suppose Off2riob is sure too.

Maybe he just supposed an human inaccuracy in Toddst valuation and he would like to havve his doubt cleared. Are we sure of Sir Floyd identity on the "MyWikiBiz" off-wiki website? What exactly was considered harassment? Can Wikipedia put conditions about off-wiki networks? For the "conditional" block imposed to Sir Floyd did the admin use the same "meter" used for precedent similar harassment (like AlasdairGreen27)? I think these are the question Off2riob means to ask, and I think they are not controversial at all. - Theirrulez (talk) 03:58, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about Offt2riorob and good faith. He pretty much said the only explanation for the block was either Toddst1 having a secret agenda in Balkans related editing or because he had a vendetta against Off2rirorob and his friends. You seem quite focused on AlasdarGreen27. I get it. He said "You know fuck all about anything" which is quite uncivil, when he should have said "You have no idea what you're talking about". You seem to want tit-for-tat. No one is going to block AlasdairGreen27 for that at this point. Let it go. If the information wasn't posted by SirFloyd, he probably wouldn't have told Off2riorob he would rather retire than remove it from the web. The only thing I will agree with you on, is that this is a complex situation. We have a block related to arbitration enforcement. We have two sides dealing with nationalistic issues. This board is ill suited for dealing with such situations. Administrators do not want to deal with Balkans conflicts. Most are hesitant to undo an action that involves arbitration enforcement. If I may suggest, there are two other venues where we should deal with this. The first is WP:Arbitration enforcement. There is a process there for for appealing arbitration related blocks. The second would be a case at WP:ArbCom. There are conflicts spanning multiple articles, accusations of off-site canvassing, accusations of rampant incivility, and who knows what else. Perhaps it is time to nip this in the bud. I understand why most of the participants here are hesitant to enter arbitration, since it will examine everyone's conduct (including editors I consider friends). However, the limitations of WP:AN/I have been reached. Pursue something else, and let this thread die. AniMate 08:55, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Frankly Animate I don't see two sides dealing with nationalistic issue, I see several users from different places in the world arguing about complex but substantial things. We can also let the thread die, I agree, but never before getting some further answers to some very precise questions (those above). It could be an easy effort to throw far away every doubt about if this issue could have (or better already could have been) a rightly different ending. Don't you think so? - Theirrulez (talk) 16:15, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

You've gotten your answers, several times, from several people. Now you're being WP:TEDIOUS. Toddst1 (talk) 19:21, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I have asked a few times for specific points that were considered to be the actual harassment and didn't manage to get an answer, Sir Floyd has been watching this discussion and has mailed me that he has removed the names of any wikipedia editors from the wikibiz content off-line and that he hopes that removing the names is a satisfactory removal of the harassment. http://www.mywikibiz.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Ockham/Wikipedia_%26_Political_Agendas&action=history he also asks that if there is any content that is still considered to be off wiki harassment could it clearly be detailed so that he can have the chance to deal with it. Off2riorob (talk) 21:45, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I think that's sufficient for unblocking. It would be better if he got rid of the lesser part of the problem and we're done. Toddst1 (talk) 22:42, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi Toddst1. I have removed as per your request. Sir Floyd (talk) 23:30, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

User:Mathsci

{{hat|Closed; referred to [[WP:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Race_and_Intelligence|ArbCom]] [[User:Rvcx|Rvcx]] ([[User talk:Rvcx|talk]]) 13:41, 2 June 2010 (UTC)}} Not so fast, the community has not finished dealing with this, and we don't have to stop all discussion just because someone has asked for a case. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:57, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I've been trying very hard not to get sucked into silly edit- and flame-wars with User:Mathsci, but even the very first comment that disagree with him brought forth an immediate barrage of personal attacks. A WQA alert eventually got a non-apology apology, but personal attacks and blatantly offensive edit summaries have continued, and he seems hell-bent on edit-warring to write whatever he wants regardless of input from other editors. There's no question he's made some terrific contributions, but this kind of behavior can't be tolerated. May I suggest a one-day block to help him cool off and reconsider his approach? Rvcx (talk) 20:51, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps I am simply calloused and scarred from exposure to Climate Change Probation related pages, but I am struggling to see these personal attacks you complain of and can only think that your understanding of the phrase "knee jerk" involves some activity I would rather not be familiar with. I am seeing someone who is explaining how WP uses its sources, the need for comment to be sustained by reliable third party references, that quoting something accurately cannot be libelous, and that personal appraisal of an original source is not permissible. However that latter is clearly in the domain of content dispute, which is beyond the remit of this board. Unless you can specify what part of Mathsci's comment contravene WP:NPA, I very much doubt you will get much traction here. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:08, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Dismissing feedback on whether the cited sources support the statements in WP articles because I'm an "amateur" (used many times, of course never for Mathsci himself), accusing people of "making remarks off the tops of your head without any lengthy attempt to look at the sources" (despite repeated reminders that I have actually read the sources) and commenting "like a teenager playing a video game", demanding that I "get some grip on reality (unless of course you want ArbCom to be involved)", yet more allegations that I "hasn't read the sources- just knee jerk reaction", and the reversion of an edit supported by others on the grounds that "if you want to move towardss your 300th content edit do it elsewhere" seem a lot more like attacks directed at me (requiring very childish arguing over who has more "expertise" on the subject) than discussion of the content at hand. I don't deny Matsci's points about how primary and secondary sources should be used; I simply have not been able to verify the original phrasing of the text in secondary sources, and the primary sources suggest there's a good reason for that... Rvcx (talk) 21:21, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

My review of the comments leads me to believe that although probably within the realms of a WQA referral - can you provide a link? - Mathsci was contrasting the findings of the third party sources with your own appraisals and, notwithstanding that you may or may not be an expert in the field, that would tend to be in the realm of Wikipedia:Original research and therefore not allowable (beyond the fact that Mathsci apparently believes your conclusions contrast to that of the reliable sources). I should note that I am not an expert at anything much than me, but a review of Mathsci's later comments - with the spelling mistakes and grammar - makes me believe that they were a little frustrated and might not have expressed themselves as respectfully as they might have. I would like to see Mathsci's comments upon this. Presently, I feel that this is a content dispute that has veered away from the preferred norms of interaction. Perhaps if Mathsci reviews the matter there might be some kind words exchanged about past comments and everyone can get on with the discussion? I will gently request that he takes a look at this section. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:18, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks LHvU for letting me know about this and your truly horrible wikipun :)

• Rvcx's edits did not match the secondary source used [10]; he attempted to analyse the Jensen article himself
• There was no original research, just a summary of what appears in the secondary sources, a lot of which had been used for History of the race and intelligence controversy. Having produced 80,000 bytes of content with over 80 references, I can't really pretend not to be slightly familiar with the subject, often described as one of the most controversial papers in the history of psychology. A number of other people - from memory these include Slrubenstein, Maunus, Professor marginalia and RegentsPark - confirmed what I said.
• I did apologize for any misunderstanding twice here [11] (see in particular the final two statements). Mathsci (talk) 08:02, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

• 11 hours after your backhanded apology, you reverted an edit with the inappropriate edit summary "Rvcx (talk) no thanks - if you want to move towards your 300th content edit do it elsewhere". (You reverted Rvcx's edit 2 hours after it was made, despite the fact that he noted it on the talk page and appeared to receive acceptance from Professor marginalia, among others, prior to your revert). Your apology appears to lack any sincerity, and it appears 2 hours was not enough to read the discussion that was underway on the talk page. About an hour later, you were reverted on the basis that there was consensus on the talk page that Rvcx's edit was fine, but you edit-warred by reverting yet again here, failing to discuss your content reversion on the talk page. What is so difficult to understand about the fact you need to discuss reversions you make on the talk page and make appropriate edit summaries that don't go against WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF? Are experienced administrators failing to teach you how to appropriately deal with perceived or actual POV pushing, or is it a matter of being stubborn? Ncmvocalist (talk) 10:02, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

And now Mathsci has reverted three times despite an apparent consensus and without a single comment on the talk page where the (minor) change was discussed. Rvcx (talk) 10:31, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Finally I see a potential sign of improvement - he's begun discussing his concerns on the talk page here; hopefully the edits in that discussion and in edit-summaries now comply with the relevant policies and preferred norms of interaction, even during perceived or actual difficult situations. Ncmvocalist (talk) 10:51, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

No such luck; "howlers" right out of the gate. Honestly, there has never been any indication that Mathsci has anything but disdain for third-party input. Rvcx (talk) 11:01, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Rvcx is editing too fast and not checking secondary sources. Here is what the secondary source says; [12]:

But he felt that 'the technique for rasing intelligence per se in the sense of g, probably lie more in the province of biological sciences than in psychology or eduaction'; eugenic reform rather than compensatory educationheld out the solution to the problem of the nation's intelligence.

I paraphrased this in two distinct ways, the first (diff 1) with the words "in" and "than" missing, and the second (diff 2 and 3) slightly closer to Wooldridge.

• He felt that the solution lay eugenic reform rather compensatory education surmising that "the technique for raising intelligence per se in the sense of g, probably lie more in the province of biological science than in psychology or education".
• He felt that the solution to this problem was through eugenic reform rather than compensatory education, surmising that "the technique for raising intelligence per se in the sense of g, probably lie more in the province of biological science than in psychology or education".

I did leave a message on the talk page [13] but Rvcx must have been editing too fast to read them, His version tht he and Captain Occam have edit-warred back into the article reads:

• He felt that eugenic reform would prevent this more effectively than compensatory education, surmising that "the technique for raising intelligence per se in the sense of g, probably lie more in the province of biological science than in psychology or education".

This is not what the secondary source says. Indeed as the secondary sources say, Jensen's paper starts off with "Compensatory education has been tried and it has apparently failed". There are no comparatives. Anyway since there are two versions I have only reverted twice. On the talk page, Rvcx discusses what the quote means in the primary sources. He says, it means "changing people's biology", [14] but of course it doesn't mean that all. As the secondary source states, "biological sciences" means eugenics: population control, which in these cases - as several of the secondary sources also say - means either birth control or sterilization. Certainly that is what is in the rest of the summary. Our task is just to paraphrase Wooldridge, the secondary source. This kind of error, apparent with the mention of "Changing people's biology" in interpreting the primary source, shows exactly why we use secondary sources. Mathsci (talk) 11:36, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

I’d like to point out that when this issue was brought up at the BLP noticeboard, Jimbo Wales became involved in the discussion, and left this comment about it. His comment is about a slightly different piece of content than the one that Mathsci is edit warring over currently, but the same principle clearly applies. According to Jimbo Wales, we can’t claim that Jensen has advocated something unless Jensen has specifically stated that he advocates it—“we need it from his own words, not the synthesis and conclusion-drawing of his critics.” In the case of eugenics, even though some of Jensen’s critics have claimed in secondary sources that Jensen has advocated this, all that Jensen himself has stated is that eugenics is more likely to raise the IQs of low-IQ people than compensatory education is. Mathsci is not only edit warring to try and change the article against consensus; he is repeatedly inserting material that according to Jimbo Wales is probably a BLP violation.

And this is in addition to his repeated personal attacks, which have been near-constant for the past several months. I can provide diffs of some of the more egregious examples from before Rvcx became involved in this dispute, if anyone needs them. --Captain Occam (talk) 12:00, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

I decided against getting involved in the WQA thread, but now that this has been taken to AN/I, I figured I should offer my opinion about it as someone who’s been the target of numerous personal attacks from Mathsci in the past. In general, the attitude I’ve observed from him is that no criticism of his behavior is ever appropriate because he’s a “user in good standing”. For an example of this, see his exchange with Keegan here. His attitude appears to be that “good standing” is a status that becomes irrevocable once it is earned, and grants immunity from any censure or negative consequences in response to policy violations.

I would certainly hope that isn’t how Wikipedia works. For a user to remain in good standing should be contingent on their staying civil, and not engaging in disruptive behavior, and I don’t think Mathsci can reasonably expect to stay in good standing after his behavior towards Rvcx and David.Kane during the past week, as well as his behavior towards me, Varoon Arya and Ludwigs2 over the previous several months. Assuming it’s the case that Mathsci’s history of contributions does not excuse him from having to abide by policies such as WP:NPA, I think it would be beneficial for an administrator to give him a hard dose of reality about this, and that it would help avoid similar problems from Mathsci in the future if an admin could make him aware that he does not have free reign to ignore WP policy without any fear of negative consequences. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:54, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

I concur with LHVU. This matter is related to the endless disputes about Race and intelligence. User:David.Kane made a post on WP:BLPN essentially arguing that academic sources have made libelous claims about Arthur Jensen, and has been supported in this position by User:Off2riorob and User:Rvcx. Mathsci has pointed out that there is substantial scholarly coverage of Jensen's positions and has explained the substance of this coverage and given citations and links to where it appears. Off2riorob and Rvcx do not appear to have followed up on these citations/links, and Mathsci is expressing frustration that other editors are not doing their reading. I find Mathsci's reaction entirely understandable; sadly, Wikipedia editors cannot be graded down when they show that they don't have command of the sources. In any event, nothing that Mathsci has said in the diffs provided is uncivil, and bringing the matter to ANI borders on the vexatious. --Akhilleus (talk) 04:19, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree. For more background (not related to Rvcx) see this. In short, several SPA editors have been using WP:CPUSH to promote their views across a wide range of race and intelligence articles. Mathsci is about the only obstacle preventing SPAs and other enthusiastic editors from having free reign. Johnuniq (talk) 04:49, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

This is simply not consistent with what happened. Off2riorob and Rvcx followed up on the only citation necessary to validate a BLP violation, the writing of the subject. The violation has recently been corrected as a result of this. Mathsci made efforts for several months to maintain his virulent anti-Jensen material. His behaviour towards other editors during this time was appalling. mikemikev (talk) 06:21, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Frankly, I don't think the content dispute here is that significant. It's crazy that such a protracted discussion was needed to change just a few words to ensure the text is verified by sources (both primary and secondary—let's not get into a lengthy debate here, but suffice it to say I think both are relevant). I have no particular interest in views across that article space.

What is significant is Mathsci's stubborn and confrontational attitude, and his assumption that he is entitled to insult and ignore everyone who disagrees with him, even over the smallest details, on the basis of his "score" in terms of number of edits. I didn't think that was the way Wikipedia was supposed to work. Rvcx (talk) 10:12, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

My view, after reviewing what is written since I logged out, is that there is a content dispute relating to the subject, that Mathsci has used terminology that is not optimum, and those instances are being pursued in an effort to limit Mathsci's input in the dispute. The latter is not going to work, so I suggest that the point of contention is taken to dispute resolution; RfC or WP:3O would be my suggestion. To the parties I would comment, Mathsci might consider choosing their words a bit more carefully, and Rvcx, Off2riorob and others should separate the content dispute from the civility issues and find a way to get consensus on the content matter. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:17, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

With all due respect, it seems like LHvU is trying to taint other editors with MathSci's bad behavior. I have been incredibly careful to separate civility issues from content issues; thus the attempt to discuss civility here and at WQA and focus entirely on content at BLPN and the article talk pages. It is consistently MathSci who employs ad-hominem in content disputes and tries to deflect civility complaints with arguments over content. It is consistently MathSci who argues that other editors have no right to provide input, purely on the basis of who they are. It is MathSci who laces every comment with "anyone who disagrees with me is an idiot and they should fuck off" attacks, on multiple occasions actually threatening to escalate to ArbCom purely because an editor had the temerity to suggest that he could be in the wrong. I don't think any one comment is particularly egregious, but the overall message, sense of entitlement, and pattern of personal intimidation are both clear and intentional. At some point administrators should intervene to let him know that such an attitude is not acceptable, regardless of how many "content edits" he has made. Rvcx (talk) 12:28, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Akhilleus: 1) If you are going to make claims about me, then you ought to have the courtesy of making a direct link to the material. Here is the BLPN section in which I raised the issue about Arthur Jensen. 2) The first two uninvolved editors (talk and Rvcx) to comment agreed with me. Jimbo Wales was also supportive. And MathSci has given up on defending the specific edit that we had a problem with, that Jensen "has recommended separate curricula for Blacks and Whites." And the reason that he has given up defending it is that Jensen did no such thing. Now, we all make mistakes. If MathSci would just admit that this claim does not belong in Wikipedia, we could all move on. But, as is his usual practice, he engages in a blizzard of irrelevant citations and ad hominem attacks. This issue in this thread is whether or not such attacks belong on Wikipedia and, if not, what ought to be done about MathSci's behavior. Do you really believe that MathSci's behavior here and elsewhere is not "uncivil?" David.Kane (talk) 12:29, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Some editors in this thread seem unconvinced that MathSci's behavior is unacceptable. Perhaps they are right. But they should look at the history of MathSci's behavior as discussed in previous ANI threads: [15], [16], [17], [18] and [19]. Note that other examples are available. My point is not to claim that MathSci is always wrong (or always right) in these debates. My point, counter Johnuniq, is that complaints about MathSci's behavior are not specific to his edits of Race and Intelligence related articles. His behavior is consistent, as best I can tell, across the range of his interactions at Wikipedia. Rvcx's experience with MathSci is completely typical. Is this what experienced admins want to see at Wikipedia? If so, I have little doubt that MathSci will continue to give it to us good and hard. David.Kane (talk) 13:00, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Let's just take a look at the diffs shall we? The first two diffs refer to: A.K.Nole (talk · contribs). It was determined by a member of ArbCom that this user was wikihounding me and continued to so under a new account: they have been iinstructed by that member of ArbCom to deists. Next diff from 2008 ends as follows: I would like to add that this matter is resolved, as far as I am concerned. It was unfortunate that Mathsci and I got off to a bad start but the situation has calmed down and I'm sure we'll be able to co-operate in a constructive way in the future. I most certainly do not want to see Mathsci blocked, he has made many constructive edits and is valuable to Wikipedia. He has offered his apologies and I've offered mine for our heated exchange and I believe that no more needs to be said about it. I wish to thank the other users and administrators involved in this discussions for constructive and meaningful comments that helped to diffuse the situation. JdeJ (talk) 20:19, 1 October 2008 (UTC) The fourth diff was about Ethnic groups of Europe where a Suomi editor was removing good edits by Varoon Arya (talk · contribs) which are still in the article. Normal nationalist issues there. The fifth diff is by Danko Georgiev, MD, who was blocked for a week for attempting to out me as Alan Weinstein, then head of department in Berkeley,and actualy a friend of mine. So you get a γ- for accuracy but an α+ for misrepresentation and attempted harrassment. Mathsci (talk) 14:16, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Note as an uninvolved editor, I have made a temporary change to stop the edit-war short of protection and blocks. See my comments at the talk and come to a consensus that does not violate policy. Enough is enough - if anyone involved wants to continue edit-warring about this matter, they proceed at their own risk. Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:40, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't feel that strongly about it and there is no ongoing edit war as you claim. So I have restored Rvcx's version, despite its very mild inaccuracy, which I don't really care that much about. However I do care about secondary sources as they represent one of the pillars of wikipedia editing policy and I hope other editors will continue to respect and abide by those policies. I'm sorry for spoiling the fun for the peanut gallery. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 13:50, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

I think others can assess for themselves whether there is an ongoing edit-war from just looking at your reversions [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25]. That is, the same person usually doesn't make 3 identical reverts on the same page within 24 hours if that person doesn't "feel very strongly" about something, nor do they wait until the third revert before even bothering to discuss their issue(s). Some people take a long time to learn, but I suppose it would be better late than never. Cheers, Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:10, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Even if this instance of edit warring ends up being resolved here, I hope there can also be a solution to the problem of Mathsci’s repeated personal attacks. This problem has been going on for as long as I’ve been interacting consistently with Mathsci, which is for around four months, and unless an admin does something about it I doubt it’ll be changing anytime soon. --Captain Occam (talk) 14:25, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Hmmmm, by now all these AN/I discussions have become part of "History of the race and intelligence controversy" as well. Count Iblis (talk) 14:30, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

There needs to be an end to the personal attacks on Mathsci, as well. Some of Mathsci's comments do appear to be personal attacks, but so do most of the edits of the people complaining. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:48, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Comment At the moment it does seem to be a team of editors picking on me all over wikipedia. It includesd the familiar WP:SPAs: David.Kane, Mikemikev, Captain Ocaam and Varoon Arya. I edit Bach Organ Music. I'm editing Orgelbüchlein at the moment. I have the two main English languages source books by Russel Stinson and by Peter Williams (both edition). I also have also have severaal version of the scores. Previously I created Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes and Canonic Variations. Varoon Arya (talk · contribs) has followed me to this article and has started questioning the sources and the standard orthography. However, in all Bach editions there is now a standard spelling which I am adhering to. Breitkopf used a different convention in the nineteenth century, but adopted a different convention along with all other publishers of urtext editions from 1969. I have both of the German Breitkopf editions. In his edit summaries Varoon Arya has started questioning all those sources: the scores, the definitive book by Peter Williams, The Organ Music of J.S. Bach, Cambridge University Press and The Orgelbüchlein by Russell Stinson, Oxford University Press, the only book wholly devoted to the subject. [26][27] I am preparing a long table with 164 entries and he inserted apostrophes of the 19C version, which has now been dropped, probably beacuse of adherence to the autograph, now available in facsimile. Why is he leaving such sneering comments, why isc heasting doubt on the sources and why has he followed me to this article? I think this a concerted attempt by a team of 3 or 4 users to wikihound me. Mathsci (talk) 15:35, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Arthur Rubin: even if that’s true, I think when you look at some of the worse examples of this from Mathsci, they’re of a different caliber than anything that’s coming from the people who are annoyed at him. Here’s a small sampling of some of the worse examples of this from Mathsci. There are a lot more than this that I could provide, but I think these are probably sufficient to demonstrate the point I’m making.

<= The onslaught continues here [28]. I think Varron Arya is trying to provoke an edit war. Fortunately the German 1991 Breitkopf edition is in exact agreement with the two books in its spelling and use of apostrophes.Mathsci (talk) 16:45, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

[29] In response to a detailed explanation from Varoon Arya of why Mathsci’s preferred version of an article violated NPOV, Mathsci writes “Sorry, what you write is nonsense. Please stop wasting my time.” (This was Mathsci’s entire response to VA.) He considered this a sufficient rebuttal to Varoon Arya’s points to revert any efforts to address the NPOV concerns that VA was raising. I don’t think any of the rest of us consider snide comments like this a sufficient response to policy-based arguments that Mathsci makes.

[30] “BTW if you revert my edits you are very likely to be blocked for a considerable period of time, possibly by ArbCom.” I don’t think any of the rest of us have threatened Mathsci with blocks to try and scare him out of reverting our edits. He’s also done the same thing in some of his edit summaries, such as this one: “you'll be blocked if you repeat this POV-pushing”.

[31] “From the blog previously linked to his user page, Captain Occam has an extreme point of view in real life, which also extends to forms of holocaust denial.” I think this is probably the worst example, both because it’s false, defamatory and completely unsupported by anything in my blog or elsewhere; and also because I’m of Ashkenazi (European) Jewish ancestry and had relatives who died in the holocaust. The fact that I’m of Ashkenazi ancestry is mentioned in one of the userboxes on my userpage, which I know Mathsci has looked at, because at several points he’s brought up information he found at external sites that I’ve linked to there. I think he could have known both that this comment was false, and also how offensive I’d find it. And obviously, none of the rest of us have made these sorts of defamatory personal claims about him. --Captain Occam (talk) 15:29, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Arthur, could you back that up with diffs? Honestly, "most" of the edits from people complaining are personal attacks? I don't see a single instance on BLPN or the race/intelligence talk pages where I've made a personal attack against Mathsci. This thread contains links to dozens of diffs where Mathsci has. The attempt to paint everyone with the same brush in an attempt to exonerate Mathsci's uncivil and domineering behavior is an embarrassment to Wikipedia. Rvcx (talk) 15:43, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Ugh. When are you people going to realize that Mathsci - no matter how much support he has from certain editors and admins - is an inveterate troll who uses intimidation, harassment, political gamesmanship, and other emotional tactics to try to dictate wikipedia content. He is simply not worth the trouble he causes. It's truculent ciphers like Mathsci that make editing wikipedia an excruciating experience.

So long as you all allow Mathsci to turn every page he touches into a full-scale cockfight, Wikipedia will not be the encyclopedia anyone can edit, and it won't be a pleasant place to edit at all, at least not for anyone who doesn't kiss Mathsci's a$$.

No point in belaboring this issue, so I'll leave it at that. do with it what you will. --Ludwigs2 16:19, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Did you come here after this invitation from [32] Captain Occam (talk · contribs)? He has a habit of requesting "help" from other editors, either here, on other noticeboards or articles he's trying push his point of view on. Mathsci (talk) 16:51, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Because a polite "this may be of relevance to you" is far worse than soliciting allies with personal attacks. Rvcx (talk) 17:02, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

No, Mathsci; all Occam did was point out that you are (once again) engaging in bad behavior. If I had noticed on my own I would have made the same comment. I do not need help or invitations from other editors to recognize how badly you pervert the principles of Wikipedia. I am, in fact, shocked that other editors seem to think your behavior is acceptable. but that is between them and their own consciences. --Ludwigs2 21:44, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

@Ludwig2, yes your characterization of Mathsci's techniques are fairly correct. That said, they are also tactics being used by you and many of the SPA accounts that Mathsci mentions. The main difference between his edits and the others using similar tactics is that his edits are generally solid, whereas the edits of others are symptomatic of pov pushing. His behavior is not excused by the higher quality of his edits, and neither are the edits and behavior of the SPA editors excused by Mathsci's behavior. At the heart of the matter is the ability to edit wikipedia using well sourced secondary sources with a neutral point of view. Shining a spotlight on his behavior without discussing the underlying context and editing problems is a perfect example of tolling behavior. A.Prock (talk) 17:15, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Aprock, are you accusing me of being an SPA account? Are you accusing me of trolling? Or are you simply diverting attention from the complaint about Mathsci's behavior? I'm sorry, but given the number of people that have had problems with Mathsci, it's a bit ridiculous to argue that all of them were at fault. The pattern is Mathsci himself; if you want to start threads about other editors (including me) then feel free. Rvcx (talk) 17:23, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

@ A.Prock: AProck - I've never had a squabble with you (or even thought badly of you). In fact, I can count the people I've had squabbles with on Wikipedia on one hand - everyone else on Wikipedia I communicate with well and cooperate with carefully and thoughtfully. My problem with Mathsci is that despite (or perhaps because of) his obvious skills as an editor, he treats other editors in a rude and supercilious fashion, one that I (personally) refuse to put up with. If he were to interact with me in a civil and restrained manner, then I would have the highest opinion of him, and we'd get along well. Because he insists on treating me like vermin, however, I find myself consistently having to clip his wings. I have no use for people who think they are God's gift to Wikipedia, and I have no compunctions about telling them what I think about their bad behavior.

No one gets trouble from me unless they bring the fight to my door, but I have little tolerance for bullies. Mathsci has a long track record of bad behavior, and he has brought the fight to my door more than once. Until he cleans up his act he should not expect me to be gentle or silent in my disapproval. --Ludwigs2 22:05, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Mathsci's behavior does cross into the realm of inexcusable on occasion. If you read the WP:CPUSH essay, you'll see that Mathsci's uncivil reactions are one of the typical outcomes for editors working on articles where WP:CPUSH is ongoing. A big part of the problem here is that there is an attempt to move the discussion away from content and editing issues to personal civility issues. This is a big reason why there are so many problems dealing with the WP:CPUSH problems. For uninvolved editors, civility issues are a lot easier to identify, pursue and discuss than content issues. A.Prock (talk) 22:38, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

No, Aprock. The problem here is your attempt to move the discussion away from civility issues (which is what this complaint is about) to content disputes (for which this is not the right venue). Mathsci's behavior cannot be dismissed as an understandable reaction to manipulative POV-pushers—he has consistently treated every editor who disagrees with him in the same uncivil way from the very start. It would great if a good writer and researcher were also good at working with other editors, but unfortunately that's not the case here. Pretending there is not a problem with Mathsci hasn't worked so far and unless something is done about him the problems will continue in the future. Rvcx (talk) 23:02, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

• We're never going to resolve this dispute at AN/I or via RfCs: I think only ArbCom can deal with this situation. Long-term POV pushing by single-purpose accounts has turned the whole area of race and intelligence into an intractable battleground. I'd like to see all SPAs in this area topic banned. Fences&Windows 17:58, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

• I agree entirely. The continued attacks on Mathsci here and elsewhere are a distraction and a blot on the project -- no one should be subject to such vitriol simply because they're trying to uphold core Wikipedia standards. The SPA activity needs to be curtailed, and these accounts blocked from editing, or, at the very least, put under severe editing restrictions regarding both the "race and intelligence" subject area and attacks and complaints about Mathsci. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:17, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Fences and Beyond My Ken: 1) This complaint against MathSci was bought by Rvcx. Would you describe him as engaging in "vitriol" or as an "SPA"? 2) Am I one of the editors who you seek to block? The only reason that I engaged in this thread is because Akhilleus mentioned by name in a misleading fashion. David.Kane (talk) 18:52, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

This is all a smoke screen. If we step back and look at the bigger picture, Mathsci may be involved in a few minor incidents from time to time, but he is not the problem on race related articles. Rather it is civil POV pushing, tag teaming, edit warring SPAs who are creating an atmosphere conducive for incidents. The solution to this problem already exists, topic ban POV pushing SPAs, and repeated threads on ANI will reduce or cease altogether. Unfortunately there has not been enough political will to implement this solution, though almost everyone, including the SPAs themselves, have acknowledged the existence of POV pushing SPA editing. Wapondaponda (talk) 19:23, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Wapondaponda: Given your rampant sock-puppetry in the past, you are probably doing MathSci more harm than good by chiming in here. I, at least, have never "acknowledged the existence of POV pushing SPA editing." David.Kane (talk) 20:34, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Easy excuse to divert from the main problem and I have heard it countless times whenever editors try to discredit any edits I make. From my experience, it doesn't work very often which is why I am still quite active on Wikipedia. If a suggestion is good for this encyclopedia, it really shouldn't matter, and it usually doesn't matter who it is coming from. There might be a tendency to focus only on the negative, but there are some positives, I've been editing Wikipedia for five years now and I have experienced many of these controversies before. During that unfortunate period, Mathsci did participate in getting me blocked. But from my time on Wikipedia, I have encountered Mathsci's edits in a diverse range of articles. Most are uncontroversial and of good quality, so I am confident that Mathsci is not a POV pushing SPA, and that when this particular flare-up is over, he will move on to work on other articles. Overall he is a net plus to the encyclopedia. I cannot say the same for the band of SPAs currently holding a number of race related articles hostage. Captain Occam, Mikemikev, Bpesta have all acknowledged in one way or another that they are SPAs. Wapondaponda (talk) 04:47, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

(convenience break)

I find it incredibly discouraging to see that even in the face of conduct from Mathsci of the sort that Rvcx and I have linked to above, behavior which has no equivalent from any of the users complaining about Mathsci in this thread, Beyond my Ken and Fences & Windows both believe that the solution is to punish everyone but Mathsci. It really seems like what Ludwigs2 described might be the case: that there are certain administrators who will support Mathsci regardless of what he does, and that since Mathsci is aware of this fact, he knows that he has free reign to violate any policies here without any fear of negative consequences.

Aren’t either of the admins who are saying this aware that at this point, no more than half of the users currently complaining about Mathsci’s behavior are SPAs? The only users currently making these complaints who could arguably fit that definition are me, David.Kane and Mikemikev. Rvcx, Ncmvocalist, and Ludwigs2 clearly aren’t SPAs, and the first two became involved in the article only as a result of it being brought up at the BLP noticeboard. The current conflict between them and Mathsci is the result of them trying to remove material that (as I explained above) according to Jimbo Wales is a BLP violation, and Mathsci edit warring to reinsert it. Following Jimbo Wales’ instructions about how to comply with BLP policy is not POV-pushing, and the editors who initiated this complaint because of how Mathsci reacted when they tried to do this aren’t SPAs. In this situation, do you seriously think the problem is just with “POV-pushing SPAs”? If David.Kane and I weren’t involved in these articles, and it were only Rvcx and Ncmvocalist trying to remove the BLP violations, is there any evidence that Mathsci would be treating them any differently from how he currently is?

I really hope I can get through to you about what’s actually going on here, although I don’t have all that much hope about it. My understanding of the current situation is that Mathsci knows he can ignore whatever policies that he wants here, because he expects admins like the two of you to support him regardless of what evidence or arguments are presented against him. And judging by what I’ve seen thus far, it looks like he might be right that this is the case. If he is, then we may as well abandon all pretense of users being judged objectively on the basis of their behavior—apparently, the only thing that really matters is who the admins personally like or dislike. --Captain Occam (talk) 06:18, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Captain Occam canvassing [33], and forum shopping [34]. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:41, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

If they were no POV pushing SPAs, would many of these incidents exist. The history of these articles suggests not. This dispute has been running for eight months, Mathsci was not initially involved and during the mediation he did not participate for 2-3 months. During Mathsci's absence there was still name-calling, incivility, edit warring and blocks. It is evident that the real problem is the existence of SPAs rather than Mathsci's edits. Wapondaponda (talk) 08:50, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Ludwigs2 may not be an SPA, but Mathsci was, for some time, the only remaining editor complaining about his (sorry, I can't think of a word which is both accurate and not a personal attack, ummm, let me think), "mediation" on Race and intelligence. He has a personal interest in Mathsci's being discredited, as it's the only way that his "mediation" might not be considered a reason for a ban. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:56, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

The characterisation of the personal behaviour on Wikipedia of Mathsci by Ludwigs2, although strongly expressed, has much truth in it. Apart from that, the edits by Mathsci and his supporters to the article History of the race and intelligence controversy‎ seem to me and to several other people to be tendentious and slanted. Attempts to place a NPOV flag on that article have been repulsed. Xxanthippe (talk) 09:23, 31 May 2010 (UTC).

There is zero truth in Ludwigs2's unfortunate characterization of Mathsci as an "inveterate troll", a few paragraphs above. Mathsci doesn't make "deliberate and intentional attempts to disrupt the usability of Wikipedia for its editors" (see WP:TROLL). On the contrary, a deep care for the encyclopedia seems to be what motivates Mathsci (and, admittedly, sometimes make him lash out in crude hyperbole). ---Sluzzelin talk 10:49, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

"Captain Occam canvassing [35], and forum shopping [36]."

Wouldn't it be appropriate for you to look into what's actually going on before making these sorts of accusations about me? I contacted Black Kite because he specifically asked me to contact him if there's more edit warring on these articles. As for Ludwigs2, I contacted him because during the four months that I've been interacting with Mathsci, he's the only person who's been the subject of more personal attacks from Mathsci than I have, and in a thread about Mathsci's personal attacks it seemed like it would be appropriate to have Ludwig's input.

If you look through the three AN/I threads in which Mathsci tried to get Ludwigs2 banned because of his actions as mediator, the first two of which were started by other users and hijacked by Mathsci, you'll see that Ludwig was begging Mathsci to raise his content disputes within the mediation itself, and Mathsci repeatedly refused. Mathsci's complaints in all three of these threads were almost exclusively either personal attacks on Ludwig, or content disputes over the article that he was attempting to resolve via administrative action against the user he disagreed with without attempting any form of dispute resolution with them, even when the user he disagreed with was specifically requesting this. This last thing is something he's done several times with me and David.Kane also.

Arthur Rubin and Beyond My Ken, are you going to make any attempt to address the points I've made about the attitude you're expressing here? Or are you going to continue expressing what appears to be blind support for Mathsci, while refusing to acknowledge any of the evidence that's being presented that his behavior really is his own fault, and not someone else's? --Captain Occam (talk) 11:36, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

No, actually, I'm not going to make an attempt to address the points you've made. I agree that Mathsci can be abrasive, but, as he's not violating any of the Pillars, the good of the encyclopedia should be considered. Mathsci has made more constructive contributions than all the people who have complained about him, combined.

For those who consider this contrary to my view of Betacommand, so be it. His bots may have made more constructive edits than his detractors, but they also made more nonconstructive edits than his detractors made constructive edits. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:16, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I think the diffs that I and others have posted are sufficient to demonstrate that Mathsci is violating the fourth of the five pillars: “Wikipedians should interact in a respectful and civil manner”. Mathsci isn’t avoiding personal attacks, he isn’t avoiding edit wars, and he isn’t assuming good faith about just about any of the users that he disagrees with. I agree that he’s made a lot of constructive contributions also, but I don’t think that should grant him carte blanche permission to ignore policies such as WP:Civility and WP:NPA, which seems to be both his own attitude and the attitude of several of the admins who’ve commented here. --Captain Occam (talk) 16:43, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I think the many posts I have read of yours over the past months are more than sufficient to show that you are a civil POV-pushing single purpose account whose contributions are not conducive to improving an encyclopedia writen from a neutral point of view. As such, your comments get from me exactly as much consideration as they deserve. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:54, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this is exactly what Ludwigs2 and I are talking about. I guess it’s good that you aren’t afraid to state it publicly: that as an administrator, your decisions in cases like this one will be based on your personal opinions of the editors in question, and will disregard any evidence that’s presented if you don’t like the users posting it. Is there anyone else who feels this way? If there are any other admins who’ve decided ahead of time that they aren’t interested in handling situations like this one objectively, I think it’s useful for those of us who are the targets of Mathsci’s personal attacks to know about that. --Captain Occam (talk) 01:13, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I am not an administrator, will never be an administrator, and as far as I know have never presented myself as an administrator. Were I an administrator, you would have been blocked long before now. My judgment is that you are a net negative for the project. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:57, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

@ Sluzzelin: Actually, Sluz Mathsci has made a protracted, deliberate, and intensive effort to disrupt the ability of me and numerous other editors to edit wikipedia, from simple name-calling and derogative slurs to non-communicative reverts to active efforts to get us blocked, banned, or otherwise prohibited from editing. You may agree with his ends (which is fine by me if you do) but his means fully satisfy the definition given in TROLL. That may make him a moral troll in your eyes - an interesting category that bears some consideration - but troll he is, beyond any but the most remote shadow of doubt. That he is inveterate is obvious by inspection, since he has done it consistently for months (likely years), and shows neither remorse nor any inclination to stop. Deal with it.

I will credit Mathsci with being intelligent, dedicated, and interested in improving the encyclopedia. He can be all that and still be a detriment to the project, because his attitude is so poisonous that it makes working anywhere in his vicinity nauseating. I can tell you this from harsh experience: most of the people Mathsci complains about (whom I largely disagree with) respond to reasoned discussion; Mathsci (whom I largely agree with) does not. Attempting to engage Mathsci in reasoned discussion will produce nothing except a string of insults and mildly paranoid complaints. He has good days where he will talk things out for a while, but as soon as it becomes clear that he is not going to get precisely what he wanted at the start he turns to ANI or other administrative venues to try to enforce his preferred outcome. His mere presence makes any possibility of properly communicative consensus impossible, because as soon as any consensus he doesn't like starts to emerge he will disrupt the consensus with accusations, insults, calls for administrative action, and any other disruptive technique he can wangle to prevent consensus from being reached. If you can think of any behavior that is more against the principles of Wikipedia I'd love to hear it, because I sure as hell can't. --Ludwigs2 00:23, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Someone please topic ban the SPAs already

Or is it necessary to go to Arbcom every time that a topic ban of a POV pusher is needed? --Enric Naval (talk) 12:05, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

A modest proposal. Clearly the normal processes of editing on these pages have broken down, and all parties are now convinced that they, and they alone, are in the right amid competing and increasingly acrimonious demands for retribution and justice. Justice is something that this board is never going to be able to supply, and so the problem comes back time after time. When this sort of train-wreck happens, I suggest to the community that everyone, but everyone, be barred from the page for a period of say three months. That is, nobody who has edited this page or its talk page in the past may edit either for a period of three months from the date of their last edit (enforced by a block of commensurate length if violated). This isn't intended to be "fair" or "right", because that's not we can or should aim to do here. Instead, that's what the orderly construction of the encyclopedia demands. The encyclopedia does not, and never will, require these particular people to be editing this particular article at this particular time. There are thousands of people who might be able to make a better job of it, and they can have the chance. 94.196.217.26 (talk) 14:22, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Note: The above is the second edit of this IP. Beyond My Ken (talk) 15:44, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

It's necessary to go to ArbCom. Or at least see if consensus can be built on this board for banning someone. Even if I thought someone should be banned (and I'm not saying that, because I haven't looked deeply into the matter), I wouldn't do it unilaterally, because I have no desire to be dragged through the wikilawyering that would inevitably ensue. --Akhilleus (talk) 15:01, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

While it does appear to be necessary to go to ArbCom, the community should really take a close look at this. What we have here is a situation where several accounts are collaborating, on-wiki and sometimes off-wiki, to edit as well as create as set of articles that appear to push what may well be a minority or fringe point of view about race. Perhaps these accounts are well meaning but the reality is that wikipedia's articles on race are likely to reflect their views because of the sheer number of accounts and because of their unusually long persistence. We shouldn't want this situation to persist and should immediately, and consensually, topic ban these editors from all articles in the category race. A community ban rather than an ArbCom case is what is really needed here. --RegentsPark (talk) 17:42, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

So admins here are going to let Mathsci get away with this? I am disgusted by Mathsci's poisonous defamation, and by those who support him. The constant counter argument is 'SPA', which appears to be nothing more than a mindless term of abuse. mikemikev (talk) 21:01, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually, it's a fairly precise term of art, and totally appropriate. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:39, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

"precise"? Let's take an example. Am I an SPA? David.Kane (talk) 21:44, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Although you do make edits to topics around a liberal arts college in WIlliamstown to a certain extent, most of your efforts are on race-related articles and from a very particular point of view. It is the fact that you keep inventing new ways to WP:CPUSH that makes your edits particularly problematic. Very few of them seem to be geared to improving the encyclopedic content of wikipedia. Even some of your edits related to Wiliiams College have been problematic. The now deleted article on EphBlog currently in you user space [37] until yesterday was a vindictive attack page, violating almost every aspect of WP:BLP. Unnotable individuals were maligned: the statements about them came up within the first 30 items in a google search on their names. Professor marginalia blanked most of the BLP violations. The article EphBlog was deleted by administrators not once, but twice. Mathsci (talk) 08:06, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

So, I guess that we could do a separate ban proposal for each SPA? To tell the good from the bad? --Enric Naval (talk) 22:45, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

The current group of SPAs does not have a homogeneous editing history, they differ in their extremity of SPA editing. The most extreme is Captain Occam, who despite being an editor since 2006, with over 2000 edits, has edited less than 100 unique pages and only edited about 32 unique articles. Captain Occam is the "ringleader" and the other SPAs have congregated around him. Some are Captain Occam's verified meatpuppets and other are potentially unverified meatpuppets. Some editors were not initially SPAs, having only a made a handful of edits prior to the eruption of this dispute, but have recently morphed into SPAs by significantly increased their edit count on race related articles. While these editors are not homogeneous in their editing history, their approach to race related articles is homogeneous in that they are all, civil POV pushing,( with the exception of Mikemikev, who tends to use words like idiot and nitwits all too frequently). As I have mentioned previously on Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents/History_of_the_race_and_intelligence_controversy, there are few pure SPAs, but we have a new breed of SPAs who take great care to avoid obvious policy violations. But their net effect is what is worrying as they have successfully managed to drag a dispute from as far back as October 2009, which is about 9 calendar months. It is possible that a prolonged dispute is in fact a more potent form of advocacy then actual article content, because such disputes are spread over several noticeboards. Nine months is a lot of time, and non-SPA editors involved in this dispute could have used this time more constructively in other areas of Wikipedia. It is probably a good time to put an end to this. Wapondaponda (talk) 00:59, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Don't you see David Kane's objection, though: If the problem is SPAs, and he's not an SPA, then clearly there is no problem! QED! Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:37, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• Support topic ban of the SPAs. The field of race and intelligence is littered with fake science and erroneous conclusions, and is a massive target for those of a particular interest. These SPAs have defeated each attempt to curb their enthusiasm using their ability to overwhelm any normal person's ability to unravel their arguments. An admin needs to step in and see the obvious: enough is enough; the SPAs need to edit their own websites for a while because it is just creepy to focus that much energy on converting the race and intelligence articles on Wikipedia to promote your point of view. Mathsci is the only obstacle preventing these SPAs from using Wikipedia to "prove" certain conclusions regarding one of the least understood human features (intelligence in general, and race and intelligence in particular). This have been raised in several places, notably here. No, David Kane is not technically an SPA, but yes his actions are indistinguishable from an SPA at this stage and he needs to take a break from this topic. Johnuniq (talk) 04:16, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Am I an SPA? Xxanthippe (talk) 08:17, 2 June 2010 (UTC).

{{hab}}

I'm placing the requests in separate sections (I'm not up-to-date with the drama, so I'm missing a few people). --Enric Naval (talk) 20:57, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

[[::User:Varoon Arya|Varoon Arya]] (talk · contribs) says that he isn't going to edit the topic anymore[38].

[[::User:Distributivejustice|Distributivejustice]] (talk · contribs) retired back in May 2010. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:57, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

[[::User:TechnoFaye|TechnoFaye]] (talk · contribs) edited almost exclusively R&I topics from November 2009 to April 2010. He seems to have moved to greener pastures. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:07, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

@Enric Naval: You are correct that filing an ArbCom request doesn't necessarily override a community discussion, but I think that, in this case, it has basically sucked the air out of the room. With the possibility of an ArbCom case hanging like a sword of Damocles, it's unlikely that you're going to get a lot of action on these requests. Besides, I don't really think that we were on the cusp of a community decision which the filing of the ArbCom request cut off. This issue (SPAs/Race and intelligence) has come up a number of times recently on AN/I, and it has yet to really get significant traction outside of a number of people with firm opinions (myself included) -- more's the pity, since, to my mind, that lack of interest doesn't speak well at all for the community. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:30, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Request to topic ban Mikemikev from Race and Intelligence topics

[[::User:Mikemikev|Mikemikev]] (talk · contribs) created his account in 2007 and made 29 edits until December 2009. Since then he has made 380+ edits, almost every single one inside the R&I topic. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:57, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

comment I tend to agree with this proposal as I have not seen Mikemikev as a positive contributor to the articles, but rather as somewhat of a troll more concerned with blocking progress and dragging out discussions endlessly than with improving articles in a collaborative spirit. If a less severe measure is required it might be to impose a 0rr for Mike on race and intelligence related topics. ·Maunus·ƛ· 06:20, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Request to topic ban Bpesta22 from Race and Intelligence topics

[[::User:Bpesta22|Bpesta22]] (talk · contribs) created his account in May 2010. He has since made 149 edits, every single edit inside the R&I topic. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:57, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Just to point out that he's a professor who's published research on race and intelligence in the journal 'Intelligence', and was drafted here to satisfy the 'expert needed' tag. mikemikev (talk) 21:16, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Has he confirmed his identity with OTRS? Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:29, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it matters whether his identity is confirmed. Almost all of his edits have been on the talk pages, and I would have to say that all even more of them were at the invitation of the "mediator". If he were reminded of Wikipedia policies, he could be a constructive editor, even on topics where his views are, shall we say, "other than mainstream". — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:29, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

The only reason I asked about confirming his identity is that it seemed as if some special pleading was going on: this guy's an expert, treat him differently. Well, maybe so (not that experts don't have to follow policy as well), but the first step then is to confirm he's actually an expert, and which expert, since this is not a subject in which biases among even experts are unknown. Without some confirmation of identity, he could be a dog, for all we know. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:51, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Christ on a stick, BPesta can prove his expertise (or lack thereof) by the quality of references and breadth of scholarly knowledge he provides. the GOOD FAITH ASSUMPTION here is that he is a new wikipedia editor who is applying whatever specialized knowledge he has. Get off his back and let him edit!

If you guys have an unquenchable urge to piss on someone, try it with me - I've been around long enough to give it no mind, and it seems to be a popular pass-time in your crowd regardless. Just don't make me ask an admin to step in and enforce BITE (which I will do if you keep trying to jump on an editor with as few edits as Pesta). --Ludwigs2 04:07, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Any editor who claims to be someone specific in real life must have that claim verified through OTRS if they wish to "pull rank" regarding, for instance, articles about them. I see no reason that such a necessity should be different for someone claiming to be an expert on a specific subject, if they or others desire for them to be treated differently from other editors. Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:33, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Except at no place that I'm aware of did BPesta make the claim that he should be listened to because he was an expert. That was mostly TechnoFaye in some of her rantier moments. So again, unless he starts asserting that he should have some special editing privileges due to his supposed expertise, leave him alone. Hell, Mathsci frequently spouts off about how people should listen to what he says because of his skills, and he's only a mathematician - Pesta has said or done nothing comparable. Maybe we should be talking about banning Mathsci, instead, if misrepresentation of expertise is the issue... --Ludwigs2 14:30, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

His first edit was in March 2010. I didn't check when his account was created. Concur that every edit was inside the R&I topic, but still oppose a topic ban. Would consider an article-space ban if still necessary after the "ringleaders" are restricted. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:33, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Oppose Bpesta has done nothing to deserve a topic ban. He is a bonafide expert in the topic area and came here by invitation. He has done nothing but contribute valuable knowledge in the talkpage discussions.·Maunus·ƛ· 06:17, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

• Comment. The problem here is not so much Bpesta, but rather the manner in which he came to Wikipedia. Bpesta is meatpuppet of Captain Occam as they appear to have met off-wiki, maybe on a blog somewhere, though Captain Occam did disclose this. The problem is Captain Occam introduced Bpesta as neutral expert in the field of Race and intelligence. It turns out that Bpesta isn't exactly neutral and isn't exactly and expert. Aparently Bpesta has some major conflict of interest issues regarding race and intelligence research. He also appears to be more active as a blogger, as he claims he has blogging about race and intelligence for more than 20 year, than he is a researcher. Captain Occam attempted to sway the dispute in his favor by misleading the community about the opinions and credentials of a so-called expert. Wapondaponda (talk) 12:16, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Request to topic ban David.Kane from Race and Intelligence topics

[[::User:David.Kane|David.Kane]] (talk · contribs) created his account in June 2006 and made 600+ edits (approx) to assorted articles. In October 2009 he edited a R&I article for the first time. Since then he has made 1300+ edits and 99% of them are inside the R&I topic (Ashkenazi intelligence, Bell curve, Snyderman and Rothman (study), etc). --Enric Naval (talk) 20:57, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Apologies for not contributing to Race and Intelligence related articles during my first three years on Wikipedia! I will try to make up for this laziness in the future. David.Kane (talk) 01:58, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Besides the race/IQ related articles, aren't virtually all your other prior edits directly related to your college and your blog devoted to it? In other words, single purpose editing in articles that you had a very intense personal involvement in? Professor marginalia (talk) 03:56, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Professor marginalia: No. Although many of the edits were done under the names of colleagues I was working with, I am the primary force behind three articles that have nothing to do with my blog: Elimination of fraternities at Williams College, Robert Gaudino and Rubin Causal Model. It is fair to say that I have three major interests on Wikipedia: issues related to race and intelligence, issues related to Williams College and issues related to Donald Rubin's approach to statistical inference. Apologies if these interests are not wide-ranging enough for your tastes. David.Kane (talk) 12:15, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Again, you've mischaracterized my question and given a slippery answer. Two of the three articles you've listed to demonstrate you weren't single purpose editing articles related to your college are in fact related to your college. The edit history of the third shows you've made 11 out of approx 350 of the edits-and strangely, when I googled the Rubin Causal Model to see if it too was related to the college I found quite a few discussions applying the model to an analysis of race differences written by someone sharing your name. Professor marginalia (talk) 13:17, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

• oppose: My experience of David Kane is as an intelligent and cooperative editor. It might be beneficial to impose a 0RR on R&I related topics to avoid the slight tendency to tagteam editwars. I think the same 0RR rule should be extended to Mathsci.·Maunus·ƛ· 06:23, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
• Support, I think it will be quite difficult to make a case for a topic ban against David.Kane. This is because on the surface, he is one of the politest editors one will encounter. Despite this, I consider him very much part of the problem. A topic ban should be considered, not as a means of punishment but because his contributions have contributed to edit wars and much of the hostility surrounding this dispute. David.Kane was given the task of re-writing the race and intelligence article during the mediation. I took no position on who wrote the article, stating that anyone could write it as long as they stuck to what the disputing parties agreed on. David.Kane wrote an article that was heavily biased towards the hereditarian view point and mostly considered what only one side of the dispute had agreed on. When he was done there was major escalation in the revision history of the article which was the beginning of the post-mediation dispute. DK is probably a very good example of a civil POV pusher because he uses the appearance of politeness and cooperativeness to give the impression of neutrality, when in fact when one looks at his contributions, they tend to be biased. DK once suggested that he would like the race and intelligence article to one day be a featured article. Nothing wrong with wanting any article to be a featured article, but I found it quite absurd and premature to make such a suggestion considering that the article is still quite unstable. Maybe even callous since DKs edits are pro-hereditarian and the subject matter involves controversial subjects such as eugenics. Wapondaponda (talk) 12:07, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
• Support: I've only been watching this situation for a few days, but this editor seems to be overly aggressive with reverts, reverting material added from secondary sources without having even checked those sources. He also seems to misuse policies, especially BLP to justify these reverts. While the material added does refer to a living person, the sources are reliable. Other scholars work, published and vetted by reliable publishers, is in no way libelous and does not expose Wikipedia to any legal threat. Analysis of the subject's work, both positive and negative, is pertinent to the article. I am typically pro-enforcement of BLP issues, but the only reason I could see for excluding a reliable source here would be if there were a known personal (not academic) feud between the source and the subject. Yworo (talk) 12:17, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I like to think that reasonable editors can, in good faith, disagree about the appropriate application of BLP and that such disagreements should not lead to topic bans. An concrete example of a BLP-related revert that I have made in this article is here. Note the comment from Jimbo Wales:

Sorry to come in late here, but I want to agree with Off2riorob on the philosophical point here. "Contentionus claims require exceptional citations" is a concise statement, beautifully put. Now, as to this particular issue, and whether that burden of proof has been met, I don't think so, but I am not certain. I read enough of the discussion which follows to think that is almost certainly has not been met, but I applaud that people do seem to agree that in order to claim that Jenson "has recommended separate curricula for Blacks and Whites" we need it from his own words, not the synthesis and conclusion-drawing of his critics.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:32, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

In other words, Wales applauded my initial revert. Now, obviously, just because Jimbo Wales believes X does not mean that X is true or that X should be Wikipedia policy. But is Yworo really suggesting that doing something that Wales thinks is a good idea is grounds enough for a topic ban? (If the exact rules for BLP were made more clear in how we should deal with this tricky case, then I would follow those rules. But, as that discussion shows, the rules are not clear. In fact, I have since made an effort to figure out what the rules are and/or should be. See here and here.) Summary: A good faith attempt to abide by WP:BLP (and using criteria that several non-involved editors have agreed with) is a poor reason for a topic ban. David.Kane (talk) 13:38, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

David.Kane's disruptive blanking: Jensen and his writings on "American Negroes"

• David.Kane (talk · contribs)
• History of the race and intelligence controversy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Mainstream Science on Intelligence (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Disruptive blanking:

• Adrian Wooldridge (Cambridge University Press) [39] (summary of Wooldridge's precis of book)
• William H. Tucker (University of Illinois Press) [40]
• Michael Byrd and and Linda Clayton (Routledge)[41]
• Joan Freeman (Springer Verlag) [42][43]
• Donald T. Campbell, [44], [45]

Forum shopping on WP:BLPN [46], [47], [48]

Typical example

• Jensen quote blanked by David.Kane: "well-meaning but misguided and ineffective attempts to improve [the] lot" of blacks
• Actual long Jensen quote: "As a social policy, avoidance of the issue could be harmful to everyone in the long run, especially to future generations of Negroes, who could suffer the most from well-meaning but misguided and ineffective attempts to improve their lot."

David.Kane is an editor who mostly edits race-related articles where he engages in WP:CPUSH. This editor has somehow decided that Arthur Jensen wrote no articles mentioning African Americans and their learning problems. This is manifestly untrue and is reported in multiple secondary sources (history books, commentaries, academic papers and books) as well as in Jensen's original articles and books. Now, for whatever reason, he has decided that if there there is a statement in a secondary source about Jensen that he doesn't like, he can just remove it as a BLP violation. This he seems to regard as his passport for removing all content where Jensen makes remarks about African Americans: Jensen referred to African Americans as "Negroes" or "American Negroes" in articles and papers in the late 60s and early 70s. So far David.Kane has challenged material written by Donald T. Campbell, and William H. Tucker, on the grounds that they were written maliciously and misrepresented Jensen. However, the material is repeated in many secondary sources. William H. Tucker is still alive so allegations of this kind on wikipedia amount to some form of libel. Now he has removed text on the same subject by Joan Freeman, an English psychologist specialising in gifted education. Researchers in this particular area are extremely pro IQ-tests and in general have welcomed Jensen's work. So the idea that Joan Freeman is writing maliciosly in a Springer Verlag text book is highly unreasonable. It is another example of David.Kane trying to remove all connection between Jensen and his documented statements on American Negroes. Similarly he has removed a section in the lede of History of the race and intelligence controversy which was a simple extract of what was is still in the main text taken from the book of Adrian Wooldridge, historian and managemant editor of The Economist. Similarly he removed a passage cited in a textbook of Michael Byrd and Linda Clayton (also cited in Tucker). I have no idea why David.Kane is doing this. Does he really seriously expect other wikipedians to believe that all these authors, many still living, are deliberately misrepresenting Jensen? In no cases so far have David.Kane's objections been in any way justified. He is using this as another method of WP:CPUSH to waste other editors' time, as pointed out to him by other users on the talk of the History article (notably Professor marginalia (talk · contribs)).

A few weeks ago he decided that all material of this kind was fine, leaving "Kudos!" messages about the content. Now he is attempting to remove the very same factual statements, appearing in multiple secondary sources, on the tenuous and usually unsupportable grounds that they are BLP violations. David.Kane is a single purpose user who is edit warring on History of the race and intelligence controversy to remove any mention of the documented fact that Jensen discussed possible policies involving African Americans.

It is absurd that he suggests that the En[glish academic Joan Freeman could be writing malicious falsehoods in a book published by Springer Verlag. That really is going one step too far and is clearly an unreasonable excuse for removing properly referenced content. On the basis of his edits today, he will continue to remove any statements that don't suit him, claiming that they are BLP violations. That will exclude him from the 3RR rule. However it now makes it tremendously difficult in those circumstances to use any secondary sources, no matter how realiable or how eminent the author, when writing about Jensen. This does not seem reasonable and seems to be a misuse of WP editing policies. He has removed material four or more times in 24 hours, which normally would result in a block for breaking the 3RR rule. Please could administrators look at the way he is trying to misinterpret wikipedia editing policy to cause disruption. I have no idea what his motives are. Apart from occasionally editing articles related to Williams College, he only edits race-related articles and usually from the hereditaraian point of view, that is, the recorded fact that African Americans score lower on average on IQ tests than White Americans has an inherent genetic cause connected with their race. Usually David.Kane is supported by editors that include Captain Occam, Mikemikev and Varoon Arya. Distributivejustice was another supporter but he retired as an editor (around about the time Ludwigs2 was blocked by BozMo). Many of these users almost exclusively edit race-related articles from the same point of view as David.Kane. Mathsci (talk) 07:54, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I can't help but wonder along the same lines as Mathsci here: these claims are made by otherwise reputable, reliable sources and therefore are acceptable, at least as being their authors' interpretation of what Jensen said. Specifically because it seems there may be issues as to where (and maybe whether) Jensen said exactly those things, it would be prudent not to put them in Wikipedia's voice, but to attribute them to their various authors. However, the fact that the same comments can be found in different sources lends strong credence to the fact that Jensen actually said those things. As long as proper attribution is maintained, I don't see that there is a problem to include them; indeed, I can see where Mathsci can contend that excluding them on the basis that these several authors are "misrepresenting Jensen's words" can be construed as a BLP violation of those otherwise reputable researchers. So, let's just make sure the comments on Jensen are properly attributed to their authors and let it go at that. I fail to see a BLP violation there at all.--Ramdrake (talk) 15:37, 31 Ma]]y 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Ramdrake. It's about time, however, that something was done to reign in single-purpose POV pushers on these articles. Perhaps a long-duration topic ban for David Kane and Occam is appropriate, at this point? Hipocrite (talk) 12:45, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

More disruptive blanking and misrepresentation by David.Kane who has undisclosed WP:COI

• Allan Ornstein (1982) [49][50]

David.Kane's blanking is continuing. He has also claimed that the new material, properly credited to a professor of adminsitrative administration, is another BLP violation. Thats frivolous assertion seems to be false. He also claims that new 1982 source added by me just yesterday has alereadt been discussed. He wrote this in his second edit summary, but it is untrue. In fact David.Kane appears to have an undisclosed and very serious conflict of interest here. In 2009 he created an article which since has been deleted and its content userfied at User:David.Kane/EphBlog. During the AfD, David.Kane admitted that he was the person of the same name who had started the blog when queried about WP:COI by User:Blueboar. Now on this blog in February 2010 David.Kane made the following statement [51] about African Americans in elite colleges in the US:

Looking at the 6 year data from the Diversity Initiatives, you are three times more likely to fail to graduate from Williams if you are black then if you are white. Does Williams have an obligation to tell this to admitted students?

I suspect that this is not so much as race issue as an academic rating issue. I bet that US students with AR 1 have a 98% graduation rate while US students with AR 4 or below are at 80% or worse. If so, shouldn’t Williams be honest about that discrepancy? Would those students be better off at a different, less competitive school?

This is a very extreme statement. These views conflict with David.Kane's claim to be neutral and "agnostic". It indicates a WP:COI. Already this was the case when he volunteered as a "neutral third party" to write the draft of the modified version of Race and intelligence in March 2010 during the last stages of mediation. His continuing tendentious and disruptive blanking of material from reliable secondary sources on History of the race and intelligence controversy is certainly not designed to improve this encylopedia. Another plausible explanation, differing from the many constantly changing reasons offered so far, is that David.kane is removing this material from wikipedia for very strong personal reasons connected with not having his heated arguments on ephblog undercut by wikipedia.

David.Kane has now been disrupting the writing of this article by spuriously blanking the same material from completely different reliable academic sources multiple times. It's time he was blocked for edit warring. Mathsci (talk) 07:11, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

His tag team member Captain Occam (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is edit warring in the same way, blanking material from reliable secondary sources without explanation at all, just WP:IDONTLIKEIT. This, by the way, is typical behaviour for the single puprose account. Just disruption with no desire whatsoever to build a reliable encyclopedia. Instead of content to wikipedia, these two users are tendentiously removing without any justification.[52][53] I have which has written most of the 82,000 bytes of content of History of the race and intelligence controversy. All these SPAs do is tendetniously and dsiruptively remove content that conflicts with their extreme personal points of view. In this case Occam should not have edit warred (for which he blocked three times) but discussed what was wrong with the sourced material on the talk page of the article. Apparently he doesn't feel the need to do that. Mathsci (talk) 07:22, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

This is creepy. Following DK around to find that he's concerned with why people drop out of college. This is a content dispute, deal with it. 94.196.104.45 (talk) 11:49, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

There's nothing "creepy" about this. D.K admitted to being the author of the blog in question. That's not "following DK around." — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 13:50, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

This is the very definition of ad hominem, and a complete misunderstanding of what constitutes a conflict of interest. MathSci is effectively labeling David.Kane a racist on the basis of this blog entry and arguing that such a viewpoint renders him incapable of editing on Wikipedia. The premise is absurd, and the logic that any private political stance could invalidate an editor's contributions is simply wrong on more levels than I could list. Rvcx (talk) 14:00, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

-

Having and voicing an opinion isn't a COI. While I agree with Mathsci that assing criticisms of Jensen is never a BLP issue when sourced to reliable sources this is just a waste of time taking the focus from the real problems at the Race and Intelligence related pages. ·Maunus·ƛ· 14:06, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

What a mess. Is it just me or don't there look to be more serious WP:BLP concerns on this User:David.Kane/EphBlog page that should be dealt with before worrying about solidly, reliably published claims about a highly public, prominent figure like Arthur Jensen? BLP violations sourced to what David.Kane appears to have written himself and self-published in blog exposé? What in the heck  ??? That page warrants a serious scrubbing, imo. Professor marginalia (talk) 18:38, 1 June 2010 (UTC) followup-I've blanked most of it for now. Professor marginalia (talk) 18:51, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, it was a fairly crude attack page [54] written wholly by David.Kane. It was not properly userfied when transferred to his user space: if for example I search google now for "Robert Shvern", whom David.Kane singled out for mention in the article, David.Kane's user space article still comes up 30th in the google list. Was David.Kane willfully violating WP:BLP publicly to disgrace the boyfriend of an unnamed female student from Williams College because of some student prank? Does he really imagine that articles like that are part of the purpose of this encyclopedia? Mathsci (talk) 21:22, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Tag team content blanking - without checking secondary sources

• Mikemikev (talk · contribs)

Here is the latest bout of edit warring in action, where this tag team continues to blank sourced content indiscriminately taken from a reliable secondary source without any cogent reasons:

1. David.Kane [55]
2. Captain Occam [56]
3. Mikemikev [57]
4. Mikemikev [58]
5. Mikemikev [59]

There has been more forum shopping at WP:BLPN here, where so far no support has emerged for the tag team's claim of BLP violations. There are a lot of reliable secondary sources which contain the same material and they have existed for years. What is slightly disturbing is that these editors are removing actual factual content about Jensen's theory of Level I and Level II theories of learning which he did actually apply to explain the low IQ scores of African Americans. If David.Kane, Captain Occam or Mikemikev have some doubt about this, they should presumably explain themselves, because account of the theory are repeated in countless psychology textbooks. Are they trying to WP:CENSOR wikipedia because this material doesn't suit [[their point of view? Mathsci (talk) 15:03, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

@ Captain Occam, if you do not want editors to discuss your blog, then you also should not discuss your blog on Wikipedia. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. Since you have blanked my comments concerning your blog controversy, it is only fair that you blank your own accusations since I was responding to them. If you choose not too, then consider restoring my comments or else I might do so. Wapondaponda (talk) 17:23, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Muntuwandi, my accusations are directed at Mathsci, not at you. Why do my accusations against Mathsci make it necessary that you have the right to respond?

If Mathsci wants to dispute what I’ve said about him, then he’s welcome to do so, but since this has nothing to do with you I find it very strange that you’d have this attitude. This issue has also already been discussed at length here, and nearly all of the editors who commented there agreed that Mathsci’s claim about this wasn’t acceptable. There is no controversy over these claims from Mathsci, and never has been; there’s only a single user (you) who seems compelled to express support for Mathsci’s personal attacks based on things people have written outside Wikipedia, apparently because you’ve made similar personal attacks against me in the past. For you to keep trying to justify this aspect of Mathsci’s behavior amounts to a personal attack of your own, so I advise against it. --Captain Occam (talk) 17:43, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

• [60]

Another revert by Captain Occam at break-neck speed, this time of material from a peer-reviewed article of Yehudi Webster, a professor of sociology. I didnt even have time to proof read the content. Another writer of vicious calumnies no doubt: Captain Occam has an incredible ability to judge such texts all on his very own. He determined that Yehudi Webster was obviously biased in probably less than 2 or 3 minutes. Yehudi Webster is an African American. It surely can't be true that all African American academics are biased and can't be trusted to write neutrally about Jensen or other aspects of race and intelligence or its history. Mathsci (talk) 18:04, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

• [61] David.Kane blanking content yet again. Mathsci (talk) 22:17, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

• Victor Chmara (talk · contribs)

Another single purpose account whose edits are mainly on race-related articles form the same point of view as David.Kane, Captain Occam, Varron Arya and Mikemikev has joined the tag team. He is inserting own WP:OR and blanking sourced content, without making any attempt to locate secondary sources. He is deciding with Captain Occam witout leaving any opportunity for other editors to comment. This appears disruptive to be edit-warring. Expanding Europe#PRehistoric history was peaceful tranquility compared to the mayhem these editors are causing, by attacking the article simultaneously. Mathsci (talk) 13:22, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I think the ArbCom request should cover this as well. Rvcx (talk) 13:43, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

JIDF at Gaza flotilla clash

JIDF is bringing people to Gaza flotilla clash http://www.thejidf.org/2010/05/gaza-flotilla-wikipedia-continues-to-be.html

In only a couple of hours many new editors registered today have stared editing the article. Is there some way anyone can lock the article so that no new editors can edit it? --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 11:53, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, there's protection, but... since this is a current event I'd personally prefer to avoid that if it all possible (and I'll concede that it may not be...)

Apparently we're "group-thinking terror sympathizers and leftists" (per the JIDF), so I suppose steering new editors towards working on articles... like... these won't necessarily be to their tastes, but I do feel we should be welcoming these editors, even if their initial contributions may be less than helpful.

Disclaimer: I'm opposed to "the State", not "the State of Israel".

Cheers, TFOWR^{idle vapourings of a mind diseased} 12:02, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

• Comment: Protection has already been requested. I'm inclined to move towards "yes please, let's protect and get edit requests onto the talk page instead", but purely because editing is no longer easy/possible due to edit conflicts. Crap reason for supporting protection, I know... TFOWR^{idle vapourings of a mind diseased} 12:38, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
• Support semiprotection. Definitely needed; the sheer volume of editing from IPs is making life difficult all round. -- ChrisO (talk) 12:45, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I've granted both requests. You might want to consider whether full protection is appropriate, but I'll leave it for another admin to determine that.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:50, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Good call. I don't think full protection is appropriate at this stage but let's keep an eye on things to see how they develop. -- ChrisO (talk) 12:51, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

• I love the way anybody who is not completely uncritical of Israel is automatically an anti-Zionist and anti-Semite. Way to go, guys, that kind of attitude makes it much easier to spot and ban you. Guy (Help!) 15:45, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Preaching to the wrong choir, JzG. No one here fits that description.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:52, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Wehwalt, any chance of getting 2007–2010 blockade of the Gaza Strip put under the same protection for the time being ? Sean.hoyland - talk 15:55, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I like everything in this area to go strictly by the book, so put in the formal request at WP:RFPP and in the meantime, I will look to see what is going on with the article.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:58, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I looked at it and do not see much going on there. Very little vandalism. I probably wouldn't grant the request, but what I will do is not respond to it and let you take your luck with another admin.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:02, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Both articles have been protected by Wehwalt. —MC10 (T•C•GB•L) 16:15, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. It's not too bad at 2007–2010 blockade of the Gaza Strip yet so I'll see how it goes. Sean.hoyland - talk 16:33, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't suggesting otherwise, Wehwalt. They are cranks, pure and simple - it's just nice to have an unambiguous one every now and then when people actively flag themselves as needing removal from a subject. Much easier than the climate change war. Guy (Help!) 17:54, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Those new editors pushing POV should be blocked (by their IP)Lihaas (talk) 04:56, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Your comment surely shows how NPOV you are. Not everyone who criticizes Israel is an anti-semite/anti-zionist, but many critics of israel are driven by antisemitism/anti-zionism, and all antisemites/antizionists are critical of Israel. If someone is critical of Israel, we don't immediately assume that he is an anti-semite, however try to get an idea of the causes of his criticism. Is it true concern of Israel's actions, or deep-seated hatred of anything jewish, using israel criticism as a cover.--Doom777 (talk) 04:43, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Not the case. We do not judge people by their beliefs but by their actions. If they can edit in a collegial fashion, all is well, if they cannot, they must learn to. Keep in mind that we expect that people will edit what they are interested in, thus most of the editors on that article are interested in the I/P situation. Editors interested in editing in that field must accept that there are restrictions, that they must follow our rules closely, and that their edits will be intensively scrutinized.--Wehwalt (talk) 04:50, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• More eyes certainly wouldn't hurt, but I've just commented on one editor's talk page that the overall conduct seems to be pretty good, considering the highly-charged atmosphere offline. Plenty of POV pushing by both sides, but it's pretty obvious and t'other side and more neutral editors are counter-balancing it. TFOWR^{is this too long?} 12:34, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

• I think that the editors with fewer than 600 edits to their name are tilting the scales inappropriately at the Gaza flotilla article. They have current edit counts of 21 edits, They have the classic characteristics of socks, rather than of newbies. I think a sock check of them is very much in order -- and they should be blocked if found to be socks.--Epeefleche (talk) 13:15, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more. It's amazing how many sock-like accounts are there. This didn't happen with Operation Cast Lead as far as I recall. There needs to be some SPI's but where to start ? I haven't recognised anyone yet. Sean.hoyland - talk 13:24, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• it seems User:Supreme Deliciousness opinion is biased against israel and many others as well which is why it's pro-palesitian whenever i check for updates.

how about closing the article from being edited by anyone until NPOV is reached in a cleaned-up discussions section, i already wrote about it here —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.250.152.79 (talk) 13:46, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• • There are many editors there advocating on behalf of the State of Israel too using IDF/MFA primary sources, youtube, you name it. It's always like that. Being personally biased for or against Israel shouldnt be a problem if everyone follows policy and the discretionary sanctions. Sockpuppets/new accounts are a problems. Sean.hoyland - talk 14:40, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• Sounds like another Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Wikilobby campaign type of off-wiki campaign going on over there. Wouldn't be surprised if there's socks of some old hands taking part alongside the newbie meat-puppets. Tarc (talk) 14:51, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Please watch

Things are getting a bit hot on that article, and it seems to me that that's because few admins are actively watching it; at least I haven't seen any admin intervention while I was there. I have to go now, please keep an eye on it. — Sebastian 07:17, 3 June 2010 (UTC), shortened 07:35, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Community ban of User:B9 hummingbird hovering

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

For background and numerous diffs see: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/B9 hummingbird hovering

• I'm afraid I feel it's the end of the line for this user. For the past two years numerous users have tried to get him to tone down his extremely verbose and unwieldy writing style, mostly in the already obscure area of Tibetan Buddhism. Attempts have been made to explain to him that this is an encyclopedia that is supposed to be written for a general audience and that it's content should be comprehensible to the average person, but he has steadfastly ignored or belittled those who have tried to speak to him about these matters. A full user conduct RFC was initiated last month, and B9 refused to participate, twice announcing his "retirement" only to return a few days later. My attempt to get him to participate in the RFC was met with this reply [62] in which he once again categorically denies that any editing he has done has caused problems and rejects the very idea of consensus based decision making. The RFC includes many diffs showing his overuse of dense, flowery language in contradiction to the WP:MOS advice on the subject: "Articles are supposed to introduce readers to topics, or remind them of what they had half-forgotten: it is not their purpose to dazzle readers with editors' learning or vocabulary. Plain English works best: avoid jargon, vague phrases, and unnecessary complexity."" The shame of all this is that he is clearly knowledgeable in these areas, but refuses to express that knowledge in a plain, comprehensible manner as required in an encyclopedia.

• Relevant policy pages:

• WP:OWN
• WP:CON
• WP:MOS
• WP:CIVIL

• Seeing as B9 has refused to acknowledge there is a problem and will not participate in any meaningful way in a discussion of his editing, taking this to ArbCom would very likely be an exercise in futility. A lesser editing restriction would require acknowledgement of the problem on B9s part, which to date has not happened. A ban discussion seems the best remaining avenue as attempts to come to a voluntary agreement have failed due to B9s refusal to participate. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:27, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I've not interacted with the user in question, but I read through some of the material and it all seems rather surreal and bizarre. This request for banning does raise one question though: has the issue ever been taken to Arbcom? It seems to me that that would be the next logical step. Or if the issue has been reviewed by Arbcom, could you please provide a link? (Note: I've been editing here about a year now, and am just now starting to watch these admin pages, so please forgive me if I'm missing something about how this all is supposed to work.) Yworo (talk) 18:55, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Arbitration is not a requirement for a community ban. We just need to see if the user in question has exhausted the community's patience. AniMate 19:10, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

ArbCom cases is for complex disputes that can't be resolved by normal dispute resolution channels. That's why Beeblebrox took it to this level, from what I'm seeing as an uninvolved user--this seems to be a simple case of a user who isn't willing to interact with others. For that reason, I endorse Beeblebrox's proposal. Blueboy96 19:12, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. I suspect someone who refused to participate in an RFC about himself wouldn't participate in an arbitration case either, so most likely any attempt at arbitration would simply delay action on the matter, but it did seem like the obvious next step to me. Yworo (talk) 19:14, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

That is why I specifically explained in my initial statement above why I did not go that route. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:23, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Oh, my apologies: I guess I read the first bullet point and the links and then forgot to read the last or had glazed over by then. :-) Yworo (talk) 19:25, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

• Support I've run into this editor briefly recently and have been looking at his edit and old talk page comments. It seems pretty clear he doesn't engage in serious communication with other editors, and his edits are rarely helpful to readers and may be self-indulgent. I don't see any chance of his changing this behavior, Dougweller (talk) 19:56, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
• I'd support this under WP:COMPETENCE. I was involved in an early ANI post on this user's conduct (thought I never did get around to certifying the RFCU), and it is genuinely disruptive of the project; any article on Tibetan Buddhism watched by B2HH gradually backslides into an impenetrable wall of jargon, and he demonstrably has no interest in changing his behaviour. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:56, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
• Support Competence is clearly an issue here. The user's unwillingness to participate in a valid RfC doesn't bode well either. AniMate 20:21, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
• Support - after reviewing many of this contributor's edits and interactions with other editors in edit comments and on talk pages, I don't see that any other solution would be possible. Yworo (talk) 21:34, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
• Support. You can't squeeze blood from a rock: apparently, he's not here to edit in a collegial fashion. Salvio ( ^{Let's talk 'bout it!}) 22:56, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
• Support Per above and my comments at the RFC/U PlainJain (talk) 05:48, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
• Indef block An indef block will show B9 that unless advise is taken from other editors about how to improve the encyclopedia he cannot continue editing. Based on how an unblock request might be worded I would consider to reinstate editing privileges. I would for example change my stance if B9 expresses any kind of will to learn how write within the generally accepted standards for this encyclopedia and will to accept advise from other editors. ·Maunus·ƛ· 07:22, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
• Support. It always makes me sad to ban based on WP:COMPETENCE, because I'm a teacher. But when teaching has failed, the encyclopedia's good needs to be considered, and I think that allowing him to continue editing will simply put us in the position of perpetually trying to restore readability to these articles, which his writing turns into gibberish. I'm a person with two degrees in English literature. Big words and complex sentences don't alarm me. I think James Joyce's Ulysses is a great book, and I understand it (well, a lot of it). This user's writing isn't the complex, flowing language of someone who is expressing big ideas and forgetting an audience of laymen... it's the language of someone using complex, flowering language to obscure ideas. It's not reminiscent of Joyce's complex language. It's reminiscent of a student using lots of big words to cover the fact that she doesn't actually understand the material. Read it slowly and carefully, untangle the complicated sentences, define the unfamiliar words, and at the end, you see that a lot of what he's writing doesn't mean anything at all. Since he steadfastly refuses to acknowledge that this is a problem, and has done for several years, I don't see it getting better, ever. I have to sadly agree that the encyclopedia needs his absence. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 11:49, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

• Comment Look what he did to Nondualism (before after). Especially this sentence, which he placed in the lede:

Traditions of nonduality may be identified in the Ancient World Traditions such as Ancient Egypt, Ancient Persia and Ancient India whose influences pervade the modern world; in the Classical traditions of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, Dharmic Traditions of theistic religions and non-theistic traditions origins rooted in the ground of the Indian subcontinent but are now globally pervasive; Abrahamic Traditions such as Christianity and Judaism; and Indigenous Traditions such as the Navajo Nation of the Americas, in a number of philosophers such as Buber for example, critical theorists such as Gadamer[1] and Derrida[2], and various mystics within traditions orthodox and heterodox proper or arising outside of any tradition, amongst others.

B9 leaves it to other editors to translate this impenetrable pseudo-academic obstructionism into standard written English. — goethean ॐ 13:34, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

If that's a fair example of his writing, it's not good. Ironically, the proposal here is to give B9 a lengthy sentence. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:38, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I think that this diff might show the changes to Dualism efficiently. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 18:37, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

• Support I was only made aware of this ANI discussion (and the prior RFC) as a result of a message on my talk page here and having looked at B9's contributions and the discussions on their talk page, on the RFC and here, I am forced to agree that despite being asked to write in a manner which is consistent with the style of the English Wikipedia, they have not been willing to do so. They do not appear to be willing to work in a collobarative way. Their writing style is needlessly verbose and complicated - I do not think that I'm stupid (although I know that I am a long way from being very intelligent!), but I found several examples of their edits hard to follow. If they are unwilling to follow the guidelines (including the MoS) and to work with other editors, then a ban is in order. If this means that they believe me to be part of the group "bullying" them (as per the accusation on my talk page which ironically got me to look into this), then I'm sorry: but I do not see bullying here of anyone. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 14:36, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
• Support having read the diffs, RfC etc. Communicating in this text-only medium is problematic enough without complicating it, especially when we're writing for a global audience of all ages and abilities. It's the dismissal of reams of good advice that's most concerning though. In common with others I don't see any bullying; this is merely an unpleasant duty made necessary by B9's own refusal to learn. EyeSerene^talk 14:53, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
• Update Here is his response to this proceeding: [63]. He's also been spamming this message [64] onto the talk pages of random articles. This exchange [65] with FisherQueen is particularly telling, as he seems genuinely unaware what could be wrong with the articles he mentions. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:22, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment: B9HH has now commented in their RfC here. I had previously !voted support here on the basis of B9HH not responding to their RfC; I self-reverted when I realised they had in fact now commented. I'm still pondering, but tending towards supporting this proposal. TFOWR^{idle vapourings of a mind diseased} 16:38, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

The RFC was opened on May 1 and it's only now that there is such strong support for this ban that he feels a need to comment, and once again he denies the very nature of the problem and rejects the notion of consensus based decision making, and of course throws in a "witch hunt" comment at the end to try and garner some sympathy. If anything that remark should help convince you that he does not understand what Wikipedia is and how it works. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:40, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

• Question: And forgive me if this is spelled out and I've just missed it, or if this question is premature: are we discussing a site ban or a topic ban (and in the latter case, what topic areas)? Also what duration would the ban be for? Thanks. PlainJain (talk) 00:14, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

A full indefinite site ban, anything less than that would require B9 to admit he has made problematic edits, which even now he still refuses to admit. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:42, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• WAIT- Question: has this user been instructed in simplified writing? I don't see any indication that this user was instructed about techniques for simplifying text. I saw no mention of keeping sentences to just 4 prepositions, nor of clearly putting the main subject and verb near the start of a sentence. Perhaps you're asking Einstein to please explain Special Relativity to a 7-year-old Chinese kid, who does not speak German, Italian, French, Latin, English, or algebra. Even Einstein did not want to learn English or (any other "modern languages"). Unless people actively explained and defined those techniques for simplifying text, then I think the term "witch hunt" might be justified. In fact, I read about 30 of the linked edits, and I saw no attempt to obscure the text, but rather to broaden the coverage, and add more precision to general statements. If I had to "go behind" and simplify the writing, I think it would be very easy: mainly just split a few sentences, and replace a few unusual words with more common terms. Please link the main text used to teach how to simplify Wikipedia articles. I think I've written one, so let me look for that page. -Wikid77 (talk) 07:01, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

For simplifying text, see: "Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable" and related pages. The U.S. Government (of course) has documents explaining how to simplify text for various types of readers. -Wikid77 07:13, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• Baloney. if you're not competent to edit here, don't edit here. We're building an encyclopedia, not a school for remedial writing. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:07, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• Amen. I don't suppose everyone can be expected to know the case inside and out before commenting here, but the main point is that he refuses to acknowledge that there is anything wrong with his writing, and anyone who suggests there is a problem is ignored/mocked/accused of being a bully. Beeblebrox (talk) 07:55, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• Let's give him one last chance with an indef block, instead of a community ban. Sheesh, after looking at that one diff that FisherQueen provided, he's either pushing his own idiosyncratic POV or has serious WP:COMPETENCE issues -- so I'm not defending the guy. However, looking at his block log he falls between the two common approaches of handling people like this: either a lengthy interaction with the person, trying to install enlightenment with the occasional keisaku of increasing blocks (yes, I know I'm misapplying a Zen Buddhist technique on our erstwhile Tibetan Buddhist acquaintance, but if what I know of Tibetan Buddhism is correct, their practices are even more austere), or a bum's rush out of Wikipedia with an indef block. Things have gone on too long for the bum's rush approach here; so we need to apply one more rap with the clue stick before we give him a community ban, which will allow him to indulge in his version of zazen untroubled by our distractions. -- llywrch (talk) 07:05, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
• Indef block sounds good, per llywrch. He's not a net positive, but not malicious, so I don't think a community ban is quite due- this way, if he ever gains some clue he can still come back. {{Sonia|talk|simple}} 07:42, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

The difference between an indef block and a ban in this case is minimal. Any user blocked or banned by a community discussion would require a second discussion to get unblocked. I'd like to know, after numerous ANI threads and full month long user RFC how anyone could come to the conclusion that this was rushed or that "one more chance" would somehow reverse a problem that B9 denies the existence of. Beeblebrox (talk) 07:55, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I came across as feeling that this was rushed. In no way am I trying to criticise the proposal or the suggestion that B9 has been unconstructive. I know the difference is minimal; that's exactly why I'd rather go for the slightly less harsh of two options even if only in word. I am not minimising the problematic editing, or the constant refusal to communicate. I just think that if a return can be softened the slightest bit for a contributor who was not a blatant vandal without compromising the solution, by all means. (by this I mean, people will be more likely to evaluate based on his edits and his request than just decline due to the community ban.) But action definitely needs to be taken, and if consensus is for a ban, I have no objections to it. {{Sonia|talk|simple}} 09:34, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying that. Beeblebrox (talk) 09:48, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose -- WAIT per Wikid77 or indef block per llywrch and Sonia. Let voices of tolerance, reason and compassion prevail. The project is big enough to accommodate this user, who is clearly intent on its improvement but still labors under misapprehensions. Meanwhile he might be wise to state acceptance of the "desired outcomes" (with the exception, IMO, of the demeaning demand for confession of past sins) at his RfC. Writegeist (talk)

I'm really trying not to badger those that oppose this proposal, but as the author of the "desired outcome" I take exception to that characterization. I can only assume you are referring to the portion that reads "That B9 hummingbird hovering acknowledge that the style of writing they generally employ is unacceptable for an encyclopedia". The point was not to force a confession, but rather to get B9 to understand why his editing is problematic. Nobody is asking for an apology, just an acknowledgement of the problem, and some indication that B9 does not intend to continue in his previous style. All indications are that he has no intention of doing any such thing, and indeed the events of the past days have convinced me that he actually does not understand the nature of the problem despite it being repeatedly explained to him. Indeed I'm beginning to suspect that FisherQueen was correct in stating that he is not able to put these concepts into plain English because he lacks the level of understanding of them needed to do so, otherwise he surely would have at least tried to do so by now.

I'd like to point out again that the RFC has been open for a full month, and B9 refused to participate at all until after this discussion started. There was a full month of opportunity to discuss these matters and reach a voluntary agreement regarding his editing, an opportunity he ignored until he saw how rapidly a consensus to ban was forming. When he did finally comment, he again rejected the notion that he has ever made problematic edits and the notion of consensus based decision making, which he sees as "bullying." He has also refused to participate in this very discussion, while at the same time spamming talk pages and canvassing users to come to his defense. I note that several of those previously uninvolved users have ended up supporting the ban proposal. Beeblebrox (talk) 09:16, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I am trying to think like a long-term scholar, about this circus of events, with the assumption that B9 is, in fact, a scholar and not just assuming a role. Some issues:

• A scholar is unlikely to accept a "peer review" by this crowd.
• If another scholar could be sent, as an ambassador, to "talk turkey" perhaps B9 would respond better with a real peer.
• We need to prepare an essay WP:Scholars guide to writing Wikipedia articles, and this seems like good timing, and perhaps B9 would help write that essay (over the coming weeks), to warn other scholars when to simplify the text.
• B9 has made it quite clear to avoid these "trial-by-jury-of-who-are-you" forums.
• Perhaps this incident defines a WP lesson-learned entry in how to work with an alienated scholar, who has been insulted in ways a professional journal would never condone.

In reaching for consensus, everyone must try to meet, in the middle, and not expect the accused to submit to a "mob vote" as if his agreement was implicit, somehow, to reach consensus without his consent. Forcing people to obey is NOT a consensus-building technique. Let Wikipedia try to gain a true consensus, by abandoning strict rules, and actually working with another person to gain a mutual agreement. If progress cannot be made in listing steps to simplify text, then perhaps that is the time to part ways, because a compromise will require accepting some form of simplification of the text. Putting those steps in writing should appeal to a scholar, with even citing research to "prove" a 12-year-old can read an intro paragraph, when simplifed in that manner. -Wikid77 (talk) 10:11, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• I've been following this thread and have looked at the editor's contributions, and I have to agree with Wikid77. Dip into many of the articles at the back of the queue for articles to be copyedited and find plenty of bad writers, yet the articles still exist and the editors haven't been banned. Banning an editor because they don't write well sets a precedence for a slippery slope in my view. Maybe have other editors try some consensus building with B9. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 12:47, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• With respect, if B9 had submitted copy to a professional journal, and it was returned with the message "sorry, that does not meet the style guidelines that we use - please read them here" - and then B9 continued to submit material in clear controvention of those guidelines, would you expect the journal to accept the submission? I think they might tell B9 one more time, and then ignore any further submissions until they met the criteria which the journal had set. I don't think that two years later you would get anyone on the journal's editorial staff saying "hang on, let's give him another chance" - they would say, instead, "Sorry, if this person cannot meet the criteria for style which we have told them we expect, then we'll just have to do without their material, as we can't afford to spare an editor to rewrite it in our style".
• Also, with regard to other editors who write in a bad way, how many of those have been approached on multiple occasions and told about the style expected here? If they have, and blatently ignore it, as B9 seems to do, then they would probably be facing a ban as well. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 12:54, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• Yes, I realize the WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument shouldn't be used, but a full ban seems excessive because of writing style. A ban based on disruption is another thing. As for writing style, my worry is where does it stop? If someone, for example feels an editor lacks spelling skills, shall they be banned as well? Truthkeeper88 (talk) 14:04, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• I would agree with you at least that bans should be very seldom given out for writing style alone (I can't say never, because, really, competence is required), but so far as I can see, the primary problem at this point is not the writing style, but the evident unwillingness of the contributor to engage in consensus building and address community input with regards to the writing style. My background here goes as far as yesterday, when this contributor notified me and a great many others of the issue at my talk page. Prior to that, I believe, I had only ever interacted with him in copyright matters. I told him then that I believed it was essential at this point for him to participate plainly here and at the RfC in order to demonstrate his ability to engage. Instead (after continuing to CANVASS for a bit, even at article talk pages), he posted this statement at his talk page, continuing to characterize the efforts of others to engage him as bullying. He also posed and answered the following question: "what is the stuff of a Wikidragon? The ability to stand in solitude and in strength when the whole village says you're the cause of destruction...." That in itself shows a fundamental misunderstanding of Wikipedia, which (of course) relies on the consensus process, and, in fact, that answer could be used equally well to answer the question, "What is disruptive editing?" No editor is an island. We're a community, and he seems unwilling to embrace that. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:19, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• I agree with your arguments, but then I look at an article such as Ratnagotravibhāga (text) and wonder whether the writing or the subject matter makes it difficult to understand. I have much less difficulty parsing the writing than the underlying subject (which people devote decades, years, lives to understanding.) Very much on the fence here. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 16:45, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Apparently I didn't express myself very well. Writegeist, I think tolerance has been expended with this user. As for reason, I think that it is reasonable to block one user who is depriving others of time spent building content, because I would rather have one problem editor leave than experienced editors gain the impression that they are not as important and the community would rather them expend their time and patience with such issues. Compassion? That is what I was talking about above- "He might be wise..." but he has ignored the wise choice, at least for now. If he wises up later I want him to be able to return, but it is time to resolve this. {{Sonia|talk|simple}} 09:57, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Agreeing with Sonia here. I think everyone would agree that the desired outcome in all of these cases is that a problematic editor starts making productive edits, allowing the rest of us to do something far more enjoyable than dealing with the person. However, there are some problematic editors who will never be productive -- & I would not be surprised that B9HH is one of them. My concern, in simple language & without allusions to Zen Buddhism, is that I want proof that B9HH hasn't misunderstood the incredible amount of patience others have shown her/him as being approval, & that a "change your ways or be uninvited by the community" message has been delivered in as simple language as possible. (An indef block would deliver this with a clue-by-four to the back of B9HH's head; a community ban at this point might still be misunderstood.) And if such a message has been delivered, then I have no problem with a community ban. (And if Beeblebrox is getting frustrated with this push-back against a, I apologize. My intent is not to create Wikidrama, I just want to make sure that a final warning message has been delivered before B9HH is permanently banned.) -- llywrch (talk) 16:44, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I understand you point, and offer these diffs: B9 informed of RFC [66] B9 informed that RFC is certified and live [67] B9 asked to participate in RFC and informed that this is the final opportunity to reach a voluntary agreement [68] B9 informed of this thread, which he has yet to comment on [69]. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:14, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• Regretfully, I am leaning towards supporting an indef-block at least, per User:Sonia, and I would not oppose a ban (which I think preferable to no action). I'm still kind of hoping for an 11th hour turnaround, but pending some showing of a sincere interest in collaborating, I think User:Beeblebrox is right. As I indicated above, he seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding of Wikipedia's communal processes. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:34, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• Having thought about the matter since my last post, I decided to simply block indefinitely User:B9 hummingbird hovering, to end the WikiDrama & so everyone involved can move onto something more enjoyable. (Consensus appears to indicate this is the least serious action that will be taken here.) If this is not enough & a community ban must be made, feel free to continue this thread. I invite a review of this act, & give any other Admin my full permission to revert this if they believe my action is inappropriate -- or B9HH proves that she/he has experienced enlightenment. Meanwhile, I'm withdrawing from further involvement in this matter. -- llywrch (talk) 17:19, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

For the record, I suggest noting some final points, to catalogue this situation. Mark this event as both of the following:

• Category of lessons learned: Indef block of a scholar
• Category of lessons learned: Indef block of a poet

Because those are not actually WP categories, this text can be searched (such as "Indef block of a poet"). In my 1-day review of this situation, I had overlooked the need to also develop an essay as "WP:Poets guide to writing articles". In final comments, B9 had indicated a wish to write in a "literary" (and poetic) style, so that is an area for future work, perhaps in writing articles about poetry, with using some poetic devices when explaining poetic topics. Just as a mathematician or chemist can flood articles with formulas, consider if WP is banning all poetry from article text, while allowing complex formulas as acceptable. -Wikid77 (talk) 18:00, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Ooookay. For the record, this is not the arbitrary enactment of some new, ad-hoc policy; this is the MOS, nothing more [well, leaving aside the behavioral issues]. An article about poetry still needs be written in a clear, concise and encyclopedic (this is still an encyclopedia is it not?) style. Your comparison to mathematics is specious at best; writers of scientific articles have, if anything an even higher standard of clarity to hew to so that complex topics (such as set theory, functional analysis) are written in a correct, clear and concise style (sound familiar? It should). And if I may respectfully suggest, you might spend more than your admitted 1-day review of the situation before issuing proclamations that we've martyred a scholar and a poet; this nonsense has been going on for at least two years. PlainJain (talk) 21:18, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, if a 1-day review is unable to see the problem, then perhaps it needs to be restated so it can be understood in 1 day, with indicating ALL the major concerns, with examples of each. We can't go by argument from authority, as if saying, "There was little evidence at trial, but if you knew what we know, you'd agree to guilty." -Wikid77 (talk) 14:17, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Wikid: if mathematical formulas with incorrect formatting and inaccuracies were permitted in articles, your point would stand. But they're not. B9's writing is not just verbose, it is inaccurate. The problem is not just that the points are being obscured, or that poetry is disallowed in articles, the point is that he is making no sense, even when you detangle the text. With regard to using poetic devices to explain poetry: we're not even allowed to do that at school. An explanation of a device should be simple, not masked by another device. This summary of B9's behaviour has actually been stated multiple times in this thread. {{Sonia|talk|simple}} 22:44, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Not all poetic devices are masks, so we need a new article "Poetic device" to help discuss this issue. The process of a lawyer becoming U.S. President is known as: from the courthouse to the statehouse to the White House. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:17, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

• I'm fine with the indef block as it essentially the same thing as a ban, the only thing I would add is that this block should not be lifted without another community discussion, and that such a discussion should not take place anytime soon, and not at all if B9 still refuses to acknowledge the nature of the problem. I don't think any of Wikid77's above suggestions have any support in either policy or community consensus however. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:07, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Rejecting such suggestions, as not already in consensus, is the fallacy of arguing to the majority, so remember "100 Authors against Einstein" where Einstein replied that if he were wrong, it would only require one. Let's discuss the issues by merit, rather than popularity. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:17, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I'd assume that if the indef block was lifted, this discussion here would continue. Until then, people can discuss the block on B9HH's talk page. -- llywrch (talk) 18:47, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

User:Cy Q. Faunce

Resolved

 – Fences and windows (talk · contribs) indeffed Cy Q. Faunce (talk · contribs) for off-wiki harassment Salvio ( ^{Let's talk 'bout it!}) 01:05, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Recently, I was involved in a deletion discussion regarding recently-deleted article Bullshido.net (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bullshido.net (4th nomination)), where Cy Q. Faunce was an active participant. Then this morning, I received this message, from JMU:

“ I work for the Office of the Registrar at JMU and we received a request for information about you from a <redacted>, <redacted>@<redacted>.com, which included your DOB & SSN. Are you aware that this individual has your private information?

<unrelated signature redacted>

”

I called up the person at JMU and also did a little research, and found evidence that indicates that Cy Q. Faunce and <redacted> are the same person. Cy Q. Faunce's first edit and the majority of that account's edits (see Special:Contributions/Cy Q. Faunce) have been in regards to the deletion discussion of Bullshido.net.

Considering the real-life stalking that appears to be going on here, putting in a request to JMU and such, I was tempted to indef-block for harrassment, but would prefer that an uninvolved admin look at things and see what's going on. I'm not so worried about myself - I've filed a fraud report with the credit agencies, and if they do attempt to do anything along those lines, that's a criminal offense, so I think I'm safe there. However, this kind of behavior is disruptive, and appears to be an attempt to intimidate users. SchuminWeb (Talk) 14:35, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

• Cy Q. Faunce (talk · contribs · logs) <- for ease of admins, here are the user's links. I too would view this as a stalking-harrassment issue and move to block. S.G.^(GH) _ping! 14:47, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
• Indef blocked as unacceptable harassment; review of this block is welcomed. I was going to note that you're also outing, but he outs himself on Bullshido.net. Fences&Windows 14:58, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
• Good block, and we might as well consider that a community ban. I doubt that any admin would be willing to unblock after this. Tim Song (talk) 15:03, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
• There probably should be a checkuser to find/block this persion's other accounts. This one obviously was not his first and harassment like this is completely unacceptable. SchuminWeb, you may want to consider contacting the police if you have not already done so. --B (talk) 15:08, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

• Shouldn't we be scrubbing this entry of "Cy Q. Faunce"'s personal info as well? Tarc (talk) 17:14, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

• Agreed. And done. And I support the indef block. Be sure to check your credit reports, SchuminWeb. — Scientizzle 17:21, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Unblock request posted [70]; I declined. –MuZemike 17:44, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Wait, so Cy Q a) gets SchuminWeb's birthday and social security number from public sources, and b) contacts a public university to try to verify if Schumin really has the degree he says he does. While this is certainly misguided, is it really worth the indef block? You all say this is stalking/harassment, but I fail to see how it is. Cy Q never even contacted Schumin to tell him that he had this information (that was the university), so the harassment charge seems pretty tenuous. Wanting to find out more about someone may be considered "stalking", but I would have reserved that term for constantly following them around or monitoring their every action, not just trying to find some more information about their background. Or is there additional information that this lowly editor isn't privy to that strengthens the case for harassment? Buddy431 (talk) 19:18, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Umm ... if you can't see why that conduct is unacceptable, I don't know what to say. There is obviously no legitimate reason to verify someone's academic credentials for an AFD over some website. --B (talk) 19:25, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

There may be no legitimate reason to do it, but that doesn't mean that Cy Q. is acting in bad faith, or that a block's going to do any good (preventative, not punitive?) He could, and I believe he does, genuinely believe that verifying Schumin's credentials would allow him to discredit his arguments at AFD. No, that's not how Wikipedia works, but it doesn't appear that Cy Q. has broken any rules, either on Wikipedia or in Real Life. Maybe Cy Q. is just trying to steal Schumin's identity, in which case there's nothing Wikipedia can do. That's a job for the local police, and blocking won't help prevent that. Buddy431 (talk) 21:26, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

If you (in the extreme case you gave) had a user who was trying to steal another user's identity, you would see no reason not to allow that person to edit on Wikipedia? Good grief. --B (talk) 21:47, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

(EC) In case it offers perspective/context, I participated in the AfD at issue, read this ANI, and experienced about an hour of serious anxiety (approaching terror) over this -- am I next? This guy was clearly unhappy with me at the AfD -- did I tick this self-styled private investigator martial artist off? Do I actually believe that this is simply to verify his academic credentials? Why should I? Oh God, I googled his name and he's, to listen to some random bloggers (I suppose I'll listen to anybody when I'm afraid), a known character assassin -- perhaps with the physical skills to be an assassin par Jason Bourne!!! (italics intended to mock my own silly anxiety, hehe).

Yes, we should preventatively block editors who are willing to undertake off-Wiki efforts that will scare the bejeezus out of good faith editors. That is, to put it lightly, disruptive. So... try and see the disruptive effect of his actions from the stance of those for whom it is disruptive. In many respects, Cy's action was the most personally disruptive thing I have literally ever seen on Wikipedia. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 21:51, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

As others have said, there's no legitimate reason to do such a thing. SchuminWeb's education has no bearing on his adminship nor the AfD. In addition, a BS is a moderate degree, so, in a context where most would not bother checking, there's no reason for a liar to set their sights so low. As a result, the motivation for doing something like that is inexplicable, but whatever the reasons for it, the behavior is completely unacceptable.

As for his list, I ran across a small list towards the bottom of a page he referenced when threatening another editor [71]. It appears that User:Niteshift36, User:Crotalus horridus, SchuminWeb, and myself are on his short list of most hated WP editors. Whether he's attempted his P.I. routine with the rest of us is unknown at this time. Sχeptomaniac^{χαιρετε} 22:28, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Support the indef. Cy Q just refuses to get the point of what Wikipedia is. Off-line stalking someone to determine their credentials is ridiculous in many ways, and just underscores his refusal to understand how useless claimed credentials (or any other material not gained from reliable sources) are in the first place. Dayewalker (talk) 19:41, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I could consider overlooking it if the OP's SSN were not involved. I might even question whether the SSN were really involved, depending on who was doing the reporting. But Cy Q has admitted (on his talk page since being blocked) tracking down an old traffic violation which dated presumably from when an SSN might be used as a driver's license number. While it's public information (which should have been redacted), that level of stalking is scary and doesn't belong here. Yworo (talk) 21:53, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

But it's not here. It's outside, in the real world. No stalking has gone on on Wikipedia, and it doesn't appear that it was going to. This block is a completely punitive measure for what the account holder did in the real world, not a preventative measure to stop disruptive behavior on Wikipedia. Buddy431 (talk) 22:45, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

That's something to take up with WP:STALK. Offline harrassment has always been treated harshly here and for extremely good reason. long may that continue. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 22:56, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Buddy432, it has impact here. His actions weren't literally performed on here, but that is beside the point; his actions had disruptive effect on Wikipedia. The block was preventative. We can't tolerate editors running around scaring the real life crap out of other editors they disagree with -- that is disruptive to the project, and is behavior we are wise to prevent from continuing. And, either way, my explanation aside, it's plainly blockable behavior per WP:STALK. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 23:08, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

His actions only have an effect on Wikipedia because SchuminWeb brought the email from the university (not Cy Q). Cy Q. has not threatened SchuminWeb personally either on or off Wikipedia. It very well could have evolved into Harassment, but frankly, I don't think it has at this point. If Cy Q. had said to Schumin that he had his SSN and was going to investigate him and post his results for the world to see, I'd be screaming "block" as loud as anyone else. Bud he didn't. He discretely attained his personal information, without telling anyone. He discretely made other inquiries, again without telling anyone in an attempt to "harass" them. When he found out that Schumin's degree was real, he almost would have certainly dropped the search and never told anyone. If he hadn't dropped it, but instead posted personal information or engaged in other forms of harasment, then I'd be fine with a block. It seems hard to me to claim that that's harassment. Off-wiki stalking, maybe. I don't see any policy dealing with such, but it appears that current practice is to block those who engage in it. I disagree with this practice, but consensus obviously exists elsewhere. Buddy431 (talk) 23:30, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Buddy432, if one attempts to do this kind of thing, one will be indefblocked. That's the rule. Simples.Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:01, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

It's not the rule, as far as I can see. It may be the current policy, but isn't codified anywhere that I know of. Buddy431 (talk) 23:30, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

It's policy: As is the case with on-wiki harassment, off-wiki harassment can be grounds for blocking, and in extreme cases, banning. Off-wiki privacy violations shall be dealt with particularly severely. TFOWR^{idle vapourings} 23:35, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Whether Buddy recognizes that "rule" = "policy" or not, can this conversation be closed so we can all move on? We have one meaningful dissenting opinion regarding the block, and the dissenter has already ceded above the "consensus obviously exists elsewhere." I think most of us can at least be pleased and relieved that an editor who attempts to dig up the private information of our administrators offline, maintains a list of most-hated editors on his website, and refers to other editors as "dead man" in edit summaries is no longer able to disrupt the project. Let's move on. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 23:43, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Ok, Where's his list of most hated editors? Wheres his hateful edit summaries? All I see at this ANI is "my university sent me a note telling me that some guy has my personal info. I think this guy is this other guy", at which everyone starts shouting BLOCK! at the top of their lungs. If you had said that he's maintaining a list of most hated Wikipedia editors offline, I'd have been much more agreeable to a block. But you didn't. You assumed everyone was already intimately acquainted with this editor and his tactics. Maybe if you said "he's been harassing me on and off wiki here and here, and now he's evidently going after my personal information so he can post it on his website" I wouldn't have jumped to oppose the block. Buddy431 (talk) 23:53, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

and I meant "practice", not "policy". No harassing is a codified rule/policy, but blocking for stalking off wiki is merely a common and accepted practice, not written down as far as I can see. Buddy431 (talk) 23:56, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

• He's not the first one banned for activity like this and won't be the last. When people take this petty wikipedia disagreement junk into the real world, they aren't firing on all cylinders. It's taken seriously here and it should be, whether he is an actual danger or not, the behavior is unacceptable. Period. Your defense of him isn't going to work. Niteshift36 (talk) 00:04, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) The hated editor list was referenced (first I saw it myself), in response to something you posted, above by Sxeptomanic, where he expresses the concern that he may be getting "investigated" as well. A lovely talk diff where Cy brags of having "taken down a dozen like you before" is also supplied in this response, and the "dead man" reference comes shortly later in that talk page's history. "I" didn't assume anything here, but I suppose the assumption exists that people responding to this ANI would take a few minutes to familiarize themselves with the situation before contributing, or at least read responses to their own posts. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 00:05, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

(also, from WP:STALK: "As is the case with on-wiki harassment, off-wiki harassment can be grounds for blocking, and in extreme cases, banning. Off-wiki privacy violations shall be dealt with particularly severely.") ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 00:12, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Regardless of prior behavior, this kind of behavior should result in a swift block. This has the same kind of chilling effect as a legal threat, perhaps even worse. After his actions, would most Wikipedia editors feel comfortable editing an article with Cy Q? Dayewalker (talk) 00:16, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, editing an AfD with Cy Q this time led to me deleting my Foursquare account and a bunch of Tweets from Twitter... so, I think the answer is no, if Cy Q were around and I saw him editing an article I'd probably steer clear of that article :) ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 00:22, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Right, I see the list now, and I apologize for overlooking it earlier. That's clearly a blockable offense. I still don't think that the original action in this ANI thread (looking up public information about an editor and not telling anyone about it) is grounds for an indef block, but I see that I'm in the very small minority on that issue. Buddy431 (talk) 00:32, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

If one's threatening to violate someone's personal identity details (which is tantamount to identity theft), that is grounds for an indef block. It doesn't matter whether they was attained through public sources or not; accessory to a crime is treated just about as harshly as doing the crime itself. I am amazed - and fragging appalled - that you are even attempting to justify his behavior. —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Dittobori)} 20:21, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Minor (but persistent) disruption

Short version:

User:Ephix has been deleting relevant text that has no objections for neutrality or sourcing. ArbCom seems to have ruled this as a disruption, but User:Ephix persists even after being so warned.

Details:

At the Peter Schiff article, there have been some minor disputes over how best to present certain characterizations of Mr. Schiff in the article lead. There was an older talk page controversy about labeling Schiff as an "economist" without qualification. A while back, I attempted an edit in order to address those concerns, which was sourced to an author who is something of a peer for Mr Schiff. However, qualifying Mr Schiff as a "non-professional econonomist" sparked a lot of (hand-waving) objections. In case this first attempt violated neutrality, I decided to take another approach and to use the simpler "economist" label but then expand the lead by simply drawing in more of the notable points from the rest of the article.

It is well-established that Mr Schiff advocates a small minority viewpoint as an economist/economic writer, departing in substantial ways from the majority view. My expanded text notes this controversy, per WP:LEAD ["The lead should ... summarize the most important points—including any notable controversies."], and per WP:UNDUE ["...it should always be clear which parts of the text describe the minority view, and that it is in fact a minority view."].

In regards to the new expanded text in the lead: there has been no objection that the text is not cited [it is a summarization of already-exisitng and cited text]; there has been no objection to the neutrality of the text; and, the text is obviously relevant to the article subject.

Even given the above, User:Ephix continues to delete the neutral/cited/relevant text. I have warned him that this may be considered disruptive.

Despite warning ([72]), he insists on deleting the material. [73] [74] He seems to imply that discussion on the new edit is not worthwhile for him. [75]

There has been no talk page consensus against the new points included in the lead, and, really .... not much objection raised on the talk page at all regarding the new points in the lead. (An RfC about whether to substitute "economist" for some other label is still ongoing.) But, the section I created to specifically address these recently-added points covered in the lead has received no comment as of yet.

I believe the deletions are disruptive and I could use some advisement. Thanks. BigK HeX (talk) 21:58, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I am quite confident that any administrator who reads through the full discussion will finally put an end to your distributive edits.

To the admin, please note that user:BigK HeX's comment about me being a peer constitutes a personal attack as this is not only unsubstantiated but has nothing to do with my edits, this reflects on his overall demeaning approach to the Peter Schiff article. The comment comes from someone whose first and only interest in the article is Schiff's status as an economist. user:BigK HeX's use of a passing remark in book review as a source for Schiff being a "non-professional" economist was a waste of my time and still is. user:BigK HeX then dropped that for deleting "economist" altogether, and now favours other labels just as if not more demeaning than the previous one. Of course Wikipedia does not decide who is and who is not a mainstream anything by such measures. We simply tell it like it is according to majority of reliable sources and if there is a controversy surrounding any point of contention significant enough have been covered in the media, we may include it as a minority view in the lead. But this of course isn't the case, the vast majority of reliable sources have it that Schiff is an economist. user:BigK HeX has made it clear he doesn't like that, he should be taking issues with Wikipedia's guidelines, not this article.

I at first gave him the benefit of the doubt and invited him to start a discussion, but he preferred a course of action in reversions and deferred the opportunity to me, here it is. I also invited him again to start an RfC, which another contributor finally undertook the task of completing, but it hasn't gained much attention from uninvolved editors, certainly not the kind user:BigK HeX's wants, so here we are.

Thanks. ephix (talk) 01:33, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

ephix stated, " please note that user:BigK HeX's comment about me being a peer constitutes a personal attack as this is not only unsubstantiated but has nothing to do with my edits".

Ummmmm ..... this assertion is baffling on so many levels, that its unclear where to start. A) I never referred to User:Ephix as a peer of anyone. B) Even if I did, being called a "peer of Peter Schiff" would almost certainly be a nonsensical "attack" to make against an editor. BigK HeX (talk) 03:06, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Also ... for someone so concerned about personal attacks, Ephix's comments above seem to contain quite a number of attempts to characterize me.... BigK HeX (talk) 17:21, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Peter Schiff is definitely an economist according to the dictionary definition of the word. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/economist And he definitely has a profession in economics (on TV, author, etc.). --StormCommander (talk) 02:36, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Though that's nice (and there is an RfC to address that question), the thread here is about the deletion of verifiable/relevant text. And, in any case, Schiff is noted as an "economist" in both versions of the contested text. BigK HeX (talk) 03:10, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

User:S51438

S51438 (talk · contribs) I have a question: shouldn't and edit like this immediately result in a ban or block? (Apologies if this isn't the correct forum for this - feel free to steer me in the right direction.) ClovisPt (talk) 23:22, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

No, but that user should most definitely be placed under the discretionary sanctions prevalent in the area... (I assume there are discretionary sanctions in re Obama?) —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Dittobori)} 23:27, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

There are discretionary sanctions, but I don't think it's worth bothering. Just warn them that they'll be indefinitely blocked next time they do something that foolish. NW (Talk) 00:02, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Jeremy, did you actually look at the edits? I'm really surprised you'd say they are not deserving of an immediate block. The guy vandalised a BLP, calling the article subject a "nigger". Looking at his other edits to the page, he then made a series of other edits which could only be intended to be disruptive (going through and changing each instance referring to Obama being born in Hawaii to Kenya, including in the titles of references, changing Obama's name to Osama and calling him a Socialist). see. Since he's been given a warning, I'm not going to block now, but I disagree that calling a BLP subject a "nigger" and vandalising in this way shouldn't warrant an immediate block, regardless of the article subject and whether it is under discretionary sanctions. Sarah 06:04, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Those were my feelings originally, but if admins decline to block for this kind of behavior, I suppose it's not up to me. Cheers, ClovisPt (talk) 20:01, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Gave them an only warning. S.G.^(GH) _ping! 00:10, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

From briefly surveying that user's edits, they have a pretty lengthy history with no prior disruption that I can see. I'd say it was more likely a compromised account (eg, a roommate, sibling, classmate, etc) than actual intentional vandalism. If the user himself/herself actually made those edits, I'd call them banworthy, but based on them being totally out of character for the account, I'm assuming they were made by someone else. --B (talk) 00:52, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

The warnings placed on the account seem fair - if he/she acts like this again, an immediate indefinite block should be forthcoming. I do feel that someone who makes edits like the one in question should be prohibited from "contributing" to the project. A compromised account is a possibility, I suppose. Thanks to all for the responses, and I'll avoid placing the user template in headers in the future. Regards, ClovisPt (talk) 01:10, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Ghostofnemo and SYNTH

Ghostofnemo has been disruptive at Peter James Bethune. We have previously been on noticeboards for other issues. Although his previous methods are questionable, his clear violation of WP:SYNTH is too much.

Bethune's trial is currently wrapping up in Japan. He recently made statements that distanced himself from the founder of Sea Shepherd. Ghostofnemo is now attempting to insert information on potential mistreatment as the reasoning behind this. I don't know why the subject made the statement and none of the sources have said why. Please see this edit.[76] Is adding a line and source discussing Amnesty International being critical of interrogation methods in Japan without mentioning Bethune appropriate after a line discussing his Bethune quote?

Instead of edit warring, can an administrator explain to GoN if his reverting to insert such material is inappropriate.Cptnono (talk) 02:13, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

The line in question is a fair paraphrase of one source being quoted, so it is not SYNTH. The line in question is relevant to the article, which is about the trial of a suspect who has been held for a long period prior to his trial in Japan. Ghostofnemo (talk) 02:20, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Another editor has reverted him so it appears that this is no longer an edit warring/against guideline incident needing admin attention issue. Should I move this to the OR noticeboard?Cptnono (talk) 02:33, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I'd like to have an administrator look at the pattern of deletions of referenced material going on at this article! Ghostofnemo (talk) 02:39, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Nemo, that line is synth. Yes, it's a correct paraphrase from the BBC story, BUT the BBC story doesn't say one word about Peter James Bethune. It's addition into Peter Bethune's article is implying that it's happening to Mr. Bethune.

It's synth , Cptnono is right to remove it. KoshVorlonNaluboutes,Aeria Gloris 16:13, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

What about this? http://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Peter_James_Bethune&diff=365765488&oldid=365765129 Ghostofnemo (talk) 06:18, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

It's synth. Forget about Amnesty International. You can't pick and mix things from RS and construct a Frankenstein monster to tell the story you want to tell. The sources need to talking about the subject of the article. Sean.hoyland - talk 06:23, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

AI says this is an issue in Japan. The BBC says it's an issue in Japan. I have WP:RS that say he was blocked from meeting with an attorney until after he confessed. The editors here, with no sources whatsoever, are denying this is an issue and deleted WP:RS referenced material that is NPOV, because they personally feel it's not appropriate! This skews the story so that it appears Bethune is receiving a fair trial, even though his attorney has been denied access to the trial! It's very POV to delete this material, and it's also POV to censor material about Japan's legal system and criticism of it. Here are my sources:

Not allowed to meet lawyer: http://www.3news.co.nz/Sea-Shepherd-group-ready-to-defend-Bethune/tabid/1160/articleID/147145/Default.aspx

and, more explicitly: http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/bethune-has-long-wait-see-lawyer-3413921

Met with consular staff four times, but no mention of meeting with lawyer: http://www.watoday.com.au/breaking-news-world/nz-govt-attacked-for-bethunes-detention-20100406-roub.html

Lawyer barred from court: http://www.watoday.com.au/breaking-news-world/bethune-could-get-fair-trial-lawyer-20100528-wi7b.html

NZ govt says Bethune "was to meet with attorney last night" instead of "met with attorney last night":http://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/nz+embassy+officials+meet+peter+bethune Ghostofnemo (talk) 06:31, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Now, here's the quote from the AI article: "Amnesty International has now called on Japan's new government to immediately implement reforms of the police interrogation system to avoid such miscarriages of justice. Suspects can be held for up to 23 days before they are charged in what the campaign group says is a brutal system that has no place in modern Japan. The conviction rate is more than 99%, often based on confessions. Amnesty International says some are extracted from suspects under duress." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8290767.stm Ghostofnemo (talk) 06:38, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

And it says: ""The detainee has absolutely no access to his defence lawyers, has no idea how long the interrogation session would go," said Rajiv Narayan of Amnesty International." Ghostofnemo (talk) 06:40, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

As explained to you on the talk page: If you want the article to say "he was mistreated" or "he had an unfair trial" then you need to find an RS that says so. Not an RS that alludes to something you don't like + something else. A clear "he was mistreated". So far, every source I have seen contradicts it but if you find one we can go from there. Until then you need to stop being disruptive. You have had multiple editors explain SYNTH and WP:IDIDNTHERETHAT .Cptnono (talk) 06:49, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Ghostofnemo, yes, it is an issue in Japan and in many other countries. There are many very interesting and complicated issues with Japanese society that anyone can discover in reliable sources or better still by going there to have a look for themselves. None of the issues are relevant unless the source itself specifically relates the issue to Peter James Bethune. The source has to do it, not you. Sean.hoyland - talk 06:52, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Here it is right here: "Sea Shepherd's Paul Watson says the Japanese are not letting Bethune see his legal team. He says Japanese authorities are entitled to interrogate a prisoner without representation, for up to three weeks. Bethune has however met with New Zealand Embassy staff in Tokyo since his arrival in Japan." from http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/bethune-has-long-wait-see-lawyer-3413921 Ghostofnemo (talk) 08:33, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

That's from the reference that was cited with the removed lines. Ghostofnemo (talk) 09:18, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

And just a reminder, the stories discussing Bethune and his lawyer not being there for one of the hearings say things like "A lawyer representing New Zealander Peter Bethune thinks the anti-whaling activist could get a fair trial in Tokyo." and "He said he knew what had happened in the court 'because the hearing was pretty much all scripted, scripted in the sense that both the prosecution and the defence gave their opening statement but that opening statement was based word for word on a written statement that was provided to the judge days ago' ."[77] So he might have had an unfair trial but nothing says it while other sources could be read the exact opposite. There isn't a scandal here but GoN has been creating one for over a month now. Enough is enough.Cptnono (talk) 06:56, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the fair trial, here is what his lawyer actually said: "Despite earlier suggestions the trial was just a show, Harris said he thought Bethune could get a fair trial. "All indications and reports are that the lead judge and other two judges are fair-minded judges," he said." http://www.watoday.com.au/breaking-news-world/bethune-could-get-fair-trial-lawyer-20100528-wi7b.html Ghostofnemo (talk) 09:21, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I question the competence of his attorney, 1 for not making his interrogation without legal counsel an issue, and 2 for his attitude towards being excluded from the trial (yeah, no big deal). A man on trial, and his lawyer is not there in court with him!!!!! It boggles the mind what his strategy is, unless they are intentionally trying to get Bethune the longest sentence possible to create a martyr for their cause.... Ghostofnemo (talk) 08:33, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

The linked WAtoday article is misleading. Harris is not the only one lawyer for Bethune. There must have been the other lawyer/lawyers in the court. But the number of the seats for the lawyers were restricted. So Harris tried to see the trial from one of the seats for the public. But he couldn't draw a winning number. That's what the articles says. Oda Mari (talk) 10:14, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Emergency blacklisting required

Can someone please quickly add

\bareacode\.org\b
\countrycode\.org\b
\btollfreeforwarding\.com\b

to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist (just copy and paste). We've blocked

• 202.65.133.239 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
• Snipsz (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)
• 24.126.249.98 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
• 110.33.100.72 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
• Spoling (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)
• 65.188.155.232 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
• Akhapr (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)
• Wingtip71 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)

just TODAY for spamming these sites. (I'm deliberately circumventing the blacklist request page due to it being backlogged.) MER-C 05:20, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

And while you're at it, please hack at the backlog on the talk page. I hate reverting the same spam over and over. MER-C 05:32, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

 Done those three. Stifle (talk) 08:22, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, though the wider problem of spam backlogs remains. MER-C 08:25, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Yeah. I cleared the first ten sections or so just there, but it's pure drudgery. I'm minded to nominate you for RFA so that you can do it yourself :) Stifle (talk) 09:31, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

The upside of the drudgery is that you get viciously attacked on and off Wikipedia by the spammers. Wait, did I say upside? Guy (Help!) 13:04, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I was considering having a go at it, but the syntax of regex remains completely opaque to me. —DoRD (talk) 13:09, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

It turns out that I made a typo above: \countrycode\.org\b should be \bcountrycode\.org\b.

@Redundancy Most blacklistings are of the form above: replace . with \. ('.' matches any character in regex) and surround the domain with \b (a "word boundary": matches spam.example.com, example.com/blah and example.com but neither anexample.com example.community). You can ask me (I can access XLinkBot), Barek or Beetstra if you need help.

@Stifle 2.5 weeks + resolution of Internet Brands and Chinese knockoffs is the earliest I can consider a nomination. I don't know if the risk of another failed RFA and the downsides (a month no spam patrol?) and the dubious record of being the user with the highest editcount to fail an RFA is worth it. MER-C 13:42, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I supported your second (and most recent) RfA (#49) and remember being most annoyed when you didn't pass at the 100 mark. Those 3 years 4 months have been a blur but nothing really changes spam-wise, eh? – B.hotep •talk• 14:03, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

MER-C isn't an admin? For shame! Guy (Help!) 15:55, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• Typo fixed. Stifle (talk) 18:03, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Disruptive template replacements

This discussion has been moved to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Disruptive template replacements. It has morphed into a community ban discussion, as opposed to an incident discussion, and that is the more proper place for such ban discussions. - TexasAndroid (talk) 13:21, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Abuse of Bill Phillips (author) article

The Revision History of the Bill Phillips (author) page on Wikipedia, http://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Bill_Phillips_(author)&action=history, shows more than four years of persistent misuse by “Yankees76.”

In that time, Yankees76 has displayed extreme bias against Bill Phillips. As the Revision History clearly shows, Yankees76 promptly deletes/undoes any good faith additions to the page that would make it more balanced and compliant with Wikipedia’s NPOV policy.

Yankees76 insists on being the primary contributor to the page, and the majority of what he contributes is defamatory and irrelevant except to him, as it supports his extreme bias/personal resentment toward Bill Phillips.

The sources Yankees76 often cites refer to http://tmuscle.com/tmuscle.com, an online newsletter published by TC Luoma, a former employee of Bill Phillips who was dismissed from one of his companies 15 years ago. These citations are biased, unreliable, and not in keeping with Wikipedia verifiability standards.

TC Luoma has made defamatory claims about Bill Phillips for many years in his newsletter, which Yankees76 then adds to the Bill Phillips (author) page. (TC Luoma also sells nutrition products that compete with those sold by Phillips.) Whether or not TC Luoma and Yankees76 are the same person, they share the same agenda, which is to control the Bill Phillips (author) page on Wikipedia.

Throughout the past four years, Yankees76 has bullied many contributors with insults and accusations that they are vandalizing his work on the page. This behavior goes directly against Wikipedia’s founding intention of providing objective, unbiased, and fair information. As it stands now, the Bill Phillips (author) page is defamatory, biased, and based on unreliable sources.

The bottom line is that Yankees76 has persistently misused his position as an admin with improper deletions and unreliable sources.

Getfit1980 (talk) 13:44, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Could you provide diffs for specific examples of bias? -Reconsider! 14:14, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Two examples of hearsay:

"Athletes like José Canseco would contact Phillips for advice on steroids,[13]"

"Reportedly, after the tumor was removed, he returned to "hanging up survey sheets from MM2K that showed Bill was our most popular writer. Each one had the words, 'Bill knows his audience!' written on them." Soon Phillips and Cusack's wedding was postponed and Phillips was regularly seen at strip clubs and in his magazine with fitness models and Playboy bunnies.[16]"

Getfit1980 (talk) 14:47, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

This ought to go to the BLP noticeboard. There has to be a middle path between writing an ad for the guy, and describing him as a failure and a specialist in steroids. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 15:02, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Ludicrous accusations. User:Getfit1980 is one of many sockpuppets who come to the article every few months without any previous Wikipedia edits and rewrite the article to remove any statements (sourced or not) that are related to Bill's well documented past as a steroids dealer/bodybuilder and supplement company owner or any negative statements in general. Any attempts to get these sockpuppets to discuss edits are usually met with silence. At one point (September 2008) the article was fully protected to avoid nearly the entire removal of content by a sockpuppet using the name User:BillEditor. How I've "bullied" any editors is beyond me, considering these editors refuse to discuss their changes and usually disapear only to be replaced by yet another sockpuppet that proceeds to do the same thing without any attempts to form a consensus on any of the informatio. The last one, the now blocked User:Chloe81375, attempted to intimidate both myself and another editor by threatening to expose our alleged personal information. Clearly there is an agenda being pushed by an individual or group of individuals who have a conflict of interest.

The article as it stands now does not give any undue weight to any side of Bill's career/personal life - both his successes and failures. The main article was written in March of 2006 by User:Glen and I've simply expanded on it with talk page discussions dating back to February 2006. A look through the edit history will show that I've spent considerable time carefully sourcing the info, especially info that is likely to be challenged. I've also attempted to explain why sources such at TC Luoma and magazines such as Mucle Insider and Testosterone Magazine are reliable sources. There is not much additional information I can add to this article at this time, however I'm not about to let an individual posting under numerous accounts remove sourced info in order to satisfy their own agenda. Yes, I'm aware of WP:OWN however watching an article and removing content blanking and vandalism does not fall under that guideline. --Yankees76 (talk) 16:23, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

This is really the wrong place for a content dispute. Where the edits involve possible defamation, please report at the biographies of living persons noticeboard, otherwise, follow the standard dispute resolution process. Yworo (talk) 19:40, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Demand community ban for Vote (X) for Change

92.27.84.129 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

Vote (X) for Change (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

I demand a community ban on User:Vote (X) for Change and an indefinite block on 92.27.84.129 in response to the long history of block evasion, capped by the insult which can be found at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Vote (X) for Change. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:02, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

"Demand"? Beyond My Ken (talk) 15:38, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

The user is already indefblocked. The IP is likely dynamic, so blocking it forever isn't going to help anything. I don't know what can be done other than a range block if it gets really bad. --B (talk) 15:45, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

That's why he's asking for a ban -- so that any IP determined to be Vote (X) can be immediately blocked as the sock of a banned user, instead of arguing about block evasion. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:52, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

A blocked user who evades a block is to be blocked on sight anyway. Any user who is blocked and whom no admin is willing to unblock is banned already. It sounds like this is an argument over semantics. (Obviously, I agree with the ban ... I'm just not clear over the point of having a ban discussion for a long-time blocked user who is sockpuppeting ... it seems pretty cut and dry.) --B (talk) 17:54, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

In theory, maybe. In practice I've been blocked (no complaint, good block etc) for edit warring with a sock puppet of an indefed editor. I have no qualms about repeatedly reverting banned editors; I would think twice before repeatedly reverting an indefed editor. TFOWR^{idle vapourings} 18:02, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I just looked at WP:3RR and WP:BAN. Apparently the rule has changed from what it used to be. It used to be that reverting the edits of a currently blocked user evading their block was explicitly exempted 3RR. It used to be that if an administrator blocked a user and no admin was willing to unblock, that user was considered "banned" so long as nobody was willing to unblock them. I'm not sure I like these two rule changes, but IIWII and I now understand why the discussion is relevant. --B (talk) 18:22, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Wow, there is a debate over the name of a calendar. --Alpha Quadrant (talk) 16:04, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Little things. Rohedin ^TALK 22:10, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

That's the least of this guy's calendrical sins. He has any number of cranky ideas about the history and structure of the pre-Julian, Julian, Gregorian and the Revised Julian (Orthodox) calendars, which he has pursued very persistently, first in 2008, until the supply of vaguely relevant articles was choked off through long-term semi-protection (at that time he only used IP addresses). Those protections have since been lifted, and he has broadened his agenda, but with very similar tactics, since February this year. He is immune to ordinary rational debate and contrary evidence, and insists that only he knows the state of current scholarship, citing only demonstrably unreliable tertiary sources, at best, to back him up.

Taking on a user handle was an aberration, he says he only did it to campaign for this name change and I believe him. Normally he only uses IP addresses. Unfortunately they are not dynamic in the normal sense. So far as I can tell, they are mostly terminals in various public libraries in NW London. So blocking these addresses has the effect of shutting down public library access to editing WP.

The conclusion I came to in 2008 is that WP is not really set up to deal with this kind of crank. Raising the issues through disputes procedures is time-consuming, and each time a new admin gets involved, who usually only sees the latest incident not the longue duree. For this reason the action taken is frequently just to block an IP address for a few weeks, or to semi-protect an article for a few weeks. That really has no effect.

I totally understand why Jc3s5h has made this request, and I don't oppose it. We both now revert edits from this user on sight and without discussion, but it gets very tiresome. However, I think blocking IP addresses on sight is not the real solution for this problem, he'll only find a new one at another library. As I said, what succeeded last time was choking off his air supply -- semi-protecting articles long term or (preferably) permanently. Jc3s5h has succeeded in getting at least some of the target articles permanently semi-protected, but the antagonist moved on to posting long discussions on the Talk pages or even in Archives which have to be continually reverted. So IMO semi-protection needs to be extended to the these pages as well (in fact this has already happened on Talk:Julian calendar/Archive 2). --Chris Bennett (talk) 02:39, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Sarawak and User:95Kenrick

Could someone take a look at this article and this user's actions. They keep on adding a db-copyvio tag to it which I've removed for reasons I state on the talk page - in short a) it's only one section so not a valid G12 candidate and b) it seems nearly certain the website in question copied from us rather than the other way round. The editor in question also has a rather strange edit history of the article. It appears that they've not got their own way about somethings so are now trying to get the article deleted - at least that's my interpretation of it. I'd appreciate another pair of eyes to look over it as I'm at a three revert limit and don't want to be seen to be edit warring. Dpmuk (talk) 14:16, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I acted on COPYVIO, Copying within Wikipedia and Text of the GNU Free Documentation License because it listed on the website with Copyright © Great Holiday Travel Sdn Bhd (843 225-A) and now I have replacing with {{copypate}} until the investigation is completed, thank you. 95Kenrick (talk) 14:29, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I am investigating. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:08, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

While it's always good to evaluate copyright concerns, in this case it is evident that they have indeed copied from Wikipedia. The first five sentences were introduced in a total of four edits, from March 2008, June 2004, April 2008 and January 2008. I've removed the template. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:23, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

thankfully, our contribution can avoid the legal jeopardy accusations of copyvio, with regards 95Kenrick (talk) 06:26, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Also regarding Sarawak and 95Kenrick: this user keeps on adding an edit in broken English to the article introduction, despite disagreement from multiple editors, and several removals of the same. This user is adding the same edit to Sabah. There is a discussion about this on the Sarawak talk page. I took the liberty of removing the "resolved" tag, since this is an ongoing issue. Chelos (talk) 18:22, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Looks like you forgot to mention my contribution on the page Self-determination#Sarawak and Sabah, hopefully we can do better perform together in the future, thank you 95Kenrick (talk) 06:01, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Removal of talk page messages.

User:Kuebie has been insisting on removing a talk page message, that while it certainly is not civil, it does not seem to be the personal attack that he is claiming.

I did try to explain that his continued removal of this would result in an ANI report, but the reverts continued.

article - Talk:History_of_Korea

diffs

[[78]] [[79]] [[80]] [[81]]

I don't know if this removal is allowed or not, neither do I know if the 3RR applies to article talk pages.

assuming this is the correct place for such a report, can someone please shed some light on whether he is correct in his continued removal, or if the message should be left on the talk page.

thanks

カンチョーSennen Goroshi ! (talk) 14:18, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

It's a prefectly legitimate removel as the comment adds nothing to improve the quality of the article. In fact, it can and should be removed as a troll post ment to stir up trouble. —Farix (t | c) 14:53, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Considering that there is a discussion on the talk page relating to how long Korea has been inhabited and the removed messaged addressed that particular issue, I thought the comment while slightly incivil, was relevant. I don't see how it fits the criteria of messages that are allowed to be removed from an article talk page. カンチョーSennen Goroshi ! (talk) 15:10, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

It's still very much a troll. The intent of the comment is to cause disruption, which is enough grounds to remove the comment. —Farix (t | c) 15:25, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

There are many comments that include less than civil language and put forward a point of view that might cause offence to some - however I tend to assume good faith and try not to read the minds of other editors. I see a comment made by an emotional editor, who could have used a little more tact, but still a valid comment addressing an issue relating to the article in question. Thanks for the input, but rather than waste any more of your time on this, perhaps we could wait for an admin to deal with this, one way or another, but thanks again for your opinion. カンチョーSennen Goroshi ! (talk) 15:38, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• Firstly, I should point out that edit-warring applies to any sort of tit-for-tat reversion even if it's happening on a talk page and not an article: "An edit war occurs when editors who disagree about some aspect of the content of a page repeatedly override each other's contributions, rather than try to resolve the disagreement by discussion" (from WP:EW). Kuebie has made four reverts and Sennen goroshi three. Although you both have a bit of a history with this, Kuebie's is ongoing and he has been warned as recently as last month (while Sennen goroshi's is from a couple of years ago and looks like a fairly typical newbie learning curve). Accordingly I've blocked Kuebie for one week, which may seem harsh on the face of it for a 3RR violation, but it's clearly a long-term behavioural pattern that needs either changing or excluding from the site. Sennen goroshi, I hope you don't mind a reminder that you've narrowly avoided a block too; please follow WP:BRD in future :)

  Secondly, WP:TALK recommends "Removing harmful posts, including personal attacks, trolling and vandalism. This generally does not extend to messages that are merely incivil; deletions of simple invective are controversial. Posts that may be considered disruptive in various ways are another borderline case and are usually best left as-is or archived." My feeling is that the post in question comes under the last part of that and would have been best left in situ; if it was found offensive, it could perhaps have been collapsed rather than removed entirely. However, it's borderline and others may well see it differently. Hope this helps, EyeSerene^talk 16:35, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

The New York Times and the Holocaust

Desperately needs more eyes. Dispute in a nutshell is that there are two versions, a pared down one that takes a just the facts approach, and on that is rather, shall i say, polemical to be kind. This is not an "editorial dispute" so much as a question of choosing to rather flagrantly distort in service of a cause.Bali ultimate (talk) 15:05, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

This looks like a ridiculous topic for an encyclopedia article. Maybe it could be expanded to United States media coverage of the Holocaust or some such thing? --B (talk) 15:17, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Your suggested topic would be a reasonable target (though it would also be a coatrack for activism/revisionist history as this one is). The problem is, who will write it? I wouldn't, because i'd still have to do battle with the revisionist history activists. Even keeping distortions out of this little coatrack is a full time job.Bali ultimate (talk) 15:21, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Bali ultimate has been edit warring for days, removing content without consensus that is well sourced and has been POV pushing non-stop along with PhGustaf. Both are trying to censor the article because they don't like it. Period. Caden ^cool 15:26, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

How adorable. To give one a flavor of the problem look at this diff [82]. You can read the source material yourself to determine which version hews more closely to what was actually written. This is the sort of stuff being restored (went through this article and its sources with a fine tooth comb in January; the SPA that wrote it in the first place now wants his version back, and crack researchers and historians like Caden are being recruited to the cause).Bali ultimate (talk) 15:31, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• Edit-warring is undoubtedly a fact, so I have protected the article at the wrong version. Guy (Help!) 15:53, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
  • I think a month is way overkill here. The merge discussion will likely be done in days. I'd urge this move to the 4-6 day range. Hobit (talk) 17:20, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

NB: Bali ultimate brought his complaints here (although what he is complaining about is an editing dispute) without bothering to tell the editors he is complaining about that there is an AN/I thread. His has more than enough experience to know better. Naughty, naughty, Bali ultimate! No reason to keep this thread a secret from the other editors.

Perhaps the one problem at The New York Times and the Holocaust, that qualifies for discussion here, is that Bali ultimate abrasive editing style may may reach the level of being disruptive to the editing process. But for some reason he has not mentioned that problem. The editor who created this article is a newbie, at least in terms of editing experience, and probably deserved gentler handling....even if if should prove true that Bali ultimate is as right about every thing as he thinks. 173.52.182.160 (talk) 16:00, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Bali ultimate reached the level of disruption days ago through his non-stop edit warring and his never ending biased POV pushing. I'm not surprised either that he failed to notify a single editor about his report here. Caden ^cool 16:09, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

This article seems like a potential candidate for deletion. ClovisPt (talk) 16:43, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually, how about a merge into Criticism of The New York Times? ClovisPt (talk) 16:46, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Given the amount that has been written about this specific topics, I think the article is defensible, but the discussion obviously belongs elsewhere. Thee seems to be a view here that this is fringe, but it isnt.A much more extensive article could and should be written. DGG ( talk ) 16:48, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

There may be sources for an article, but I'm not at all certain that the current article is that article. I mean, it starts with "According to at least two authors, The New York Times coverage of the Holocaust during World War II was not as prominent as it should have been." Two authors? Is there an issue of undue weight here? I'd feel much better about the article if there were more sources supporting it. Shimeru (talk) 21:02, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

AN/I is not the place to discuss the article's editing problems, but as can be seen in this version [83] that got zapped by Bali ultimate, there are certainly more than two authors used as sources. If there is any issue that should be discussed here it is Bali ultimate's habit of abusing editors who oppose his POV. Such abrasiveness is disruptive and not conducive to constructive editing. 173.52.182.160 (talk) 21:30, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Ok, enough. The IP is in my opinion either a banned editor or someone sock-puppeting to avoid scrutiny. The IP or anyone else is of course welcome to make a complaint about me here, or open an RFC, or whatever, but I think i've had enough assertions from a pot-stirrer about my "abuse" of editors. I call it like i see it, and don't suffer fools. But I haven't abused anyone here.Bali ultimate (talk) 00:22, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

This is typical of Bali ultimate's method of dealing with subjects he does not want to discuss. He does not make replies, just delivers accusations. The editor who created the article is Cimicifugia who as far as I can tell is a newbie in terms of editing experience. (I have been involved with the article only a few days - since 29 May - almost entirely in discussion on the talk page.) Here, in one of his first talk page edits (13:14, 18 January 2010 (UTC) )Bali ultimate is calling Cimicifugia a liar: "...since the original author of this article lied about what was contained in the contents of many of the cites that i already checked, i'm disinclined to believe that all of these authors and books agree precisely with Lipstadt." (I would give a diff, but in Bali ultimate's history that diff is black, not blue, although I do not know how or why that diff is dead.) That is pretty much Bali ultimate's tone and attitude throughout the discussion, and I think that approach is disruptive. His own statement above: "I call it like i see it, and don't suffer fools" is not exactly a model for collaborative editing, and pretty well sums up the problem, when it is understood that his working definition of a "fool" is any one who gets in his way. 173.52.182.160 (talk) 11:40, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Claim of libel from Nicholas van Praag

The article Nicholas van Praag (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) has a history of apparent COI edits including the blanking of reliably sourced detail. It is currently under AFD. The following anonymous IP (registered to the The World Bank Group), claims to be Nicholas van Praag and has made the following complaint on my talk page which include a claim of libel and requesting administrator attention on his BLP:

I do not understand why you (Fae, whoever you are) continue to change my entry in Wikipedia - putting my expertize and present function in the past tense and making libellous assertions about my character and performance without substantiation. Further, your edits are poorly worded and detract from the readability of the post. I would ask you (Fae) to desist and, at the same time, I would request the Wikipedia administrator to decide how to word the entry about me on Wikipedia rather than continuing the back and forth over edits to the text, thereby risking deletion of the post itself. This link to my bio on the world bank website indicates my present functions as well as previous roles and responsibilities. I would be grateful if you could stick to this description of my career without embroidery or bias. Many thanks, Nicholas van Praag —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.86.100.36 (talk) 17:00, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Original talk page entry: diff

I have not replied and would appreciate advice. Fæ (talk) 17:19, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I've fixed the article per his concerns and WP:DOLT. Hipocrite (talk) 18:06, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure that was necessary, Hipocrite. It seems to me that the IP is trying to spin his article, and it certainly looks like Fæ's right about the COI editing. I assume the information that's being objected to is that relating to his departure from UNHCR? If not, can Fæ supply a diff? Assuming it is... The Telegraph is a reliable UK broadsheet newspaper and that information looks suitably neutrally-written and sourced in compliance with WP:BLP. I see no reason to remove it. This from March 2010 seems to corroborate that Mr van Praag is no longer in that position. The link we're being provided by Mr van Praag, on the other hand, is to a blog - likely self-published, and certainly not WP:RS. I do applaud the removal of most of the "External links" section which was overly-promotional and fell foul of WP:ELNO.

My feeling is that the article should probably be deleted; frankly, I don't believe it passes WP:BIO. However, should it survive the AfD, Mr van Praag needs to stop editing the article completely under any alias and should realise that it's not under his control and is certainly not his curriculum vitae. Neither must it become an attack piece, so if he has genuine concerns we'll take them seriously - in which case he might try contacting the WP:OTRS team or mentioning them on the article talk page together with a disclosure of his interest. Legal threats, even veiled ones, are a definite non-starter and will lead to his account(s) being blocked until he's sorted them out with the Wikimedia Foundation.

That's my take on the situation anyway :) EyeSerene^talk 18:20, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

You'll want to be careful, here, ES - specifically, what was listed in the past tense was "was a public policy communications professional." That's just not true - even if not employed, he would still be a "public policy communications professional," though he would be an unemployed one. Further, the Telegraph article deals with a 2009 resignation from the UN's High Commission for Refugees, not any position related to the World Bank, where a reliable source (a blog hosted by the world bank) states he "manages the communications and advocacy program for the next World Development Report." I did not remove the statement he left the UNHCR, but I placed his current position in the present tence, because all present reliable evidence shows he currently works there. Hipocrite (talk) 18:31, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough, I've taken another look at the article versions and you have a good point. I'd misunderstood what the dispute was about, but I now see what he was objecting to and your edits make perfect sense. Thanks for the clarification and my apologies for misconstruing things :) EyeSerene^talk 21:08, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your help and time taken to examine and correct the article. As the AFD I originally raised has now concluded with deletion, this addresses any possible concerns that van Praag may have had by default. Fæ (talk) 21:42, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Password abuse/help needed

Resolved

 – Fake temporary password requests can and should be ignored. –xeno^talk 17:44, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I have falsely received this email message:

Someone from the IP address 64.107.0.158 requested that we send you a new login password for the English Wikipedia.

If someone else made this request, or if you have remembered your password and you no longer wish to change it, you may safely ignore this message. Your old/existing password will continue to work despite this new password being created for you.

Would a checkuser or admin please help? Thanks —Tommy2010 17:39, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

If someone else made this request, or if you have remembered your password and you no longer wish to change it, you may safely ignore this message. Your old/existing password will continue to work despite this new password being created for you. Someone is trying to get into your account; I might change your password. Do not post the code anywhere, as anyone could crack in. mono 17:43, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I see you posted the code; Xeno was quick to WP:REVDELETE it. mono 17:44, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Don't worry about it (but don't post your password here, either!)

What happens if some clown thinks that they'll try and crack your account. Being the elite "hackers" they are, they fail to sign in as you. They then they'll request that your password - or a new password - be emailed. They try this. Unfortunately, they don't get the opportunity to specify the email address! Oh noes! The request goes, instead, to the email address you originally specified. They fail, you laugh. Honestly, there's nothing to worry about - except how silly some "hackers" are. TFOWR^{idle vapourings} 17:45, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

(ec x3)Despite what mono says, ignore the message. Unless you change your password, there's not a whole lot they can do - the password request email doesn't allow them to see your current password. —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Dittobori)} 17:46, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks everyone, I was freaking out there for a bit. Many many many thanks to Xeno for his (?) extremely fast response that (had he not done) could have compromised my entire account. Excellent. —Tommy2010 17:49, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

(response to a blunder that could have compromised my account, I think you mean ;>) No problem. And yes, {{gender|Xeno}} = he –xeno^talk 17:51, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Fixed ;) Damn those linguistic ambiguities! —Tommy2010 17:57, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

User: Neutralhomer

I don't know what route to take with this, but I am again getting harrassed by user:neutralhomer. I posted a link to a photograph on my website (standard site, no advertising, I get no revenue, just a picture host) showing proof of evidence in an article. I disagree with his assertion that is it not a reliable source. (He state's conflict of interest, however I dispute that! How is a photograph evidence not reliable? It's a good faith source). I removed the link for the time being, however.

Anyways that is not the intended purpose of this post. He has requested that I do not post on his wall, so I can't notify him directly of this matter, and hope someone else here can.

He is now clearly following my every move on here, and based on other users talk pages, he's done/doing it to other users here as well who question his motives and what could be considered WP:Harrassment. Examples of a couple of other user talk pages [| here], [| here], and [| here]. His tactics include unnecessary flagging, incorrect flagging [| here.] reporting removal of unverified information as vandalisim, which had been determined to not be. He's been flagged by other users in the past as well. When the OP is questioned about his removal of unverified information, he refuses to go into arbitration. I had to flag him for edit warring, something that appears to have been done before. Based on comments left on my [talk page] by other users, I am not alone in this matter.

The user "requests" that I do not post on his wall, but feels it is ok for himself to do so on my wall. I believe this qualifies as WP:Harrassment as well as WP:Hounding , based on what I stated, and the comments clearly posted on the other three walls. What are the correct steps to take to get this overzealous member to back down? He's making several people's lives on Wikipedia a nightmare because of actions. Necrat (talk) 17:59, 2 June 2010 (UTC)NECRAT.

He is correct that that picture is not an appropriate reference for the information you're using it for. Also, pointing to an entire article history is not generally considered suitable evidence for "incorrect tagging".--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:09, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

How do I tag the one line that I am referring to? Also that's not the bigger problem here. It's the borderline bullying over other members as well, and what I would consider to be WikiStalking. I have removed the link to the picture in the article he questioned. Is this acceptable to use? [| Link ]

I think you mean WP:DIFF. S.G.^(GH) _ping! 18:37, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• Wasn't told of this thread. No worries, found it searching for another ANI thread. I told Necrat that a website owned by him wasn't a reliable source since it was added by him. Just like I can't source an article with my website, it is COI, since I own the site. I think it could be possible for others to source it (since they are not owners, I will leave that to an admin to decide). I directed Necrat (politely, regardless of our past) to the FCC website where I believe they keep a list of transmitter brands the station using on the main application, which in this case would be here. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 19:14, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Folks really shouldn't be banning other editors from their user talk pages unless there's serious harassment. I see that now Necrat has reciprocated by asking Neutralhomer not to post on his talk page either. User talk pages are there for a purpose - communication.   Will Beback  talk  19:23, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I will be honest, I do that for things I just don't want to deal with and areas where I feel I am being roped into a pissing match. I just say "begone". Though it is very rare I have to as I do try to get along with most everyone on Wikipedia. This has been a big pissing match gang-up between 4 users and me and I had better things to do like get an article to Good Article status (and I did) then deal with a pissing match. I just felt telling them to "begone" was easier than continous fighting. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 19:26, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

There are more than just those examples. If I listed more, he would say "there are 5 users". Neutralhomer, you have rejected any fair and good communications, and by not communicating, you invoke what you call a "pissing match" between members. Telling users to "begone" instead of entering into a communication with them, and as seen as evidence from previous disputes, there have been other problems with you and this matter. I did so reciprocal to his post about not wanting any communication on his wall, thus not wanting to have open discussions about his 'decision's and his continual administrator like flagging without discussion, which is not in the scope of Wikipedia. Necrat (talk) 19:56, 2 June 2010 (UTC)NECRAT

Sorry, I couldn't make hide nor hare of that, but I will try and respond anyway. First off, I am not an admin, I don't act like an admin. Any editor (you, me, anyone) can issue warnings. I have an application that makes that a little easier, you can use it too, go to WP:TWINKLE. I tried right off to talk with you but after some edit warring, I just reverted and was done with it. You and others tried to force me into mediation and when I didn't go, I was accused of be "unreasonable" and "unresponsive". There wasn't anything to discuss in mediation. You had no references on the WABC article and admittedly, neither did I...but what you were adding was original research and when confronted with that, you kinda went off. That is when I just asked you not to post on my talk page and moved on. I had and have better things to do then get in pissing matches (for reference, a "pissing match" is a southern term for arguement) for people over silly shit. Plus I had bigger fish to fry (like a Good Article nomination) and was working on that (got my GA :)). If you want to be cordial and talk like civilized human beings, I will gladly allow you to post on my talk page, but if you are going to try and force me into mediation again and treat me like I am a "kid" (I am 29), then we have nothing to talk about. The ball is in your court. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 20:19, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

You DO act like an admin. Look at the user talk pages I linked, they have said the exact same thing, and have all had seperate interactions with you. I am not going to get into a debate with you, but I did provide valid resources (direct online articles from a well established company, that basically counters the information you posted), and when I modified the article, I put a directive to the fact, referenced on a direct link posted below. You continually accuse of not having sources, when I did provide them to you, you screamed vandalisim and refused to discuss the matter. Your exact line was "unless it is in a local newspaper, such as the times, it is not a reputable source". I hope the admins can see how difficult you are to work with here and take appopriate steps. I am at my wits end with you, this is the kind of thing that was driving me off of Wikipedia. I am not going to comment any more until a Admin steps in here. Necrat (talk) 20:47, 2 June 2010 (UTC)NECRAT

Promise?--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:55, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Necrat obviously didn't read the last two sentences of my previous post. So much for the olive branch. OK folks, I will be offwiki dealing with WP:REALLIFE for the next hour and a half. Please do not be offended if I don't not respond in that time period, I will respond when I get back. When in doubt, check the Status on my userpage. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 21:12, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• I'm one of the users mentioned above and my talk page is linked. Summarizing my interest here, which is discussed in more detail on my talk page: I have not really interacted with Neutralhomer in articlespace or noticed him prior to a couple weeks ago. I originally noticed Neutralhomer when on 19 May 2010 he made the comment "I feel it is vandalism to push is "abortion is bad" position". This was part of an edit-war he was involved in (diffs) where he reverted a clear correction of an error as vandalism - not once, but 3 times. From there, I noticed that he was in an edit-warring dispute with Necrat (see 17-19 May 2010). Necrat was removed the unsourced statement that WABC (AM) was HD2 while Neutralhomer repeatedly reverted (providing no sources), marking one of these edits as vandalism. Neutralhomer was adding fighting to retain unsourced material, even going so far as to call the removal of that unsourced material vandalism. Further, our own page on HD2 says that it is an FM channel (at the risk of having Neutralhomer change it). From there I could see that Neutralhomer was a highly disruptive editor (a vested troublemaker) and I was surprised that he had such a pretty user page with so many barnstars. Someone like this can cause a lot of collateral damage by making newcomers think this kind of conduct is acceptable. Looking at Neutralhomer's block log (too many blocks to count), I was glad to see that he hadn't exactly gone unnoticed. In his archive is a discussion of his last block on 22 April 2010 (User_talk:Neutralhomer/Archive6#Consequences). DragonflySixtyseven blocks him for marking non-vandalism as vandalism; Bwilkins declines the unblock request, and Muzemike imposed conditions prior to unblocking, noting that Neutralhomer has been "having significant problems understanding what vandalism is and what it isn't and how Twinkle factors in on that. This isn't an isolated case, either; this has been going on for the past 3-4 years from looking at the numerous other ANI discussions regarding this". As a neutral party, I expressed my concern about Neutralhomer's behavior to him first directly (calling him unreasonable) - his response feigned complete ignorance of the issues so I notified the admins involved prior, but none really seemed interested in relooking at Neutralhomer. I was actually surprised that he was willing to discuss as much as he has, but he still refuses to admit any problems and considers me to be a wikistalker for raising the issues. Overall after talking with him he didn't seem entirely unreasonable, but the fact that this has gone on for so long without seemingly any improvement makes me think that a longer-term sanction is necessary. He needs to be put on probation whereby future harassment (non-vandalism marked as vandalism) and edit-warring are not tolerated. II | (t - c) 05:43, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
  • It looks like NeutralHomer has a long history of mislabeling edits as vandalism and of misusing Twinkle. Hasn't he been asked to stop using that tool?   Will Beback  talk  06:30, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
    • Just when you think you can escape, they suck you back in. OK, I was previously asked to remove TWINKLE and had to ask for it back at a later date. Perhaps I need some freshening up on what is and isn't vandalism since so many seem to think I have a problem. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 07:08, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

• I am going offline, per WP:BEDTIME and WP:REALLIFE. So don't be offended if I don't respond to anything until about 4 or 5pm EST (yup, I am a nightowl). - NeutralHomer • Talk • 08:11, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Rollback misuse

As you all know, I have a very consuded idea of "rollback misuse" so I would be grateful to know if the use of the esteemed tool is legitimate here [84]. Where user:Fastily (an admin) to my mind is misusing the tool very badly. Life is just so confusing isn't it? Go forth and discuss.  Giacomo  18:23, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• I would like to hear from Fastily on this. As a preliminary comment, I will say that the decision to use rollback here seems to me to have been an unwise one. AGK 18:37, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't have rolled back that edit. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:54, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Really? so what are you going to do about it? Take away his rollback rights, say he is harrassing or do nothing? There seems to be a lot that is "odious" going on currently - doesn't there?  Giacomo  19:00, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Rollback cannot be taken away from an admin. (That's not an endorsement of anything, just a clarification of what is technically possible.) --B (talk) 19:02, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

No, only one thing can be taken from an Admin and that won't happen - just go stew, all of you. I feel tainted in some of the comapany here right now. I won't be back to this thread so just close it - leave it - cover it up or whatever it is you usually do.  Giacomo  19:05, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

As B says, Fastily is an admin. I'd say someone should talk to him. Now that I understand you were baiting me, I also understand why you didn't ask him about it yourself on his talk page. I think this thread should be closed now. Gwen Gale (talk) 19:05, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually, Giano said it before B did.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:15, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

What's with the forum shopping, Giano? Gwen Gale (talk) 19:20, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

He'll be able to answer that question when he gets back from AGK's block. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:23, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Or when the wheel war begins ... --B (talk) 19:30, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the question of appropriateness, if the edits themselves were appropriate, then using rollback would be appropriate in this case - it is approved for bulk reverts. However, I don't see that the edits themselves were appropriate for the most part. Some of these images are clearly public domain and, while there technically needs to be a source for our image policy, if it's obviously PD and it's obvious where it came from originally, we don't need to be obnoxious about it. But I should point out that the articles from January 4, 1923 are NOT public domain. So to answer your question, no, the use of rollback was not appropriate. --B (talk) 19:08, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Also, this is just a plain obnoxious revert. I would hope it was accidental. --B (talk) 19:10, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I would also like to hear some excuse from Fastily for using this edit to revert a perfectly good edit on the user's own user talk page.   — Jeff G. ツ 23:14, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I undid it and Fastily apologised on my talk for it, saying they were in the process of rectifying it. Dr.K. ^{λogosπraxis} 23:24, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

In the edit I just undid here, it was clearly an invalid deletion rationale -- it was stated that it came from a particular issue of the New York Times that was comfortably in the Public Domain. The exact provenance of the scan is irrelevant.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:13, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, it would be nice if we had (just in case there is ever any question) something like "User such and such scanned this image from an original clipping" or, "this clipping was posted on Bob Smith's blog at http:// whatever". That way, if, sometime down the line, someone questions the authenticity, we have that level of audit trail. But I wouldn't go around deleting things without it unless there is some legitimate concern that it may not be authentic. At Commons, for instance, there are plenty of works of art that are obviously PD, but for which there is no exact source of the image file itself. Going through them and deleting for the sake of deleting would just be obnoxious. --B (talk) 19:19, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Yet another reason why the admin toolset should be split up. There is no way that Fastily can be "punished" for this - any ordinary editor would have their rollback right stripped without question. Oh, and Giacomo has been blocked for "personal attacks". Aiken ♫ 19:24, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Regarding that - an ordinary editor can be topic banned, or told to not post to another editor's user page; can not the community, or other admins in concert, put an administrator under a ban from using one of their tools? Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:35, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Arbcom has done that before. I don't see why a community ban over the rollback tool couldn't be imposed. (I'm not inclined to do so at this point - not unless there is evidence of significant abuse ... just stating the theoretical possibility.) --B (talk) 19:52, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

There are about 20 he has the same tag on under the same circumstances. All PD. I know of no Wikipedia rule that demands what library I scanned a book from or what roll of microfilm I used. Bridgeman v. Corel says that a new copy of an expired image doesn't reset the clock for copyright. Saying "New York Times on January 12, 1910" is enough info to refind it. The demands for a link or that the text be in a fancy new format are just a continuance of the nonsense all week to pile on. I want to remove the tags since they are incorrect. Can I remove the tags, when I tried to add more text and remove the tag he threatened to block me and rolled back my changes as you saw above. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 19:25, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Richard, you don't need to say what microfilm you used - just put in there that you personally scanned the image (as opposed to downloading it from a website). The whole idea, as I said above, is that if five years from now, there's a question about where it came from and someone says "some website claims that the article text says this", we can say, "no, Richard himself scanned it from microfilm so we know our version is correct". You don't have to give the life story - just say that you did the scanning. --B (talk) 19:28, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I found flaws in most of those tags, I'd say rm them. My only (wee) worry is there may be a very few scanned articles which may not PD (I don't know if they are or not). Gwen Gale (talk) 19:30, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

There was one that was from January 4, 1923. --B (talk) 19:33, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that one is lacking. Meanwhile, RAN, in his uploads, has claimed that copyrights weren't renewed. Could be. RAN, how do you know that? Gwen Gale (talk) 19:38, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Aiken, there is a way Fastily can be "punished" (using the term loosely because, in general, corrective action on Wikipedia is preventative, not punitive) - he can be blocked. If it is decided that there is an ongoing threat of disruption from Fastily's use of the rollback privilege, he can (and will) be blocked. --B (talk) 19:33, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

An ordinary editor would have already lost the right, for sure. Aiken ♫ 19:38, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

If the oil spill were a used banana peel, it would have been thrown in the trash can. We can't do what we don't have the technical ability to do. --B (talk) 19:50, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

A block is effectively a slap on the wrist. It'll come and go, but the admin will still have access to rollback. An ordinary editor would not. I know it's not technically possible to remove the right, so until that's the case, it's probably best that all rights are removed. Aiken ♫ 19:56, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

That's counterproductive and kinda like curing the illness by killing the patient. In this particular case, all that has been established is that, on one particular occasion, he misused rollback. If someone posts diffs showing that this is an ongoing thing and that has has refused to change despite repeated attempts at intervention, then desysopping would make sense. --B (talk) 20:00, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

That's more appropriate for an RFC, but I assure you this isn't an isolated incident. See, my way of thinking is that if an admin abuses one tool, they are probably going to abuse another too. Aiken ♫ 22:02, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Moreover, good faith editors who have lost rollback can get it back within a few weeks if they show understanding of what went wrong. Gwen Gale (talk) 20:04, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

When I was granted rollback, I was warned - twice - that misuse would result in it being taken off me. It seems fairly clear - misuse of rollback results in it being withdrawn. The fact that it also means the withdrawal of admin rights is unfortunate, but that's the way it goes - and should mean that those who have the ability consider its use even more carefully before dispensing. Surely being granted admin rights doesn't also grant immunity to the affects of it being misused? Perhaps at a later date he could re-apply, but in the meantime, the process seems clear to me, a mere editor. a_man_alone (talk) 20:06, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Seriously? Here's what irks me most about stuff like this. It's like pulling teeth on this site to get admins who really are abusing the tools. There was one case I was involved in where an admin was obviously socking (one account at work, and his admin account at home), regularly (and almost exclusively) blocking people he was in disputes with, and showing up at AN3 only to block people who were in edit wars with his friends. He had been warned multiple times by arbcom for the identical behavior. Finally, after about four different arbcom cases, he was desysopped and even then, the cabal was fighting vociferously. Even now, there is at least one admin I can think of who constantly blocks people he's disputing with and goes out of his way to disallow outside editors to participate in the topics he owns. Any time someone brings his actions up here, there's a calvary here to defend the indefensible. When you demand instant summary desysopping in a trivial case, it makes it just that much harder to deal with the real abuses. --B (talk) 20:17, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not commenting on that, I'm commenting on this. Neither am I demanding anything - I'm just pointing out that what you call a trivial case would have resulted in me losing my rollback ability. a_man_alone (talk) 20:58, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually, A man alone, you pretty clearly advocated the removal of Fastily's admin rights because of this incident. That seems like a disproportionate response to making some questionable choices with rollbacking. — Satori Son 21:05, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Only because that's (apparently) a side effect of removing rollback. Misuse of rollback results in the loss of rollback. As administrators, do you not agree about that? If removing rollback also removes admin, then removing rollback means loss of admin. It may be disproportionate, but an admin should be aware that with rank cometh responsibility. a_man_alone (talk) 21:14, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

So much for "I'm just pointing out..." At least I appreciate the fact that you are no longer being coy about what, exactly, you would like to happen here. — Satori Son 21:22, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

As B hinted, if it came to that, a ban on Fastily using rollback for a given time would be much more fitting. Gwen Gale (talk) 21:24, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Hopefully, Fastily will respond here before we decide what to do. — Satori Son 21:31, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Nothing should be done right now anyway - he has yet to edit since very early this morning. Once he starts editing again, if he says, "I was wrong, I will not do it again", we move on with life. If not, we can take an appropriate action. --B (talk) 00:07, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

What actions have been taken to rectify both image questions and rollback question?

Question: Have any of the administrators here, particularly those who have identified that the rollbacks were inappropriate, initiated a discussion with Fastily about his use of this tool? Have any of the editors commenting here, particularly those who have identified that the rollbacks were inappropriate, returned the pages involved to their prior state? Has anyone initiated discussion on the talk pages of the various images identifying what needs to be changed between Fastily's version and RAN's version? In other words, is everyone here just talking, or is anyone actually taking any actions to resolve the issue? Risker (talk) 21:11, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Two editors (including the user who brought this report) contacted Fastily at his talk page, they were received thusly [85] [86] (see, in particular, the edit summaries, which only add to the disappointing response). –xeno^talk 21:26, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I removed one of the di-tags for a scan of an article that was cited to a particular PD issue of the NYT, as noted above.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:53, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, SarekOfVulcan and Xeno, for your response. Now, can we have a volunteer to talk to Fastily again? Is there further action required with respect to him? Can we also have a volunteer or two to look at all of the pages that Fastily reverted, and review what does and doesn't need to be done there? I'd like to see this resolved in a way that allows us to keep (potentially) useful images, properly tagged, without any more templates being put on any editor's talk page. Risker (talk) 22:13, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• I do sometimes wonder, when you have all quite finished shooting the messenger who brings the tidings that you don't want to near, if any of you have any memories at all, this is not the first time that this Admin has been guilty of mass harassing nominations is it [87]? I warned you all I was going to get to the bottom of this harrassment case and I damn well will.  Giacomo  22:26, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
• (ec) Please note that Fastily has not edited since O dark thirty this morning ... so he has not necessarily even seen this discussion. --B (talk) 22:28, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• Risker: With respect, I ask if you have pursued any of the sensible courses of action you recommend? AGK 12:34, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
• Don't mind me here. I just wanted to thank Risker for a wonderful initiative such as this. Thank you very much Risker. Dr.K. ^{λogosπraxis} 23:04, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Recent block of GiacomoReturned

Speaking as one of the few admins who has actually had a block of Giano expire rather than being reversed, I think AGK's block combined with the subsequent actions and going away was at the very best unhelpful. His actions immediately prior to the block were mild by any standards, and it is unclear that the block serves a purpose of preventing further drama. I do not wish to spark a wheel war by unblocking unilaterally, but would like to gather a consensus to unblock him forthwith. Stifle (talk) 21:39, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Looks like User:LessHeard vanU has decided to unblock him, I guess this thread is moot. Stifle (talk) 21:41, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Why was the guy blocked? I didn't see any foul language used on his part. GoodDay (talk) 21:45, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

My understanding is that he was blocked for refusing to retract a reference to another editor as "odious" and restoring it when removed. Stifle (talk) 21:57, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Okie Dokie. GoodDay (talk) 22:06, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• As noted, I have unblocked GiacomoReturned. I have provided my rationale to AGK at his talkpage. As regards WP:WHEEL, it is my understanding that an admin may undo another admins action (within reason) and it is a revert of that action that is a wheelwar. (If I am wrong, then I likely shouldn't have the bauble anyhoo.) If a consensus arises that GR should be blocked for his earlier comments, then obviously the block may be re-instated without reference to me. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:50, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

  Only if an admin repeats an action that has been opposed does a wheel-war exist, but I feared that unblocking Giano would cause one to kick off, and I am also signing out shortly. Stifle (talk) 21:57, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

  Support, involved users should stay away from their tools. Off2riorob (talk) 21:54, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• Giano has been making comments like this for the last day or so. If you don't view "odious" as a personal attack, I'm sure you will admit that it is at least not altogether civil. If the community is hesitant to block him, that's a pity in my view; the question now, though, is what is going to be done about the long-term pattern of abusive and disruptive behaviour we have here? It is surely counterproductive to let it continue unfettered. (That's my statement, and in everyone's interests in my not provoking an extended pile-on against myself, I will not comment further on this issue here.) ╟─TreasuryTag►quaestor─╢ 21:55, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

While I am here. All Administrators should be open to recall if you have not the continued support of the community you have no mandate to use the tools. Off2riorob (talk) 21:59, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• I think that unblock rationale was kinda weak LHvU but... as I keep trying to tell folks, there is always an admin willing to undo the civility block of an experienced editor, they don't stick, hence most personal attacks are allowed to slide here, it's so boring. I think you should have talked to AGK about it first. Gwen Gale (talk) 21:59, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

  AGK did what so many admins do after a silly block - stopped editing. Requiring discussion is all very well, but easily and often gamed. DuncanHill (talk) 22:06, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• AGK had not edited since commenting on his own block, which was his previous edit. I did review his edits thoroughly to check whether there was any pre-block discussion on the sanction, so I was pretty certain he was not onsite. I did post my extended rationale as soon as I had actioned the unblock, and invited him to comment. I am not sure I could have done much more. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:07, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

You could have done much less, too. Only sayin', though. Gwen Gale (talk) 22:09, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• ...but I am, more or Less!? LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:12, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, you're right. It's important that we have pre-block discussion with Giacomo because he might not be aware of WP:CIVIL at this point.--Crossmr (talk) 23:39, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• I have my thoughts on the block at [88]. Was AGK right to make the block over this? No, that particular edit was rather tame and mild. But Giano's general conduct is not acceptable. You can't spend your life picking a fight and then be surprised when someone finally hits back. I don't know what the solution to the problem is - it seems that we have two extremes desired by the crowd - pin a medal on Giano vs block Giano. --B (talk) 22:02, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't do either. Giano is... Giano. Gwen Gale (talk) 22:07, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

On first review, I agree that Giano's behavior wasn't excessive enough to justify a block; Unlike Gwen, I feel that we can effectively make civility or personal attack blocks on longtime contributors, but I think that they need to be well supported by facts in evidence. I didn't see that here. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:13, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Oh forget it, water off a duck's back. In fact, AKK was led onto it by the soliciting and comlaining (note nice polite words)Treasury Tag here [89]. Trasury Tag is very good at leading admins into making bad blocks, it's a real talent.  Giacomo  23:23, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

If it is inappropriate soliciting to report a personal attack to an administrator, then yes, I solicited the block and I am proud of having done so. If, on the other hand, it is actually normal Wikipedian behaviour to inform admins of civility issues etc., which I think it is, then your "nice polite words" of soliciting and comlaining (eh?) are nevertheless false. ╟─TreasuryTag►Lord Speaker─╢ 08:01, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

• The weakest case for an unblock EVER. Next we will be hearing how LHvU is a totally neutral observer. It's funny how no neutral admin said a word for over 2 hours, yet around 100 admins must have been aware of the block within 10 minutes. I was not surprised to see Giano blocked for having been in the past 48 hours, the model of incivility toward Treasury Tag (has anyone got around warning/blocking him for being a 'bully' yet? I didn't fucking think so, because it's Grade A bullshit). And then giving an admin the finger, by restoring the latest comment, in a blatant 'come on then, if you think you're hard enough' move, let to him getting what he asked for. I was equally unsurprised to see the outcome of the block. Foolish AGK. He doesn't know that you can never block Giano EVER. It's futile. Fucking Groundhog Day and then some. Still, at least now we have some interesting case law for what is and isn't a personal attack, it's any word you can't find in a Wikipedia policy page. Pure brilliant. No consensus to block. More Pure Gold. Part of the discussion which led to the block - i.e. 'don't restore that comment'. Even more Pure Gold. MickMacNee (talk) 23:59, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

With exception to the comment about LHvU (whose involvement with Giano I am not aware of), I would agree with much of what you said, Mick. AGK 11:06, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I have previously unblocked Giano (see here) and may therefore be considered to be involved, but my actions are in order to stop the escalation of a drama. I have always maintained that I am willing to block GiacomoReturned where there is a good consensus for sanction of a violation of policy; most of these blocks are ill considered because instead of being a deterrent (because blocks are not punitive, they have to stop further disruption) they are more likely to create disruption. The only blocks that have stuck as regards Giano are those which were part of an ArbCom probation, and were placed by Arbs. This is not because Giano is special, but because so many sanctions previously were ill formed and hasty. It is because of blocks like the one last imposed that there is this problem. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:51, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

It is not the case that an administrator needs a community license to apply a short block for a personal attack. Not the case at all. AGK 12:57, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

If Giano is now only blockable per arbcom sanction, that is news to me. I guess TT has no right to having the ongoing attacks on him being stopped. I guess that just doesn't count as 'disruption', certainly not the kind that needs stopping. A 16 hour block after a proper warning, was the model of a well-formed, unhasty, block. And now your only justification to unblock seems to be the usual, 'its pointless blocking Giano' defence. If you want the disruption of an arbcom case to examine why the hell Giano is, for all intents and purposes, unblockable, then please, let's have it. MickMacNee (talk) 13:32, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

You summed it up perfectly, MickMacNee. AGK 14:07, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

• Where does one sign up for a "Giano license to repeatedly insult other editors without any consequences" and an "automatic instant unblock by an admirer?" Edison (talk) 03:44, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

This is hilarious. Giano points out multiple instances of questionable, likely harrassing, rollbacks by an admin and gets blocked for using the word "odious". Then the whole discussion descends into a drama fest of the Special Admin Clique and their lap dogs attacking Giano and wondering why, for the umpteenth time, why he always gets unblocked. Wikipedia has truly become a 1980s Soviet Bloc government! Maybe the real problem here isn't that Giano uses colorful language but that a lot of admins here are blatantly corrupt and out of touch with the spirit of Wikipedia. Fantastimus (talk) 06:15, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

This is this user's first edit, so he presumably needs blocking as a sock. ╟─TreasuryTag►Lord Speaker─╢ 08:01, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Prodego's got that done. Stifle (talk) 08:25, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

• My involvement in the discussion leading to the block was to warn Giano for precisely the same behaviour I blocked him for. Are you genuinely suggesting that when I saw he ignored my warning and then when he re-added uncivil comments of his that I had removed, I was unable to use those sysop tools I was given and block him for making personal attacks? Sorry, but when did we start doing things this way? AGK 11:08, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

• Question for Stifle: What subsequent actions are you referring to? And in what way was my actual block improper? Very interested in your thinking here. AGK 11:08, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
  • A discussion first would have been helpful. Giano's conduct, while incivil, was still relatively moderate in my opinion. The fact that you went offline shortly after blocking with the effect that you were in a position to discuss the block, especially when it was bound to be controversial was the subsequent action in question. Stifle (talk) 11:48, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
  • And don't get me wrong, I find the situation whereby Giano is essentially immune to several conduct policies and guidelines that apply to other editors, and there is nearly always someone available to unblock him whenever he gets blocked, quite unsatisfactory; in this particular situation I find myself coming down on his side because, as Georgewilliamherbert mentioned on your talk page, Giano wasn't particularly hostile on this occasion. Stifle (talk) 11:54, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
    • My point has been, and still is, that Giano's comments were blockable relative to how we expect a typical editor to behave. As Giano usually has to do a lot worse to get blocked, the thinking has been that 'odious' is "for him" quite tame, and that he thus doesn't deserve blocking. As per usual, Giano gets special treatment; and too many administrators, for reasons that escape my understanding, are willing to oblige.

      I don't know what LHvU meant by "'odious' is used by WP"? This unblock has made it acceptable to call another editor 'odious'. AGK 12:37, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

• Puting aside the fact that most people privately agreed with my statement, the block was obviously not going to hold, for the simple reason that saying someone is "odious" is no worse or better than decribing someone as "toxic." Sadly AGK, you allowed yourself to be trapped into a situiation where you morally agreed to block before the offence was committed, without even bothering to check what the offence was. You were led to the edge of the cliff and then pushed. However, as an admin you should have known better than to allow yourself to be so easily led by Treasury Tag; I'm sure it won't happen again. I advise you to be a little more guarded in what you agree to do in future, better to have Trasury Tag screaming at you, than a whole ANI board. That advice also goes for Gwen Gale and SGGH who both should have known better.  Giacomo  12:49, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

• As I said before, your statement may well be true, but labels like 'odious' aren't appropriate on a collaborative project. Your perception is that I blindly followed TreasuryTag; this is not the case. He did bring the edit to my attention, but I was firmly of the opinion that your comments were inappropriate; and though I did not say it, my intention was to block you if you did not remove the insult. As it happens, I am still of the opinion that your comment was both unacceptable and blockable; and though I haven't finished reviewing the voluminous comments concerning this matter, I have not yet read one argument that convinces me that to call another editor odious is not blockable. AGK 12:54, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

• Nobody here is screaming at AGK. At best, the opposition to the block is luke warm, and is of the common or garden 'we can't do jack about Giano' variety, rather that the 'there is nothing wrong with calling someone odious' variety. The delicious irony is that the apparent 'usage by Wikipedia' of the word odious, is in to describe those kinds of editors who have behaved so badly, and for such a consistent period, they are likely to never be unblocked. Infact, the policy should probably also mention the word toxic too, being also highly relevant to those types of editors. MickMacNee (talk) 13:17, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

There's no such thing as a Giano law. GR doesn't decide as to whether he gets blocked or not. Such a decesion falls with administrators. GoodDay (talk) 14:05, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I missed most of this discussion so I will repeat my position re Giano. He insults large numbers of editors, and is not half as clever or witty about it as he thinks he is. He is a net negative, he ought to be community banned. Dealing with him takes huge amounts of admin time (this thread is Exhibit A) and his insults drive people from the project. He is the Wikipedia equivalent of the soccer player who plays dirty all over the field and then collapses to the ground in seeming agony when another player retaliates (but misses by a good six inches). Count me as one vote yea any time someone wants to have a poll on ending Giano's involvement in WIkipedia. I only regret that some few of my fellow admins go to great lengths to find a plausible reason for an unblock when he is actually called to account.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:19, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Section break for ease of editing

If administrators can't agree on whether an editor should be blocked or not, then that's an administrators problem. GoodDay (talk) 13:36, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

What does that even mean? ╟─TreasuryTag►sundries─╢ 13:38, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

If one blocks a bloke & the other come along & unblocks him, then there's a disagreement about it betweeen the administrators. GoodDay (talk) 13:44, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Really? Can we get you on Mastermind – special subject "The Bleedin' Obvious"? ╟─TreasuryTag►sundries─╢ 13:48, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

And if one blocks, hundreds say nothing for two hours, and then one unblocks, on the basis that it would have led to drama if he hadn't. What's that about? Apart from the obvious elephant in the room of course. MickMacNee (talk) 13:50, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

That's from administrators having differing views on how to handle an editor. GoodDay (talk) 13:51, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

GoodDay, I'm not sure that you're helping... ╟─TreasuryTag►Africa, Asia and the UN─╢ 13:53, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

It's merely an observation. Only others can decide if it's helpful. GoodDay (talk) 13:59, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Only others? So my views don't count? (Hint: they do.) ╟─TreasuryTag►quaestor─╢ 14:01, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Fear not, I count you among the others. GoodDay (talk) 14:03, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Are you sure that you are, TT? DuncanHill (talk) 13:57, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I was simply pointing out, and you are free to provide a reasoned argument against this idea if you want, that comments such as, If one blocks a bloke & the other come along & unblocks him, then there's a disagreement about it betweeen the administrators, are intuitively obvious and in no way advance the discussion. I don't plan on engaging further with this line of discussion. ╟─TreasuryTag►estoppel─╢ 14:00, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I meant, are you sure that your contributions to this whole matter are helping anyone at all? DuncanHill (talk) 14:04, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The thinking behind this whole event seems to be "Giano said something inappropriate, but that's fine because it's Giano so the block was wrong"—which itself is counter-intuitive. We're needing to get back to basics because there are some fundamental logical errors here. AGK 14:06, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, I have to agree with you there. In particular, this argument about why he shouldn't be blocked seems to me absurd. It says, "Blocking prevents... what? He's going to come back, probably angrier than before, and won't be changing his ways."
Now that's interesting. Because if I was vandalising articles, said that if I was blocked I'd return and vandalise even more articles than before, would the correct response from an admin be A)don't block; or B)block? ╟─TreasuryTag►duumvirate─╢ 14:15, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

AGK, if you were serious about proper enforcement of "civility", you'd start with the admins and sole-co-founders who engage in personal attacks with impunity, not with an editor who has pointed out genuine admin abuses in the past. DuncanHill (talk) 14:12, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

He's not being handled at all. I pity any fool that comes across him without foreknowledge of the special Giano laws, and might in their naive idiocy, come to the admin board for redress if/when he decides to target them in one of his pointless conspiracy crusades. I am sure every regular here is now well aware, that the only way you can handle Giano, is by bending over and taking it, sideways, or file an entire arbcom case because the admins corps are collective rabbits caught in his headlights. MickMacNee (talk) 14:02, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

There's no such thing as a Giano law. GR doesn't decide as to whether he gets blocked or not. Such a decesion falls with administrators. GoodDay (talk) 14:05, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

The problem appears to be a perception that the standard of conduct required for a block of Giano to be justified may differ from that applied to other users, and different standards are considered appropriate by different administrators. The effect is that blocks of Giano are inherently controversial. Stifle (talk) 14:14, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

That's naive at best GoodDay. At best. MickMacNee (talk) 14:16, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, his fate is in the hands of administrators, as it's always been. GoodDay (talk) 14:25, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

So naive. ╟─TreasuryTag►Regent─╢ 14:30, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

AGK, I would like to ask you to explain what you were thinking (in a big picture sense) in deciding to block Giano. Looking at the whole situation, the treatment of RAN (including the overturned blocks) looked a lot like harrassment. Richard was being bombarded with templates and XfDs, threatened and blocked, and nothing much was being done - so Giano shined a spotlight on the situation. Whatever else you might think of Giano, his actions had the positive effect of drawing attention to the situation. There are still deletion debates running (several having restarted), a CCI case has been opened, closed and reopened, and some highly questionable actions from Fastily are being considered here at ANI. With all this going one, why did you choose to try to send the message that Giano can be blocked for civillity? No less than three arbitrators have weighed in trying to smooth over the mess and move things forward in the best interests of WP (see Carcharoth's and Newyorkbrad's comments at user talk:TreasuryTag and Risker's comments above), and it seems to me that the message that should be being sent here is about the unacceptability of harrassment... yet the only blocks have been against the harrassed user and the user who forced others to recognise what has been going on. Leaving aside the question of whether your block of Giano could be technically justified under policy, I would like to know why you thought it was a wise action to take, why you thought it was helpful to resolving the bigger mess, and what message do you think your actions have sent to editors watching who are concerned about the relative importance of WP:HARRASS and WP:CIVIL. EdChem (talk) 14:19, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

If the purpose of that screed of a question was to get info, it probably should have been made on AGK's talk page or maybe by email. If the purpose was to grandstand in making a point, well, spot on.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:28, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If I may comment, the CCI was started by an absolutely neutral user who has been active in CCI for a good while. Accusing him of harassment (if that is what you were doing) is out of order. I make no further comment as regards myself and harassment, since I have already made myself plain. But don't accuse the CCI people of getting personal. They're doing their job. ╟─TreasuryTag►Regent─╢ 14:30, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

(ec)Can we please drop this whole 'shine a light' idea. It's bull. The interactions had been noted, even at a couple of ANI threads, well before Giano got involved, and based on the fact nobody has ever before defined that as harassment, let alone ludicrously as bullying, and not once has anyone even been blocked for it, everybody moved on having had their various say, as is normal. TT even agreed to disengage from RAN, but as we see, RAN's issues are not TT, it is his various content issues, and a couple of sock stalkers making trouble. Hopefully nobody here is suggesting they were TT btw. Then Giano got involved, and decided the best way to right this wrong was to attack TT all over the project and go on his usual conspiracy/cover-up crusade. And for one aspect of that, for an actionable sign of contept, he rightly got blocked. Everything else is just chaff. MickMacNee (talk) 14:31, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Infact Edchem, your summary made no mention of this interaction between Giano and TT, which further muddies the whole white knight scenario proferred. Giano had a reason to go after TT before he discovered the conspiracy/cover-up, and given that he knows he is pretty much immune from sanction, he of course didn't hold back on the personal button pushing as he went about it. MickMacNee (talk) 14:42, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

EdChem's question is relevant, so I would refute the suggestion that it was made in order to grandstand. Giano was drawing attention to an issue of importance. I have already said, privately and publicly, that I agree that the issue deserves investigation and that Giano is right to have brought it up. The issue was receiving attention; as Mick said, there have already been a couple of ANI threads (to say nothing of the multiple direct attempts to foster a resolution). Giano's involvement, however, extended beyond simply bring the issue to light; he was commenting during the threads, in some instances in a way that was unhelpful. Some say that "that's just Giano; let him be". I'm okay with going along with that for a while. But when one of the editors on the "other side" perceives that his conduct is being scrutinised whilst Giano is allowed to make personal attacks, the free-for-all has to end. I like to do things as fairly as possible, and that includes making sure that every party is not persecuted. So when TT pointed to Giano's restoration of the 'odious' reference, I blocked. The point of that was not to play Civility Police. It was to say "fine, that's dealt with; now back to the issues concerning RAN"; it was to refocus attention on the issues that are of real importance. There are some side issues, including that I didn't want to be perceived to be one of Giano's pitbulls (as some administrators have been in the past), and that I wasn't happy with Giano being allowed to make personal attacks because some kind of special license is afforded to him. In these efforts I would have succeeded, if the logic that "Giano can't be blocked for a short time for disruption because he's Giano" did not prevail. AGK 14:53, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Really interesting admin (and others) behaviour

A thread which starts with Giano raising valid concerns about poor behaviour by an admin gets derailed into a "bash Giano and anyone who thinks he should be allowed to edit" thread. Good one folks. DuncanHill (talk) 14:25, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

You're correct. Things have morphed into something else. GoodDay (talk) 14:34, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

GoodDay, please, as a favour to me, consider how helpful your comments are. Thanks in advance. ╟─TreasuryTag►secretariat─╢ 14:35, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Will do. GoodDay (talk) 14:41, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

TT, lay off GoodDay, he's not causing anyone any trouble here. DuncanHill (talk) 14:47, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The problem is, Giano doesn't actually have an official investigative journalism brief here at Wikipedia. He has a writing-an-encyclopedia brief, just like the rest of us, but the notion that his efforts – no matter what we think of them – to uncover misbehaviour and abuse by admins should exempt him from various behavioural policies, or limit those policies' application to him, doesn't seem appropriate.
You said above that if AGK wanted to enforce civility, he shouldn't block someone who uncovers admin misdemeanours. Wrong. If AGK wanted to enforce civility, he should have blocked an editor or editors who was/were incivil. Which he did.
Investigation and advocacy is all very well, but it's a self-appointed portfolio which shouldn't have any official effect. ╟─TreasuryTag►secretariat─╢ 14:35, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Giano's "admins behaving badly" are usually "admins grievously provoked by Giano and reacting with irritation" threads.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:44, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

(ec)The problem is that some rather poor admins and their supporters will keep using Giano's (frankly not very) colourful language as an excuse to divert attention away from themselves. DuncanHill (talk) 14:45, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Then perhaps the solution would be for him to use less colourful language and thus not give administrators anything with which to camouflage themselves? ╟─TreasuryTag►stannator─╢ 14:47, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, it'd be easier than stopping the bad-faith attempts to divert attention from poor admins. DuncanHill (talk) 14:49, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

It appears that most of the people commenting at this point are involved in the underlying dispute over the mass nomination of User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )'s files for deletion, either as parties to the dispute or weighing in on one side of the dispute or another. To be straight up, I'm in one of those camps or the other at this point. Participating in a dispute that does not concern him and having an arguably valid point to make do not give Giano a free pass to be uncivil. Further, reversing other administrators' civility blocks is a bad idea because it vindicates the blocked editor and encourages further incivility -- I have observed this directly a number of times. Nevertheless, this is not a clean situation or a shining example of uncivil behavior, it is a spillover of a dispute from somewhere else. As such I don't think it's terribly productive. Just like this is not the best time to further badger Norton on copyrights, this is not the best time and place to entertain questions of Giano and civility. - 14:47, 3 June 2010 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikidemon (talk • contribs)

But unfortunately, Giano's incivility – and everyone else's, to be fair – inevitably comes about during a dispute. Which means that there is never a "best time and place" to address it. That's no reason not to, though. ╟─TreasuryTag►consulate─╢ 14:50, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I have no connection whatsoever with that dispute. I simply think Giano needs to find another wiki to edit, based on his history.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:52, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Neutrality of a Title is Disputed

Resolved

 – Requested move procedure is being followed on talk now.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:14, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I hope I'm posting this in the appropriate place. The neutrality of the title, Opposition_to_water_fluoridation has been disputed in the talk page, Talk:Opposition_to_water_fluoridation#Article_title_should_say_.22controversy.22_rather_than_.22opposition.22. Please take a look and change the word "Opposition" to something with more neutrality such as "Controversy". Adamlankford (talk) 19:36, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

You might want WP:RFC or WP:3O, or perhaps the content noticeboard (linked to at the top of this page). This page is more for incident that require admin attention for the powers admins have that others don't. Unless someone is begin abusive or breaking a core policy. S.G.^(GH) _ping! 19:54, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Site that needs to be blocked

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I'd put this in sock puppet investigations, but there's a bunch and this spammer is smart enough to change IP addresses and accounts, so it'd just be easier to block the site. A spammer (also 1, 2, 3, 4, and probably others) has been going around for some time through various angel related articles (usually avoiding the featured articles because his behavior would definately not be tolerated there), placing links to [www.seraphim.com Seraphim.com], a site with a shop, covered in "ADVERTISE HERE!," that has info that is either already in the articles (but reworded), or not sourced (and if it were sourced and their intention was to share info instead of make money, they wouldn't refuse to put the info in the articles, as can be seen in the edit summeries for the Seraph article). Nuke the site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure. Ian.thomson (talk) 20:02, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Update: We got another one. Ian.thomson (talk) 20:07, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

This anti-semitic Christian Zealot needs to be put in check. I don't own the site in question, yet it's the best source on Seraphim angels online. Ian.thomson doesn't seem to like it though, because it's sourced via Jewish, Islamic... and Christian scripture. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.10.56.153 (talk) 20:13, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

New stuff goes at the bottom.

Me thinks thou dost protest too much. I left the Jewish Encyclopedia links alone, I'm interested in Kabbalah, and if you aren't affiliated, why are you fighting so hard for this site, going as far as switching IP addresses? why do you refuse to bring any properly sourced info from the site to the articles? Why do you insist on using the article to get people to visit the ad covered site with a shop? Ian.thomson (talk) 20:16, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Also, "83.10.56.153", calling another user an "anti-semitic Christian Zealot" without evidence is a blatant personal attack and a violation of AGF. You should apologize. Stonemason89 (talk) 20:22, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Both IPs are now on 24 hour holidays. [90] doesn't appear to be a RS by even the most inclusive definition. I dunno if a blacklist or just blocks for repeat offenders would be more appropriate? S.G.^(GH) _ping! 20:28, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I dunno how hard or easy it is to blacklist a site, but this guy does know how to switch IP addresses, appears to have an account ^{(thank you, SGGH)}, and I don't see the site improving. Ian.thomson (talk) 20:34, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I had the window open to put the site on the spam blacklist, when I realised I don't really know how to format the thing- I think it needs to be done, but I don't want to screw it up. Courcelles (talk) 20:35, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I can do it but you need to link me 'cause I can't remember where it is! :) S.G.^(GH) _ping! 20:45, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist Courcelles (talk) 20:46, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

It's on there, and logged at the log page. Think that is all that is needed but I shall get an angry message if it was wrong ;) S.G.^(GH) _ping! 20:54, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't own the site, but I did enjoy reading through it. Do you own angelfocus.com, the spam that appears by the hundreds of links all across the theology /angels sections of Wikipedia? Perhaps another Wikipedia editor owns it, a friend of your's maybe?

Anyways, it's all good. The pseudo-encyclopedia Wikipedia also known as Google Search spam, will reap it's just rewards eventually. 27 times and still counting you guys have stolen images and content off of sites I own, and without permission of course. Nothing lasts forever, thank God. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.28.145.74 (talk) 20:40, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

New stuff goes at the bottom, darnit. I left angelfocus in because it actually admitted where it got it's info from and only had a small google ad space, instead of not admitting what its sources where, being covered in ads, and having a shop. Ian.thomson (talk) 20:48, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I take it that would be another block evasion? If we are happy the page has been blacklisted can this be closed to stop attracting them? S.G.^(GH) _ping! 20:58, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I think this guy's probably going to go after me for a bit, but that's a different issue. As long as the site's blacklisted, we're done here. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:03, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Hey look, back at the top again. :D

Covered with ads + a shop? I didn't even see the shop, but I did enjoy the articles, albeit two spelling errors. The ads didn't bother me either, even Wikipedia has to pay for it's hosting, no? Jimbo "porn sites" Wales knows the score, why don't you?

Uh, yeah, there's a shop. Top left hand corner. <sarcy>I'm sure you're only doing this because you enjoy reading that site, sure. I mean, that's enough of a reason to vandalise my userpage with something that could be taken as an empty threat.</sarcy>Ian.thomson (talk) 21:03, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

We're done here. S.G.^(GH) _ping! 21:17, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

User:Karunyan continued stalking

Karunyan (talk · contribs) was indef blocked following an Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive604#Karunyan Continuing Wikihounding/Trolling After 72 hour block and the revelation that he was using sock pupppets to further his stalking of myself. He has continued using some 20 or more IP and named sock puppets in his unrelenting stalking (see SPI for some confirmed). In the SPI, two range blocks appear to have been instituted, which stopped it for awhile, but not long. When he reemerged last time, I asked one of the admins, User:MuZemike, from that SPI if another range block could be instituted, but apparently a high school is in that range (and likely where this guy is coming from) so the collateral damage was seen as too high[91]. That this guy is still doing this mess more than two months later seems to be a sign of his having some serious issues.

I just discovered today that he used more IP socks to register User:CoIectonian (obvious spoof of User:Collectonian) to create Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Giraffedata then populated it with two IP socks[92][93] Presumably it is also in direct response to my complaints about Giraffedata at the Village Pump[94] and User:Seresin's closing that and stating RfC was the best course of action to take[95]

What, if anything, can be done at this point? Can a range block be done, regardless of the damage, or is it basically a matter of just live with it and hope each and every one is blocked quickly? -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 22:44, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

ping....seriously, he's now hit this twice, and nothing...*sigh* -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 13:27, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Worst-case scenario with a range-block would be 256 x 256 IP addresses blocked, which is probably too wide. A more knowledgeable IP wonk, SPI clerk or checkuser could probably cut that down quite a lot, but it may still be too broad. Stick with SPI, the good folk there are a good bet for helping with range-blocks.

My experience with similar socks is that your "live with it and hope..." solution is the one that is easiest applied... sorry, I'm sure that's not what you wanted to hear.

There is a forum for dealing with long-term abuse; I've not used it and don't know how effective it would be.

I'd suggest the next step should be to request that Karunyan be community banned. In the past there was little difference between and indef block and a community ban; these days it seems that a community ban allows an editor to be repeatedly reverted on sight, which may serve to discourage them, and also draws attention to them (hastening the "B" and "I" steps in WP:RBI). (I believe that the same does not apply to a merely indef blocked editor - I hope I'm wrong, but don't believe so).

TFOWR^{idle vapourings} 13:38, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

There's a discussion above where the issue of indef blocks vs. community bans is mentioned. B discusses changes at WP:3RR and WP:BAN. TFOWR^{idle vapourings} 14:10, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Extra eyes on Natalee Holloway and Joran van der Sloot, please

Joran van der Sloot is suspected in a fresh murder in Peru, and is being pursued by Interpol. So far there hasn't been a significant BLP problem at either article, but that can change in a flash. The admins that normally help me keep an eye on the article seem to be away from their desks at the moment, and I can't watch full time. Help keeping an eye on Natalee Holloway and Joran van der Sloot greatly appreciated.—Kww(talk) 23:20, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Just was getting a cup and coffee and chatting at the water cooler. Yes, I agree. Keep in mind, everyone, that we consider Natalee to be a living person for BLP purposes.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:09, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

User:Snottywong's various types of disruption (incivility, too)

There's nothing wrong with the fact that Snottywong doesn't like the article now named Popular cat names, either with his !vote to delete at the last AfD [96] or even with his request for review at DRV [97] (although his DRV nom was obviously without merit, and therefore sunk like a brick, that can be chalked up to not knowing deletion policy). But instead of waiting a while and renominating it for AfD, he's been wasting the time of me and other editors and making it difficult to continue improving the article:

• Incivility: JohnWBarber, the only reason our discussions haven't been constructive is because all of your comments were either wikilawyering or purposely irrelevant so as to obscure the nature of the argument. [98] and But surely, if Wikipedia strives to be an encyclopedia that contains facts, then we cannot include garbage content like this and present it as "truthiness". [99]; also, please take a look at the goading edit summary here [100]
• Refusal to get the point: Long, repetitive, unresponsive talk page argument in which he insists that all ths sources are trying to be definitive about exactly which cat names are the ten most popular, in order. (The issue had previously come up on the AfD [101] [102].)My mistake. Sorry. I'm tired. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 02:39, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
  • First time on the talk page, 22:10, 19 May;
    • I answer that the sources aren't trying to be definitive and even if they were, the article is not using the data that way 00:36, 20 May ;
  • Snottywong repeats the assertion (see last paragraph) 02:41, 20 May;
    • it is again answered 04:48, 20 May;
  • Snottywong repeats the assertion 05:11, 20 May and made the same point in adding to that comment here [103] (and makes the same point in another thread 05:53, 20 May;
    • it is again answered 18:20, 20 May;
  • Snottywong again makes essentially the same point 21:17, 20 May, and yet again in the other thread 21:27, 20 May;
    • it is yet again answered, and he is told he's repeating himself 21:34, 21 May (and later on, for good measure, I answered him again in the second thread 18:57, 30 May

When answered, he ends discussion and changes the page anyway, despite lack of consensus. Last discussion, [104] followed by AfD. [105]

• More disruption by renominating the article for deletion [106] within less than two weeks after the previous [107] AfD.
• Violation of WP:POINT (emphasis added): First he announces what he's going to do and why: Unless, of course, you are suggesting that we should list the results of every remotely credible survey of the top 10 most popular cat names in a giant table. I would absolutely be for that, since it would only serve to highlight the ridiculousness of this article. Let me know if there is consensus with creating a table similar to the one I've made above and adding it to the file, and I'll get started on it right away. SnottyWong talk 21:17, 20 May 2010 (UTC) Then he does it: (scroll down to massive table added with this edit) [108]
• Edit warring while being unresponsive on the talk page. When I revert, [109] pointing out that he doesn't have consensus to do something already objected to on the talk page, he reverts [110] (at this point, I should have just kept to the talk page, but he got my goat and I reverted again [111], and Snottywong reverted again [112] with a snide edit summary). This is the talk page section I started in response, [113] and to which Snottywong was first unresponsive in his comments and then didn't respond at all.

And then, when Snottywong has edit-warred to keep in a table that he says will make the article look ridiculous, he nominates the article for AfD. Not good-faith behavior.

Did Snottywong eventually get my goat? A bit. Frankly I'm tired of dealing with someone who is constantly annoying and seems to be annoying on purpose while I'm trying to make good-faith improvements to an article. I think uninvolved admins are better situated to give Snottywong some ... advice about WP:DISRUPT. Snottywong clearly doesn't want to listen to me.

And please close the bad-faith, out-of-policy AfD. It's already wasting the time of other editors besides me. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 02:31, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

• Comment: I'm not motivated enough to spend hours to respond to JohnWBarber's complaints with dozens of links and diffs to make my point. I think it's clear that while the argument was heated, I was never uncivil, I never called you names or attacked you personally (and neither did you). I disagree that you actually responded to the majority of the points I made about the article, which is why they were brought up repeatedly. During the course of our discussion on the talk page of the article, I discovered new information about the sources on which this article is dependent. Since this information was not available and therefore not discussed during the previous AfD, I started another AfD with a completely different deletion rationale. It is my opinion that JohnWBarber has lodged this complaint out of frustration that he is "losing his argument", and I believe that my actions do not require any administrative intervention and certainly are not a blockable offense. I maintain that the new AfD nomination is absolutely in good faith, as the deletion rationale is completely different than the previous one, and is based on information that was not available previously. SnottyWong talk 03:25, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

AfD has been closed. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 03:26, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I see that the AfD has already been closed without even giving me the chance to defend it. Can someone kindly let me know the appropriate minimum amount of time to wait before renominating an article for AfD (with a different deletion rationale) without a complaint being lodged at ANI? Thanks. SnottyWong talk 03:29, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

If you have to ask, the answer is "not yet". --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 03:32, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I closed the AfD. Five days after the DRV endorsed the last keep is just too soon for another try to delete it. (And I'm not usually sympathetic to the "too many nominations" argument, but three runs at deletion in less than 25 days is too much discussion.) Snottywong, my advice would be to walk away from this article- let it sit for five or six months and see what the editors who care about it build. Then, if you still truly believe it needs deleting, nominate it again and see what happens. Courcelles (talk) 03:38, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. To be clear, this was the second attempt to delete the article in recent history. The first AfD was in 2008, the second was in May of this year, and the third was the one you just closed. I'm not sure what you mean by "three runs at deletion in less than 25 days". SnottyWong talk 03:44, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

The DRV that you started; as DRV has the power to overturn a keep all the way to a delete. Courcelles (talk) 03:46, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Block review requested

I have just blocked 202.189.78.186 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) for two weeks for vandalism after final warning. I did not want to go beyond that due to my relative inexpeience in blocking IPs (two weeks matched the period of the last block). I would appreciate more eyes on the matter to make sure it was handled correctly. Thanks in advance. Tiderolls 03:00, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

As soon as the previous 2-week block expires, the vandalism resumes? I would have blocked for 3 months. CIreland (talk) 03:05, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I have no objection to lengthening the block. I was usure how to proceed with IPs. Tiderolls 03:07, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I'd have gone for two months, at least- with the standard terms of anon only, account creation blocked, and left the {{anonblock}} template in my wake. Courcelles (talk) 03:11, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

The usual rule of thumb is to double duration for repeat blocks, so a 1-month block would be perfectly fine and uncontroversial in most cases. This particular IP appears to be more stubborn, so the 2 or 3 month terms would be suitable. Acroterion _(talk) 03:14, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I've lengthened the block and added the anonblock template. Thanks for the input, folks. Tiderolls 03:27, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

User: Dekkappai -- repeated personal attacks, incivility, disruptive postings at AFD

Dekkappai has been both warned [114] and blocked [115] over extremely inappropriate comments in AFD discussions. In a current AFD discussion, Articles_for_deletion/Toppsy_Curvey, Dekkappai began by insinuating that both the nominator (User:EuroPride) and the original prodder (myself) had engaged in "sickening" behavior by "ignoring" significant evidence of notability (which turn out to be 19 GNews/GBooks hits that provide little more information on the subject than her stage name, occupation, and favored publicity stunt). Dekkappai then posted a gratuitous personal attack on me -- "Perhaps you haven't encountered Hullaballoo before, Dream Focus. His M.O. is to claim something like the L.A. Times is an unreliable source-- sometimes claiming it is a mirror of Wikipedia. "No lie is too extravagant in the service of censorship" is his motto.." [116] and described my comments in the AFD as "flat-out dishonest" [117]. Since Dekkappai's pattern of offensive behavior, groundless accusations, and consistent refusal to AGF shows no willingness to abide by Wikipedia's requirements for civility, some sort of intervention should be seen as necessary. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 04:25, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

First comment doesn't look particularly out-of-bounds to me. I dropped him a note for the later one, which is inappropriate. Shimeru (talk) 06:59, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

So... you come here when you lose the AfD argument, six days after Dekkappai made those comments you're upset about, and after yourself calling a comment by MQS "utter rubbish"? Sorry, I think admins have better things to do than salve your wounded pride. Fences&Windows 13:23, 3 June 2010 (UTC) p.s. Wikiquette Alerts is that way. Fences&Windows 13:26, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Armando Galarraga and a question of how many pieces of vandalism require a Full Page Protection?

Hi all, I have a question for you here.

There were three vandalism edits on Armando Galarraga([118],[119],[120] after semi-protection, and it seemed that was enough for protection. However, is it enough?

People look to Wikipedia for quick information on current events, and I can't believe there aren't enough non-admin editors out there that can keep a check on vandalism while improving vital current event articles. I know when I saw the news on ESPN, I went straight to Wikipedia and was disappointed that I could not help. Indeed, one of the removals of the vandalism was by a user with less than 250 edits ([121]).

Perhaps it was more the speed than the number of vandalism edits, but yet I think discussion is necessary here. Doc Quintana (talk) 13:28, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

The article is currently fully protected – only admins can edit it. – B.hotep •talk• 13:59, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I would be appreciative if you made comments that are germaine to the discussion since I have already said what you just said. Doc Quintana (talk) 14:02, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I misunderstood what you said. – B.hotep •talk• 14:03, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Not a problem. Boiling it down, what I asked is "Should protection have come here this quickly, or was it appropriate?" I am fairly neutral, but I am curious as to the community's opinion. I am also wondering if I should notify the admin that made the decision, but I haven't named them yet here, and I think it's more about decisions like these in general than this specific decision in any case.Doc Quintana (talk) 14:13, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

OK, I would certainly say that there is a case for ratcheting it back down to semi. – B.hotep •talk• 14:13, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I've been editing in suggestions agreed upon on the talk page, but also agree that dropping to semi could work at this point. Last night though, the level of vandalism was ridiculous, and it crossed at least a dozen articles. I would suggest a longer term semi protection (a couple of weeks, at least). Resolute 14:34, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Contrary WP:ENGVAR edits and questions

There has been a continually series of edits switching American\British spelling over a whole range of articles[122][123][124], edits contrary to WP:ENGVAR. The IP of the editor seems to switch constantly but this series[125] points to a specific editor's[[126]] project page. The close match to IP edits there[127] and the fact that practically all those IP's are associated with switching American\British spelling seem to show this is the work of one editor and has been going on for a long time. Left explanation on edit reverts (example[128]) and left notice[129] for possible editor but the editor seems to be ignoring any discussion[130][131]. Is it OK to go 3RR on these edits if the editor in question seems to be ignoring any discussion? (treat as vandalism?) Did not leave ANI-notice since there is no fixed account for the actual edits and I did not know if this should be confirmed via WP:SPI or some other method first. MrFloatingIP (talk) 14:04, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

One thing I don't understand here, ENGVAR says Wikipedia doesn't endorse any particular variation of English. So how would changing from one variation to another or vice versa be an ENGVAR violation? I think the only time ENGVAR would be pertinent is in articles that are specific to a geographical area like Ayers Rock or Dodgers Stadium or what have you, where there are specific spellings that would be used by those in contact with the subject per WP:TIES. Doc Quintana (talk) 14:24, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

You missed the WP:RETAIN clause of WP:ENGVAR.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 3, 2010; 14:32 (UTC)

Yeah, the alternative would be changing articles related to neither the US nor the UK to anything someone wants anytime they want to do it, which would get disruptive. The idea here is don't change it unless there's a good reason to, and there is rarely a good reason provided.AlexiusHoratius 14:37, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

WP:ENGVAR has many sub-sections covering changes re:consistency, strong national ties, retaining the existing variety, etc. WP:RETAIN seems to be the relative section here, the articles are clearly evolved, they have internal consistency, and the spelling was used by the first major contributor. The editor in question is ignoring consistency (i.e. the editor seems to be word searching meter and changing it to metre while ignoring the consistent history of the page and ignoring the internal consistency of the page (missing other words such as color --> colour[132] or larger signs of consistency such as the page title[133]) MrFloatingIP (talk) 14:49, 3 June 2010 (UTC)