Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
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Abusive IP Addresses

About a 10 days ago, I've been involved with a number of changing IPs (of presumably the same person) vandalizing a specific pages (see: Premier of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty, Jean Chretien, Dan McTeague, Terri McGuinty, and the usertalk pages of users who have reverted him), and making various unacceptable, offensive personal attacks. Although this thread is a bit late, I'm still curious as to knowing where this is coming from (or if it's a sock of a banned user). Below is a list of a couple IPs:

1. 172.162.230.29
2. 172.165.22.153
3. 172.162.99.87
4. 172.129.120.152
5. 172.162.178.215
6. 172.129.59.23
7. 172.163.124.213
8. 172.162.104.24
9. 172.130.54.30
10. 172.163.87.138
11. 172.129.47.169
12. 172.129.111.44
13. 172.162.78.47
14. 172.162.178.113
15. 172.162.112.90
16. 172.131.44.221
17. 172.130.68.183
18. 172.165.157.118
19. 172.130.36.131

The contribs of the IPs above are comepletely unacceptable, and I think we should take action before a now IP appears. (last appeared 03:28, 29 January 2010) Thanks. Connormah (talk | contribs) 22:00, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

This vandal has been going for more than three years, sometimes called the 172 vandal. Blocks should be for six hours with talk page disabled; pages semi-protected when he or she has latched onto them. Good luck with the AOL abuse report. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 22:08, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Is there any possible action we can take, other than what we've already done, to prevent further damage? Does anyone know if it's multiple people, or a single person? Connormah (talk | contribs) 22:10, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

It's a single person with an obsession with certain Canadian political activists. If you look carefully at the early edits you can see there's probably something personal going on. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 22:15, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

• Since he seems to be targeting specific pages, the only real option would probably be SP; there's no way to block a range like that except one by one. HalfShadow 22:17, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Is this single person a banned/indef blocked user, by any chance? Connormah (talk | contribs) 22:18, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

They are who they are. I think I've personally blocked them over 100 times. Banned? Yes. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 22:21, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

On the other hand, if those are proxy IPs, they can be banned permanently, which would make life a bit more difficult for other sockpuppets... HalfShadow 22:29, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

More IPs used by this guy can be seen at the history page of Justin Trudeau, and July 2008 sections of Pierre Trudeau's page history.Connormah (talk | contribs) 22:34, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Here's one of the earlier edits. He or she comes and goes. Semi-protection is the best solution IMO. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 22:38, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think semi protection is the way to go, though. After a series of semi protections, then it usually gets elevated to indefinite semi-protection . I dislike indef semi-protection, some IPs may have something useful to contribute to the articles that this person has vandalized. Connormah (talk | contribs) 22:42, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps I meant semi-protection is probably the only option, unless someone can make an abuse report stick. We could try an abuse filter, but the edits are probably too varied and sporadic, and the vandal just moves onto other topics like Canadian Tire or Microscope. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 22:48, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to hear some more comments from other admins about this situation. The problematic editing of this user is just inexcusable. Connormah (talk | contribs) 22:56, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I suggest you also solicit opinions from User:CJCurrie, User:JForget, User:CambridgeBayWeather, and some of the other admins who deal with user regularly. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 23:07, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I reviewed the diffs provided in hopes of being able to create a filter. I see nothing to latch on to to enable the creation of an abuse filter, unfortunately. The edits are far too varied and any attempt to lock something down would likely cause him to try something else. I see no potential implementation for a good filter, unfortunately. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 22:58, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

While I am not an admin, I have had quite a few run ins with this IP and was asked to comment here. It seems the only way to deal with this issue is semi protection, as far as I can tell. Dbrodbeck (talk) 01:18, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Go check out WP:ABUSE. It should work if they use the proper contribution log format and not expect AOL to click links to pages on Wikipedia in order to view logs. I'd be happy to help, but I'd be hung if I got involved at WP:ABUSE or filed abuse reports at this time. Good luck. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 02:40, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Revert, block and if necessary semi-protect, but for no more than two or three days. There's too much good work by IPs to semi-protect for long. something lame from CBW 04:49, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree, but once the pages are unprotected, the said vandal returns, then the protection usually gets raised to indef. (see Justin Trudeau). Connormah (talk | contribs) 01:34, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

RFC for 172

Given that 172 has been vandalising for such a long time, can we start a user RFC on them? At the end of the day, if AOL abuse doesn't want to get involved, then we might need to do a range block on all AOL IPs, but allow editors logging in from this range to create and edit from their accounts. What do people think? - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 05:37, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

RFCs are entirely useless anyway, and completely redundant in a case like this. Long-term abuse of this nature is self-evidently bad for the project, is self-evidently known as such to the abuser, and should simply be dealt with minus the usual Wikipedian hand-wringing and endless useless discussion. Rangeblock as possible, keep an eye out for more abuse, see if someone smart can write an abuse filter. AOL is singularly unresponsive to abuse of their TOS, so you're on a hiding to nothing there. → ROUX ₪ 16:29, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

If I'm not mistaken, I think the IPs change every so often, and I have seen a 172 IP actually make a good faith edit. We can't let this go on for much longer, this guy just wastes our time, and is just plain disruptive. Connormah (talk | contribs) 23:13, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I rather think that if we blocked the entirety of AOL for anonymous editing are referred them to their helpdesk they might respond to our abuse complaint. Wikipedia has a fair amount more muscle that it can flex these days :-) - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 04:59, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Any other outside opinions anyone can offer on the above proposed action? It may seem a bit harsh, but it may be the only thing to get AOL to respond. Connormah (talk | contribs) 01:48, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Works for me, the vast majority of AOL users are mentally lacking up to and including brain-damaged; that's why they use AOL. HalfShadow 20:31, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. AOL is a net negative. JBsupreme (talk) 21:09, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

This is getting to be a bit ridiculous. Connormah (talk | contribs) 02:54, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

For the love of God, lets block the whole of AOL and get it over with. It's late in the US, so we should have a good 4 hours or so before someone else unblocks the lot, files an ArbCom and demands the blocking admin be desysopped. Personally, I see little good ever come from AOL IPs and if their Abuse team won't deal with their subscribers using AOL resources to vandalize Wikipedia then maybe they've lost the privilege. A total block may just wake them up to their negligence, too. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 09:08, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Block the whole AOL. GoodDay (talk) 02:06, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

AOL block proposal

Per Tbsdy's suggestion above (including detals above), I propose a complete soft block of AOL (allowing registered accounts to edit) until such time as their Abuse team adequately acknowledges and deals with the rampant and egregious vandalism from at least one of their users that has been going on here for years. This abuse of privileges by 172 and playing whack-a-mole cannot be tolerated any longer. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 09:12, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support as nom. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 09:12, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support per Multixfer. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 09:15, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 09:41, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support, but... Really the wrong forum for this kind of measure. Throwaway85 (talk) 10:23, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
  • I'm happy to take to somewhere else... but where? - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 10:27, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
    • I think if you're going to softblock an entire ISP, you should at least file an RfC. While I agree the vandalism is unacceptable, there are still some ******* who use AOL. Such a measure would require greater community input than can be had at AN/I Throwaway85 (talk) 10:39, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
      • All right, but I really need some help with gathering evidence. Is there already a vandalism evidence page specifically for 172? - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 14:27, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
        • No. The vandalism is centred around a limited number of articles, so that would be obvious place to start: Olivia Chow, Jack Layton, Pierre Trudeau, Justin Trudeau, Bob Rae, Lloyd Axworthy, Michael Ignatieff, Liberal Party of Canada, and those mentioned here. There are a few secondary articles and userpages occasionally affected, but they really are secondary. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 19:09, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support. This makes me nostalgic for the old days when AOL IP editors were a major problem.   Will Beback  talk  10:29, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
• Question: Has we tried using an edit filter? –xeno^talk 14:32, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
  • It's so incredibly random that I'm not sure what you'd base the filter on. - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 14:55, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
    • We could prevent IPs in the range from editing articles contain the words "Canada" and "politics". This would be less strict than a blanket ban. –xeno^talk 16:26, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
      • I've never got much practice in with the edit filter, but I tend to agree we should try that, first. AOL's certainly been a source of trouble, but a block of this magnitude seems like a very extreme option. – Luna Santin (talk) 18:59, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
        • I think this type of filter would be a much better option. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 19:09, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Are you being serious here? You are proposing to soft block an entire ISP from editing wikipedia because of one abusive editor? I can't honestly believe that admins would even consider such a thing, it goes against everything wikipedia stands for. Jdrewitt (talk) 14:53, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
  • How do you know it's just one editor? - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 14:54, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
    • The justification above for the proposal states "at least one of their users". But it is irrelevant how many anonymous editors are at fault, blocking an entire ISP goes completely against what wikipedia stands for. Jdrewitt (talk) 15:01, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
      • We have already blocked Best Buy's IP addresses, so it's not the first block of this kind...albeit that this is on a much larger scale, I believe. Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 15:17, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
        • Best Buy is not an ISP. We simply blocked their courtesy terminals. –xeno^talk 15:19, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
          • Ok, thanks for the clarification. Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 15:21, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
• Question 2: Has anyone looked at how much collateral damage (i.e. good edits prevented) would be caused? –xeno^talk 15:10, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. I'm sorry, but I cannot in good conscience give any support to a proposal to block an entire ISP. I confess that I have a somewhat dim view of AOL and its users in general but at the same time I can own up to the fact that this is a personal bias rather than any kind of objective reasoning. Is there any kind of hard evidence to show that most - or even a significant portion - of edits coming from AOL IP editors is malicious? Making the lives of vandal-fighers easier at the cost of throwing up an iron curtain against a large subsection of editors is unacceptable. Shereth 15:20, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Look at the page histories of Dalton McGuinty, Justin Trudeau, [Pierre Trudeau]], etc. Most, if not all 172 have been used by a longterm banned AOL user to attack pages. Once one IP is blocked, he moves to another. People who warn him are subsequently personally attacked. Pages attacked by this malicious vandal have had to been semi-protected, some indef (Justin Trudeau). I think we have enough evidence that this vandal is a definate disruption to this project, and we cannot tolerate it any longer. Connormah (talk | contribs) 16:18, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

The behaviors of one particular editor in one particular subset of articles is not indicative of the vandalism vs. constructive editing coming from an entire ISP over the entire range of Wikipedia articles. The page histories of a small handful of problem pages is insufficient to warrant a broad scale blocking of this nature. Shereth 16:37, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support. AOL has long been used effectively as an open proxy for various troublesome editors. This one is another in the line. ⇦REDVERS⇨ 16:32, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
• Tentative oppose until key piece of info provided. Before I support I would want to know the approx. percentage of good edits vs bad edits coming from this range, and the quantity of edits we're talking about, to know what it is we're actually proposing to do. Has anyone looked at this? If so, where? If not, then it seems very premature to consider blocking all AOL addresses. I don't deny this person is a significant disruption, but blocking a bunch of good editors as collateral damage is disruptive too. If the collateral damage is minimal, I have no objection. If not, we have to suck it up and cope. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:37, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support AOL is a cancer; and since AOL IPs aren't constant, you can't even block them since every time an AOL user logs on their IP changes. Best to block the whole lot of them and forget they exist. HalfShadow 17:21, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Sorry but the blocking policy does not allow blocks of this magnitude. A block should not be used in a way that will effectively target almost only innocent editors in order to stop a single (or a small group of) vandal(s). In this specific case, protections or the edit filter (as xeno says) probably would be more effective anyway since the pages targeted seem to be of a certain pattern. In general, such proposals should not be discussed here. A RFC should be the minimum requirement imho to implement such a range block. And the Foundation should probably be informed/asked before. Just imagine the media reaction: "Wikipedia blocks all of AOL from editing" sounds like a PR disaster to happen. I'm no friend of AOL but we can't go around blocking an ISP just because we don't like some people using it. Regards SoWhy 17:44, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

• Yeah, but the way AOL is set up, it's essentially one giant open proxy. We perm-block those on sight. HalfShadow 17:56, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

• Last I checked, AOL was not an open proxy service but an internet service provider. Their proxies might be open and that might be a problem but that does not mean that AOL is an open proxy. It's an ISP and many people use it and those people will be affected by such a block without ever knowing why. No matter what misuse happens, AOL will not cease to be an ISP and as such can't be treated like a open proxy service. Regards SoWhy 18:19, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

• That's not our problem. The point is, AOL IPs are effectively unblockable unless you feel like playing whack-a-mole four million-plus times. HalfShadow 18:28, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

• I don't think we can play whack-a-mole that often. We'd need a /10, which I don't think is possible. -- Bfigura ^(talk) 18:30, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. Too much collateral. We can probably get a half-effective abuse filter together; with that, some semi-protection, and some RBI we'll probably get by without blocking a massive ISP. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 19:09, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
• Question. Reading some of these comments begs the question, who has sent an abuse report? -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 19:09, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

  A big part of the problem is that AOL is a giant bureaucacy that generally ignores all of our abuse reports, or this is the impression I got from up near the beginning of the 172 discussion. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 19:57, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

• I can't say this seems like a good idea to me at all. If the user targets a known group of pages - as suggested above - why not just protect those pages? It would pretty much be guaranteed to cause less collateral damage than blocking a sizeable fraction of the users of a large ISP. Shimgray | talk | 19:37, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support, as I recall the September that never ended quite vividly and painfully. We're still dealing with the aftermath, as demonstrated by this persistent vandalism. Tarc (talk) 19:45, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose, even if this somehow becomes possible to rangeblock a /10 I think it is a poor case to throw the baby out with the bathwater, particularly such a humongous baby. The collateral damage will be severe, and even softblocking will disenfranchise legitimate potential editors who wish to create an account. Valley2city^‽ 19:51, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose, at the very least until a sufficient examination of the potential collateral damage is conducted. –xeno^talk 19:54, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support. Per Redvers (talk · contribs), HalfShadow (talk · contribs), and Multixfer (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 20:01, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support -- we already softblock the 205.188 range as well as the 64.12 AOL ranges; why not? I always wondered why we didn't shut down 172.130 / 131 etc. as well. Antandrus (talk) 20:11, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose As much as I would like this guy to be completely barred for all of his persistent nonsense on pages that are hostile to the Conservative Party of Canada or the GOP, the move would be causing too much effect to many. The vandal as being using addresses in the 172.162., 172.166, 172.168, 172.133, 172.130, etc, so the range is too wide. Generally, over the past two years or so, my actions was basically to semi-protect articles he was frequently though I occasionnaly block some IPs for 24 hours. Sounds like a more effective method then a range block. --JForget 22:18, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support. If a suitable, or even partially workable, abuse filter can be devised I would prefer that option to what would certainly be a good deal of collateral damage. With all due respect to the editors here who have expressed objection with regard to punishing the many for the acts of one (or a few); it is AOL that, at the end of the day, must be held responsible for abuse of their TOS. Tiderolls 00:24, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support. This is getting out of hand. It needs to stop. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 00:26, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support) If AOL will not enforce their terms of service, then we have every right to bar access to them until they start doing so. At the end of the day, it's not just one user misbehaving, it's the ISP's total and utter indifference to abuse reports, and that's something a lot of these users opposing aren't getting. Yes, there will be a lot of collateral, but if an ISP is an accomplice to a long-term vandal, we've got little other choice than to deny access. —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Boribori!)} 00:32, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support — as per most support comments, AOL needs to take an active role in reducing abuses perpetrated through their ISP. When they start getting angry calls from people asking why AOL has been blocked from Wikipedia, they may start to take notice and actually do something helpful; this isn't arbitrary or vindictive, it's just a long time coming. And in addition, there is the possibility that if this makes a bit of a stir, other ISPs, retailers, schools, etc. may take notice and proactively attempt to reduce abuses, lest they suffer the same fate. DKqwerty (talk) 00:36, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
• Strong oppose - We don't ban entire ISPs. Even if you semi-protected a thousand pages indefinitely; that's 0.3% of our total content. AOL still has 5 million dial-up subscribers. Sorry, but I'm not agreeing to the blocking of that many people (not just IPs) just so that one particular vandal can be stopped. Just stick with semi-protection and the abuse filter. It might be a nuisance, but I gather so would losing quite a sizable number of IP editors. Or do they not matter anymore? NW (Talk) 00:44, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

• It's not that one vandal's provoking this discussion, it's the ISP's cramming peanut butter in its ears. I doubt we would be having this discussion if AOL gave us any indication they were listening to abuse reports. —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Boribori!)} 00:48, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

• The indef semi-protections aren't always good, though, as IPs aren't always bad. Indef semi-protection for just one IP's vandalism just doesn't seem right. These vandals is going a bit out of whack, and frankly, I'm tired of dealing with him. Connormah (talk | contribs) 00:50, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

• So they are ignoring us. Big deal. It's not like we have to say "your mother was mean to me, so we're picking up our toys and going home, and your 5 million brothers and sisters can forget about playing with me too." Plus, if I had to choose between semi-protecting 1000 articles and blocking a /10 range, it would be pretty easy for me to decide which one I would do. If someone wants to generate a list of commonly hit articles, just drop it on a subpage somewhere and I'll semi-protect them all. NW (Talk) 00:54, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

• I have to agree 100% with NuclearWarfare that semi-protecting 1000 articles is far better than blocking edits from a gazillion AOL users. — Kralizec! (talk) 01:04, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

• But semi-protecting any number of articles doesn't actually deal with the problem; this or these editor(s) will simply find other pages to vandalize and other users to harass. Which is indeed the problem specified in the initial suggestion, we're all left playing Whack-a-Mole. Unless the problem is addressed by AOL, semi-protecting 100, 1,000, 10,000, or 100,000 articles addresses the symptoms, not the disease. DKqwerty (talk) 01:33, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

• A "disease"? It's one vandal. It isn't the end of the world. Revert, block (for an hour maybe), ignore. Plus, my impression is that there are is a limited topic that this vandal tries to go after. It would be trivially simple to semi-protect all articles involved in batches. NW (Talk) 01:38, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

• I wasn't calling the vandal the disease. I'm saying AOL functioning as an open proxy which dare not be blocked is the disease. We have very clear policies on open proxies, but users can (and do) abuse this policy by using an ISP which they assume Wikipedia is unwilling to block. It's time to indicate otherwise and in doing so make AOL accountable for their apathy. DKqwerty (talk) 01:50, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

*Pages shouldn't be protected preemptively, though, and I have faith that at least one good faith IP contributor would come along, only to find that the article is protected. We've been doing this for quite some time now, yes he still continues to do this. Connormah (talk | contribs) 01:42, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

• • And you don't think there might be some good faith contributors that will be prevented from editing by blocking 5 million internet users? Mr.Z-man 01:47, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
    • This really sums up the issue: do we prevent all anonymous editing from a massive ISP across the whole encyclopaedia, or prevent a relatively small amount of anonymous editing to a very small number of articles. Of course we'd rather do neither, but look at it on balance. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 02:08, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
      • Frankly, that's the point. Blocking so many users will cause them to contact AOL about it, which will hopefully prompt AOL to act in a tangible way. DKqwerty (talk) 02:10, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
        • Again I ask what efforts have actually been made to complain to AOL. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 02:16, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. The one vandal looks like a world-class pain, but blocking anonymous editing on a huge range is an overreaction, and there appear to be no hard numbers on the number of good-faith contributors we would block to catch this one guy - that is, the people proposing and supporting this have done so without even considering such hard numbers. If it's feasible to implement an edit filter that catches this crap, that's another matter, and I would be tentatively in favor of it. — Gavia immer (talk) 00:53, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
• No way. Blocking five million Internet users to combat a handful of vandals is nonsensical. There's clearly a deeper problem regarding anonymous editing that needs to be addressed; MediaWiki needs to better cope with the fact that IP addresses rarely map one-to-one with people. Blocking AOL doesn't solve this core issue. Fran Rogers (talk) 00:54, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

• Interesting point: is there anything MediaWiki could be doing to help itself? I imagine most (if not all) less-extreme avenues have been pursued? DKqwerty (talk) 01:02, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose - No, we don't block entire ISPs because of a few vandals on dynamic IPs. That is a completely disproportionate response. Semiprotect the articles, set up an EditFilter, and revert the vandalism. But blocking an ISP with 5 million users over some simple vandalism and calling users "retards," no, that's just ridiculous. The reason that AOL hasn't done anything is probably because simple vandalism is not actually against their TOS, so there's nothing they can do. Mr.Z-man 00:58, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

• This is not really 'simple vandalism'. I assume that this one vandal has used an uncountable number of IPs, changing after each gets blocked, for 3 years. The personal attacks and harassment from this vandal towards editors who revert him/block him, and offensive edit summaries he uses are just intolerable. It doesn't matter how it's done, but I'm tired of this guy, and I'd appreciate if it could be stopped, somehow. The indefinite semi-protection of articles prevents the IPs, who want to make constructive contributions, to edit them accordingly, which I don't particularly like, because, typically, it's a protection to prevent one vandal from editing it. Unprotecting, will, however cause another attack from this IP. Tough situation. Connormah (talk | contribs) 01:12, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
  • I was referring to things like death threats and things that would require oversighting as "non-simple vandalism" when I said "simple vandalism" as those would be the kinds of things that an ISP would actually prohibit. The length of time isn't particularly relevant to reporting it to an ISP. Has an Edit Filter actually been tried yet? Mr.Z-man 01:27, 6 February 2010 (UTC)**And you don't think there might be some good faith contributors that will be prevented from editing by blocking 5 million internet users? Mr.Z-man 01:47, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose - Some of you may recall that I am the admin who blocked 17,000 British university students from editing Wikipedia for a year [1], but even I am against the massive collateral damage this block would cause. — Kralizec! (talk) 00:59, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
• Comment I support in principle both on the arguments that AOL is effectively an open proxy, and because anything that encourages a person to seek a real ISP is good, but a block of this magnitude is not something I think we should be considering here. Probably something for the foundation to deal with, if it so chooses. Resolute 01:02, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose..Wow sounds way to vast!...Am i to imply that an admin here on Wikipedia can do that..I mean some one not from the "Foundation or -Advisory_Board" has this much power??..i understand IP block by admins, but this amount of IPS??? I think way more then this little vote should decide this..Buzzzsherman (talk) 01:06, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support This experiment is worth trying for a period. AOL will never respond to abuse reports unless there is a business reason for them to do so. With no block, it's easy for AOL: there is a cost to investigate abuse, and no benefit to AOL from that investigation (indeed, from AOL's point of view, all the investigation would do is to irritate their users since they have no ethical concern regarding the effect of abuse performed by their users). With a block, it's conceivable that AOL would recognize that their infrastructure (effectively thousands of open proxies) needs some response to abuse reports, in order to keep the majority of their users happy. Also, a block may encourage the hardcore vandals to find another interest with only some of them returning to Wikipedia when the block is removed. Johnuniq (talk) 01:11, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose as someone who edits from AOL. This is way out of hand. That means that If my account is compromised and I have to creat a new one, I can't as I edit from the server. I really hope that I can still edit if a block is in place.--Coldplay Expért ^{Let's talk} 01:51, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

• I'll assume it'd only be for anons, so you would most likely be able to log in. Connormah (talk | contribs) 01:53, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. Although this type of action not quite out of the question on principle, a decision that would cause such drastic collateral damage should only be contemplated as an absolute last resort. That means meticulous documentation of numerous abuse reports to the AOL team in response to abuse of the most serious sort--the type where law enforcement ought to be involved. If and only if law enforcement is cooperating but AOL isn't, then there's a basis for this type of discussion. Millions of people would be affected; the press would ask questions. One had better be completely prepared to answer those questions in a compelling way, and pursue such a thing only if the need outweighs possibly losing large numbers of constructive contributors. Durova⁴⁰⁹ 01:25, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support wholeheartedly, it's time to wake the people up over there. GoodDay (talk) 02:12, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
• Comment The per page block feature [2] if implemented would solve this problem. Sole Soul (talk) 03:52, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support if there's no other way to wake them up...which there doesn't seem to be. Perhaps as an alternative someone could make contact with the media and see if they will run a story on this; companies are generally afraid of bad publicity. Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 04:44, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Possibly a dumb question

But is this even feasible? My impression was that mediawiki only allows blocking of /16's and up. I'm not sure how much of 172.*.*.* is AOL, but assuming you wanted to block the IP's posted above, according to the calculator you'd need to rangeblock 172.128.0.0 /10 (which would hit up to 4194304 users). -- Bfigura ^(talk) 18:10, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Possible? Yes. Easy? No. Reasonable? Probably not, but that's being discussed above. It is true that MediaWiki only allows blocks on ranges sized /16 through /31, but it's also true that a /10 could be interpreted and blocked as 64 distinct /16 ranges. That's not to say we should do it -- between the edit filter and the developers, there are probably even better ways to do it -- but as a purely technical concern it can be done. – Luna Santin (talk) 18:54, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

The ranges are even more limited: there are a few /16s around 172.130 and some around 172.163. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 19:18, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

The time is fast coming again, for Wikipedia to reconsider mandatory registration for editors. GoodDay (talk) 02:09, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Not going to happen. Sorry but that would kill the spirit of the encyclopedia.--Coldplay Expért ^{Let's talk} 02:14, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I think some are misunderstanding here. This would not be permanent, should it happen. Only until AOL finally responds to abuse reports, as someone stated somewhere above. Connormah (talk | contribs) 02:15, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, it'll wake people up there. GoodDay (talk) 02:18, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Has anyone actually verified that vandalism like this is actually against AOL's terms of service? My guess is that it isn't. Most ISPs aren't going to be willing to kick off a paying customer because they annoyed a few people on a website somewhere. Mr.Z-man 02:48, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd assume (I may be wrong) that something in the ToS mentions not using AOL to disrupt, or abuse priveleges of other sites. I could very well be 100% wrong, though. Connormah (talk | contribs) 02:52, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

See [3], especially the sections "Your Responsibilites" and "Termination". In particular, "Your Responsibilities" point seven would seem to prohibit using AOL to do anything they have asked you not to use AOL to do. — Gavia immer (talk) 04:18, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

User:Amerique

I would say vandalizing, dont know if thats the appropriate term but he deleted half of the information on the San Bernardino Valley article. I reverted him once and gave him a warning on the edit summary. He/she then reverted me again, I did not revert him a second time as I have an agreement with Wikiproject California, not to revert more than once. He knew about this and he "rubbed it on my face". The seound time he reverted me he wrote 1st revert on the edit summary. The article has a talk page and it does not say anything about removing the content. The article had a lot of information about the cities in the valley, the economy in the valley like does other valley articles of Southern California like the San Fernando Valley, the San Gabriel Valley, ect. I hope some admin can revert him and them block it for a while so amerique, me and an admin can discuss this. Thanks House1090 (talk) 02:16, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

He's been reverted, and I'll give him one more chance. If he insists, I'll take it to AIV- I'm far from an admin, but this is pretty blatant. Mønster av Arktisk Vinter Kvelden (talk) 02:31, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you so much! House1090 (talk) 02:34, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm notifying him of this thread. I too have reverted him. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 02:34, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

On further investigation, they have both edited the article for over two years. The fact that Amerique was expanding it during that time, and suddenly reverts it makes me suspicious that he might be hijacked. It seems weird that he would just halve an article without discussion as well. House, please don't revert any more edits, or you will violate the WP:3RR rule. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 02:47, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I wont. And no Amerique was against the expanding of the article because he wanted to keep it based on geography, while I wanted to have both geography and economy (tourism, cities, transportation, ect). House1090 (talk) 02:53, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Well it doesn't seem that he needs a blocking, so this is pretty much resolved. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 03:04, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

For what it is worth, you guys have been brought into a content conflict. The information I removed was pasted there by House over my objections months ago. There wasn't sufficient interest in the article for me to make an issue of it at the time, but after local editors TorriTorri and MissionInn.Jim voiced their concerns I decided to take action to reduce the boosterism and other cruft House had littered the article with. My concerns over House1090 have been most recently brought up here, the account's most recent examples of edit warring are located here:Los Angeles metropolitan area. Do what you want. Amerique^dialectics 03:05, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I see little that would qualify as either "boosterism" or "cruft" in the article -- certainly nothing like the amount of material you removed. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:13, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I removed material that was imported from Inland Empire (California) and San Bernardino, California. Whether or not it was boosterism, it was cruft, and nothing was lost to human knowledge. Amerique^dialectics 03:23, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Amerique that does not give you the right to do what you want, your not the owner. I did it to benefit the article, not to hurt it. House1090 (talk) 05:17, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

This does go back a couple years, with Amerique and House1090 having had conflicts across numerous Southern California/Inland Empire pages, and involving various other editors and noticeboards at one point or another. The discussion at WikiProject California is here. Looking at the current talk discussion I'm seeing a general consensus from Amerique, MissionInn.Jim, and TorriTorri that San Bernardino Valley does not necessarily equal Greater San Bernardino, with House1090 being the lone dissenting opinion. As for the remainder of Amerique's edit, while there is no talk page discussion yet on the larger removal of material, the next logical step is to start one, which I think might have been more productive in the long run than bringing this here. In the past there has been a general concern expressed by multiple editors that while House1090 means well, his enthusiatic support of the area can lead to issues with neutrality, regional boosterism, advocacy, etc., so I don't feel like Amerique's edit are coming out of nowhere here. I agree that this is still a content dispute at this point, and the next logical step would be to discuss whether or not to remove the other material in Amerique's edit at the article talk page. I'm not seeing any reason for a block for anyone at this point, but protection might be useful here to force the talk page discussion. -Optigan13 (talk) 05:33, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Everytime I do something I get reverted by Amerique, I provide what 4 references and he still wants to remove the also known as Greater San Bernardino Area? I worked hard to add details to the SB Valley article, and it really hurts to see some one just wants it off for no reason. Amerique says tht he wants it to be about geography but none of the other SoCal valley articles are about just geography. The reader might want to know the highways in the SB Valley, or the airports. Thats all basics. Why can San Fernando Valley and San Gabriel Valley have this information but San Bernardino Valley can't. House1090 (talk) 05:43, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

← I've been asked to give some input in this matter. I honestly don't have the time to gather tons of diffs and whatnot, so I hope that everyone can trust what I have to say (difficult, I know). To be quite blunt, I am not sure that House can edit content related to Southern California without getting himself into trouble. The long dispute history he has had was recently brought up to WT:CAL and it was sort of agreed that House should probably limit himself to a 1 revert rule with regards to SoCal topics. In his own eyes he may have followed that, but I'm not so sure. In any case, his boosterism of SoCal related topics was discussed there. I don't know if House understands what is wrong with that, or perhaps he doesn't think his actions are trying to boost SoCal's and the Inland Empire related articles' "status" on Wikipedia. He might mean well (I tend to believe he actually does mean well) but regardless of intentions at this point it is just disruptive and hard for other people to work around him. I've never been in a spat or worked with him on content, so this is coming from a third party to this situation. Killiondude (talk) 06:30, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay before I was attacked because I did not add a source, I now go on and I add four source and I am getting my contributions removed. I have not passed over my 1 revert limit, but I do know that Amerique has taken advantage of this. He took off the info from the SB Valley, then I revert him since he had no explanation, the he reverts me telling me to remember my 1 revert agreement. This has not just happened once. I have been working stuff out at the talk pages this whole time, if I dont agree with you, I will let you know. I dont understand why Amerique just now went and reverted me again, saying it had to be removed, what about his 1 revert agreement? I feel every one attacks me and they dont see what my attackers are doing. Why is it that if I dont follow my agreement its wrong and I could get block or banned. But if amerique does not keep his word he gets away with it? He removed stuff that was unnessessary, now he goes reverting me with my 4 sources? House1090 (talk) 06:43, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

It's only gone on as long as it has because until recently few other editors have shown any sustained interest in these articles. I have been the only one constantly reverting House1090 because, apart from User:Alanraywiki, I have been the only one steadily monitoring those pages for POV, vandalism, etc. To me, maintaining the quality of WP's content in this area would mean reverting most every edit House1090 makes. Obviously, I can't do that, so I've had to let the quality of the articles become degraded until enough people have shown up to more effectively counteract his POV. Amerique^dialectics 06:49, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, I did break my 1r restriction with House. I'll take a block over it;-) Amerique^dialectics 06:53, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

House, while you feel you are being attacked, the majority of what myself and others have said here and other places is that we understand you mean well, and a lot of what we are saying is meant as constructive criticism aimed at both at you and the material we're looking at. While there are some instances where some hostile words are exchanged I don't feel it's been entirely one sided. In the long run it is in everyone's best interest to have more skilled editors developing quality edits articles. Now looking at this most recent incident, I see Amerique and two other editors who work on a lot of California related content forming a consensus that runs contrary to your opinion. Amerique was the one who made the edit, but there was still a consensus behind it coming from the article talk page.

Amerique, I understand your frustration. A lot of what I've been hoping for and working toward was to diffuse this issue among several editors so this doesn't stay as the House & Amerique show, which is why I was hoping WP:CAL would be a useful resource on this.

Since it's past midnight in California I don't think blocking at this hour would be useful, but if edit warring on San Bernardino Valley, Los Angeles metropolitan area, or any other page flares up again tomorrow afternoon or later on this week it might help. Some other solutions we could look at is to start using {{editsemiprotected}} on pages where a talk page consensus has formed so that neither of you directly make the edit/revert. Another possible solution is to maybe find someone interested in mentoring House on content work. I can still keep an eye on all of this, but I'd prefer to stay out of the content end of this things to stay a neutral arbiter. We could also add the 1RR restrictions as laid out previously to Wikipedia:Editing restrictions which would remove the whole voluntarily part of it and to begin enforcing them more strictly. Do any of these sound interesting to either of you? What do you hope to get out of this AN/I thread? Do you feel any of the current restrictions have worked up till this point and why? What hasn't? -Optigan13 (talk) 08:17, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Can't answer all your questions, but I'd be cool with adding the agreement to Wikipedia:Editing restrictions, so long as it were noted that this is voluntary on my part. House is the only person in my wiki-career that I have gotten into sustained edit-conflicts with. Also, I would encourage him to seek out a mentor. Amerique^dialectics 18:40, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

No the 1 RR has not worked for me because I feel I have taken advantage of, Amerique did not follow his 1RR he has reverted me more than twice, and when he reverts me his edit summary reads "1RR agreement House" or something similar. My thoughts are not even taken in consideration as in Talk:Los Angeles Metropolitan Area. Want I think would be better is if Amerique does not revert me for ever single thing and he can treat me with a little more respect, unlike how he did here[4]. I dont think there is a need for Wikipedia:Editing restrictions as long as Amerique can keep his word, I have kept it and will continue to do so. House1090 (talk) 04:36, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

As a frequent WP:CAL contributor who has had, I am troubled by two things about House: 1) the number of strikes he has gotten since he agreed to a "one-strike" rule, and 2) the almost ownership he asserts over anything Inland Empire Purplebackpack89 ^{(Notes Taken) (Locker)} 04:45, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

What strikes? I do not take ownership for IE articles, but I get mad when users revert and dont use the talk page because I work hard on the IE articles with almost no help. Especialy when they have unappropriate edit summarys as with Amerique in the link above. House1090 (talk) 04:52, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I know, but I'm the bad guy for reverting him. Anyway, I don't revert House for every single thing, only the more POV edits. Sometimes he makes more than 1 a day so when that happens the 1r restriction hasn't been working out for me. Amerique^dialectics 05:01, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

The deal wasn't 1 revert per day. It was one revert only. Besides you are not obeying your civil agreement either amerique. So a voluntary er wont work for me, unless you actually mean it. House1090 (talk) 05:11, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

While I agree that the edit summary provided by Amerique isn't helpful, I'm only seeing him making a single revert on that page. As both of you are interested in editing the same topic area there's going to be a significant overlap in the articles you two edit. Amerique acknowledged going over a single revert on San Bernardino Valley which is the initial article that brought us here, but as both of you had gone over a single revert at the same time on separate articles I don't feel blocking would have been useful. I'm also hearing from several users other than Amerique that you have issues with ownership and edit warring. In fact the latest incident (diffs below) where you went beyond a single revert didn't involve him at all. With that San Bernardino Valley revert, I see a consensus between TorriTorri, MissionInnJim, and Amerique. It's clear from both of you that the voluntary portion of the 1RR isn't working. House, of the suggestions I put forward are there any that seem interesting to you (adding to Editing restrictions, Mentors)? Once we see what everyone's interested in I can suggest some formalized wording again and have you two and the broader AN/I group chime in with supports/opposes. -Optigan13 (talk) 05:39, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

LA metro reverting diffs

[5] User:SoCal L.A. increases size of panorama and greater LA map [6] User:House1090 moves Long Beach image to left [7] User:SoCal L.A. reverts(1st) User:House1090's image change back to right align [8] User:House1090 reverts(1st) User:SoCal L.A. back to left align [9] User:House1090 reduces image size of panorama and greater LA map (1st of this revert) [10] User:House1090 removes IE locations from Urban areas of the region, citing User talk:Alanraywiki#LA metropolitan area article [11] User:SoCal L.A. reverts (2nd) the Long Beach image alignment back to right [12] User:House1090 removes Hemet from Urban area list [13] User:SoCal L.A. reverts (1st) image size of panorama/greater la map [14], [15] User:SoCal L.A. reverts Hemet, other IE removal from Urban areas [16] User:House1090 reverts (2nd) to smaller panorama/greater la map [17] User:SoCal L.A. reverts (2nd) to larger panorama/greater la map

|}

(ec)::::Maybe it's just me, but the way I read your unblock, you could be blocked for a long period at the first sign of trouble. We've seen many signs of trouble. Honestly, House should be blocked for a long time Purplebackpack89 ^{(Notes Taken) (Locker)} 05:42, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't going to go there, but House hasn't been reblocked simply because Wikipedians on the whole were willing to let him edit unobstructed if he kept to one account, but only a few were willing to fix his POV and bad edits. He never had much of a clue as to what the encyclopedia was about, what good faith meant, much less good research or the basics of English grammar and constantly misinterpreted what he read to mean whatever he wanted it to say, or thought it said. As these diffs attest:

• Here: [18] where he represents User:MissionInn.Jim as supporting a page move he spent several days arguing against here: Talk:Inland_Empire_(California)#Name_Change.

• Here: [19] where he accuses User:SoCal_L.A. of vandalism for editing his preferred version of that portal.

• Here:User:Emerson7/archiv#What.3F.21 where House's misunderstanding of the concept of extension causes him to take offense and accuse User:Emerson7 of vandalism and edit warring over this: Talk:San_Bernardino_County,_California#Named_for...

• Here: [20] where he accuses User:Binksternet of vandalism for editing out his POV here: Crafton, California.

Unfortunately for Wikipedia, you can easily be blocked for violating sockpuppetry policy, but not for being an obstinate, even horrific editor with strong POV, bad faith and poor English skills, if you also seem to be earnest about "improving the encyclopedia."

But, it is also clear from the history of over a year ago that he also knows (probably from much experience) how to reset his router to evade blocks. Blocking or banning him indefinitely would probably require us to play whack a mole for however long his obsession with promoting SB and the IE lasts. So as an alternative I would enjoin anyone who is seeking a challenge to offer House mentorship, as he has shown some signs of improvement since a year ago, despite all the bad stuff. I do not have much patience for dealing with him, but will try to keep my further interactions within the spirit of WP:1RR and civility policy. (Apologies if my earlier comment offended House. But he had just earnestly proposed using the website of an auto dealership as a reference. Without a sense of humor I probably couldn't deal with this at all.) Amerique^dialectics 18:46, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I was hoping someone else would be interested, but as I'm already involved in a limited role, have a large number of the articles, user talk pages, and other pages already on my watchlist it might be best if I try to mentor (WP:ADOPT) House with content issues, technical difficulties, policy interpretation and conflict management. At the same time I don't think the voluntary 1RR is effective and I think a more formal set of editing restrictions where the possibility of blocking would give it some teeth. When I say 1 revert rule, I mean over a single revert, per page, over the same material, with no limit on length between reverts. But as Amerique pointed in the diffs above, there have been conflicts with multiple other editors, so I'm not seeing a need to add that same formal restriction on Amerique. House, with respect to the mentoring, would it be agreeable to you if we start a more formal mentoring relationship? You could come to me if you have issues on pages with respect to conflicts, reliability of sources, policy interpretaion etc., and also sometimes just letting me know what you're up to? -Optigan13 (talk) 23:25, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I would only agree if there is no formal 1RR. House1090 (talk) 00:52, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Well the only other way I see this working is if we go through the more standard channels of Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring, WP:AIV and WP:RFPP. Because right now the voluntary 1RR isn't working, and I'm not comfortable with just adding mentoring to the mix hoping to fix it. If I'm going to be working with you, and you begin edit warring I might end up having to report you to any combination of the those pages, and advocating for blocks and other measures. I might advocate for blocks on other individuals in that situation including possibly Amerique, but if he or you goes over 1RR alone I wouldn't necessarily report over it. Now given that either you agree to me as a mentor and either formal 1RR or me possibly being reported to the various noticeboards if you edit war. Or we could try to find another possible mentor who would be comfortable with voluntary 1RR. Which of those solutions sound preferable to you? -Optigan13 (talk) 06:22, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay could I know what do you mean by formal 1RR. House1090 (talk) 06:29, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

By formal one revert rule, I mean adding to the WP:Editing restrictions that "House1090 is limited to one revert per page per week (excepting obvious vandalism), and is required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page. If he exceeds this limit or fail to discuss a content reversion may be blocked" for a period of six months. This wouldn't be applied to Amerique unless the broader community here at AN/I feels it is necessary. Now is those are the options does any one of those sound interesting to you? -Optigan13 (talk) 08:00, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately for Wikipedia, you can easily be blocked for violating sockpuppetry policy, but not for being an obstinate, even horrific editor with strong POV, bad faith and poor English skills, if you also seem to be earnest about "improving the encyclopedia." - I just wanted to point out that people can be, and sometimes are blocked for lacking the technical skill to be able to improve the encyclopedia and for causing more harm than good, even if their efforts are all made in good faith. WP:COMPETENCE is often referenced in such blocks, and although it's an essay it's one that is taken seriously by a number of people. -- Atama頭 17:14, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank for pointing out that essay, Atama. I totally agree with it. To be perfectly honest, while I would support House receiving an enforceable involuntary 1r restriction for the time being, I don't see it resolving the long term issues with this account. So I also wouldn't oppose a lengthy block or a ban if broader consensus immediately goes in that direction, despite the (I would say) definite possibility of the user resuming sockpuppet activities.

Due to off-site issues, I will be curtailing my active participation in WP for the time being. However, I can still be reached through my talk page or email if anyone needs to contact me. Regards to all. Amerique^dialectics 18:47, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Amerique that a block, perhaps even a lengthy one, should be imposed, not only for his lack of clue, but also for the near ownership isses and relentless promotion of IE articles. Purplebackpack89 ^{(Notes Taken) (Locker)} 19:30, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

While I'm not completely writing off a block at this point, if House still wants to write and proceeds to sock we're stuck playing whack-a-mole across a host of pages, possibly scaring off new contributors to California articles we mistake for him. Both that and mentoring take a lot of time, energy, and watching several pages, so I'd prefer to go for mentoring with escalating blocks if needed. While House may have exhausted other editors patience, I'm still willing to try mentoring for the time being. I think in the long term it might be better for California related pages. But, we'll see how he feels about the options I laid out above. -Optigan13 (talk) 23:16, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

How lond will the 1R be? How long will the mentoring be? And also I dont want to be taken advantage of esspecialy by Amerique, as I was just acouple of days ago. House1090 (talk) 00:08, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

The 1RR and mentoring would last for at least six months (August 2010), at which point we could review and see where to go from there. If you encounter issues with an editor (Amerique or anyone) you could contact me on my talk page and we can engage in a dialogue with you, me, and any other parties and go from there. In the same respect you would leave {{Adoptee|Optigan13}} on your userpage and I would leave {{Adopter|House1090}} on mine. People would know to be able to contact me if they have issues with you, and we could work together on it. -Optigan13 (talk) 00:24, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay then sounds good. I agree. House1090 (talk) 05:58, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm glad we could get this resolved. I can understand both House's and Amerique's point of view on this situation. Hopefully each of them can spend less time arguing and more time doing things they enjoy doing on Wikipedia. Can we mark this thread as resolved? Killiondude (talk) 07:55, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I think so, I've added the restriction to Wikipedia:Editing restrictions#Placed by the Wikipedia community; House and I have the userboxes so if further issues arise I'll try to help resolve them in whatever way I can. I'll go do some further cleanup, notification, and start talking with House on how to move forward. -Optigan13 (talk) 08:34, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

UnitAnode and BLP content deletions

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

---

Compromise and cooperation has saved the day, no need for admin action.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 05:14, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Unitanode (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), who was recently asked here, and agreed, to stop adding WP:PROD tags to BLP articles for lack of citations, continues to delete verifiable uncontentious content from BLP articles simply for lack of sourcing.[21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34] UnitAnode is stubbifying articles at a rate exceeds any single editor's ability to clean up after. No doubt that some of the information deleted is indeed contentious, or inaccurate, ur unverifiable, but plenty of it is good content. Just reviewing these deletions is a major time sink, much less improving the articles as fast as this one editor can mess them up. When the content is restored UnitAnode simply edit wars it back out. When asked to stop and wait for consensus UnitAnode announces that no consensus is necessary because BLP policy is on their side. As a content policy matter that is simply untrue - this specific issue has been considered and rejected at BLP. As a behavioral matter this is yet another case of edit warring mass deletions in support of either a misreading of, or a proposed change in, BLP policy. I've offered a truce, that we keep the status quo and file a content-focused RfC to decide this once and for all, but the editor has rejected the notion and tried to imply that I'm the one who is in trouble for adding unsourced content (see here). My only recourse, other than edit warring or allowing our content to suffer, is to ask for help convincing UnitAnode to stop until the community has spoken on the matter. Thanks, - Wikidemon (talk) 20:33, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• This is more pointless drama-stirring by Wikidemon, simply because he doesn't seem to understand that removing unsourced information from BLPs is good, while readding such information is bad. I'm in the process of examining the efficacy of my PRODs, and at first blush, it appears they were very effective. Wikidemon needs to stop with the drama-stirring. UnitAnode 20:36, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Was the personal attack really necessary? How about taking it on face value when I say why I am concerned about this? - Wikidemon (talk) 21:29, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• Unsourced content should be removed from WP:BLP articles. Was this not just recently settled by ArbCom? JBsupreme (talk) 20:37, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I have to agree here with JBsupreme (talk · contribs). Quite simply, unsourced content should be removed from WP:BLP articles. Cirt (talk) 20:39, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• All unsourced content is open to deletion under current policy, especially in BLPS. That's policy. If you'd like to expand/restore content an editor must, at minimum, source it (a source of some kind is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition of course). There is no such thing as good unsourced and unverified content. Good on ya unit.Bali ultimate (talk) 20:40, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Please don't egg on an editor for edit warring. That's a respectable opinion, but in my opinion it is a mistaken one that would cause untold damage. More to the point it's not what policy says. BLP policy addresses "unsourced or poorly sourced contentius material" (emphasis added). The idea that it applies to uncontentious material was recently considered and rejected - see here. We can and should talk about this further at an RfC if people want to change policy, but meanwhile, the way to enact a policy change after the community rejects it is not by engaging in mass deletion campaigns, or resorting to edit warring and incivility when people object. I'm not asking to settle the issue here, just asking that we encourage UnitAnode to hold off until the community is clear. Reverting a bad deletion is not the same as endorsing content. There's nothing that requires bringing all restored content to featured status. Wikidemon (talk) 21:02, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

All of the above is just, like, your opinion, man. The policy is clear in the other direction.Bali ultimate (talk) 21:35, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

What part of "unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material" clearly applies to uncontentious material? Is it your opinion that it is okay for one party to edit war to enforce a minority opinion about content policy? - Wikidemon (talk) 21:58, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• Not only is it policy, but any such content removed can easily be retrieved from the edit history provided that it is useful. I'm not sure why we are still going around in circles on this subject. JBsupreme (talk) 20:51, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• All unsourced content is open to deletion under current policy, especially in WP:BLPS. That's policy. Arbcom did in fact recently reaffirm that. Wikidemon needs to internalize that and stop stirring things up. Or, better, work with Unitanode and others on how to effectively and efficiently improve articles instead of posting not very collegial stuff like User_talk:Unitanode#BLP_stubbification. This report is baseless and should be closed with no action. ++Lar: t/c 20:52, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

  Why isn't that reflected in the policy? –xeno^talk 21:46, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

  He's made it clear that his goal is -- having failed to get me acquiesce to his demands at my talkpage -- to have an administrator force me to do so. UnitAnode 20:53, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• Unsourced material has no place in BLP's Unitode is quite right to remove it. Viridae^Talk 20:54, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Closed, with no action taken. Cirt (talk) 20:56, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

After all of 25 minutes, by a party who sided with the named party? –xeno^talk 20:57, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

unclosed. Ecx4! Rd232 ^talk 20:58, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

No objections to it being unclosed. :) Cirt (talk) 21:11, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Comment: at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people (currently paused; cf Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people/Phase II) Jclemens' view that "most BLPs, even those that are unreferenced are innocuous, provide useful material, and do no harm." was passed by a large majority. On this evidence the view of the community is that uncontentious content should not be deleted. More broadly a clear view emerging from the RFC is that deleting content faster than it can reasonably be reviewed is not acceptable, unless an argument specific to that content is made as to why it should be removed - and "unsourced" is not sufficient argument. It may be that the extreme deletionists who started the recent hooha jump in more quickly here; but they are not representative of the wider community. Rd232 ^talk 20:58, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• It's not even "deleting" content, it's simply removing unsourced content. It's not a violation of any policy, and is done specifically in support of our WP:BLP policy. I'm not going to stop removing this unsourced content, so I don't see the point of continuing this thread. I've done nothing blockable, and further discussion is little more than navel-gazing. UnitAnode 21:02, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Unilateral declarations to ignore well-established community views in favour of personal interpretation of policy were quite clearly rejected by Arbcom, after initially seeming to endorse that. I won't do so (signing off now) but if you continue whilst this discussion is unresolved, someone should block you. Rd232 ^talk 21:08, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

It would not go well for you if you were to press the block button on me right now. I'm just imagining the block summary now, Blocked for removing unsourced information from BLPs ... UnitAnode 21:22, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

UnitAnode has made similar veiled threats against other administrators before. That's all I'm asking for, really, that UnitAnode stop until the community decides. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:33, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

e/c - There are many different opinions at that RFC page, it is not policy and it is not supported by the community to encourage having wholly unsourced material in BLPs. Cirt (talk) 21:04, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Does it really need to be explained that A not deleting unsourced content without specific reason and B "encourage having wholly unsourced material" are very different things? Rd232 ^talk 21:06, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

(ec)You're conflating a few issues. Nobody is proposing that we drop our WP:RS guideline. The question, specifically, is whether it's okay to engage in mass editing campaigns and edit war against those who object. Even if the original deletion is allowable it's also allowable to revert it and then the consensus process applies. I very carefully and selectively reversed a couple of the deletions after checking to make sure there was no content that appeared unverifiable or contentious. This editor is deleting a lot of content without first making any attempt to improve it. It's pretty indiscriminate, because most BLP content is not adequately sourced, and I don't think the community wants to drop most of the encyclopedia's BLP content right now. In a few minutes one can carelessly destroy hours worth of work, which could have been brought up to standards in a few more minutes. Multiply that by the prospect of a dozen editors doing it ten times a day if it's allowed and you've got a major trashing of the encyclopedia. If the material stays deleted for long there will be intervening edits and it becomes harder and harder to restore, with or without sourcing. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:20, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Also worth noting (in view of JBsupreme's remark about Arbcom) is Sandstein's overwhelmingly approved view: "The arbcom motion is not to be understood as changing or superseding general deletion policy and process as applied to the biographies of living persons, and it should be considered void if and insofar as it might have been intended to have that effect. Instead, any policy change should be decided by community consensus, starting with this RfC." Rd232 ^talk 21:05, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• I second Wikidemon's comments. Its unfortunate that Unitanode is denuding articles instead of working to source them (and I've sourced a view of his prods recently so I have seen this, and I can't recall any iota of contentious untrue material being found). As rd232 notes, a majority of editors agree that "most BLPs, even those that are unreferenced are innocuous, provide useful material, and do no harm." I've gotten cross-wise with Unitanode recently so I should hold my tongue beyond that, but from my limited dealings with Unitanode and seeing some of the comments on his talk page, he has drawn ire from a number of editors recently.--Milowent (talk) 21:36, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

The deletions are continuing during this discussion. I believe I checked every single fact in this one,[35] which is one of the easiest to figure out. This[36] took me about 20 minutes. It would have taken me another hour to tidy up the article but I was edit conflicted with XenoUnitanode edit conflicted me with an edit war[37] when I tried to edit the article itself. I consider his/her tone and manner very rude here - it does not make for collaborative editing. I can't tell the exact rate of these edits but I think it's safe to say we would require several full-time mop carriers to clean up the trail of these deletions. I don't know what point we're trying to prove here by slashing content from the encyclopedia. Cutting out career higlights of a major academic, and the two prominent books she's written, creates far more of a misrepresentation of who she is for the reader than leaving them in. If BLP is to avoid harm to living people, we're harming them a lot more by creating partial biographies. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:39, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

• Ask Xeno how "difficult" it is to work with me, when you approach me and say, "Could you wait a second, I'm going to add some sources there shortly" instead of just wholesale reverting unsourced information into a BLP, and leaving orders on my talkpage. UnitAnode 20:43, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

UnitAnode, I have asked this of you before and suggested that we avoid AN/I on it by gathering a consensus beore acting, but will you kindly stop or greatly slow down your removal uncontentious information from articles unless you take the time to check for sources to see whether it's verifiable, pending the outcome of the current RfC on the topic? Many editors including myself think it is a bad idea unsupported by policy, and the collaborative nature of working together to edit an encyclopedia suggests that you wait until you have consensus before engaging in large scale edits like this. - Wikidemon (talk) 20:55, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

• Comment: Among the material Unitanode‎ has removed unilaterally and without notice from articles are movies and films which actors have been in. In at least one article, while not specifically referenced the information is fairly well known to people who go to the cinema or watch U.S. television, had been in the article for about 5 years, and was easily verifiable by looking at imdb or a couple minutes of googling. I've suggested to Unitanode‎ that adding {{cn}} or something similar first might be more appropriate. I also wish to draw attention to the word contentious in Wikipedia:BLP#Remove_unsourced_or_poorly_sourced_contentious_material. -- Infrogmation (talk) 22:53, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

• the information is fairly well known to people who go to the cinema or watch U.S. television is not a reliable source. Neither is had been in the article for about 5 years. And neither is imdb. 67.51.38.51 (talk) 18:41, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

• The statement that "X acted in Y movie" is sourced and verifiable. It is sourced to Y movie. –xeno^talk 18:44, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

• But that's Original Research. We're relying on the editor's word that the film actually says that. Unless they can provide a link to an article which says that, or a direct link to the film, it's not a reliable source. 67.51.38.51 (talk) 19:22, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

• No, it's not. See Wikipedia:V#Access_to_sources. The fact that you actually have to do some legwork to verify it does not change the fact that it's verifiable. –xeno^talk 19:26, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

• What? So "go watch the movie" is acceptable sourcing? Woogee (talk) 23:12, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion, yes. Just as is "go read the dead-tree newspaper from the library", "go on JSTOR and get the journal article" and "access the NYT article from behind the paywall". Verifiability does not always mean you get an easy to click hyperlink. –xeno^talk 23:29, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Proposed restriction

Proposal: UnitAnode be restricted temporarily from removing unsourced content from BLPs, unless that content can reasonably be construed as contentious. "reasonably construed as contentious" to be determined case-by-case on a consensus basis. This restriction shall run until the conclusion of the BLP RFC. Rd232 ^talk 21:40, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. Per the comment by Lar (talk · contribs), above. Cirt (talk) 21:41, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

If by that you're alluding to Arbcom, I refer you to the community-endorsed Sandstein view noted above. Rd232 ^talk 21:43, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

This. Cirt (talk) 21:46, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Other than showing that lar doesn't actualy know what our BLP policy is ( unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material) I fail to see the significance of said link.©Geni 21:50, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Since he was clearly referring to the opening lines of the Verifiability policy, you may wish to consider what is by shown by your own statement. CIreland (talk) 23:15, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

The lead of WP:V does not support the indiscriminate high-volume removal of unsourced uncontentious material. Rd232 ^talk 23:25, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Lar did not suggest that it did. "Indiscriminate" is your characterization. CIreland (talk) 23:31, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support Per the comment by Lar (talk · contribs), above, more specifically "work with Unitanode and others on how to effectively and efficiently improve articles instead of posting not very collegial stuff." The limited time period of the proposal makes sense to give Unitanode time to do this, because the BLP RFC is working on developing a global solution.--Milowent (talk) 21:46, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support, if only to get him to slow down, stop edit warring, and wait for the community to catch up and come to a decision. –xeno^talk 21:49, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
  • • Comment, not supporting this will create a position, supported at ANI that anyone can delete any content that is uncited from any BLP, also any comment that is about a living person in any article that is not a BLP. Off2riorob (talk)
• Oppose Websters explains that contentious means to be marked by contention or provoking or likely to provoke controversy. If an editor removes it, it means that it is provoking controversy. This is simple english and its policy. This end around on a huge ethical matter (we're up to 141 unsourced BLPs for Febraruary 2010 so far -- forgetting badly sourced/misleadingly sourced/vandalized blps. Those, who knows?) does not reflect well on people (who have no solutions of their own to offer except to sit on our hands and let the problem to continue to grow and not start setting some minimum standards so it doesn't keep happening again. And again. And again.)Bali ultimate (talk) 21:55, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

  Oh come on. Ridiculous semantics. –xeno^talk 22:00, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

  • No, simple English. Simple English.

• What you describe would generaly fail the good faith test and would count as gameing the system which is per policy vandalism and blockable.©Geni 22:05, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
• Just you try it Geni. You won't get very far.Bali ultimate (talk) 22:16, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I tend to agree. Even if a person is acting in good faith in the sense of sincerely believing they are right and improving the encyclopedia, there has to be a good faith belief that there is something wrong with material other than lack of sourcing, before removing it for lack of sourcing. But I wouldn't call it vandalism or blockable, just circular reasoning. We've dealt with this issue many times in different contexts over the years. - Wikidemon (talk) 22:13, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• No, that makes the actions contentious, not the content. Geni is right. Using this reasoning to defend these actions would be nothing more than attempting to game the system and disruptive. Resolute 17:19, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support It's not the removal that's the problem so much as the indiscriminate, mass reverting of content whether or not anyone knows that the content is negative or in some way contentious. Unless something is clearly harmful, the intent of policy has never been to remove content indiscriminately. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 21:57, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. I have no doubt in my mind that the Arbitration Committee as a whole and Jimbo Wales himself would endorse the actions being taken by UnitAnode. JBsupreme (talk) 21:58, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Neither of those make policy.©Geni 22:05, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

ArbCom interprets policy. And has. ++Lar: t/c 22:17, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Current consensus says otherwise.©Geni 22:27, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I think WP:BLP policy already supports the removal of unsourced material. We are now just arguing the semantics of "contentious", are we not? JBsupreme (talk) 22:07, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Do you wish to propose "Chan has a bachelor's degree in the social sciences from the University of Hong Kong and a master's degree in the social sciences from the Chinese University of Hong Kong." is contentious?©Geni 22:16, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Without knowing the full context of what you're referring to, absolutely YES. There are people adding fake credentials to WP:BLP articles without sources all the time. We've had some problems in the past with that specifically in fact. Unsourced credentials are just as contentious as any other unsourced claim to fame or infamy. JBsupreme (talk) 22:26, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Any unsourced fact might be contentious. We just don't know, absent the circumstances. In the example case, it might be something that is being used to falsely obtain some benefit or claim some expertise. ++Lar: t/c 22:32, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

You've just implied that the credentials in question might be fake. Thats defamation and thus your responce is in breach of BLP. If you are going to rule lawyer have the decenecy to do it well.©Geni 22:34, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Are your arguments always this silly, Geni? I did in fact "imply that the credentials in question might be fake". That's true of every single unsourced statement in the entire project, it might not be backed up by sources... we just don't know one way or the other. Pointing that out is in no way a BLP violation. Your grasp of BLP needs work. Or this is some pathetic straw dog. Or both. ++Lar: t/c 00:44, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

You might wish to read the post above yours. In any case you are the one arguing for an insanely broad and bady rule lawyered version of BLP. under those conditions claiming any given action doesnn't violate BLP is kinda questionable.©Geni 01:04, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. I never would have believed that people would find removing unsourced info from BLPs disruptive. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia isn't it? Kevin (talk) 22:10, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, if we try hard, it won't be one soon. I haven't been an active editor for that long (about six months), but I remember as a reader that wikipedia had few cited sources not that long ago. I agree that sourcing is to be much preferred and our goal, but random removing of unsourced non-contentious information at an alarming clip degrades the project.--Milowent (talk) 22:28, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• It's more the manner he's going about it. Earlier he was edit warring to remove a section outlining selected works of an author. Those very books can adequately serve as the source that she wrote them. (He eventually self-reverted after I pointed this out) –xeno^talk 22:25, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support per Xeno and JohnWBarber, and please let's stop the circular wikilawyering around the word "contentious". --Cyclopia^talk 22:10, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose - per my previous comments. Also, if there was a proposal asking for a rate restriction, instead of a blanket prohibition, maybe. Or, better, if Wikidemon and other concerned editors approached Unitanode, you know, cooperatively and collegially, asking to work with him to make sure he's not working faster than they can handle, I bet he'd work with them. I'd lean on him if he doesn't. But the argumentative approach isn't going to work. ++Lar: t/c 22:17, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
• Anyone who likes can see what I'm actually doing, which is how I'm assuming that Wikidemon has found which unsourced material to attempt to insert back into the BLPs. UnitAnode 22:20, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. And block anybody who reinserts an unsourced statement to a BLP without providing a reliable source. nableezy - 22:21, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Agree with this. Cirt (talk) 22:23, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

There are sections of almost every BLP in Wikipedia which do not have a RS, or at least what I could cast some doubt on being an RS. Some of them are indeed contentious, and must be removed; some are unsourced opinion, and should be removed; some are routine bio facts, which are overwhelming likely to be true. It makes a certain amount of sense to concentrate on the actually problematic ones. DGG ( talk ) 23:40, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support Enough of this serial shitting on the thousands of people who bought into "anyone can edit" and contributed their labour here in the past. Removing "he murdered his wife three times", yeah absolutely, removing "he coached a boy's soccer team", nope. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, then a few people will take vast pleasure in destroying your work. Franamax (talk) 22:22, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support. The edits pointed out, while occasionally adding some value, are overwhelmingly destructive rather than helpful. Unitanode seems sufficiently unaware of the purpose and spirit of WP:BLP and other policies that restricting this mass deletion behavior is the best approach. LotLE×talk 22:24, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Sanctioning people for doing exactly what policy tells them to seems like a bad idea, see WP:BLP, "Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion" and "Remove any unsourced material to which an editor objects in good faith". If there are concerns about Unitanode making a point or gaming the system in some way, I don't see it in any diffs. He seems to be working in good faith to apply the letter and spirit of WP:BLP. --Jayron32 22:25, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I haven't seen any "contentious" material rightfully removed that I can recall, having deprodded a number of Unitanode's prods. And in fact, he is frankly saying that he simply removes any unsourced material, that's his method.--Milowent (talk) 22:28, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose - The fact that it is unsourced is what makes it contentious, that's the point here. There is no valid reason being given to prohibit this user from performing these edits, just a bunch of niggling IDon'tLikeIt inclusionist-at-all-costs types. Stop acting like the fucking sky is going to fall just because some reader is going to come across Beth (musician) and be deprived of an unsourced "I'd rather die than enter Eurovision" quote. Tarc (talk) 22:25, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
• Uphold. The ban is needful in view of the disrespectful manner in which the unsupported deletions are being undertaken. The deletion of patently uncontentious material is against policy. Deleting it at alarming and unsustainable rates is clearly counterproductive and unacceptable. — James F Kalmar 22:42, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• "Uphold" what? Your comment makes no sense at all. UnitAnode 23:09, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

  From what is said, I think it clearly means support sanctions. DGG ( talk ) 23:12, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. We're a couple months shy of April. TheGoodLocust (talk) 23:14, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose - Fighting to keep unsourced content in articles is far more damaging to the project than removing it. Mr.Z-man 23:31, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Oooh thats completely false. The number of newbie editors we've pissed off by summeraly removing their content is one of the reasons why we are picking up fewer new editors and we have a lot of people who don't like us very much floating around the web.©Geni 23:38, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I would much rather have quality content than be more popular or have a bunch of editors who don't care about basic things like citing sources. If keeping a new user means putting up with a bunch of crappy articles that no one but them cares about, then that's too high a price. Mr.Z-man 23:43, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Keeping the new user means someone continues to care and can learn to write better articles.©Geni 23:45, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Again, I think the cost outweighs the benefit. If they're willing to leave in anger because we ask them to respect basic standards like sourcing, it may not be worth our time to educate. Mr.Z-man 23:50, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

There is a difference between asking and indeed showing compared to just ripping out content.©Geni 23:59, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• suggested solution Let him be restricted to removing content that is not present an immediate threat of harm, only after he has made a good faith demonstrated reasonable try to source it. That way everything he does will be beneficial to the encyclopedia. DGG ( talk ) 23:33, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
  • The proposal already includes that idea: "unless that content can reasonably be construed as contentious." Showing that a reasonable effort to source the content failed would be enough to make it contentious. There is a world of difference between "unverified" and "unverifiable", and making some effort that content falls into the latter category is enough to make it contentious. Rd232 ^talk 09:02, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
• Completely oppose unreferenced material can and should be removed from BLPs by everyone. Viridae^Talk 23:45, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support ignoring all of this/us. What we have here (with a few exceptions) is the same x-number of people saying entirely predictable things they've said 25 times already, dug firmly into their BLP foxholes and determined not to come out, but at times quite happy to lob rhetorical grenades at the other side. It's frankly pathetic—really pathetic. The problem of unsourced BLPs (a subset of a larger problem) is not going to be solved on ANI, nor it is going to be solved by individual editors who think they're on a mission from god and therefore sod the rest of you dummies. We'll deal with unsourced BLPs best if we work on it together, and people not interested in doing that, or more interested in scoring points against foes, threatening them directly or implicitly, or making over the top pronouncements (like this ridiculous thing I'm writing!) should seriously just stop talking. If these kind of discussions make you lash out at others, then don't participate in them. These support/oppose pissing matches could not be more disheartening, and it's precisely these kind of conversations that have in significant part led to BLPs being a problem for so long. It's the fault of all of us for often being more interested in fighting and/or sticking to our self-righteous guns than actually trying to work together to solve the problem. I'm not sure why this thread pushes me over the top to write a goddamn it! comment like this, but I'm pretty disgusted by the lot of us, which includes me for even sticking this stupid goddamn comment here. In the time we spend arguing about this and coming to no conclusion we could have probably dealt with about 100 of these articles (or at least collegially discussed a way to better expedite the cleanup process). But I guess that would also take away the fun of yelling about it. We have a very real "BLP problem" that affects real people, but we also have a "BLP problem" in that the very topic leads to huge e-fights that a lot of Wikipedians clearly get off on. If you think that's not you it might be good to think about it some more. That's what I'm a gonna do. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 00:48, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

• The problem is that UnitAnode's actions make coperation effectively imposible.©Geni 01:07, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

• Well at least you've left some room for negotiation and further discussion! Oh wait. And don't get me wrong, I'm not endorsing how Unitanode has approached this, I'm just saying that when both sides say "we can't work with them, they don't get it" that pretty much becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. At least 60-70% of this discussion is based on personal and quasi-philosophical animus, and that's why it isn't going anywhere and hasn't in years. A lot of people who have perfectly good intentions are to blame for that because they started seeing other editors as very-bad-guys quite some time ago and now that's just about all they see when a BLP issue comes up (I plead guilty to doing that too). Somewhere between the polls of "Unitanode can do whatever they want and so can anyone else" and "Unitanode is totally banned from doing this one thing" is a perfectly acceptable solution that probably everyone could agree to if they could drop the sniping and the deep, deep assumptions of bad faith. The first step into changing the dynamic here is realizing that the current one is unacceptable, that it's not solving the problems we need to solve, and that to an extent we are responsible for the failure to work together to fix what needs fixing, which is at the core of how we (supposedly) do things on this project. Laying blame on Mr. X, or Ms. Z, or Category-of-Editor Y just perpetuates this depressing (and frankly selfish, on the part of all us collectively) bullshit. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 01:27, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

• Geni: Bull. I have found that UnitAnode is easy to work with, if you actually try. Have you tried to cooperate with him? Asked him to slow down a bit while you worked on items he marked as needing attention? No. Here are your recent user talk page contributions: [38] ... the only time you were on Unitanode's page, was to start a rather belligerent thread entitled Okey_what_is_your_justification. Get a grip, Geni. If you want cooperation, you have to actually be cooperative. Not belligerent. Bigtimepeace is right. More cooperation might be a good place to start. Anyone who turns up at my talk page asking for help gets it. Anyone who turns up at my talk page asking for a fight gets that too. ++Lar: t/c 01:33, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

• Or, "Anyone who turns up at my talk page asking for a fight won't find one, because it would be a waste of time for both of us, and I'm only interested in constructive collaborative efforts." I guess that's more what I had in mind. I've already commented here three times more than I should have so I'm done now. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 04:49, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

• The key point is that there is a difference between politely seeking cooperation (and then perhaps not getting it) and turning up at a talk page spoiling for a fight and then complaining about not getting cooperation. Those who seek cooperation are far more likely to get cooperation. Geni wasn't, any claims made to the contrary. Geni was spoiling for a fight. That sort of behavior needs to stop. ++Lar: t/c 14:59, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose. Anyone who seriously thinks that a well-known, good faith editor who is removing unsourced BLP information should be constrained for doing what is in the best interest of Wikipedia is themself not looking out for the best interest of Wikipedia. Woogee (talk) 01:42, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse the user's actions. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 02:33, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose prevention of anyone from removing unsourced material from BLPs. If you think the material is correct, find a source and add it back. If you are not sure, or can't find the source, it should stay out. Anyone cleaning up the unsourced BLP mess should be commended. Crum375 (talk) 04:57, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support. I would support more strongly a topic ban on Unitanode from BLPs. He/she has not only shown no interest in improving articles by sourcing them, he/she has shown a clear antipathy to doing so and persists in purely destructive behavior against the consensus of other editors. This is not the sort of editing behavior that can be trusted in sensitive areas such as BLPs. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:03, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

It is quite clear that there is nowhere near a consensus for this "proposed restriction", so I am proposing something different: collapse this section and point people to the RFC at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people/Content. JBsupreme (talk) 06:20, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree that it appears unlikely that a topic ban will gain consensus, although I note that there are strong opinions voiced on both sides. I would leave it open for perhaps a full day to make sure anyone who wants has a chance to weigh in. I haven't endorsed that myself, I would just hope for a more collaborative approach as Lar suggests. A clarification of policy based on an RfC is probably a more productive way to go about things, and anything else is just a stopgap. - Wikidemon (talk) 06:39, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikidemon, "unlikely that a topic ban will gain consensus" is an disingenuous way to characterize the debate. Might I suggest, alternatively, that a better summary might be "an editing restriction was resoundingly rejected"? Or perhaps, "Consensus was that Unitanode's edits were not problematic but rather were beneficial"? CIreland (talk) 13:12, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Et tu? 10 to 14 is not "resoundingly rejected". "No consensus" is more appropriate. –xeno^talk 15:28, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

As an aside, the response to this proposal illustrates the disconnect between ANI and the wider community, which is more accurately represented in the longer-running and higher-participation BLP RFC. Editors should have a responsibility to respect that clearly expressed view. Rd232 ^talk 16:09, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Disingenuous? Gee, thanks for the assumption of good faith. No, I was being charitable. The fact that an editor's mass edits gain so much opposition that a sizeable minority of people watching AN/I would topic ban them means they are problematic and do not have consensus. Mass edits of any sort really ought to have consensus, and can be undone per BRD. Further, a considerable number of those opposing the restriction are arguing against current policy or clearly misinterpreting it. If this were a deletion debate those would be discounted or ignored. But this is AN/I, where discussion often grinds down to a stalemate. I'm simply observing that the way things work around here, it does not seem likely that an administrator would step in to enact this proposal. - Wikidemon (talk) 17:36, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

• I am amazed to hear people here say that it is better to remove material than source it, and that contentious means "any material that someone would like removed". I could claim that the sources for almost any material at all was not quite adequate, and remove it , saying it was contentious because I contested it. Contentious means reasonably seen as questionable, not what some person may take it in their head to want to remove. In general, routine biographical facts are not contentious. Somewhere above someone said all unsourced claims of degrees should be removed. In three years here, out of tens of thousands of these, I've seen one proven false, and a few where the nature of the institution or the degree was perhaps not fairly stated. These all occurred in articles where essentially the entire career seemed inconsistent, or the overall assertions of notability wildly exaggerated. in all such cases, the article was deleted or truncated, as appropriate for material that could not be documented. (& in some of these I did a good deal of work personally in making sure it was removed.) The difference is between presently un documented and can not be documented. Almost always , routine biographical detail, even if formally published, is associated ultimately with an official or formal statement by the subject, which has always been accepted in RSN as a sufficient source unless there is a reasonable challenge. for example, an author tells a publisher when he was born, and the publisher prints it in the book; the Library of Congress copies it from there--or if not stated, writes to the author and asks him, and accepts his word for it, and we accept their record as authoritative. Certainly people sometimes deceive in such matters, but not frequently enough that we insist on birth certificates. (If there is a reported dispute, of course we source and report it.)
  

In particular, the editor we are discussing has typically deleted material consisting of one paragraph of general puffery or unsourced opinion, and one of almost certainly true biographical details. Half of that is right to remove, without bothering too hard to source it. (I note that then people seeing only the facts of a persons professional career, complain irrelevantly that the article should be deleted because it does not contain enough personal information). What I look for in any article I see is puffery and promotionalism, and I remove it. That's the real threat to Wikipedia, that we be seen as a publicity medium. Some of the statements here are like people worrying about avoiding extremely rare diseases while continuing to smoke. Let's first look for material that is really questionable, and remove it. There's no problem finding it. DGG ( talk ) 14:06, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. The key policy is called Verifiability. Fundamentally it means content must be verifiable with reference to external reliable sources, and cannot be defended purely on the basis of "I know it's true". It does not mean that everything not verified (to what standard?) should be removed immediately, purely because it is unverified. Content should be removed if reasonable attempts to verify it have failed; or if attempts cannot be made at present but the material is contentious enough (other than being unsourced) to justify pre-empting attempts to verify. Aside: besides confusing unverified and unverifiable, people are confusing verified with sourced. Just because it has a footnote doesn't mean it's verified to a reasonable standard. The most serious BLP violations which actually matter for the subject ("X is dead" is just embarrassing for Wikipedia) are those which appear to be verified by sources, so that readers give much greater credence to the false/misleading claims. Rd232 ^talk 16:09, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support proposed restriction. Regardless of one's opinion on BLP policy, Unitanode's approach is problematically belligerent. For example, he says, "Your uncivil condescension aside...I'm disengaging, s conversing with you is pointless," only two continue the discussion two minutes later, followed up by calling the editor a liar. So, regardless of where any of us stand on the policy issues, this particular user's approach is incredibly antagonistic. His dispute with particular editors are occuring in multiple venues and for anyone it is probably best to walk away on Wikipedia when things are escalating so intensely. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 16:13, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
• What bullshit. No, per Lar, Bali ultimate and others. I especially like BigtimePeace's comments. These mobbings at ANI are a problem that needs sorting. Any littlun can show up and start a shite-storm.
  Here's a Bold Idea™ —Any ANI thread that's not a run-of-the-mill call for a mop in aisle 6 gets bumped to a protected subpage where only admins comment. This would, presumably, keep things focused and produce results rather than noise. Oh, the mob would be free to swarm the subpage's talk page and be largely ignored (kind of like AC/workshop pages;). Sincerely, Jack Merridew 16:41, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support per above. WP:BLP says that contentious material that is unsourced is to be removed, not all unsourced material. UnitAnode does not have the right to unilaterally change policy, take ownership of the project himself, or put himself above the community the way he has. The number of supports to this restriction should be enough to tell him that his actions are not supported in the eyes of the community. Resolute 17:04, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support. Follow policy. The policy is about Contentious material.

"Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion.[2] As of January 2010, a push to source all material about living persons is under way. A discussion of how to accomplish this is taking place at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people."

I find it odd it mentions that there is a push to source all materials. Why is that on a policy page? Anyway, it hasn't been pushed through yet. If the material is not contentious, then you don't have the right to simply remove it instantly. Form a consensus on the talk page. Dream Focus 18:28, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose unequivocally. BLPs are the worst of the festering sores besetting Wikipedia's decomposing corpse, and anything that wipes up the pus is a good thing. Endorse this user's actions in their entirety. → ROUX ₪ 18:40, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support The does appear to be a unilateral and destructive reinterpretation of policy intended for contentious content.Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:35, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose restriction. A referenced stub is more useful to the hapless soul who comes to Wikipedia looking for information than a bloated mass of speculation, puffery and, potentially, libel.   pablo_hablo. 20:18, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support As reasonable pending outcome of the RfC. Noting, particularly, that the incidence of "libel" appears an order of magnitude greater in "referenced" material than in short BLPs. Collect (talk) 20:39, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support: The policy specifies contentious. Quoting Jclemens, "Most BLPs, even those that are unreferenced are innocuous, provide useful material, and do no harm." While violations certainly do exist, mass deletion or stubbification probably affects far more good faith pages than bad ones: creating unwarranted collateral damage. Sifaka ^talk 21:34, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

• What "collateral damage"? I fail to see any "collateral damage" in not having unsourced information in a BLP. UnitAnode 21:37, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support. Unitanode is just being plain lazy. Any other editor could manage a Google search, but Unitanode thinks he's special. He's not. Quit the crusade, there is no rush to remove uncontentious material. Unitanode should join all the other editors who are working through the backlog in a discriminate manner. Fences&Windows 22:22, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

• I'm being lazy? Have you even seen my work page?!? I may be a lot of things on-wiki, but lazy isn't one of them. That's just bullshit. I've been working hard on these articles. I can (and do) take a lot of criticism for my work, but that is the single most ill-informed and ignorant bit of criticism I've yet seen. You do understand that -- in addition to the awful removal of unsourced material from BLPs that you guys are bitching about -- I've also cleaned up references, formatted things so it reads better, and even caught a couple of blatant copyvios. But by all means, call me fucking lazy. UnitAnode 01:31, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

• I'm sure that those who review matters he will agree you are working hard at an important task. But other people are working hard too.... the backlog is going down, and that's a good thing. Together we can address this. But calling people lazy doesn't help. Fences&Windows was out of line with that characterization. I'm sure in a less heated moment he/she will apologize. And so should you, I think. We need to not let our tempers fray. Easy advice to give, hard advice to take. ++Lar: t/c 02:42, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support: As said before – The policy specifies contentious. --Kleinzach 03:05, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support Per Xeno, JohnWBarber, Resolute and DreamFocus. This is a collaborative project, and Unitanode's dismissal of the clearly defined concerns of his fellow collaborators as "bitching" is obnoxious. Warrah (talk) 03:09, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. Editors routinely remove whole sections of unsourced material. This recently happened at List of people from Leeds. Was it particularly "contentious" that those people were from Leeds or not? Not really. Did I go around bitching about it? No, I sourced the entries instead. Now we have a better article. Looking through unitanode's contributions I do not see these edits happening at such a vast rate. In any case, as we are constantly reminded, there is no time limit. The info is still in the article history. If someone wants to make a list of the articles unitanode has removed unsourced stuff from they are quite welcome to. They could then go through and source it at their own leisure. Hey presto - we have a better encylopedia! Quantpole (talk) 09:01, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

• I've already made such a list, Quantpole. It's right near the top of my userpage, for anyone to click on, if they'd like to see. UnitAnode 15:19, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:BLP, WP:RS and WP:V. 67.51.38.51 (talk) 18:42, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

RfC

I've opened up an RfC on the policy question here:Wikipedia:RFC/BLPContent. I'm not too familiar with RfCs so I could use some help regarding any notifications, templates, certification, etc. I hope we can minimize discussion here regarding what the policy is and shoud be. We can't set policy here. It should be pretty obvious that people disagree on what the policy is. The question I posed and hope to answer is whether we can allow UnitAnode to continue doing mass edits despite objections, while the discussion continues. I would think the answer is obvious but some people oboviously believe that the normal rules don't apply where BLP is concerned. - Wikidemon (talk) 00:12, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

That seems a rather non neutral statement of matters. ++Lar: t/c 14:54, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

It's also rather redundant to the larger discussion already ongoing. A discussion that I wish people like Unitanode would take the time to respect rather than impose their own personal policy on everyone. Resolute 17:08, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Which part isn't neutral: (1) I am not familiar with RfCs and could use help, (2) I hope we can minimize policy discussion at AN/I, (3) People disagree on the policy, (4) I posed a question, (5) UnitAnode is doing mass edits while the discussion continues, (6) there are objections to the mass edits, (7) I think the answer is obvious, or (7) Some people believe that BLP trumps normal BRD / CONSENSUS rules? I've carefully limited the subject to the question of editing, and edit warring, over objections based on a disputed interpretation of policy, and my request to simply pause that until the community decides what policy is. Responses like "we can't have unsourced information in BLPs" are policy arguments better made in that discussion, not this one. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:30, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll give you 1 and 2 as neutral but the rest, not so much. Your rewords the second time might be a bit better. But whenever you say "it seems obvious that most", you might instead say "23 out of 27 opinions expressed were in favor of" and the like. ++Lar: t/c 21:49, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

That's rather extreme. I guess your views must be polarized here. Each of those statements is very straightforward, unbiased, and demonstrable - the one place where I state my opinion I do so because it is relevant to explaining the basis for what I'm doing, and I qualify it with "I think". Frankly, I've bent over backwards to try to be fair and hold my tongue on any complaints both here and in the RfC - I'm getting attacked and accused of all kinds of things per the norm around here but I just don't want to play that game. - Wikidemon (talk) 23:13, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

YOU start a second ANI thread on ME, and create a proposal that I be banned from removing unsourced material from BLPs, and then have the gall to claim that YOU are being attacked?!? That seems like more than a bit of hubris. UnitAnode 23:15, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

It is an observation. You accuse me of things for occasionally reverting deletions that I considered unwarranted,[39] you accuse me for notifying you that I will file an AN/I report if you continue edit warring to undo my R in the BRD cycle, you accuse me of things for actually filing a report when you do continue,[40] and now you accuse me of bad faith for filing the RfC I told you yesterday I would file.[41] It is hard to view this statement[42] (which is untrue) as anything but an accusation of bad faith. I asked you there to remove it. Will you remove it? It is not a proper comment for an RfC. Please try to tone down the accusatory rhetoric. I have avoided the wider behavioral issues here, but you may do well to explore the reasons why you have had conflicts with so many editors in different topic areas. This one fits into a common pattern. - Wikidemon (talk) 23:35, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

• Would someone please close this mess? I'm tired as hell of Wikidemon hounding me, and then accusing me of hounding him. At some point, he needs to stop pummeling the carcas of a non-living equine. UnitAnode 23:46, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Will you hold off on any more deletions until we have a chance to assess community consensus at the RfC? You can surely see from the above that there is a lot of opposition and desire that you do so. If so the matter is done and we can discuss what the policy should be. - Wikidemon (talk) 00:03, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

No, I will not. Unsourced material has no place in a BLP. UnitAnode 01:26, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

And if I restore deleted content to an article because after review I believe the content to be both verifiable and uncontentious, will you let the content stand and seek consensus if you disagree per WP:BRD? - Wikidemon (talk) 02:07, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Only if you source it properly. Unsourced material has no place in BLPs and putting it back does nothing to solve the problem. Work with UnitAnode instead of being at loggerheads. ++Lar: t/c 02:16, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

• Per Lar, if you source it properly, or come to my talkpage (or the talkpage of the article) to inform me that you're in the process of sourcing it in the next few minutes, I'll let it stand. But no, if you simply readd unsourced material into BLPs, I will not let that content stand. UnitAnode 02:26, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

UnitAnode and Wikidemon - you both are at or past the point that your actions are becoming disruptive on this point. On opposite ends of the spectrum, you're disrupting the community policy process and pushing buttons attempting to combatively establish precedent.

The time for swinging hammers around to try and score points on this issue is over. You are both violating WP:DISRUPT and WP:AGF, regarding each other and regarding others, reviewing upthread further.

Further disruption would be extremely unadvisable. This has to end. Right here and now would be preferable. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 02:27, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

If you have something to say, say it Herbert. If you mean that I shouldn't post to this discussion anymore, fine. I won't. If you mean I should stop working on BLPs as I've been doing, I'll have to respectfully decline. UnitAnode 02:30, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

There is a slight majority consensus upthread for a topic ban on that behavior. At the very least there is significant objection and indication that you're pushing past commmunity consensus supported activity here.

I would rather let everyone continue to stay involved in the policy discussions and get to a position of agreement overall. But continuing controversial actions after over half of respondents say "stop", in the face of ongoing active policymaking efforts to determine what community consensus really is, is textbook disruption.

The community loses if we keep having people fight this issue out in this manner, outside the policymaking process and without regard to civil consensus building and the community as a whole. If you will not respect that, then you are placing yourself outside the Wikipedia community.

Any of the policy proposals which are floating around now are acceptable end results. Continued fighting over the topic area is not. I strongly urge you to step away from active measures which remain highly controversial and work to help stabilize a consensus for a workable policy. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 02:46, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

(ec)As long as UnitAnode is working at this in a calm reasoned manner, and people aren't provoking him, and he's not provoking others, and the rest of the community can keep up, there is no need for extreme measures. I again assert that if people ask for cooperation, they will get it. Can we try to start again, and put all this fighting aside for a while and work on the problem of fixing the BLPs? That goes for everyone. ++Lar: t/c 02:52, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

The proposed topic ban and its discussion are significant evidence that the extremes of both sides are currently outside the current community consensus. Wikidemon is assuming policy decisons will end up one estreme way, UA assuming the other extreme way, and both are acting on those presumptions and in a confrontational manner.

These two specifically are butting heads significantly. In general; I believe that the extreme reactions this is engendering (still) indicate that the time for boldly pushing on this is past, until the community hashes some more out.

The middle has to hold here. Fixing articles is great. Fighting over bold actions, in this area, is not great anymore. If people are not going to pay regard to avoiding disruption and respecting the policy process and community writ large, we need to stop that.

As I said - any of the policy proposals are ok. What is not OK is presuming that your preferred one has passed, and attacking others on that basis. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 03:05, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I haven't been "confrontational" at all, unless attacked at my talkpage. I've just been working on the 242 articles that I initially worked on last week. UnitAnode 03:07, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I urge you to re-read your comments above in the proposed topic ban section, and reconsider whether you are being confrontational or not.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 03:13, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I think I was pretty clear that I'm not confrontational unless people attack me unjustly. This is the second time someone has started a pointless ANI about me. When someone's trying to get me topic-banned for simply removing unsourced material from BLPs, then yes, I get a bit frustrated. UnitAnode 03:17, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

There's currently a 19:17:1 consensus for topic banning you from that activity. You are acting on the presumption that you are obviously gloriously in the right here, and that there are unfair people attacking you for it.

I as an uninvolved administrator would like to insist that your presumption is a presumption, not settled policy, and insist that you respect what the community feels on this topic as well. If the proposal got a 19:17:1 majority to topic ban you, it was not pointless. It was at the very least representing a strong minority of vocal opinion, and apparently a plurality thereof.

Wikidemon is presuming that the opposite policy stance will prevail. In that sense, he's not being any more fair or reasonable than you are. Neither of you are being helpful on that regard.

Please stop pushing so hard. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 03:27, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

• Not sure what you even mean by a "slight majority consensus" Herbert. There's no such thing as a "slight majority consensus." And I'm going to keep working on my little corner of this problem. I worked with 242 articles last week. I'm still working on various aspects of those 242 articles. UnitAnode 02:58, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Compromise?

I suggest that if UnitAnode sticks to those 242 articles, there really is no problem here for others to get so concerned about. The community as a whole can easily deal with whatever PRODs result. There's no need for Wikidemon to reinsert unsourced material, which really isn't helpful and maybe everyone can draw a line and resolve to be less belligerent going forward. Cooperation, not confrontation. ++Lar: t/c 03:19, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I would like to clarify here - I am not edit warring, I am asking for a community discussion. I have selectively restored information to four or five articles, all after careful review, and have not reverted a second time. In most cases I reviewed the deletions and let them stand; in others I added some sources. Undoing controversial mass edits is permissible per BRD, and past deletion campaigns in this area and others have been undone en masse, generally not by me, when found not to have consensus. I am being a lot more measured and by-the-book here. AN/I reports for behavior, and RfCs for unsolved content and process questions, are how you're supposed to handle disagreements that cannot be resolved through discussion. It's best to take what I say at face value here and not assume motivations or beliefs here. Any assumption that I hold an "extreme" position is wrong. I am not a proponent of unsourced information of any sort in any article. Rather, I am concerned about mass-edits that are made without coordination or agreement among editors. My rhetorical questions here are to illustrate the problem with letting things stand without resolution. If you think that is disruptive, then allowing for my particular position regarding mass edits, what else should I have done? I'm not going to edit war, and discussion has run out, so what other possible recourse did I have? I believe the provisional resolution here to maintain the status quo while we discuss what to do is exactly what I asked for here - I appreciate your asking for a solution, Georgewilliamherbert, and I will abide by that. Meanwhile there is an RfC and whatever the outcome, I respect that process.- Wikidemon (talk) 03:42, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Can we find a compromise that works? How about this: UnitAnode, you stay on your list of 242 until and unless every single one is properly sourced or deleted (in which case let someone else make up a list for you), or a process is decided on by community consensus, and Wikidemon, if you choose to reinsert material that was removed, instead of sourcing it, make a note of that on UnitAnode's worklist so others can easily find it and try to source it. UnitAnode won't reinsert stuff. If no one does source it after a reasonable time, it may get prodded (again?) or AfDed. This is "roughly" the process that the RfC seemed to favor most and it's a reasonable compromise. Would you 2 agree to that, and to dialing down the invective? ++Lar: t/c 03:49, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I will not re-insert anything from that list of 242 without adding a reliable source to it. - Wikidemon (talk) 04:13, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Excellent! Thank you, Wikidemon!!! By the way I meant "UnitAnode won't redelete stuff", not reinsert, that was a typo. Apologies for any confusion. UnitAnode, will you confine yourself to that list for now, then, and dial down the invective? Even if you feel you were provoked? ++Lar: t/c 04:33, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

The only time I've even sworn is when I was called lazy. As for "confining" myself to those 242 for now, I've already been doing so. So, yeah, I guess I agree to that. I'm just tired of being attacked again and again and again. UnitAnode 04:40, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

The underlying problem here is the confrontational actions regarding BLP articles and confrontational treatment of editors who complain about it. I agree that a cooperative attitude would go far. Unitanode has been asked to stop deleting, and the proper response in a collegial environment would be to cooperate with such requests rather than brush them off. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:32, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

May I request closure? Discussion has died down, the parties have compromised, there's an active RfC, and no administrative attention is needed at this time. Thanks for all who stopped by. I hope some good can come of the attention to unsourced BLP info, particularly at the RfC. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:00, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Would also reccomend closure. Everything that can be said has been said... –xeno^talk 19:06, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

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

Personal attacks against me on and off site by User:92.3.214.51

Editor Antmarkhemingway and a series of anon ips have trying to add a site that has been blacklisted as spam by Hu12. The user uses a variety of IP addresses from the same internet company in the UK. The user, who has admitted he is the owner of the site, has continuously used abusive language against people who have kept his websites off wikipeida per policy.

Now, an anon IP editor is now attacking me as well as editor Momusufan on the message boards on the banned site -- and asking me to check out these attacks on my talk page (which I will not take off for now). I am not sure this is the proper place for this discussion, but, I believe this crosses the line. Thank you. XinJeisan (talk) 21:37, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

What is the objection to the link? It appears to be the official web site of the band in question; such links are standard, are they not? If the band's official web site is on the blacklist, it's easy to understand why fans are irritated. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 21:43, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Because the owner of the site had previously put obviously incorrect information about another former Bananarama member,Jacquie O'Sullivan, (see Talk:Jacquie O'Sullivan, on the site that the owner claims to be official as well. There is no evidence to suggest the site is official besides the owner calling itself official. You can see the discussion before it was blacklisted as well. XinJeisan (talk) 21:48, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

On the forum, they're saying that the official web site address is published on the band's album. I don't have any copies of the band's album; does anyone else? -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 22:05, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Just for full disclosure: I've registered at the forum and had a short discussion with the webmaster there. I'm hoping to find a scan of the album that has the web address on it, which would resolve the question pretty neatly. And if it isn't on the album... that would resolve it pretty neatly, too. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 22:25, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

And now I'm going rollerskating for the evening, so that's all I'll be doing on it. Whee! -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 22:35, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

If it can be proven that it is official, that's fine. That isn't my concern, per se. (I believe there is a lot of circumstantial evidence that says that it is not actually an official page, although using unreliable/biases sources for BLP pages -- which is what the "fan page" was being used for especially those that aren't being followed closely is very problematic) but, the user has time and again personally attacked people as opposed to acting civil. Because of major errors made on websites administered by the same person, as well as his unprofessional conduct here on Wikipedia in answering legitimate questions about the nature of the site, its difficult to believe that this website is an "official" website, and not just a fan site.

Also, just to be clear, I have no real issue with this band, etc. I came aware of this through the false information about that was listed on the Jacquie O'Sullivan (that she was working for a "Lee Dennison" which a different problematic editor added to Wikipeida (see the Ron Livingston talk page for more information about that), that was then most likely subsequently added to the Jacquie O'Sullivan website. So, it seems that the webmaster was using Wikipedia as a source for information on his websites. The owner claims both the websites are official, and claims to be the webmaster of both. The owner also wishes to not only list the website, but to use the website as reliable source, which, because of the errors that have previously been shown to occur on these websites, is problematic.

Also, with things for sale on his website (although, curiously enough for an official website, not the new album which is released under the artists self-owned label), the webmaster also as a personal, financial stake in using Wikipedia for advertising to get the word out about his website.

However, his constant rebuttal to the suggestion that these are not in fact official sites has constantly been "because I say so," becoming uncivil when people do not take his word for it. That incivility actually is the larger issue. This continuous incivility is why I brought this here. XinJeisan (talk) 23:47, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Official Shakespears Sister And Siobhan Fahey Web Site

Thank you FisherQueen for visiting our forum. I have uploaded the evidence here:: www. shakespears sister.co.uk/SFTRR.jpg (please remove the space between shakespears and sister ) I would like to complain here myself for the unfair treatment from XinJeisan, who in my opinion has totally acted in an unprofessional manner. Firstly; Songs From The Red Room, is not sold via the website, as it is a new release and availble via retailers during its Charting period. Websites very rarely sell new releases through their own web site, they usually provie and external link to another retailer, as we have done. Secondly, I totally think that XinJeisan is talking of another L Dennison, as I have no idea what that discussion is about on Ron Livingstons talk page. I can confirm I am the webmaster of both Jacquie O'Sullivan and Siobhan Fahey, both former members of Bananarama. Jacquie O'sullivan did work for L Dennison Associates where she casted dancers for music videos productions. My "attacks" on XinJesian were not exactly attacks, they were simply my opinion, and at first i was polite when I asked to why these sites were being removed. But my frustration, built as clearly Xinjesian and Momusfan clearly were not researching the matter properly. Finally, as for advertising, it has always been a well known fact to fans that the MGA Sessions was strictly a web site release! Sold exclusively on Fahey's old web site siobhanfahey.com, and now sold on her new site shakespears sister. co. uk. This wasnt an advertisment, it was helpful information to fans. Thank you for taking time to review this matter. And for the record, shakespears sister.co.uk should eb applied to both Siobhan Fahey and Shakespears Sister wiki pages, as Shakespears Sister is Siobhan Fahey.

May i also ad that Xinjesian claims that i have used multiple IPS is totally untrue and with propper research you can see this. I have the one IP address, and my service provider is not Carphone warehouse and never has been. I think Xinjesian saw that our forum members were trying to add the site in support of Siobhan, and he/she has assumed/accused me of chaging my IP address. I really do not appreciate being accused of that. Antmarkhemingway (talk) 00:35, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Given that the image in question seems to show that this is indeed the official web site, I think that it should be removed from the blacklist. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 03:40, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

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Registrant(Owner) of these sites is Anthony Hemingway (AKA Antmarkhemingway (talk · contribs))^[43][44]. Long term spamming and abuse including Moving ones own link "UP", which is never a sign of good faith, and off site harassment and personal attacks origionating on the site in question. I Would find it difficult to believe this is anything more than a fan-spammed-site. I see no need for the continued disruption, harassment and abuse that has occured by this individual.--Hu12 (talk) 06:28, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Concur with Hu12. I suspect that Antmarkhemingway is running sanctioned fansites with permission from Jacquie O'Sullivan and Siobhan Fahey (so "official" in a manner of speaking). However, even if these were official sites registered to the band/record company/individuals involved, there's nothing to say that we have to include them. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia first and foremost and not here to drive web traffic to external sites or provide a fan service. Unfortunately we can only go by the behaviour we observe and Antmarkhemingway has done his sites no favours by behaving like a spammer. Looking at the history of spamming and disruption, I see no compelling reason why these sites should be unblacklisted. EyeSerene^talk 10:15, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Hu12 is being very petty now i think! And this is not meant in a rude way, but if you knew anything about the internet, a persons IP changes regular, so that is something that is not my problem. Why would i go through the trouble to change my IP address for the sake of editing here? I am a webmaster and know full well that IP addresses are traceable even when changed.

Shakespearssister.co.uk is Siobhan Fahey's web site and port of call. All news is posted their, and it is the place for media and fans alike. Those interviews you refer to on the wikipage were actually arranged via ss.co.uk!!! It is not a "fan site", and i really wish you would stop using that term, as you are really getting quite annoying now. Wikipedia has used information from ss.co.uk, but when teh contributors try and reference ss.co.uk they haven't been able to! Antmarkhemingway (talk) 10:35, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

If the band itself publishes the address as the go-to site on its albums, I'm not sure why it would not be an 'official' site. I don't really understand why this site is blacklisted, and I'm not convinced it's 'spamming' to have it in the article; most musician articles include the musician's main site with no problems. The band doesn't appear to be obscure or non-notable, after all. I have been horrified by some of the uncivil behavior I've seen from some of the people trying to add it, but we don't usually blacklist sites for that reason. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 20:57, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

There are such things as "official" fansites, where the quality and expertise of the host created pages serve as useful publicity tools - and whose addresses are reproduced on some of the artists products. I know, because I belong to one. This doesn't mean that what is reproduced there is necessarily representative of the subject, since it is the editorial decision of the site owner, but the relationship is sufficiently beneficial to be given "official" recognition. While not an unreliable source, such sites should be treated with caution when it is the only available reference. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:08, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

That makes sense; I'm willing to let this be decided by people more learned in the subject than me. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 21:10, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

May i ad for one final time that this is certainly not a "fan site" it fully represents the band. But how can i prove this? Just becasue the site isnt registered to Shakespears Sister??? I purchased the domain and hosting in my name as i pay for the hosting on behalf of Siobhan fahey. All i ask is people just take a look at the site and look at its content, its clearly represenative of the band and all the information on the site is 100% correct and accurate. Antmarkhemingway (talk) 21:20, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I think what generally separates a "fan site" from an "official site" is that the former is amateur (as in "labour of love") and the latter is professional. Are you paid by Siobhan Fahey or her management, or do you do this as a fan? Your comment about paying for hosting "on behalf of" Fahey is a bit confusing. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 21:42, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

(ec)Is it possible to link to a statement from the artiste(s) (management) saying the website is the sole legal online representative of said artiste(s). This might be linked from the artistes record label or management website. It should also note where editorial control is exercised, and by whom. Another avenue, likely preferred by WP, would be if an independent source noted that the site was the official online representation of the subject(s). That said, I would draw your attention to thebansheesandothercreatures, whose address has recently appeared on releases by Siouxsie & the Banshees, The Creatures, and Siouxsie Sioux and is linked from their official sites and record label websites, and that of Steven Severin. Despite this "recognition" (and the accuracy of its content) it remains a fan site since the editor - who owns the site - is independent of the artists; it is one of the acknowledged "official" fansites. Under the circumstances, clarification of the status of "your" website is required before WP can describe it as being that of the subjects. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:51, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes the site is linked on the bands record label web site http://www.cargorecords.co.uk/artist/5136 Thanks, Antmarkhemingway (talk) 22:20, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay. What about statements to the effect that the site is legally the official website from Fahey, her management or record label, or an independent third party to that effect, and whether you are acting on behalf of or are an employee of the artist or their record label? I would draw your attention to the earlier comments also from HU12 and EyeSerene regarding your interaction with other editors and inappropriate "promoting" of the website. Even if the website is removed from the blacklist, there would need to be an improvement in your behaviour. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:32, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Note that Cargo Records is a 'distributor of independant records labels" [45], and not the artist's label. XinJeisan (talk) 23:36, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Sure, no problem. but that just came with the fustration. it isnt hugely important that the site is listed here, but i just think it looks better, as most other artists have their sites linked. I will refrain from editing the Siobhan Fahey page and Shakespears sister page, and will let whoever ad it Antmarkhemingway (talk) 23:06, 4 February 2010 (UTC).

I think that might be helpful. It's edits like this that sparked my concern; it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what Wikipedia is for and casts doubt on your motives for editing the article. Per WP:ELNO criterion 1, we only need include external links that add content beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article. That's deliberately a very high bar; if the external site's content is already covered by the article (perhaps as a source for the content), we don't need to include it as a separate external link as it adds no extra value. Exceptions are offsite content that we can't host for whatever reason (for example, the original text of a document that's discussed in an article but that can't be quoted in full without breaching someone's copyright). Like LHvU I have some reservations about using the site as a source, but that's another discussion. EyeSerene^talk 11:09, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

But couldn't we at least have the site listed on the URL of Siobhan Fahey's profile. Its only fair i think. Bananarama's website doesnt offer any further information thats on their wikipedia and their site is on here, even their youtube and myspace are listed! http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Bananarama I was told that youtubes and myspaces were not allowed, so thats is why i took all this a persoanl dig at the band, because it seemed Siobhan's former band was allowed their site, youtube, myspace etc. but not her, This wa my issue all along. Antmarkhemingway (talk) 15:28, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

• If Antmarkhemingway withdraws from editing the article I think there should be no reason to have the site unblacklisted and placed in the appropriate place in the article. As long as it is not being used or promoted as a reliable source then I feel it may well be included. Does anybody know how to do the unblacklist thingy? LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:47, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I will certainly withdraw from editing the article. I would just be very happy to see the site in the URL section of Siobhan Fahey and Shakespears Sister's profile pages if possible as they are very reliable sources. All information on SS.co.uk is accurate and approved by Siobhan (afterall, she did write the bio), I just thought it would be fair, since, as stated above, Wikipedia actually has MORE information on Bananarama than their official site does itself, in my honest opinion, and their site and youtube channels are listed. Antmarkhemingway (talk) 22:22, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

And I also would like to appologuise for past behaviour, and i feel like i have learnt a lot about Wikipedia from the experience, and appreciate it much more. Antmarkhemingway (talk) 22:26, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Sterile revert warring

Resolved

 – Content dispute - no admin intervention necessary at this time. —DoRD (?) (talk) 00:32, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Wiki.Tango.Foxtrot (talk · contribs) is engaging in sterile revert warring in violation of WP:STATUSQUO. The account has made a number of edits at List of Internet phenomena, one of those edits was to blank a section that has existed there for years. I reinserted the section and expected the account to then refrain from reverting and instead discuss and/or seek dispute resolution. Instead, he has engaged in a sterile revert war and referred to the section as "wrong" and promised to keep reverting me [46]. Per STATUSQUO, the status quo is to be retained and consensus is to be sought to CHANGE the status quo. This editor seems to refuse to accept this and states that the STATUSQUO policy does not apply because I am "wrong". Burpelson AFB (talk) 00:18, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Furthermore, I see other issues with his editing, including marking nearly all of his edits (including huge ones) as minor and using some rather questionable edit summaries. Burpelson AFB (talk) 00:21, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

This is irrelevant to this discussion. I almost always include an edit summary in every edit, and I don't see how any of them are "questionable". If I am being accused of vandalizing, that is a false accusation. WTF? (talk) 00:26, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't believe this is a violation of WP:STATUSQUO in this case because the reverts made by Burpelson AFB were done without any understanding to previous edits of the page. As I explained here, the email section was removed because those items simply do not fall under the category of "internet phenomena", and are really email hoaxes or false virus warnings. There's already a separate listing of Virus hoaxes as it is. I tried to explain myself reasonably, but that was reverted, hence why I reverted again. WTF? (talk) 00:24, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

You're trying to turn it into a content dispute. It's not, this is a complaint about your behavior, which is in violation of STATUSQUO. That guideline is clear. Two of the three listings wouldn't go in the virus hoaxes category anyway since they're not virus hoaxes. Burpelson AFB (talk) 00:28, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

(ec) This is a clear-cut content dispute. Take it back to the article talkpage, WP:CNB or WP:ANEW. If none of that works, try over there -->. —DoRD (?) (talk) 00:31, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

• Just a little post "resolved" comment - the account name is using a variant of phonetic spelling, substituting "Wiki" for the correct "Whiskey"; the meaning of their name being "W.T.F". I am sure that this will come as a complete shock to the editor, that their username might be misconstrued... LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:46, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Didn't happen to look at their signature up above, huh? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:28, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Not necessarily a complete shock. The username was intentional. ;-) WTF? (talk) 19:03, 4 February 2010 (UTC)q

... obviously not! LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:50, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Apparently, issue still remains here

Burpelson AFB added a 'possibly unfree image' tag to an image that I had uploaded (File:Drew curtis 2007 photo.jpg). The image came from Flickr, and the Flickr page itself clearly stated that the file may be copied as long as the image was credited to the original copyright holder. The image on Flickr is under the Creative Commons license, which is the same license I put it on when uploading it to Wikipedia. I am personally highly disappointed in this type of personal attack and I don't appreciate what this user is doing. WTF? (talk) 05:02, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

If you're going to claim copyright from Flickr, don't you need to specifically point to the Flickr page where the image came from, and where the CC copyright claim is located? Just claiming the image comes from Flickr isn't very helpful. 67.51.38.51 (talk) 16:17, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

It is correctly credited (for once, we're collectively not very good at this on across Wikimedia sites), but, yes, the Flickr link would be more useful in the Source: box rather than at the end of the Permission: box. But that's solved quite easily. ⇦REDVERS⇨ 16:22, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

My bad: it's correctly attributed; but the picture is not free in our sense of the word. It's non-commercial (Wikipedia material is used commercially) and it's no derivatives (files uploaded here are resized automatically by the software, creating instant derivatives). I'll restore the PUI notice. ⇦REDVERS⇨ 16:25, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

WTF, this is the third place in which you've accused me of personally attacking you and this is pure nonsense. As I've said several times now, I'm sorry we had a content dispute, however we were able to quickly work it out on the article talk page. I have no grudge against you. The license on Flickr is incompatible with Wikipedia because it is "Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic", which is not compliant with Wikipedia. The image has to be commercially reusable and modifiable. I didn't write the policy... if you think it should be changed you could suggest so and I would probably even back you up on it. Burpelson AFB (talk) 01:29, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Disruptive IP editor

Can something be done about this IP editor who is using these IPs 201.73.141.50 (talk · contribs) and 189.76.226.161 (talk · contribs)? The IPs are both from Brazil and are editing the same and only one article. First off, they are deliberately changing sourced data even though the sources do not agree, to make their edit "seem" legitimate and push their own POV. Secondly to make it seem like they're edits are legitimate, they are deleting references to what it seems like conceal information and lie. Furthermore, they have been disruptively editing on the only article they have been editing even despite warnings I gave for edit warring, they persist on reinstating the same edits (deleting references and changing sourced information). They also have been reverted by two other editors: Revert 1, Revert 2. Elockid ^(Talk·_Contribs) 03:48, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Reverted by another editor: Revert 3. Elockid ^(Talk·_Contribs) 23:02, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Can anyone please block those IPs? They're continuing to cause disruption. Elockid ^(Talk·_Contribs) 00:01, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Clearly you don't like the changes they're making, but I don't see how it's a blocking offense. I've semi-protected the page for a week to encourage discussion and prevent edit warring. As far as I can tell, it shouldn't be treated as vandalism. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 01:34, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to say thank you for protecting the page. I wasn't treating their edits as vandalism though, I would have given vandalism warnings otherwise or reported them to AIV. Also, it's not just me who has found their edits to be troublesome. Their edit has been reverted by 3 other editors as well multiple times, with one marking it as unconstructive (rollback used). Isn't their a problem with persistently changing cited information without explanation or adding new sources? Elockid ^(Talk·_Contribs) 01:45, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Personal attacks and disruption on Talk:Sarah Palin

We need an uninvolved admin at Talk:Sarah Palin, where Scribner (talk · contribs) has descended (again) into personal attacks and tendentious editing. Disregarding his total failure to assume good faith (towards any editor whose views differ from his own), he has made his current target SB_Johnny (talk · contribs) who was identified by the community as an uninvolved admin assigned to deal with disputes on the article. (See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive504#Sarah Palin probation proposal.) Since Johnny is the target of Scribner's abuse, he might be accused of a CoI if he blocks Scribner, so I am asking for another uninvolved editor to take a look and decide if action needs to be taken. FWIW, I have a long history of conflict with Scribner on this specific article (and no others), so take this report with a grain of salt. Horologium (talk) 04:44, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

He's pushed a lot, but not to the point of blockability quite, in my opinion. I have left a warning on his talk page. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 05:40, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Horologium, you've got history with this article that's quite embarrassing. (Redacted personal attack.) But, as an administrator and editor you're the worst I've encountered. Scribner (talk) 06:26, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Georgewilliamherbert, on top of Johnny's failed enforcement of policy regarding personal attacks, there's been retaliation edits on the TN GOP article by Malke. So, in attempting one simple edit on the Palin page, I feel like I've suffer three separate retaliations. Wiki at its worst. Scribner (talk) 06:26, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Is Palin alleged to have violated the law? Keep in mind she doesn't own those books, the publisher does. If she wanted to distribute them to contributors, she probably had to buy them (possibly at wholesale rate). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:50, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I've redacted an absolutely unnecessary personal attack from the preceding comment. jæs (talk) 06:46, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

That comment looked like a paraphrasing of what Auntie Em said to Miss Gulch. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:50, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Auntie Em said: "For twenty-three years I've been dying to tell you what I thought of you! And now... Well, being a Christian woman, I can't say it!" If Mrs. Em were an editor, I'd advise her of the same: attacking another editor is not the way to address your concerns. If Mrs. Em took a nastier route, and was also an editor with a history of poisoning the well, as it were, I'd redact her comment. In either case, I'd suggest Mrs. Em avoid directly interacting with Mrs. Gulch if she couldn't keep her opinion of Mrs. Gulch to herself. jæs (talk) 02:58, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

If you're interested, I can provide diffs from another edit war he's conducting over at Tennessee Republican Party. I used the talk page to discuss concerns and put POV and Criticism tags. He removed them. He argued. I got a 3rd Opinion. The 3rd Opinion editor found the article had a racist slant. I put the tags back. He removed them. Another editor put them back just now. He removed them again. If he doesn't get his way he puts tags up. If he doesn't like what you say, he takes them down. Diffs upon request. It is impossible to reason with this fellow.Malke2010 07:01, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Blocked for disruption for 24 hrs. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 07:03, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I hope that, after this ends, he doesn't do that again.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 07:17, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

(OD)He just removed a declined unblock request, and I have just reverted him. I also warned him that such attempts would be met with a loss of the ability to edit the talk page.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 08:13, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

And he just removed it again. I of course reverted him. Can an admin possibly warn him?— Dædαlus ^Contribs 09:37, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I've done so. I referred him to WP:BLANKING which states that declined unblock requests cannot be removed for the duration of the block, and warned him that removing it again will cause him to lose the ability to edit his own talk page until he is unblocked. -- Atama頭 17:39, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Sanction time?

Uninvolved admin here ... I just looked at his block log. Good grief, it's genormous. Could it be time for a topic ban of some kind? Looks like it to me. Blueboy96 17:55, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not condoning this user's recent actions, esp the edit warring to remove the unblock decline, but that block log is not exactly what I'd call enormous. There's only 3 blocks that were not overturned well before the duration was up, and those were about 3 years ago. Tarc (talk) 18:06, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I guess it's because it looks like this has been an ongoing problem ever since he arrived here--the first block was back in 2006. Tells me this is a problem that should have been nipped in the bud a lot sooner than now. Blueboy96 18:09, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Tarc, Scribner had only 32 edits between April 24, 2007, and February 11, 2009, which explains the big gap in his block log. There is no evidence that he has learned from his previous blocks. He has been unblocked because he promised not to do the same behavior on the article in question (different article in each case), but that hasn't stopped him from repeating the same modus operandi on different articles. Also notice that all his recent activity has focused on three hot-button political issues (Sarah Palin, Tennessee Republican Party, and Tea Party movement, in which he is very clearly displaying a pattern of POV pushing behavior. Horologium (talk) 18:48, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Just pointing out that it wasn't as lengthy as I expected it to be, put down the pitchforks. It does appear that his talk page will have to be locked soon though, due to the repeated removals of the block decline notice. Tarc (talk) 18:56, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

(OD)Looking through the block log of this user, I see that they have primarily been blocked for edit warring/personal attacks, and as of the block before last, that time had been extended until a week, then lifted on the promise he wouldn't do it again. Seeing as how he has obviously done it again, what is the next step up? 24 hours is too short for a repeat offender.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 20:22, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

• I'm requesting an indefinite ban for Scribner from US politics-related article. I was watching over the Sarah Palin article a couple months back, and Scriber was definitely one of the major problems at the article then. Looks like things have not changed much since then, and it has been even longer of a problem than I have thought. Thoughts? NW (Talk) 20:37, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I won't !vote below (due to my involvement), but I think that's a good idea. Horologium (talk) 21:07, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Indef topic ban

Per what NW said above, and to centralize discussion and for ease of editing,

• Support - Per what NW has outlined above and this user's block log. Broken promises is all they have to give. Maybe this will prevent further disruption from them.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 21:04, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse If this user hasn't learned to cool it down in four years on its own, sadly we're gonna have to force him to do so. Blueboy96 21:56, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support - The amount of time an editor uses up in dealing with Scribner on these pages is lost from building the project. Scribner does not respond to working within process. Only one thing he said on the Tenn Republican Party talk page showed any ray of light of understanding when he said he could see my point about an edit. He also said he didn't support my point, but he could understand it. He said all this about ten minutes before he got blocked. The Sarah Palin episode caused so much disruption. He came over to the Tea Party Movement article and slapped tags on it because he disagreed with a comment on the talk page. It feels like a boulder has dropped on an editor's head when he appears on a page. But in the last 24-48 hours he seems to have been especially disruptive. I don't know what is at the root of this. But for now, a topic ban might help him regain some perspective. He's right about the Tenn Republican Party being racists, and it's Tenn, throw a rock you'll hit a klansman. And Sarah Palin isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but this is an encyclopedia, and not a forum for disruption, or a soapbox, or a soap opera.Malke2010 06:55, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Sorry, what? That post was full of wrong. Throwaway85 (talk) 10:08, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Ban from what topic? If you're going to propose a topic ban, you should state what topic the user is banned from. 67.51.38.51 (talk) 16:19, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

NW wrote, "I'm requesting an indefinite ban for Scribner from US politics-related article.". You can see this right above this section. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:22, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

That is as may be, but it should be specifically indicated at the point where you make the proposal. 67.51.38.51 (talk) 16:38, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

It is. I quite clearly state, "as NW said above..."— Dædαlus ^Contribs 22:33, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose I haven't visited Tenn Republican Party or Tea Party movement but the core issue at Sarah Palin is a content dispute (gosh!) between Scribner and several other editors with opposing POVs. It's ruthless and nobody plays nice. I can't be arsed to go through the diffs, but observing developments at SP talk leaves a strong impression that pressure is subtly but regularly applied towards sanitizing the article (plus ca change. . .), and one or two in Scribner's opposition appear to have ownership issues, all of which Scribner resists. The proposed catch-all topic ban serves the interests of SP's WP protectors at the expense of the article itself. Scribner seems clued-up on SP and may have much to offer, but is not afraid to speak his/her mind rather bluntly, is outnumbered by opposing editors, and reacts too strongly for his/her own good to the goading and bullying etc. that SP talk offers would-be contributors who are not members of the Palin club. (Although arguably no stranger to personal attacks him/herself, Scribner has also been on the receiving end of abuse and apparent attempts to run him/her off the article. Few if any hands remain spotlessly clean at SP.) Given that Scribner's problems at SP appear to be largely procedural, solutions that are more constructive and less draconian might be worth considering here. E.g. WP:Mentorship. I'd like to hear what Scribner has to say about that. Writegeist (talk) 18:40, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Involuntary mentorship has a track record of prolonging conflicts and burning out mentors. If this editor has already sought out a mentor proactively that might be another matter? The difference has something to do with "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink." The people who succeed through mentorship tend to be the ones who recognize the need for it and seek it out without being compelled. Durova⁴⁰⁹ 01:10, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
• Reluctantly support an indefinite topic ban. He is evidently growing increasingly unable to work within the guidelines set here, at an article on probation no less. The increasing attacks against anyone who disagrees with him combine with a long history of disruptive editing and a nearly complete inability -- within this topic area -- to work towards consensus. (I've seen one instance in which he was part of a process that resulted in consensus, but it was fraught with disruptive tactics on his part, and he's now taken to using that event as a line of attack against an administrator and editor involved in that process. Hardly heartening.) After a period of time (perhaps a few weeks or months), if he is willing to agree to take the personal attacks and disruptive tactics off the table, then I'd support lifting the topic ban. jæs (talk) 18:44, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Scribner is back at it on the Sarah Palin page. He's not using the talk page. He's adding to the lead and putting up a POV tag. No consensus, no discussion. If you want to know what Scribner has to say on an indef topic ban, I believe he's spoken.Malke2010 23:13, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I wanted to mention I don't think any editor is trying to run him off articles. Editors just want him to work within the process which means working for consensus. Right now he seems to think he doesn't need to do that.Malke2010 00:30, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose . Some of the points Scribner made hold merit. A few of the editors on the page have been rather uncivil and I think that coupled with the fact that other editors disagreed with him resulted in frustration and shouting back. I don't think it yet merits admin intervention.Chhe (talk) 01:08, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

NOTE If you feel my edits to the Palin article were an attempt to damage the integrity of Wikiapedia as an encyclopedia, I should be banned from the Palin article. There's been no malice on my part, other than to add two simple facts. Don't blame me for standing my ground and defending policy. Look at the vast amount of effort it took to include the simple fact that Palin did not complete her first term as governor. Horologium fought the edit the hardest, claiming it POV. The wholesale POV in the article speaks for itself. Scribner (talk) 04:03, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

A couple hours ago, I banned Scribner from Sarah Palin-related articles, talk pages, and community discussions[47]. I still think that this discussion should continue to see if the community wishes to expand the scope of the ban. NW (Talk) 04:13, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

found my name on the whitelist accused of vandalism that the accuser has since apologized for and retracted it

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

---

Resolved

 – Issue is now resolved. No further admin input necessary in this discussion. - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 15:02, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

an administrator (i think they are one) wrongly accused me of vandalism. the case is resolved and all that stands is a minor warning (the point was being discussed on a talk page whether or not someone who's act some people consider is promoting anti semitism, can take away their observant status I said that without any sources, the comment was deleted because it was deemed discussion material, i altered it a bit and reverted the delete the next thing I know I was guilty of vandalism, and threatened with a ban if I did anything to receive another warning). the whole thing is resolved would just like to know if I'm on any lists that slander my username, and warn people not to take my edits seriously. how do I completely detatch the vandalism title from my user name ?Grmike (talk) 09:00, 4 February 2010 (UTC)grmike

the other user has issued another warning in place of the vandalism of unsourced libel which I didn't understand at first because what she called satire i considered dangerous language and as such didn't understand the need for sources, since it was understood that hate groups find any kind of anti semitism funny.Grmike (talk) 09:14, 4 February 2010 (UTC)grmike

Firstly, you should have informed Thirteen squared (talk · contribs) of this discussion. That editor gave you a {{uw-vandalism4}} but later admitted it should have been a {{uw-biog4}}. That warning states that defamatory or controversial material relating to living people must be referenced - even on a talk page. Thirteen squared is not an admin. Mjroots (talk) 09:18, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

(ec) You aren't on any lists and since the vandalism warning was amended you have nothing to worry about in regards to the accusations of vandalism. However, please refrain from inserting negative and/or controversial claims about living persons unless supported by a reliable source. Please see WP:BLP, as we take this very seriously. I'm sure you are a reasonable person and everything will be fine from here on out though. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 09:21, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

For the sake of accuracy, I'll point out that Thirteen squared is a rollbacker, not an admin. —DoRD (?) (talk) 09:41, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

isn't one part of being accused of vandalism that the edits of the accused person are not taken seriously ? my 40-50 edits since the accusation do not count on [48]. the last time any of my edits counted were the day of the incident. is there a connection ?Grmike (talk) 10:05, 4 February 2010 (UTC)grmike

No connection. Your edits are showing up in your contribution history ([49]) and on other edit counters ([50]). Wikirage is an external site unaffiliated with Wikipedia, and their database may not always be accurate or up to date. EyeSerene^talk 10:34, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

does deleting the vandalism part of the template change anything more ? right now it is just crossed out.Grmike (talk) 00:41, 5 February 2010 (UTC)grmike

First, I did not issue you a second warning, nor did I retract it. What I did was amend the warning so it was more fitting. Second, having a warning on your talk page does not change your status in any way whatsoever. A warning is to get your attention in order to show you that something you're doing is not ok within the Wikipedia community and continued behavior may result in a block. Removing it or leaving it will not change anything. You are still allowed to edit and all of your edits are logged here. --13² 02:02, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Comment: For context, the previous WP:ANI discussion is here. I don't plan to get involved in this discussion since I stand by my amended warning (see last discussion for why) and this appears to simply be a case of confusion on Grmike's part anyway. Thanks Mjroots for letting me know about this discussion. --13² 13:47, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

i still consider the warning unjustifiable but if I have more to say I will say it there as long as it being archived doesn't take away from the attention it gets from administrators.Grmike (talk) 00:41, 5 February 2010 (UTC)grmike

No, please don't edit the archived discussion. If you have more to say, please post it here, rather than there. — Huntster (t @ c) 01:43, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

It has been shown through the previous discussion that you were violating WP:BLP with your messages, which is what I (amended) warned you for. I left it after you tried to insert a second round of messages after previously being reverted and, due to that, I stand by that warning. Why do you think it was unjustifiable? Keep in mind, continued attacks on Baron Cohen won't help your case. Also, like Huntster said, keep all new comments here. I've pointed out the previous discussion and that's more than enough to provide various members the background of this discussion. --13² 02:02, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Comment: Grmike has since gone ahead and edited the archived discussion, including adding more BLP violations. --13² 02:07, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I didn't realize the talk pages were so strictly moderated, i don't think i've ever contributed anything to an living persons article before Cohen so i wasn't aware of the blp stuff. for example if someone asked me about the Jewish population in the world on that page i'd contribute an opinion mixed in with facts. one thing that I see as wrong with this encyclopedia is the treatment of sources. fox news, cnn get the 5 star treatment while sources from the globeandmail.com (highly regarded in one country) some people wouldn't accept. it's setting a dangerous precedent whereby information can be totally controlled by whoever is able to buy companies like cnn, fox news.Grmike (talk) 06:44, 5 February 2010 (UTC)grmike

I've responded at the archive in spite of its being archived (here). But, Grmike, that conversation is closed; it will not get further attention from administrators. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 02:22, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Gmike: You do not seem to acknowledge the fundamental issue: the edit in question (here and repeated here) is not acceptable on Wikipedia. The fact that a warning incorrectly mentioned "vandalism" (now struck out) is trivial: the critical point is that editors must not post unverified opinions (whether true or false) about living people – not in articles, not in talk pages, not anywhere on Wikipedia. Johnuniq (talk) 02:53, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

nevermind what i said (i deleted something in which i misunderstood what the huggle/whitelist is). please don't judge me by these mistakes, i've been with wikipedia for a while but need to learn more about the rules. is it bad to be on the huggle/whitelist ?Grmike (talk) 06:58, 5 February 2010 (UTC)grmike

I say yes. I remember my rollback rights were removed because of bad use of Huggle. Minimac94 (talk) 09:57, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

"This is a list of users whose contributions may be ignored while searching for vandalism." I was under the impression that if you've made that list it means you aren't a vandal. How is that a bad thing? --13² 11:28, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

There still seems to be some confusion here. Grmike, everyone makes mistakes. Wikipedia is a huge place, and even in three and a half years of editing (including two as an admin) there are whole areas I've never visited. Mistakes are just part of the learning process and as long as they aren't repeated too often, no-one will judge you by them (or we'd all be in trouble). You just happened to make a mistake that could have consequences outside Wikipedia in the real world. People's reputations are on the line in biographical articles, and any comments made about them must be neutral, factual, and impeccably sourced. There's no place for opinion, hearsay or rumour. It's something we take very seriously both because we want to be a high-quality, credible resource and because there could be legal repurcussions. The best thing is to remember not to do it again, put it behind you and move on; no-one will think any the worse of you and this will quickly be forgotten.

Regarding Huggle, it's just a small program that editors can download (once they're approved for its use) that helps them to quickly and easily remove inappropriate edits to Wikipedia. It combines that with a system for automatically warning the editor who made those edits; this was the bit that 13² messed up when they sent you the wrong templated warning. Unfortunately it's easily done with just a mouse click in the wrong place, but they fixed their mistake. All the warning on your talk page does is warn you... that's it. It doesn't add you to any lists or categories and once you archive your page it won't even be visible any more (though it will still be recorded in the page history).

The Huggle whitelist is an automatically-generated list of editors with more than (I think) 500 edits. Huggle looks for possible vandalism among all the recent changes to Wikipedia, and being on the list means Huggle doesn't bother to check your edits (in other words, it doesn't consider you to be a vandal).

I hope this helps. I think you're worrying about nothing, and as long as you're careful in the comments you make about people you'll do fine. You're right that it takes time to learn Wikipedia's rules, but if you ever need help or advice you can ask any experienced editor and they'll be happy to help out. Another good place is our Help Desk; the editors there are friendly and experienced, and can point you in the right direction. All the best, EyeSerene^talk 11:56, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

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

User:Keithmc2 on Kent School

Yesterday I reported 81.144.203.173 here for adding unsourced BLP information, edit warring over it and incivility (see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive594#81.144.203.173 at Kent School). A few hours after the IP got blocked, Keithmc2 comes along after half a year of inactivity to revert my Kent School edits, along some edits I made on other articles, regardless of their merit (such as reverting the removal of a deleted image). Granted, Keithmc2 does add a source to the WP:BLP edit (he simply copy/pasted from the Seth Mcfarlane article), but this reeks of block evasion.

Both edit warring IP's, 81.144.203.173 and 86.180.20.87, are from the London area and judging by the edits of Keithmc2 he is British as well. I have no doubt Keithmc2 is linked to the IP's, but this quacks sufficiently in my view, not to take this to WP:SPI.--Atlan (talk) 11:28, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Anyone going to deal with this? This thread's been sitting here for almost 24 hours. I don't feel like edit warring with unresponsive, name-calling, block evading ip's indefinitely.--Atlan (talk) 11:17, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Not clear enough for me, sorry. An editor has looked back over the edit history, found a source for an unsourced edit, and reintroduced it. I'm not quite sure why you want to take it out, but that's a content dispute. I'd remind you of 3RR as well. I've notified Keithmc2 (talk · contribs). GedUK  11:35, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, I'm sure ANI notices mathematically add up in usefulness the more you place them on one's talk page. I'm well aware of both the ANI requirement of notifying the other party and 3RR. I'm now at 1 revert (cue you saying 3RR is not an entitlement for 3 reverts) and the only discussing party. This report is about block evasion, I don't understand why you focus on the merit of the edit. Since you don't know why I took it out, you must not have looked into this very well, but now I digress as well.

Anyway, WP:DUCK has been invoked with a lot flimsier evidence than this, but I guess you are the WP:AGF to a fault type. That's alright, I just wish you or anyone else had come along yesterday so the block evasion side of things wouldn't have gone stale.(Addendum: Don't mind the sarcasm, I get like that when I don't get my way. Your input is appreciated)--Atlan (talk) 13:32, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I have blocked the account indefinitely. The recent edits were wholesale reverting of a targeted editor - disregarding adding back spelling mistakes as well as the subsequently rectified deleted image. The erratic nature of the editing history suggests to me that this is an unidentified alternative account (or "Sock") and it is not being used for an appropriate purpose. So I have blocked it. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:50, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that. At least now I can focus on the productive discussion on the article's talk page without having to deal with unresponsive edit warriors. I had filed an RFCU after Ged UK dismissed the evidence as unconvincing. Do you feel it's worth it to check up on the IP's anyway now that you've blocked the account?--Atlan (talk) 02:19, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Some advice please

I came across Bloodygrave613 (talk · contribs) when they posted some personal information on their user page, identifying themselves as a minor (later oversighted). BG613 hadn't been active since their registration, but in the past few days, has been conversing with the newly registered Stahly1996 (talk · contribs) (who drew my attention by posting on my talk page). The two users appear to know each other in real life.

After another message on my talk today, I decided to look in on the two of them, and found they appear to be conducting some kind of online-offline relationship more appropriate to an AOL chatroom in the mid-1990s. I've been fairly ruthless in removing that, and have left them each what I consider a strongly-worded message. It seems like they might have stopped now, but their editing pattern, such as it is, suggests a break at around 1600GMT anyway.Spoke too soon. Given the lack of useful contributions and their apparent ages, I wonder if there are any other measures which might be useful here? --Kateshortforbob _talk 16:22, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I weep for the future generation of America if this is what passes for romantic discourse. Delete both talk pages, block em both, they probably cannot even spell encyclopedia, much less contribute to one. Tarc (talk) 16:35, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Well they don't seem to be here to build an encyclopedia no... Perhaps they should both be gently blocked and nudged into realising this is the wrong place for chatting? --Taelus (talk) 16:44, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

 Done Softblocked both accounts and "rolled my own" block notice to indicate why. With so many free IM sites and email services, it's puzzling that someone would choose to use WP this way. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:11, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) Sorry for not replying here promptly - I've been on my way home from work. In the meantime, they've both been blocked (thanks Beeblebrox!), which is probably for the best. From prior experience, I think they chat on WP because most social networking sites are blocked in school (although I wish my lessons had involved hours, apparently unsupervised, in front of a computer). And Tarc, I'm afraid you gave me a bit of a guilty "lol" as the kids might say. --Kateshortforbob _talk 18:18, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Presumably they could use the sandbox if they want to use wikipedia to pass notes. In my school days, we had computers, but that was so long ago that they were made of stone. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:08, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I once got busted because we used the school guidance office's DECwriter, an early network computer that printed everything and had no screen, to print out dirty jokes from a BBS. Seems almost quaint now considering how easy it is to get free hardcore porn... Beeblebrox (talk) 19:36, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Our student computer at college had a printer, and someone had a program that would print out a primitive rendering of a centerfold. Very primitive, no overlapping characters or anything. That was hot stuff. And naturally it was produced by feeding a boxfull of cards into the computer. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:41, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Punchcards?! Ok you win. You are a bigger geezer than me. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:23, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Some of those cards were so old they were personally autographed by Herman Hollerith. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:11, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

lol Originals, eh? But re that DECwriter, I remember using one of those to print APL code to hand in! —DoRD (?) (talk) 03:04, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

At this point maybe User:APL needs to put in his two bits worth. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:58, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

You think that's quaint? Why, back in my day, we used dial-up to access any kind of porn you wanted, free of charge. Wait, did I accidentally the whole thread? Throwaway85 (talk) 10:02, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

BotfieldCatflap

Resolved

 – Indeffed.

BotfieldCatflap is a single purpose account whose only edits have been to the tiktaalik article. Late last month the editor was warned for edit warring. Without discussing the edits or responding to feedback, the editor resumed pushing the same POV at the article.[51] Durova⁴⁰⁸ 23:32, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Looks like Bishonen issued a pretty stern warning. I've commented, as well... when somebody's completely unresponsive, it might be worth considering the possibility that they don't know how to respond. Now we wait? – Luna Santin (talk) 23:52, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Seems like a reasonable way to go. Durova⁴⁰⁸ 00:17, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Alternatively, you could just indef an account that's not here to contribute constructively but merely to editwar over creationist claptrap. Oh look, I did. Resolved. Black Kite 02:42, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Ozguroot canvassing again

Ozguroot (talk · contribs) has for a second time canvassed fifteen partisan users to a very charged discussion (Talk:Passport and Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2010-02-04/Passport). The users contacted all have commented on one of the two pages previously, and all in opposition. None of the editors who had supported the compromise were contacted. It only takes a brief search for the names of editors canvassed on Talk:Passport to see how methodically they were picked for their views. Considering the fact that this discussion was previously only held between three users, this has the potential to completely undermine days' worth of discussion, perhaps even destroy the extremely precarious compromise reached. Ozguroot has previously canvassed two users to the discussion, in a foreign language, and was subsequently repeatedly pointed to WP:CANVASS (read from my "03:41, 16 January 2010 (UTC)" edit to Talk:Passport) - there is simply no excuse, and I feel a warning is insufficient in light of the irreparable damage done to 160kb of discussion held on Talk:Passport over the last few weeks.

It has been raised on ANI before Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive593#Passport-related_edit_war) that Ozguroot may be a sock-puppet due to the similarity between his editing patterns and those of another sock-master, as well as his strange out-of-the-blue editing history. The possibility was never properly investigated.

Diffs: 16 Jan 09 canvassing:

1. Kerem Ozcan (translation: Google)
2. Kaygtr (translation: Google)

Today's canvassing:

1. Vmenkov
2. Jake Wartenberg
3. Valenciano
4. Rave92
5. Qwerta369
6. Tomi566
7. El Otro
8. Pryde 01
9. Gaston28
10. Philip200291
11. Tetromino
12. Bonus bon
13. Glenfarclas
14. Sky Harbor

And one in a foreign language, also from today:

1. Ajdamania2 (translation: Google)

One of the users above (Pryde 01) even launched a very scathing personal attack on the talk pages of me and another user and was subsequently given an only-warning by an administrator.

It pains me to report Ozguroot right after he had posted his very possibly first rational reply, and I would like to note that this is not an attempt to kill discussion, there is another very committed editor (Avala) with which my discussion on the subject matter continues, but I feel as though I've been wasting my effort only to be toppled by simple brute-force numeric supremacy. My Mediation Request has not yet been taken up by a mediator, and I am not sure what to do. Considering the fact every oppose has been notified, would it be prudent for me to canvass all the support votes, in an effort to return balance to the façade of discussion being held at Talk:Passport and Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2010-02-04/Passport? Action against Ozguroot, as well as advice on how to proceed with the discussion, would be much appreciated. —what a crazy random happenstance 04:36, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

They are the editors of the articles in subject. User:Happenstance could actually do that, instead of me, to notify them and let them know about the change or his "decide", before making over 250 deletions. But he did NOT never tell anyone. They don't know what is happening. Additionally, i am afraid that "Ozguroot has for a second time canvassed fifteen partisan users."' is totally a lie. When was the first time? I don't remember. I just asked for the opinions of two editors. - If you call this "canvassing FIFTEEN partisan users". Also please have a look at United_States_passport, Ukrainian_passport, its not only about a single editor, none of the articles editors accept your own "decide/consensus". But you ignore their opinions, you insist, insist, insist and delete, delete, delete. They were keeping undoing your changes as well. Is this a consensus, is this a solution? Let's be [serious]. As we see, you deleted the sections of over 250 Wikipedia articles, and you did NOT want NOBODY to get notified before doing so. That's not normal, in my humble opinion. Your reason was: (rm visa-free bloc per consensus on Talk:Passport). But there was NOT such a consensus at all. See Talk:Passport, too many OPPOSE editors there. Which consensus? Shortly, I just asked for their opinions on the matter. It pains me to hear "Ozguroot may be a sock-puppet" only because i asked for the editors opinions, so they could help on that matter, - as we were never reaching a consensus- . Why not to discuss all together, instead of an edit war? Regards. --Ozguroot (talk) 07:40, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

OK here is my view - Happenstance, Ozguroot did what you were supposed to do. This is not canvassing, but notifying regular editors, something that you failed to do and caused all the mess on the Passport talk page. He also did it in neutral manner, something that you also probably wouldn't be able to do.--Avala (talk) 16:31, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Misuse of "minor" edit tag by User:Twinsday

• Twinsday (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This user marks all their edits as "minor". Although many of them truly are, many are not. They have repeatedly been advised and warned about misuse of the "minor" tag but still do it. (Search their talk page for the word "minor".) Will an admin please deal with this user? I have warned them and notified them of this report. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:52, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Here's the version at the time I made the notification, since an IP vandal or an IP sock has deleted my warning. Twinsday has also deleted one of the other warnings. Whatever the case, we're dealing with a disruptive and uncollaborative user. (Uncollaborative = an editor who doesn't seek to solve a problem, but to hide or deny it.) -- Brangifer (talk) 05:45, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd suggest that this is much more an issue for WQA than ANI. Also, the user is perfectly allowed to remove warnings from his own talk page -- that's not indicative of disruption. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 05:56, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm well aware of that wording, and with editors who aren't engaged in anything suspicious, we are to AGF. When they are engaged in suspicious behavior after being repeatedly warned, we should no longer AGF. It's quite naive to ignore patterns that indicate an unwillingness to listen to and abide by the warnings. AGF is not a suicide pagt. This is a common problem and the removal of warnings, while a "right", isn't automatically a sign that the editor is acting in good faith with an intention to collaborate with other editors by listening to their concerns. Such editors do not deserve naive AGF. Of course if their behavior changes, then we should begin to AGF.

When an editor removes a warning, it is considered an acknowledgement that they have physically "seen" the warning. (That idea is basically a meaningless "duh" statement, but nevertheless it's thrown around as policy all the time. That's weird!) It does not follow that they understood the warning, agreed with it, intend to follow it, or that they intend to discuss it. They can say "I hear you" without a serious intention of really hearing. Anything less than a willingness to at the least discuss the matter in a civil manner is uncollaborative behavior. We don't need such editors. They're expendable, just like admins who side with such editors. They are aiding and abetting such behavior.

I will say one thing that's interesting. The last three edits Twinsday has made are the first ones without a minor tag. Maybe this report has solved the problem? This might turn out to be a rare (disruptive editors don't usually change that quickly) occasion where their later behavior showed that they really did heed the warning. Let's wait and see what their edit history reveals. This might be a hint that we can begin to AGF of this editor. I sincerely hope so. They might be getting tired of deleting all the warnings for their many types of infringements. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:39, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I've never understood why Wikipedia offered a "Mark all edits minor by default" option in preferences. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:18, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Now that's a good point. Maybe it should be raised somewhere? One of the Village Pumps? Dougweller (talk) 08:28, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Brangifer, your post seems as if you are trying to project a small-scale issue onto a larger problem with the project as a whole, and this is not the proper venue for such an argument. While I agree the "mark as minor by default" tag is ill-advised, this hardly seems the place to start debating wikipedia policy. Throwaway85 (talk) 09:55, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Twinsday's behavior may arise "not from malice but from ignorance". I recently had some contact with this editor, and my impression is they are making a lot of contributions without having any real grasp of Wikipedia policies. - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:27, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

They were just some comments with no intention of starting a long discussion of policy here. I just get tired of people throwing in comments like the one to which I responded, without consideration of the circumstances. It does make a difference what type of editor one is dealing with. If I wished to really discuss this, where would be the best place? -- Brangifer (talk) 15:29, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

To be clear, I considered the circumstances when I made my post, and I suggested you take this to WQA. The argument can be made that WQA ain't the right place, either, I suppose, but I am not sure why you had such a huge problem with my stating the obvious, that a user is perfectly allowed to do whatever they want to their talk page in terms of removing content. AGF doesn't cover that -- there's no "faith" to "assume" in such situations. I think you misread my post. I was NOT suggesting that you AGF with the editor at issue. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 19:33, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

User:The Catholic Knight making lots of unexplained deletions

I don't know if he's making good edits or bad edits, but I've repeatedly asked him on his talk page to use the edit summary, and he has not responded.[52] At War in Afghanistan (2001-present), he is repeatedly deleting an image without explanation.[53][54][55] Looking at his edit history, he never uses the edit summary, and makes a lot of deletions that do not appear to be necessary. I'm not sure if a block is in order, but I'm a little frustrated that he expects other editors to read his mind regarding his reasoning for his edits. AzureFury (talk | contribs) 05:07, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

He's also changed the list of races on the United States several times to a version that makes no sense. His edits, and his lack of response to valid criticisms, are bordering on vandalism. --Golbez (talk) 05:30, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Removal of content without explanation, consensus or any apparent reason can be considered vandalism. If it continues, and he continues to fail to respond to queries on his talk page or provide explanations, I'd take it to AIV. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 05:51, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Unexplained edits that aren't obvious improvements can usually be reverted on sight. You have no obligation to read the mind of the contributor, while they do have an obligation to explain their intent with the edit. Collaborative editing requires explanation in an edit summary, and often further discussion if an edit might be controversial. It should actually be policy that edits without an edit summary can be deleted on sight. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:50, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

That's pretty much what I've been doing. My only issue is that he's been making edits like this for months with no sign of changing his habits. And now he's starting to repeat edits that are being reverted. I'm worried about all the edits that editors aren't catching. It seems like we need many people in many different articles to check and clean up his edits. And he ignores the explanations as to why they are bad. AzureFury (talk | contribs) 06:07, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

His "lone ranger" style of editing and non-responsiveness is troublesome. Not addressing the deletions, a lot of his edits are small and self-explanatory (e.g., correcting wikilinks and categories); edit summaries would be superfluous for these. On the other hand, he has changed infobox data without any explanation or source, but the ones I saw were reverted.—Finell 06:52, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Help with uncontroversial move request needed

A poll at Talk:Karkonosze#Poll_II has closed in support of moving the article to Krkonoše. I cannot execute the move (I get the red "a page of that name already exists, or the name you have chosen is not valid" error), so administrative assistance would be much appreciated. —what a crazy random happenstance 06:39, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, User:Tbsdy lives! —what a crazy random happenstance 10:27, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

No probs. That's a remarkable set of poll procedures you guys put together, I must say. - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 15:21, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

English Wikipedia briefly redirected to Google?

For a few minutes, I was getting DNS results which redirected "wiki.riteme.site" to Google.

tracert wiki.riteme.site

Tracing route to groups.l.google.com [74.125.53.139]

over a maximum of 30 hops:

 1   <10 ms   <10 ms   <10 ms  local.gateway [10.0.0.2]

 2    20 ms   <10 ms    10 ms  76-191-218-1.dsl.dynamic.sonic.net [76.191.218.1]

 3   <10 ms    10 ms    10 ms  122.at-5-1-0.gw3.200p-sf.sonic.net [208.106.96.73]

 4    20 ms    10 ms    10 ms  200.ge-0-1-0.gw.equinix-sj.sonic.net [64.142.0.210]

 5    10 ms    10 ms    10 ms  0.as0.gw2.equinix-sj.sonic.net [64.142.0.150]

 6    20 ms    10 ms    10 ms  eqixsj-google-gige.google.com [206.223.116.21]

 7    10 ms    10 ms    10 ms  216.239.49.170

 8    30 ms    30 ms    30 ms  216.239.49.198

 9    30 ms    30 ms    40 ms  216.239.43.220

10    30 ms    30 ms    40 ms  64.233.174.131

11    40 ms    40 ms    30 ms  72.14.232.2

12    30 ms    40 ms    30 ms  pw-in-f139.1e100.net [74.125.53.139]

Trace complete.

"1e100.net" is in fact Google, not some hostile site. I'm using Sonic.net's in-house DNS, which is an honest DNS (no funny redirection on no-find). Sonic.net is a Northern California DSL provider. Unclear what happened, but it's worth reporting because someone might be testing a DNS cache poisoning attack against Wikipedia. After this, DNS went down for about five minutes, then came back up normally. Sonic doesn't see anything broken at their end. Anybody else seeing anything weird? --John Nagle (talk) 06:55, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I had a similar problem a few times last week. Restarting my system seemed to fix it so I never gave it much more thought even though it only happened with Wikipedia. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 07:00, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I have a Windows desktop and a Linux notebook on the same router, and they both had DNS problems at the same time. It's not a client-side issue. If you see this, start doing traceroutes and nslookups, and save the results. This isn't something that should happen by accident. --John Nagle (talk) 07:10, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Some days ago I got persistent "wiki.riteme.site cannot be found" messages, but they went away after I pinged the server from Terminal.app, I just assumed that it was a browser issue. Your problem suggests it may not be. Wikipedia's been working fine for me ever since. I'm in Australia, so if this issue does indeed exist, it isn't localised to Californian ISPs. —what a crazy random happenstance 07:27, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Your packets go through California anyway. Not sure who your DNS provider is, but I don't think I've had this problem (then again, my connection has been shaped for the last six days so I can't really tell). MER-C 09:06, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I also have seen the "wiki.riteme.site cannot be found" messages. While I think there may in fact be a bug here, it's nothing that AN/I can deal with. Try bugzilla.mediawiki.org. Throwaway85 (talk) 09:50, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Help with a move

Sikander Warsi (talk · contribs) moved their talk page into the live article space yesterday. I can't move it back because of the subsequent redirect at their talk page. Could someone please undo it and leave them a message? [56]. As far as I can see, they haven't really done anything else except create an article that was speedied and then work on their userpage. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 09:32, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I've done the move part for you. Not sure where exactly to put the message. Minimac94 (talk) 09:49, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Need help with a situation

119.160.18.209 (talk · contribs) has been, for the past few weeks, sparring with Omirocksthisworld (talk · contribs), and they've been edit-warring on multiple articles. After a recent block, Omirocksthisworld has been toning down his aggression, but there's a lot of bad blood here, and 119. doesn't seem to understand the term "agree to disagree".

Tonight's incident seems to be spread across two articles, at WP:AN3 and WP:RPP respectively. However, while Omi has at least been civil this time, 119. seems to be feeling cheated out of an arms race and is starting to cross over into harassment, issuing ultimatums, copy-and-pasting a 3RR report Omi filed against him, and berating him for "issuing an ultimatum" (actually the bog-standard {{uw-3rr}}). Since I need to head off to bed, could a chummer take over for me? —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Boribori!)} 10:36, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

As I was notifying the IP, it was blocked 24h. Depending on his behavior, this thread may have been rendered moot. —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Boribori!)} 10:41, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)And as I was writing this, ... IP Blocked for 24 hours for violating 3RR, but as this IP has only been editing today, I expect we will have this Karchi based editor, using Mobilink-Infinity, back again soon. I'll have a word with Omirocksthisworld. Dougweller (talk) 10:45, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Though personally I have nothing against this editor, the fact that he was not willing to discuss issues or even attempt to reach an agreement really irritated me. At first I just kept reverting his edits hoping that the strange edits would stop or that he would start to attempt to work things out, but I think I made him angrier and he seemed to felt that it was personal. That's when the edit warring issues started and I ended up getting blocked for forgetting Wiki procedure. This time around I reported him, which I think made him feel even more like I was personally against him or something (at least thats what it looks like from his comments on my talk page). I think the main issue with the other editor is that he doesn't know English too well so when I try discussing things with him he doesn't quite understand, and it looks like he is from Pakistan because he was using derogatory words in Urdu on Talk: Younus AlGohar. Since this issue has been ongoing I think I will have to put an RFC tag on the articles that the IP has been having problems with so that this doesn't keep happening. Hopefully things will get better once different neutral editors start discussion on the talk pages. I'm very sorry for my part in all these disruptive editing wars and my mistakes with Wiki procedure. --Omi(☺) 11:38, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia email abuse

Years ago User:Sarenne was banned and blocked, partly due to the sock puppet reports I helped to create. Now the account is sending me abusive Wikipedia emails using the "email this user" link on my talk page. Would it be possible to completely ban the account so that the user cannot send any Wikipedia emails? I can forward the abusive emails with headers to any administrator if needed. Fnagaton 12:30, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I've changed the block to "e-mail disabled". Of course there's not much we can do to stop him from creating new throwaway accounts for e-mailing. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:01, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. If the user creates new accounts to email from do you know where I can report them? Fnagaton 13:27, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

There's no dedicated board for that purpose, AFAIK. Try here again, or my talkpage. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:42, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Why not contact their email provider and report them for abuse? 67.51.38.51 (talk) 16:34, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is the email provider in this case. Viridae^Talk 21:12, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Sysop help needed

Hi,

I dont know exactly where to post that (sorry if its the wron gplace). I need a sysop help. When Magnus bot upload File:Smp kalmyk.gif on Commons, the name of the uplaoder was lost (probably a problem of UTF-8 / Unicode). Can someone get the original name and put it on the Commons file ? Cdlt, VIGNERON * ^discut. 13:21, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Done. Is it known if commons:User:File Upload Bot (Magnus Manske) still has this annoying problem? Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:41, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

r.fm

Hi folks. I've just had a glance at the user creation log, and we're getting something strange: one account every three minutes is registering, then adding an external link on a random music article pointing to r.fm with identical link text. Sometimes the page addressed exists, sometimes not. I'm not sure if this is a bot, or meatpuppets from some thread; I'm also not sure how useful a site to link to r.fm is.

Example diffs: [57] [58] [59] [60] [61] [62] [63] [64]

Can I have some opinions on this? ⇦REDVERS⇨ 14:48, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

The links to r.fm looks like spam to me. Maybe we should put it on the blacklist or something like that. Minimac94 (talk) 15:01, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

See MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist#r.fm. - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 15:14, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Ta, Tbsdy. I'm now pretty sure this was a bot or a single person - IIRC, there's a ratchet on the number of new accounts that can be created at any one time and they stopped when they hit this. ⇦REDVERS⇨ 15:45, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

New account created

Per steps taken here: [65]

Just wanted to inform admins that I created a new account, after I was unable to retrieve my password via e-mail (e-mail verification possibly lagged out). This is a dupe account of User:Ikip. I am contacting bureaucrats via email also. - Okip (formerly Ikip) 15:33, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Okip, send me an email via media wiki so I can confirm you. - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 15:39, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Ah... I see you've done this already. I can confirm that Ikip lost his password and had to create a new account. - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 15:40, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

If this happens again, do not create the alternative account Ukip; I will be unable to take you seriously... LessHeard vanU (talk) 23:27, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Please check this User:Jasepl

I noticed this User:Jasepl has some personal problem with me. He is reverting my edits and asking me to put references when the references are already mentioned (How can i put the reference again when its already mentioned?). Recently he created my user page without my knowledge and put sock puppet tags on it. I have asked him to do a Check User but it seems like he is not interested in it. Its very annoying. I saw his history and he accuses most of the new users who edit aviation related articles as Sock Puppet of this User:Rhp 26. Please do something about it. (Abraxas Wardark (talk) 17:28, 5 February 2010 (UTC))

It seems that he has constant edit wars and problems with so many users, few are mentioned below:-

• User talk:Abhishek191288
• User talk:Chocolateswizo
• User talk:Druid.raul (blocked and accused of being a sockpuppet of User:Rhp 26 which was true)
• User talk:Dimitree
• User talk:Rhp 26 (blocked)
• User talk:Marcosino Pedros Sancheza (blocked and also accused of being a sock puppet of User:Rhp 26)
• User talk:Editor800 (blocked)
• User talk:Airtran371 (blocked)
• User talk:MEA707
• User talk:Muthu9

Please do something about this User:Jasepl, his history shows that he seems to always disrespect other users contributions. (Abraxas Wardark (talk) 17:54, 5 February 2010 (UTC))

I'm curious if a SPI is going to be run on this- the level of response by Wardark here makes me think WP:PLAXICO is likely to take effect. Hopefully Jasepl will take it to SPI with some evidence. tedder (talk) 20:12, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I will take it up. And it will surely pass the quacks-like-a-duck test with flying colours (just like before). Thanks for the heads up, Jasepl (talk) 20:23, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

FYI, Rhp26 was the first blocked user (for gross incivility, and that block had nothing to do with me). That was followed by Druid.raul (also blocked for the same reasons, partly my doing). That was followed by Marcosino Pedros Sancheza (also blocked for the same reasons, my doing). All proven socks, by the way. The rest of the list is immaterial. Thanks, Jasepl (talk) 20:27, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Ok u can do nething u want. But ur making a fool of ur self, i can say that. (Abraxas Wardark (talk) 22:19, 5 February 2010 (UTC))

If you are concerned about incivility and random accusations of sockpuppets renaming your account to something similar to the sockpuppetmaster is a rather odd thing to do today. If this is some kind of protest renaming i would suggest you change back/again. delirious & lost ☯ ^~hugs~ 23:49, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Explanation / Background

Should this renaming even be allowed? Let alone the users’ continued editing privileges (under any name)? User Abraxas Wardak first denied the sock by filing an ANI. Then, shortly thereafter, admitted it by requesting a name change.

As explained, Rhp_26 = Druid.raul = Marcosino Pedros Sancheza = Abraxas Wardak. This is all proven now. Besides, the first three accounts were indefinitely blocked for a host of reasons, including gross incivility, racism, verbal abuse and so forth.

The block logs are here:

• Rhp_26
• Druid.raul
• Marcosino Pedros Sancheza

And the Sock Investigation (complete with checkuser results) is here. Thanks, Jasepl (talk) 04:54, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Hey Son of a Whore, i am back.......lolzzzz. Wikipedia is my universe and i will attack it every 4months (Rhp26 (talk) 05:05, 6 February 2010 (UTC)).

By the way, I just got this delightful comment - yet another admission. Jasepl (talk) 05:03, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Need help fixing an SPI

I must have broken something (which doesn't suprise me). This [66] doesn't show up on the main SPI page. Can someone help me fix it so I can notify the accounts involved? Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 17:35, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

There's a note at the top of the WP:SPI page saying the bot is down. I've added the report to the appropriate list manually. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:41, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Doh, I didn't think to look at the top of the page, that would have been a good idea. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 17:48, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Zaps93's edits of a featured article

Resolved

 – Accord reached between disputing editors, nothing to see here. Jclemens (talk) 22:29, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Zaps93 (talk · contribs) has over the last 2 months, made major changes to a featured article Biman Bangladesh Airlines. Without discussing major structural changes, he has remove content, blanked the entire history section, made changes to content that are not compliant with Featured article criteria. His edits are messy enough that the article was nominated for FAR today.

I had missed Zaps's edits, but only discovered them when I went to fix the issues raised in the FAR. To start fixing the page according to the issues raised in the FAR, I reverted the article to a version pre-Zaps93 (in Dec 09), and then fixed a number of other issues. This involves restoring the history section, fixing the references, fixing broken links, fixing dab links etc.

However, rather than accepting the responsibility of blanking almost half the content of the article, Zaps93 has unilaterally reverted to his version. He has continuously reverted to his 38KB version (the FA was originally 72KB), and now claims that he "improved" the article. (One of the main reasons of the FAR is actually that the article's length is too short to be an FA, something which is a direct result of Zaps93's content removal).

Diffs:

• Version of the article Pre-Zaps93
• After 2 months of unchecked edits from Zaps93
• Points raised in FAR
• My edits fixing most of the comments
• Version that Zap93 continues to revert to

Since Zap93 continues to revert to his blanked-version of the featured article, I am posting this here, and inviting other uninvolved admins to take a look at the page. Not willing to do any edit wars with Zap, I request admins to take a look at the above diffs, and consider whether Zap93's destruction of the featured article over a month is justified or not. Thank you. --Ragib (talk) 18:02, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I've given both editors a warning re edit warring. I've also fully protected the article (at the wrong version) for 24hrs in order to give everybody chance to cool down and discuss the issues on the talk page, in the hope that it will not be necessary to block either editor for edit warring. I urge both parties to concentrate on the issue, and not who hold the opposing opinion. WP:CIVIL should also be adhered to at all times during the discussion. Mjroots (talk) 18:07, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Mjroots. I have pledged (both in my talk page and here) that I am going to refrain from editing the page for some time. However, your protection does not really resolve the problem -- I raised the problem here where an editor blanks/removes large chunks of content from an FA, causing it to go into FAR, and aggressively fights the return of the article to a stable state (which resolves most issues raised in FAR). Since I'm not going to edit the page at least for today, I invite other un-involved admins to take a look at the diffs provided above and decide what to do. It's not a content dispute, rather a dispute over edits and about making the article comply with FAC. --Ragib (talk) 18:16, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

My protection wasn't intended to solve the problem, but it does force discussion while the article can't be edited. I've asked for fresh input from members of the relevant WikiProject via WT:AVIATION. Mjroots (talk) 18:20, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, since posting the note, Zaps93 and I have reached an amicable solution to the issue, and have decided to collaborate in fixing the article. I think that should make this issue resolved. Regards. --Ragib (talk) 18:20, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

User:Therequiembellishere

Resolved

 – Dunn dunn dunn, another one bites the dust...

Therequiembellishere (talk · contribs), a 16 year old, is vandalising Hamid Karzai page by removing correct and updated information and replacing it with false outdated information. He/she is also tampering with Hamid Karzai's quoted statement.[67], [68] He was advised on his talk page about his errors [69] but still refuses to listen. He changes: Karzai warned that "Iran and Pakistan and others are not fooling anyone." to Karzai warned that, "Iran, Pakistan, and others are not fooling anyone."--119.73.4.155 (talk) 18:11, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

This is looking like a content dispute from where I'm viewing. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 18:31, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

• Reporting editor blocked for 31 hours for this. Looks like he might be on a dynamic IP; if so, I'll semiprotect the article for the duration of the block. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:33, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

OK, that edit summary is right out, so good call on the block, I'd say. The rest does just look like a content dispute - they are basically conveying the same information with slightly different phrases each time. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 18:46, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

It's fantastic not being notified of this. The quote was overlooked by me in the reverts. I usually try to find any credible edits among my reverts and put them back in but my eye glanced over that. I'm usually unable to respond easily to queries on my talk page because there are several other things going on the real world that take precedence. Add increasingly rude commentary and it makes the response fall ever further down the list. Therequiembellishere (talk) 03:12, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Persistent POV editing by User:91.148.147.147

Resolved

 – anon blocked IP for a while. Jclemens (talk) 20:49, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

91.148.147.147 (talk · contribs) has been going around the articles on Byzantine emperors and changing their ethnicity to Greek, often removing sourced material in the process. I have warned him several times, but he continues in the same fashion. These edits also represent the total sum of his contributions to Wikipedia. A block should be in order. Constantine ✍ 18:59, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Possible block-evader

Resolved

 – IP anon-blocked for a while. Jclemens (talk) 20:46, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I suspect that User:70.171.236.188 may be the blocked Catterick (earlier account being Lord Loxely) account. The IPs blogging at Template talk: English, Scottish and British monarchs appears familiar & his recent evasivness (in the last few minutes) seems curious. Could somebody run an SPI on it? GoodDay (talk) 19:13, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

The IP account seems to have demanded that nobody contact him at his talkpage, asking that nobody spam it. Either my suspicions are correct or we've a paranoid newbie. GoodDay (talk) 19:26, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Don't see any edits from Catterick (talk · contribs) recent enough to be useful for checkuser; anything more recent, possibly from other related accounts? Whatever the case, the IP's behavior is definitely odd but that's not conclusive in and of itself, just yet. Is there anything specific that makes you think they might be related? – Luna Santin (talk) 19:53, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Its behaviour at talk:Danelaw & more importantly talk:Angevin Empire is becoming obnoxious. GoodDay (talk) 19:56, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Noticed some similarity to C's edits at Talk:List of English monarchs. Still looking. – Luna Santin (talk) 20:15, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I hope my suspicions are wrong, but the behaviour (rambling posts & rants) has a famililiar pattern. GoodDay (talk) 20:17, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

While GoodDay is gallivanting about to destroy another person, like this is WarCraft, he fails to look into the mirror to see how he pushes other people around all about wherever he goes, sticking his nose in business where it doesn't concern him, vociferously arguing with people despite them not inviting him to share his commentary, as he has done at User:TharkunColl and elsewhere in which he finds himself. It's okay to bring down that gavel hard on other people with know-it-all crusades about the Scottish succession, right? Whose political correctness is NPOV? Come, on GoodDay...your "do-gooder" Dudley Do Right crap and convictions about politics and religion are just as suspect as those of other people you have hounded here. Take it to your own conscience and cease to perturb others with this inner melodrama. 70.171.236.188 (talk) 20:24, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I've asked you a simple (yes or no) question at your talkpage & since then, you've avoided answering it. GoodDay (talk) 20:28, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Hop to it GoodDay. Do what I command you instead. How about leave me alone? 70.171.236.188 (talk) 20:30, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Were you Lord Loxley/Catterick? GoodDay (talk) 20:31, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Will you leave me alone? 70.171.236.188 (talk) 20:42, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

The question is, who's you? GoodDay (talk) 20:44, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

And the answer is, check back in a week when he's unblocked. Although it might be a good idea for the admins to disable its talk page access and put a muzzle on its bizarre edit summaries. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:02, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

It's Kenneth Alan

WP:DENY notwithstanding (it's never worked for this chap in the past) 70.171.236.188 is ultra-long-term disruptive editor Kenneth Alan, who has been with us since at least 2003, under a range of accounts including: Kenneth Alan (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Kenneth Alansson (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) WikiRetiree (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Fitzpaine (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Lord Loxley (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Borderer (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). He also edits anonymously from a range of Cox Communications (Atlanta) addresses (in the past including 68.0.151.124 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and 68.110.9.62 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)). He's not very hard to spot - he's interested in Yorkshire and the Danelaw, ancient kings of England, and lengthy rants. He's blocked per Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Kenneth Alan with innumerable block evasions, and given the laundry list of subsequent blocks he's thoroughly community-banned. More than six years ago Kenneth told us "I want nothing to do with wikipedia anymore"; would that he lived up to his word. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 23:33, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

If that's the case, I'm glad he's fond of me. PS: Strange though, if he'd told me he wasn't Catterick? I likely wouldn't have reported him. GoodDay (talk) 23:36, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Did anyone notice that the original account isn't even blocked currently? Burpelson AFB (talk) 03:39, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Compromised rollbacker account

Please have a look at User:DC. Account with rollback rights, most probably compromised: Rapidly reverting respected users (Darwinek, UncleDick...) to IP versions (eg [70], check contribs), blankened user pages, very unusual change in editing pattern since tonite. Skäpperöd (talk) 20:32, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Rollback removed, clearly the tool has been misused. -MBK₀₀₄ 20:36, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for containing that problem: the same thing happened to me. The DC account looks like it had a good track record, but suddenly the behavior was rapid and reckless. CosineKitty (talk) 20:40, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I took a peek and undid a few of those reverts. Looks like [71] and [72] remain (both valid vandalism rollbacks); not sure about [73]. Might have been a compromised account, definitely worth keeping an eye on. – Luna Santin (talk) 20:44, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Looks like they just used it in an indiscriminate manner. –xeno^talk 20:52, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

The mix of edits reverted is bizarre, to be sure. Top edits from the watchlist, maybe? I'm mainly confused by the sudden nature of the outburst; looks like DC's been editing more or less without incident since July 2009 and got rollback in November, and I'm not seeing any obvious spark to set this off. – Luna Santin (talk) 21:00, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

WP:EWI or compromised account; DC's been too sane for too long for this to just be a reaction to something on WP. The mass rollbacks are easily explained by a "rollback all" tool used on a page somewhere; the blanking of the user, user talk, and edit notice pages are less explicable as an accident. Let's wait to see if a sheepish apology is forthcoming tomorrow, vs. continued odd behavior. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:07, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I took first thought maybe this was a misfire of a mass rollback but it doesn't appear to be in his monobook. Could be wikicide. –xeno^talk 21:09, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Luna, have you performed a Checkuser to see if there is clear evidence of a compromised account? -MBK₀₀₄ 21:22, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Indeed I have; results aren't especially conclusive, but might lend or detract credence from whatever explanation we hopefully get from DC. – Luna Santin (talk) 21:25, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Would emailing DC be a good idea? —  Cargoking  talk  21:37, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Sure, I'll do it. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 21:48, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I've also done so. This is certainly out of character for DC, whom I've always respected since I first came across him several months ago. HJ Mitchell | fancy a chat? 22:08, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I just got a response stating, "I left Wikipedia up on my computer in a common room in my dorms. Someone must've gone onto my watchlist and hit rollback a lot. Also I tried logging on to wikipedia, and it looks like my password was changed because I can't get back onto my account." He's now at work, so he won't respond to any e-mails for a while. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 22:28, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I expected as much. I've interacted with DC in the past, as recently as last month, and he seems like a respectable editor. I hope he won't make that mistake again, a person who lives in a communal place like a dorm needs to be particularly careful about computer security. -- Atama頭 22:46, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Since we know the account is compromised, can someone please block it? Thanks. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:57, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

 Done. Once he confirms he's back in control of his account, feel free to unblock. Fran Rogers (talk) 23:01, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

User:Madz67

Resolved

 – Indef'ed user. Will unblock when and if they coherently agree to abide by copyright. Jclemens (talk) 22:15, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm having some trouble with the named user, since she constantly has been uploading copy vio images. The user fails to reply to any messages, nor does she take heed to any advice. I've chosen to ignore it since the user does produce a lot of good edits, though it is starting to get annoying now due to the last few uploads. + ThermoNuclear ☢ 21:04, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Need help from admin for moving an article

Resolved

 –  Done --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:16, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I am new to all this, I need help from an admin to move an article. I tried it myself and saw that it would require Sysop Privileges. I need someone to move the current page for "Ab initio" to "Ab initio (Disambiguation)", the problem is that the main article serves as the current disambiguation page and the disambig page redirects to the main article, it should be the other way around. I need to add some information to the main article and correct about a 100 links to that disambiguation, but I can not proceed without some help from an admin. Can anyone please look into the matter, its a small task. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks--Theo10011 (talk) 22:01, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

What is the main page that you are talking about? Kevin Rutherford (talk) 22:06, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Ab initio please move it to Ab initio (disambiguation). --Theo10011 (talk) 22:10, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I think what Kevin is asking is, what do you plan to put at Ab initio once the move is done? It's quite possible the status quo is the best situation here. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:15, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Currently, Its the same thing at both pages barely 5 lines in total, there is a lot of information to be added. ab initio has 6-7 uses, the page barely lists 3 (I added 2 more today). the problem is that there are 100 links directed to that disambiguation page, most of them are not descriptive enough for that one page comprising of 5 lines total. I plan to make it like the Habeas Corpus(another similar latin term used legally) article with a complete main page and relevant info for the latin and legal term and a link to a disambiguation page for Habeas corpus (disambiguation). both terms are similar, even obscure Latin terms have their own pages, this one is not so obscure since its linked by over 100 other pages. I will add to the main page with relevant info and sources once I have a place to.--Theo10011 (talk) 22:28, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

In other words, it sounds like you plan to write ab initio (law), but you believe it is the WP:primary topic, and thus plan to put it at ab initio, and fix all links that currently go to this page that refer to one of the other uses? The fact that you can't do this yourself is an artifact of a bot edit several years ago, and normally you'd be able to boldly do this yourself, and even though this should probably be at WP:RM, I'm inclined to help here just to cut out the bureaucracy. I just hesitate to help you do something that will ultimately be reverted by someone who disagrees that this is the primary topic. Many links to this page are intended to reach ab initio quantum chemistry methods. Are you sure it wouldn't make more sense to keep ab initio as it is, and create what you're talking about at ab initio (law)? --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:40, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your help, you understood my intention partially, so please allow me to clarify. I dont intend to make an article solely for Law- the term itself is a very commonly used latin term in literature, science, aviation and other fields but the most primary use for it is based on its latin meaning, so the main page would first talk about its latin meaning , roots, etymology and would have further sub-headings. the page would also have a link above to a separate disambig page with a link of all its not so common uses like the quantum chemistry method etc.. For reference, I suggested the Habeas Corpus article above which is exactly what I want to do with this article, they are similar Latin terms used in law also. If you have any further concerns maybe I can create a page like Ab initio 2 so you can see what I want to create which you can later move.....but I might need help from other editors since its a collaborative process. Again, I understand that this is a complicated situation and I thank you for bearing with me. I am basically asking you to move a disambiguation page to an already existing disambiguation page and not redirect to it.--Theo10011 (talk) 22:55, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not 100% sure about this, but as long as you're open to WP:BRD if people disagree, I'll go ahead and do the move for you, since 99% of the time you wouldn't need an admin to do this; it's only because a bot edited ab initio (disambiguation) twice back in 2008 that you can't do it yourself. At worst, we may, in future, need to move the page you're going to create to some new place, and move the dab page back. Give me a couple of minutes. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:12, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you.--Theo10011 (talk) 23:13, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Theo, if it helps, you could put something together at User:Theo10011/ab initio to see what it would look like and how it might fit with the other two pagesElen of the Roads (talk) 23:20, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I added some of the information to the page now, if anyone wants to check it out Ab initio, any suggestions or objections are welcomed. please let me know if it makes more sense now than before, I will fix the wrong disambiguation links as well. Thank you for your help.--Theo10011 (talk) 23:49, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Vandal returns

User:71.234.20.11 returned from a week long block for vandalism and immediately vandalized one of the same articles he was blocked for vandalizing. [74]. Niteshift36 (talk) 02:48, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I've blocked him, for two weeks this time. Suggest doubling if he continues. Crum375 (talk) 02:52, 6 February 2010 (UTC)