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Is it just me...
- Moving long thread over 50k to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Oxford Round Table. Cheers, D.M.N. (talk) 16:01, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Future datestamp: 16:01, 11 February 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sceptre (talk • contribs)
Would somebody make sure this thread gets archived properly? Somehow I don't think shunting it off onto it's own subpage is going to allow that to happen. Pairadox (talk) 04:43, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I think the thread has died now anyway. That tends to happen when these sort of threads get moved to a subpage. The thread was also naturally coming to an end, so maybe it would have archived automatically after a day, but we will never know now. I know Betacommand has been manually archiving some noticeboards. Maybe he could deal with this subpage? Carcharoth (talk) 08:48, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Handling sock puppetry (block review)
Hi. I've only tangentially become involved with one or two sock puppetry cases in the past and would appreciate assistance from someone more experienced in dealing with them. Revisiting Incivility...Griot above, an editor to whom I'd given feedback on a BLP concern asked my advice on my talk page how to proceed in the case of suspected sock puppetry. He (pardon if I'm using the wrong pronoun) followed up at checkuser and confirmed that User:Sedlam evidently is a sock puppet being used to thwart policy by User:Griot. I know that per policy User:Sedlam is blocked as a matter of course as an inappropriately used alternative account. (Please correct me if I've left the wrong templates.) I'm not sure what's to be done about User:Griot. A warning? A label? He is a long-standing editor who has as far as I know has never had a problem of this sort in the past, although it seems he was blocked on the 31st of January, 2008 for edit warring, I presume on Matt Gonzalez based on this note. My only experiences with Griot prior to this were in relation to the article Cabretta, and though we haven't always agreed he seemed like a constructive contributor. Perhaps some political topics are too emotionally engaging? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:22, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
If he was using a bad-hand sockpuppet to edit abusively, then both the primary and bad hand account should probably be blocked (based on a review of the edits in question). This is something the checkusers or checkuser clerks typically take care of, have they weighed in? Avruchtalk 00:04, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- Other than confirming the check-user and the policy thwarting use of the account, no. I'm not sure they're going to. I notice that the matter was completed at 20:50 on February 8, and at the top of Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser, it says "In most cases, any block or other action based on the outcome will not be taken by the checkuser-people or the clerks. Instead, you will have to do this yourself." I'm not sure which cases constitute most. This is as close to check user as I've personally ever come. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:14, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- And so they did. :) Thanks for weighing in, Avruch. If I ever wind up in this situation again, I'll just wait a day to see if this falls into one of those "action to be taken" or "action not to be taken" situations. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:36, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Griot indef blocked?
Though we punish people who abusively sockpuppet, Griot is a longtime user in generally good standing prior to this incident.
However, the current block levied is indef against his main account.
This appears to be excessive and uncalled for. I agree that his sockpuppetry was abusive, but not indef-blocked abusive. A week, maybe?
Comments sought. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 01:06, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- Agree 100% with this assessment. I have no data relevant to this specific situ, but I do have years of positive experience with User:Griot. If indeed Griot is guilty, then he has some serious explaining to do and perhaps penance of some kind. But indef block seems way extreme unless the sockpuppetry is repeated and sustained. BusterD (talk) 02:28, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- I have no input on the proper length of a block for this situation, obviously, or I wouldn't have brought this here to begin with. :) I did not block the primary account myself because of his history, but as I said above, I have no experience with sock puppetry to speak of. I would like to note that the editor who initially requested the checkuser believes that Griot may have abused other accounts as well, as he indicated in a more recent note at my talkpage (a belief mirrored by the now blocked IP editor above). I don't know on what evidence or if these allegations are correct, but other suspicions seem to have been confirmed by checkuser. Is this the sort of thing that should be investigated prior to making final calls or only if Griot returns and concerns persist? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 02:40, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'm the editor who requested the checkuser on User:Griot. I have no opinion on any action to take. I would like to add the following, though. User:Griot didn't simply switch back and forth and revert and be done with it. He made a self conscious planned out effort to deceive, and presented not just reverts, but purposively deceptive talk page commentary. For instance, on the talk page, to portray some sort of "compromise" having been reached, he writes "Please click the links and observe how other editors rejected your edit:" and then lists himself and his confirmed sock puppet (and one other editor of unknown relationship to this). Then, he logs out as Griot, logs in as User:Sedlam, and writes ":You can add me to this list of compromisers." On the BLP noticeboard , Both Griot and another likely sock User:Feedler, both gave input. As Moonriddengirl mentioned, I have reason to believe the sock puppetry by Griot goes back a ways on Nader-related articles, but wasn;t caught (although the issue seems to have been raised, but the complainant seems to have gotten blocked). Griot seems to have been vigourously edit warring on Nader article for a year or so. Elsewhere, he has confessed to have a serious personal grudge against Nader. Boodlesthecat (talk) 03:55, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
The indef block is abnormal in this situation and unwarranted, in my opinion. Has the blocking admin commented? --Akhilleus (talk) 05:31, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- Evidently, here, where she has indicated a willingness to go along with consensus and suggested this discussion. Personally, I'm wondering if a topical ban would be appropriate in the event that the block is made definite. It seems the sock account was used primarily to thwart consensus building and disguise edit warring on Ralph Nader and Ralph Nader's presidential campaigns. Perhaps this is evidence that the user is too emotionally invested in these articles to contribute to them as he does elsewhere? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:47, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- Maybe. Looking at the history of those articles, it looks like there's a lot of editing by drive-by IPs, SPAs, possible socks, etc. We know that one of the editors on the "other side" from Griot is a persistent sockpuppeteer. So my question is, has Griot been editing abusively for a long period (in which case I'd support a topic ban), or did he only turn to sockpuppetry recently after getting frustrated by the editing environment? (Either way, the use of socks is not good, and if he does it again, the block should be much longer...) --Akhilleus (talk) 15:51, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- I don't know. I suppose it might be worth asking Boodlesthecat the proceed with investigating his other suspicions to find out. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:57, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Adjust the block to be slightly less than that used against the person who opposed the user via the same tactics. Lambton T/C 21:57, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- Do you mean slightly less than the IP editor recently blocked for 6 months here as a sock of User:Telogen, who was indef blocked here, or are there yet more Nader-fighting socks that I don't know about? :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:27, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
Reduced block
The handling of this matter was over the top IMO. As an uninvolved editor/admin, and after reading the above, I have reset the duration to one week (it says 6 days, but note a day had elapsed since the block was enacted). Consensus here should determine whether further reduction or an unblock is warranted. I am particularly surprised at the treatment of the user's user and talk pages, which I have reverted to their pre-9 Feb state, and the ignoring of the blatant incivility of Boodlesthecat by those handling the case. I will be placing a warning on his talk page shortly - ([1] done). Orderinchaos 06:03, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- My response to the inference of incivility is here.. Boodlesthecat (talk) 22:09, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- I agree with User:Orderinchaos. As a relatively frequent reviewer of sockpuppetry cases at WP:SSP, the standard practice has been to block named abusive socks indefinitely, but to block the master account for a finite period if it appears to have at least some constructive potential. I typically block for 72 hours (see User:Lucy-marie, for example), though others use anything from 24 hours to a week. In any case, the master account (Griot) should definitely be blocked, but for a finite period (72 hours to 1 week). Further confirmed sockpuppetry should result in a lengthy or indefinite block, but an indefinite block for a first offense by a somewhat-constructive account is excessive. MastCell Talk 22:35, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
Longstanding sock puppetry by Griot
I filed another Checkuser showing the very extended sock puppetry of Griot over here. Boodlesthecat (talk) 22:06, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
Griot deliberately misrepresenting me on his talk page
Which I don't think is allowed is not allowed on Wikipedia talk pages, so reverted it back to the original conversation. This can be seen here along with my comments on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Griot&action=history This must be considered uncivil behavior. I reverted it back to the original and he did it again. He has done it again, saying (this is my talk page) - http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Griot&diff=prev&oldid=190710037<br\> However Wikipedia talk pages are not the place for purposefully misrepresenting fellow editors in a bad light.<br\> WP:Talk_page states that Article talk pages are provided for discussion of the content of articles and the views of reliable published sources. They should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views.<br\> And I am certain they are also not meant to be used in the way Griot is using his. Can someone please have him either remove all conversations between me and him from his talk page or leave the whole conversation exactly as it originally was? Thanks. BillyTFried (talk) 21:47, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Did I or did I not warn you to stop edit harrassing and warring with him on his talk page?
- Anyone who wishes can see the old versions and edit history. Stop bothering him. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 07:00, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Case of "nothing to see here, move along". Seems the guy archived or removed some comments from his talk page. Orderinchaos 09:42, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Amongst the comments removed are challenges to transparently false statements on his talk page that attempt to portray his history on the articles he has edit warred on for years in an undeservedly favorable light. Which of course is his right. Boodlesthecat (talk) 17:02, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- As I told Billy, the history of what people have commented on there on his talk page remains for anyone who cares to dig. Our user talk page policy allows one to remove comments and warnings once they've been read, though a lot of people object to it. Policy remains what it is, though, so Griot is within his perogative, and edit-warring to restore content there is against policy etc. Best for everyone to just drop the situation - everyone knows about the CU results now, that's not going away, if he wants to clean up the talk page and protect some personal dignity then leave him alone. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 20:40, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Amongst the comments removed are challenges to transparently false statements on his talk page that attempt to portray his history on the articles he has edit warred on for years in an undeservedly favorable light. Which of course is his right. Boodlesthecat (talk) 17:02, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Case of "nothing to see here, move along". Seems the guy archived or removed some comments from his talk page. Orderinchaos 09:42, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Newspaper Article<br\> I just wanted you to know that the reason Griot did this and that I am so VERY upset about his purposeful misrepresentation of me which you have done nothing about is because there is a Newspaper article about Wikipedia hitting the presses tomorrow morning here in San Francisco and Griot (who is currently banned for abuse) and his abuses and sock puppetry are the main focus of the article and this will surely bring traffic to his page which shows me in an unfair light thanks to him editing out our entire conversation and making it look like it happened in a way that it actually DID NOT. (he actually deleted 90% of his talk page except for the few items left he wants highlighted [inaccurately]) My Wikipedia user name (WHICH IS MY REAL NAME THAT MY HOME ADDRESS CAN BE GOOGLED FROM) is also briefly mentioned in the article referencing that event. Griot is of course an anonymous name. I find it completely unprofessional for his misrepresentation of our conversation to be left intact when it clearly violates Wikipedia's rules on what Talk pages are for and breaks incivility rules. I am asking one more time that you please address this issue before tomorrow when many people that live here in San Francisco will be reading this article, logging on to Wikipedia and then reading an unfairly edited chop up of a conversation I had with Griot that was chopped intentionally to make me look as bad as possibly... as if I was actually threatening him with GUN VIOLENCE, which was not what I was doing AT ALL, and that was ruled to be THE TRUTH by the admins after he REPORTED ME. I was NOT banned by the admins, though Griot said I was on his talk page, and when I removed that 100% lie, he didn't fight back. But his purposely editing out of the rest of the convo to make it APPEAR to be a violent threat with a gun will go over REAL WELL in San Francisco. At the very least please review exactly what has gone on here and ask yourself if what he has done is appropriate and that your allowing it is the right thing to do. Thanks. BillyTFried (talk) 03:10, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Article in San Francisco Weekly
here is the San Francisco Weekly article that BillyTFried refers to above. I don't think I would be exaggerating too much if I said that it attempts to out an anonymous Wikipedia editor, contains numerous insults that would, if they appeared on Wikipedia, be a violation of WP:NPA, and is by the sister of a banned sockpuppeteer (see, e.g., Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Telogen) to boot. According to a previous thread on this board, the reporter (User:Marynega) was in contact with Wikipedia PR and a number of Wikipedians; I trust that nobody knew what the content of the article was going to be, but it's still a bit distressing that this piece got produced with the help of Foundation members. --Akhilleus (talk) 04:50, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Signature
- Jeffmichaud (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Jeffmichaud for a long time has used the signature "Jeff", but changed it on Jan 14 to "Baha'i Under the Covenant".[2] The policy on User names says to avoid names that are offensive or promotional. WP:sig suggests for users to politely request others to change their signature. If there is consensus that the policy of avoiding 'offensive, confusing, or promotional' user names equally applies to signature, then I also suggest updating WP:sig.
I politely requested on Jan 24 for him to change the signature,[3] and after no response I warned him again on Feb 8,[4]. The first request was immediately archived,[5] and the second request was immediately deleted outright from his talk page.[6]
For more details on why this is both offensive and promotional, glance over Baha'i divisions. The Baha'i religion has teachings on the succession of authority, and anyone creating divisions are considered dangerous and shunned, labeled "Covenant-breaker". The implication is that there is a Covenant in the religion to provide unity, and anyone who breaks away is not under the Covenant. Jeffmichaud belongs to one such group with a handful of followers who call themselves the "Baha'is Under the Provisions of the Covenant". Changing his signature in the middle of a debate over Baha'i content was his way of promoting his ideological claim in the face of other editors. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 01:50, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- Oh good grief! What kind of belief or faith is it that cannot withstand critical comment even from within itself? And when it comes down to mere words, whatever their implications, I'd suggest that any belief system should be self-confident and self-consistent in itself to be able to ignore mere words. That words are found offensive doesn't help in the slightest. Throughout history, words have been labelled as offensive, mostly because they represent a difference from orthodoxy; but in the context of an analytical, independently-minded and intellectually balanced source of information, rather than of opinion, taking offence at mere words is jejune, intellectually barren, and time-wasting. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 04:40, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- Addendum: Please feel free to cite any authority whatsoever, religious, legal or otherwise, that supports a right not to be offended. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 04:44, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- That is completely not the point. We have a Wikipedia policy that says not to use offensive user names, and a guideline that says it equally applies to signatures. Your response is attacking the policy and saying that nobody should be offended by anything. That's nonsense and a total disregard for the official policy that "all users should follow". Cuñado ☼ - Talk 07:07, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- I apologise, but I personally am offended by any user name containing the letter "c". Therefore, they should all be banned. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 11:45, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- Once again, completely not the point, and an illogical disregard for WP policy. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 15:35, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- Stop shaking the straw man, please. Or is that Reductio ad absurdum? hbdragon88 (talk) 19:12, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- I apologise, but I personally am offended by any user name containing the letter "c". Therefore, they should all be banned. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 11:45, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- That is completely not the point. We have a Wikipedia policy that says not to use offensive user names, and a guideline that says it equally applies to signatures. Your response is attacking the policy and saying that nobody should be offended by anything. That's nonsense and a total disregard for the official policy that "all users should follow". Cuñado ☼ - Talk 07:07, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- Forgive my stupidity, but exactly how is the signature offensive or promotional? —Kurykh 07:10, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- I can't see it either; sounds like the debate we had over User:Rama's Arrow a few months ago. --Rodhullandemu
- Hmmm.. neither can I. Has the subject since changed it? Rudget. 14:08, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- I can't see it either; sounds like the debate we had over User:Rama's Arrow a few months ago. --Rodhullandemu
(Talk) 12:45, 9 February 2008 (UTC) This is a big part of why I don't edit Baha'i articles anymore. :\ JuJube (talk) 14:06, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- Maybe I should make something clear: I don't think it's offensive that he has certain beliefs and edits wikipedia, but he changed his signature to something that implies divine right. It would be like a user name of "I'm in God's favor and you're not". There is no need to use controversial user names/signatures and I politely requested for him to change it, and I politely requested for an administrator to enforce policy and ask him to change it to something less controversial. And no he hasn't changed it yet. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 15:35, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'll take a deeper look, and ask him to change it based on that reason. I don't see anything unreasonable in asking the subject to change to something that would at least reflect his username. Rudget. 15:38, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- Personally, if someone changed their sig to "I'm in God's favor and you're not", my reaction would be less "offended" and more "hilarity". Even assuming the worst possible faith--that the person is TRYING to honk off the other believers--changing a sig to something self-aggrandizing says less about the truth of his/her beliefs as it says about their response to disagreement. Just my opinion, though, and no offense intended to anyone. Gladys J Cortez 06:57, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'll take a deeper look, and ask him to change it based on that reason. I don't see anything unreasonable in asking the subject to change to something that would at least reflect his username. Rudget. 15:38, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- Maybe I should make something clear: I don't think it's offensive that he has certain beliefs and edits wikipedia, but he changed his signature to something that implies divine right. It would be like a user name of "I'm in God's favor and you're not". There is no need to use controversial user names/signatures and I politely requested for him to change it, and I politely requested for an administrator to enforce policy and ask him to change it to something less controversial. And no he hasn't changed it yet. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 15:35, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Hey, is someone here talking about me behind my back? Kidding. Rudget, I will respectfully decline your request to change anything if, as seems clear from the discussion that transpired, I'm not in violation of any policies nor am I being "required". I don't believe I've violated any policy, but rather am being "asked" to change it to appease Cunado's will on the matter? After closer look at the actual policies on the matter it is obvious that Cunado is taking generous liberties at interpreting them in his own unique way for reasons not exactly obvious to me or anyone else. I appreciate your sentiments to avoid controversy, Rudget, but if it is offensive to Cunado I can only be envious that his life is so blessed to have nothing of greater concern to worry about. Baha'i Under the Covenant (talk) 07:40, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- WP:Username policy is a policy that "all users should follow", and "a user who acts against the spirit of them may be reprimanded, even if technically no rule has been violated." The policy states that inappropriate user names are ones that are misleading, promotional, offensive, or disruptive, and "these criteria apply to both usernames and signatures." I already explained why the signature is controversial. I was once blocked for not following WP:sig, which is a guideline and not even a policy, see this conversation. Someone please enforce policy. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 17:50, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- I am inclined to view this as not offensive. It is one thing to say "My group is great" and another to say "Your group isn't", so we have lots of users with pro- type names, whether it be sports, nationality, activity, whatever, which seem compliant with the policy; while anti- type names aren't. Quite a difference between User:Boston Red Sox lover and User:New York Yankees hater in my mind. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 00:57, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Well, would you find a signature such as "Jesus, the true lord and savior" to be offensive? It's proselytism, regardless of the religion involved. We have some Yankees and Red Sox fans who have a fervent devotion to their teams, but it's not the same thing. If the signature would be blocked as a user name, it shouldn't be acceptable as a signature either. Horologium (talk) 01:04, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Horologium, your example is in fact proselytism, but I'm not proselytizing per se. I'm identifying myself here, and not promoting/proselytising anything. BTW, it hasn't been blocked as a user name. Would it be? I've considered creating it as one. Would it be a problem? Baha'i Under the Covenant 08:48, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I brought it up on Wikipedia:Usernames for administrator attention, but it was not considered because the actually user name is not the issue. The spirit of the policy is that user names and signatures should be used for identification and should avoid anything controversial. Religion and politics are the most controversial subjects, so it should be a no-brainer to say that it's inappropriate to boldly promote a religious view in a user name or sig. Even a name like "Jesus is for me" might seem harmless, but there is no reason to stir the pot on something that should be free of controversial subjects. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 16:03, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Generally, the signature is intended to be a means of discerning who has placed certain comments. By changing it to something that obscures your username (no where in "Baha'i Under the Covenant" does it tell me who that is), is not within policy. The only problem I see is that there is no reference to "Jeff" or "Jeffmichaud" in your signature. Surely, it would be better to use something that includes the phrase you want, but also includes your actual username in some form.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 08:54, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- While I agree, WP:sig is a guideline, and it says "While not an absolute requirement, it is common practice for a signature to resemble to some degree the username it represents." So we're back to offering Jeffmichaud unenforceable advice. The issue is about enforcing the policy about a controversial signature. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 16:03, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I've also seen that he has not responded to my comment either here or his talk page. I'm really not sure, as an administrator, what should be done here.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 23:55, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Ryulong, you didn't request comment "here or on my talk page". There were no questions in your message. I understand your concern now, and it makes perfect sense, so I've taken your suggestions and made the appropriate changes. I didn't think further comment was needed. Baha'i Under the CovenantJeff 05:29, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I've also seen that he has not responded to my comment either here or his talk page. I'm really not sure, as an administrator, what should be done here.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 23:55, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- While I agree, WP:sig is a guideline, and it says "While not an absolute requirement, it is common practice for a signature to resemble to some degree the username it represents." So we're back to offering Jeffmichaud unenforceable advice. The issue is about enforcing the policy about a controversial signature. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 16:03, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Horologium, your example is in fact proselytism, but I'm not proselytizing per se. I'm identifying myself here, and not promoting/proselytising anything. BTW, it hasn't been blocked as a user name. Would it be? I've considered creating it as one. Would it be a problem? Baha'i Under the Covenant 08:48, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Well, would you find a signature such as "Jesus, the true lord and savior" to be offensive? It's proselytism, regardless of the religion involved. We have some Yankees and Red Sox fans who have a fervent devotion to their teams, but it's not the same thing. If the signature would be blocked as a user name, it shouldn't be acceptable as a signature either. Horologium (talk) 01:04, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Indef block review of User:TlatoSMD by Rlevse
I personally agree with this indefinite block, but I think because TlatoSMD has made some contributions worth keeping and has been an editor on the English and German Wikipedia for some time the ban should get wider review. Avruchtalk 02:44, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- It's hard to disagree with the blocking admin's rationale left on User talk:TlatoSMD. The disruption and incivility needed to be permanently stamped out. Ice Cold Beer (talk) 03:01, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- I fully support this block, and would have advocated an indefinite block on Tlato long ago. Keilana|Parlez ici 03:08, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- I agree with this block. Just as 3RR isn't licence to revert an article 3 times, everyday, no matter what, DRV isn't a forum to rehash every XfD that closed against one's interests. Also, the continued incivility from this user WP:NPA and his attempts at WP:GAMEING the system are a major issue. MBisanz talk 03:22, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Strongly endorse the block per the sound rationale left by the blocking admin. TlatoSMD is a disruptive SPA who has tried so hard to game the system for weeks now, and has repeatedly disrupted deletion processes in an attempt to push a POV. The incivility is just icing on the cake. --Coredesat 03:26, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Endorse per my comment on the user's talkpage [7]. Disruptive and combative user. WjBscribe 03:32, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Oppose the indef block. An indef block is excessive - I would recommend a temporary block. (The following rationale for this has been copied from TlatoSMD's Talk Page)
- While it's true that TlatoSMD can use a bit more tact in his commentary from time to time, indef blocking seems wildly inappropriate in this situation. His confrontational and "snappy" responses and exclamations are a result of what this individual perceives to be unrelenting attacks and POV-pushing by both regular editors and admins. Although he may have stepped out of line several times with his tone and heavy-handed words, I can't say I completely disagree with his interpretation of what has been happening on Wikipedia, especially in regards to PAW articles and their editors, for the past year or so. A great deal of misrepresentation is occurring, biases are clouding both editing and discussion, and a multitude of editors are refusing to engage in direct debate, preferring to completely disregard positions they personally disagree with. The fact that a number of admins have been either apathetic to TlatoSMD's situation or, in fact, engaged in the very same nonconstructive practices just mentioned has frustrated TlatoSMD quite a bit. Placed within such a hostile environment, and ignored by many regular editors and admins alike, TlatoSMD began to pick his words with less tact than is expected. Although some may be correct in asserting that some sort of block is in order, maybe even longer than several days or a week, indefinite blocking this individual would not benefit the project as a whole. Wikipedia will be hurt if it loses yet another intelligent, well-read, and usually civil editor, who's not afraid to speak his mind and to point out policy violations and POV-pushing when they occur, even at the risk of opposing many influential Wikipedians. A temporary block may be in order, so that TlatoSMD rethinks his approach to commentary and regains appreciation for civility, but an indef block will do nothing to improve the quality of Wikipedia or its articles. The controversial PAW articles will definitely suffer, and an indef block will only fuel the growing suspicion that there's censorship taking place on Wikipedia, and that having a controversial take on subjects is a bannable offense. ~ Homologeo (talk) 03:39, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Now, to respond quickly to the reasons provided by Rlevse for the indef block. First of all, I fail to see any conclusive evidence that TlatoSMD is a single purpose account. Although a great deal of this user's recent edits have focused on PAW articles, his contribution history, via both his current and previous accounts, clearly shows that he has edited a variety of articles. Besides, being an SPA is generally poor grounding (in and of itself) for indef blocking. Next, his "snappiness" and (what can be deemed by some) uncivil behavior can be addressed with a temporary block - no indef block is necessary. Besides, this is only the third block this editor ever got, and all the blocks were recently received in regards to the ongoing discussions surrounding the deletion of the "Adult-child sex" article and of the various drafts that attempted come up with a quality representation of this controversial subject. Then, even though this is a very "icky" topic for many, TlatoSMD followed proper Wikipedia procedures in contesting the deletions just mentioned. Thus, his actions to this regard should not be grounds for an indef block. As for the supposed "canvassing," this behavior can be addressed by warnings or a temporary block - once again, no indef block is called for. Lastly, this editor is quite capable of editing articles constructively and civility, as his editing history clearly demonstrates. To assert that TlatoSMD is "not here to be constructive" is to blatantly ignore all his contributions prior to his controversial conduct in the recent debates. There's much that this editor can contribute to Wikipedia. And, yes, enforcement of policy and emphasis on NPOV are just two of the positives that TlatoSMD generally brings to the table. ~ Homologeo (talk) 03:39, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- You're misquoting me, I did not say he was a sock, I said his admitted doppelganger account, see this prior version of his user page. Also, I protest your claim this is censorship, the issue is incivility and disruption. As for his good edits, that is not a defense, per Jimbo's link below. — Rlevse • Talk • 03:52, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- I apologize for misreading a part of your comment. I have now adjusted my response to account for the assertion that TlatoSMD is an SPA. As for the "doppelganger" comment, I'm not sure what this has to do with the issue at hand. As far as I know, many editors mistakenly create several spellings of their username and only end up using one of the account. Since this is his primary account, and the combined contribution history of his current and previous account show editing in a variety of articles, I fail to see what makes TlatoSMD an SPA. Besides, as stated above, being an SPA, even if this was true of this particular editor, is generally poor grounding (in and of itself) for an indef block. ~ Homologeo (talk) 04:16, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- There is also no assertion that your particular indef blocking of TlatoSMD is censorship. What I said was that this "indef block will only fuel the growing suspicion that there's censorship taking place on Wikipedia, and that having a controversial take on subjects is a bannable offense." I'm not saying that this is true, but it's foolish to deny that such observations are being made about the project, especially after a number of controversial indef blocks in the past year or so. ~ Homologeo (talk) 04:16, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
TlatoSMD Review Break
- Has he been blocked or banned? Regardless, indef is def excessive. Firstly, he is not a Single Purpose Account as was said in the blocking rationale on his talk page. At least, not according to his contribs history. Blocking is not supposed to be used as punishment or to make a point, regardless of what Jimbo says. I'd say a timed block, as in 24 hours if he hasn't been blocked before to 48 hours if he's only been blocked once before to a couple of days or week depending on recent past block count, would be more appropriate in dealing with his incivility. - ✰ALLSTAR✰ echo 03:45, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- He's blocked, not banned. Even if one accepts the argument that he's not an SPA, there's still plenty to support an indef on this highly disruptive user. Short blocks have not worked. There is way more than his incivility. His statements (see quotes I made on his user talk page) show no sign of acknowledging the collaborative nature of wikipedia. — Rlevse • Talk • 03:55, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Firstly, Avruch has my deep respect for bringing this here, even though he agrees with the block, because bringing it here for wider review was the right thing to do. Good call and thank you.
- Keilana will of course support the block because TlatoSMD rightly challenged her deletion of a page without rationale.
- When we are talking about a permanent ban on a user, we have to really look at it. Why? I have seen vandalism-only accounts and vandalism-only IP's blocked for 24 hours, only to go through the entire process again. I have seen the most aggregious name-calling and personal attacks go without rebuke at all. But TlatoSMD is uncivil and warrants a permaban? That is, quite simply, ridiculous.
- So, why is this user being banned? Because he is right. Not entirely, and not always, but he is absolutely right in that he demands that Wikipedia policies be followed, and he has made no attempt to hide his feelings about clear policy violations. Pages that do not warrant deletion are being deleted. Personal attacks on him and others go without even warnings. And when he responds in kind, he is banned. What sort of precedent does this set?
- There is the canvassing issue. Firstly, let's even assume it was canvassing (which it was not); is canvassing once worthy of a permanent ban from Wikipedia? Of course not.
- TlatoSMD is by no means a Single-Purpose Account, and even if he had an uber-narrow focus, so what? Sockpuppet? No. Focused editor? Sure, why not? Who cares, though. His contributions have been very good and he has spent more time and effort on articles than some who only have worked to tear articles down. Are we going to start banning everyone who edits in a narrow range?
- The bottom line is that this ban is egregiously over-the-top. I can agree that TlatoSMD has been aggressive. TlatoSMD has even rufled many feathers (gasp!). But to be permanently banned for this? Come on now... don't we all, as a community, have better things to do that force this issue? How about blocking intentional, blatant vandals for more than 24 hours at a time? TlatoSMD deserves time to cool off and continue editing constructively.
- Let's drop this block to 24-36 hours, shake our collective finger at him, and move on...
- VigilancePrime (talk) 04:12, 10 February 2008 (UTC) :-)
- For what it's worth, I'm not supporting the block because he " rightly challenged [my] deletion of a page without rationale". First of all, I did provide a rationale, which he disagreed with. Fine. He had every right to DRV the article. However, after the nth incarnation, it became clear that he was an SPA. He has acted uncivilly, and the net gain to the project of unblocking him would be much less than the net loss from all the drama and incivility that follows him around. Keilana|Parlez ici 04:18, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- It became clear he was an SPA? Have you not taken the time to look at his contribs? He is definitely not an SPA. - ✰ALLSTAR✰ echo 04:39, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, it did. I have read his contributions, FWIW. He has barely any article-space edits, effectively everything he does is related to this one article. Keilana|Parlez ici 04:44, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- It became clear he was an SPA? Have you not taken the time to look at his contribs? He is definitely not an SPA. - ✰ALLSTAR✰ echo 04:39, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- VigilancePrime--There's way more to this than Keilana and other edits. That three admins deleted that page shows there's considerable support to do so and that TlatoSMD is not correct in his actions. And again, he is not banned, there is a difference in a ban and an indef block. Your claim that he's being banned because he's right is ludicrous. — Rlevse • Talk • 04:21, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- For what it's worth, I'm not supporting the block because he " rightly challenged [my] deletion of a page without rationale". First of all, I did provide a rationale, which he disagreed with. Fine. He had every right to DRV the article. However, after the nth incarnation, it became clear that he was an SPA. He has acted uncivilly, and the net gain to the project of unblocking him would be much less than the net loss from all the drama and incivility that follows him around. Keilana|Parlez ici 04:18, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- It's like the verifiability vs. truth argument. He may be right, but right is subjective, and his opinion of right has been shown to be against consensus. I have also refactored your comments' formatting and removed the annoying red box. Keilana|Parlez ici 04:26, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Disruptive SPA sums it quite nicely. In my opinion, indef is a good call. – Sadalmelik (talk) 04:38, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Agreed with this analysis (after having seen the user at a few of the debates). Orderinchaos 04:41, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
Unsurprisingly I support this block, he has been incredibly uncivil and disruptive and short blocks perpetuated the situation. WP is better off without users like this. ViridaeTalk 04:43, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Keilana, replied to your note on my talk page. Thank you for asking and no, I don't think you're self-important.
- Second, the difference between Indef block and Ban is purely semantic. Spare me.
- Third, Keilana closed the original debate w/o stated rationale, and that caused a firestorm (on all sides, ultimately). That led to Tlato being less-than-kind toward her, and thus I would expect a certain dislike for him. I would be too, so that's not meant as a slight against her.
- Fourth, counting admins is useless. Yes, three admins deleted the pages. Just as many kept the original page, protected the original page, or agreed that the pages should stay. In fact, more. Spare us the "so-many admins (as if that makes opinions more valuable?) did this or that". Poor argument.
- When it comes down to it, "we" would rather protect those who intentionally destroy Wikipedia (blocking vandals for 24 hours at a time, no matter their history?) and wash ou hands of someone who is so committed to Wikipedia as to fight for it. I do not disagree that T's comments have been unnecessarily aggressive. But a lifetime ban? Come on now... let's use our common sense. If "we" want to set this precedent, can I bring you twice as much evidence about another user, who has in fact taken part in name-calling and personal attacks and you'll permaban/permablock them as well? Give the word and I'll give the links, quotes, and diffs. But make me that promise first.
- Let's set some sort of consistency. Everyone in this debacle has had some sort of culpability in it, including me. I haven't been the most pleasant at times (longer ago). Neither has anyone else, admins most often included. Let's not overreact here. I would recommend a few cement trucks worth of Good Faith just be poured over this entire situation.
- VigilancePrime (talk) 04:46, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
Question: What is the status of this page now? Its called "Der paedophile impuls" and is written in German, and it is apparently a copy of an article that was deleted on de.wiki. Avruch T 04:59, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- I also support this block, and would support a ban as well. This is a highly disruptive user who continually insults and attacks other users, even continuing to be so blatantly uncivil that during a block today his userpage had to be protected due to his outrageous behavior. TlatoSMD has attacked several administrators, accusing them of blatant lying [8][9][10], having “faulty rationale” and being neglectful by turning a blind eye to vandalism. TlatoSMD has acted in a disruptive manner in every MfD DRV and MfD he's been involved in, while continuing to insult administrators and other editors after being warned time and time again:[11][12][13][14]. These are just some of the most recent incidents, the user has a long history of attacking and insulting other editors and tendentious editing. Dreadstar † 05:10, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Endorse block. I simply can't see how this user can ever work collaboratively with editors they disagree with. Spartaz Humbug! 05:17, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- While TlatoSMD may use excessively colorful words at times and has lately been upfront about his sentiments concerning others, his civility problems can be addressed with a temporary block, even a long one. An indef block is really inappropriate, especially considering that most criticism of his editing is directed at his commentary surrounding this one particular issue. This has been an upstanding, constructive, and generally civil editor in most other contexts. As for his critique of other editors and admins, and their editing practices - as long as this is done in a tasteful manner, and proper reasoning is provided, there's nothing wrong with such criticism. If it's established that TlatoSMD has been uncivil as of late, he should be blocked, but not indefinitely. I'm not sure how his constructive editing of other articles, and even of PAW articles before this messy situation, can be diminished by recent events and be completely disregarded. ~ Homologeo (talk) 05:17, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Civility blocks have had no effect on this user - he was blocked on 4th Feb for 48 hours and was still being uncivil and offensive yesterday when I blocked him for calling another user a liar. I certainly didn't see any evidence from their talk page that they understood they had crossed a line. Quite the opposite in fact. Too much agression & refusal to moderate unacceptable behaviour is not collaborative. Spartaz Humbug! 05:26, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Then, by all means, extend the block. But there's no need for idef blocking, especially considering the consistent constructive contributions on the editor's part in the past, before this messy situation. ~ Homologeo (talk) 05:33, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Looking at his contributions, he has ~20 unrelated contributions since he joined. That's not at all consistent. Keilana|Parlez ici 05:36, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Then, by all means, extend the block. But there's no need for idef blocking, especially considering the consistent constructive contributions on the editor's part in the past, before this messy situation. ~ Homologeo (talk) 05:33, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Civility blocks have had no effect on this user - he was blocked on 4th Feb for 48 hours and was still being uncivil and offensive yesterday when I blocked him for calling another user a liar. I certainly didn't see any evidence from their talk page that they understood they had crossed a line. Quite the opposite in fact. Too much agression & refusal to moderate unacceptable behaviour is not collaborative. Spartaz Humbug! 05:26, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- While TlatoSMD may use excessively colorful words at times and has lately been upfront about his sentiments concerning others, his civility problems can be addressed with a temporary block, even a long one. An indef block is really inappropriate, especially considering that most criticism of his editing is directed at his commentary surrounding this one particular issue. This has been an upstanding, constructive, and generally civil editor in most other contexts. As for his critique of other editors and admins, and their editing practices - as long as this is done in a tasteful manner, and proper reasoning is provided, there's nothing wrong with such criticism. If it's established that TlatoSMD has been uncivil as of late, he should be blocked, but not indefinitely. I'm not sure how his constructive editing of other articles, and even of PAW articles before this messy situation, can be diminished by recent events and be completely disregarded. ~ Homologeo (talk) 05:17, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Edits to Spontaneous, Jihad, Sodomy, Kurgan hypothesis, Counterculture of the 1960s, Dialectic of Enlightenment, Níð, Right-wing Authoritarianism, The Holocaust, Nazi occultism, Michael Naumann, Child sexual abuse, Donald Duck pocket books, Adolf Hitler, Velvia, Kodachrome, Proto-Indo-European religion, Dialectic of Enlightenment, Pedophilia, Repressed memory, and Pro-pedophile activism, five of his edits, even though made awhile back, are still the most recent to their pages.
- VigilancePrime (talk) 05:39, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Most of the articles in your list are related to the "adult/child sex" topic. One edit to a disambiguation page is irrelevant, as are the few other topical edits TlatoSMD has made. TlatoSMD is a single purpose account not because he has edited a single article, but because the vast majority of his edits have been to a group of related articles in a manner which is not aligned with Wikipedia's neutrality or advocacy standards. The SPA concern pales beside the disruptive nature of this user's editing habits. Dreadstar † 06:12, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
Just a word: this account may or may not be disruptive, but this particular act - that of submitting the user copy page to DRV was not "disruptive, abuse of process, and a WP:POINT violation". The MfD was a complex situation, with several different reasons brought up by different people in a long discussion. (I voted delete, incidentally, and still think that deletion of the material is best.) Riana's closing rationale was really, really, uninformative; and her justification in the subsequent DRV was simply appalling. You do have to have a bit of chutzpah to say that after that a DRV was out-of-process. Relata refero (talk) 07:46, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- I agrre that this editor has been an SPA, and even worse, has been an aggressive POV-pusher. I don't see any article that he's improved, and he's fomented a lot of disruption. I think a ban is appropriate and necessary. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 07:56, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- I don't disagree about the block, but I gotta ask (since it's been the subject of a few discussions of interest to me), what does being an SPA have to do with it? -- Ned Scott 11:06, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- He is here mainly to push a pro-pedophile POV based on his edits (and he is doing so in an uncivil manner, which is the basis of the other problems he has), and that is something that can't be tolerated. --Coredesat 19:42, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, but my point is that he would still be blocked even if he was pro-pedo and edited articles about apples. Being an SPA is unrelated. -- Ned Scott 03:18, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Well, I would hope that your assumption would be proven wrong, cause I don't see how an indef block would be justified in the scenario you just described, unless of course the editor finds a way to be disruptive when editing an article about apples. ~ Homologeo (talk) 11:10, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- I guess you could give him a topical ban so that he could still edit about apples, but wouldn't that offer be allowed to this user? Even if they haven't started editing other articles yet, we could say "you are free to edit other articles, but not the ones you have done so far". This is important because often we've reblocked indef. users who've come back under a different name to edit different articles, something that has always bothered me.
- But because the disruption was pro-pedo POV pushing, he would just be blocked over-all, regardless of other activities, because of a statement made by Fred Bauder. -- Ned Scott 00:53, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Endorse block, he's exhausted my (admittedly limited) patience and then some. People should be careful to pick the right fights; this was the wrong one on a number of levels. Guy (Help!) 10:57, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Endorse block, per all the others that agree above. Whether he is or isn't an SPA is moot; the other evidence alone supports an indef. Sumoeagle179 (talk) 12:17, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Endorse - sorry, the DRV was pure disruption. Will (talk) 13:28, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Endorse block—a rather textbook block: the net negative effect of this user's contributions are far outweighing the positive effect. I fully endorse to prevent any further disruption. Anthøny (talk) 13:35, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Endorse block- This user has got enough "final warnings" and enough blocks and chances to reform edits. Users actions seems like he/she refuses to do so and thus deserves the blocks and some more. Sorry Watchdogb (talk) 00:34, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- I endorse this block, too. Unbelievably disruptive abuse of process over a single article... enough is enough. :/ krimpet✽ 00:41, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- I endorse this block, after reviewing the situation, blocked editor seems to have reached a point of no concern for his/her actions.Taprobanus (talk) 23:23, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'm not an admin, but I don't oppose this block. I say this so that there is no confusion about this, considering my discussion above about the SPA concerns. -- Ned Scott 00:56, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I also endorse the block, but I do hope that eventually it can be lifted. Tlato is a thorough researcher that has been feeling persecuted lately. However, his everyone-else-is-biased-and-wrong attitude and the endless challenges to all attempts by the community to move on from the nasty situation have made it clear he wants to keep fighting. Well, Wikipedia is not a battleground. I don't think it's right to say that this is a SPA, but certainly his single purpose lately has been campaigning on one sole issue. Mangojuicetalk 14:08, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Unblock of TlatoSMD by @pple
- I strongly disagree with this block. TlatoSMD, though his disproportionate forthrightness to the extent of a bit uncivility may disturb some users here, no way deserves such tough punishment. my personal interaction with him told me that he is a progressive editor who remains a relentless devotion to the project. Human is not flawless; we at the same time have both weaknesses that need fixing and strengths to encourage. TlatoSMD couldn't be exempted from this logic. We as a community should open our heart to see from him the potential of amendment and good things he brought to the project rather than merely dig out all the mistakes to use them as the barriers impeding his chance of showing improvement. admin rlevse, with all due respect, made the wrong decision this time.
- Reviewing his contribution log, I came to staunch affirmation that WP:SPA has its practice completely failed on this user. His editing activity, though not as diverse as many people's, is not in line with "single purpose". TlatoSMD is also an excellent writer who has made a lot of substantial edits to articles [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], one of his strong points that is praiseworthy. I have carefully checked his edits, many of which are fully sourced and I don't find any PoV-pushing issues as many people alleged so. Allegation that all his mainspace edits are related to only one topic (adut-child sex) is even more inaccurate. I don't deny that his recent overenthusiastic involvement in debates may lead to misunderstanding of a SPA, but further scrutiny on his past contribs authentically refutes this. Besides blocking a user just because of SPA is fairly strange to me and undoubtedly a wrong decision.
- Being disruptive warrants a block but an indefinite block for recent evidence of disruption is utterly unreasonable. It means that you brutally close the door on his chance to change himself towards the positive way. Tlato did try hard in discussions with good faith intention, giving thoughtful arguments with a view to achieving consensus , but the way he presented it and his uncontrollably fervent involvement that amounted to usage of improper words turned out to be disruption in the end. I think Tlato didn't do it on purpose, just something of quick-tempered nature that spontaneously bursted out when his reasoning was downplayed and made no effect to the discussion. I believe that every wikipedian must once experience this feeling because it is something that is unavoidable. AGF should be critically invoked in this case.
- For the record, the first DRV questioning the afd closure was opened by User:Pharmboy, the second one on the issue of wrong speedy deletion of user subpage was credited to me. Subsequently, User:JzG brought the subpage to MfD and lastly it was Tlato himself that initiated another DRV, this time on the MfD closure result. Admittedly he took part in all the discussions but saying that he abused the process on account of his resubmission is an overstatement. His notification message of the ongoing discussion to multiple users carried quite acceptable content with little PoV pushed forward, though a bit borderline WP:CANVASS violation. However, all those actions don't warrant an indef block.
- The civility issues as provided from the diffs appeared after he was aware of his being blocked the second time. This sudden block together with bad temperament was blamed for his improper reaction. We use indef block for constant disruptive behavior, not for a sole incident of misconduct.
- I also favor rlevse's decision to unprotect the talk page.
- I conclude that this user has the potential to become a constructive editor, as long as he has the chance to have a new start. I unblock him now and I'll take on the responsibility for his subsequent actions. If any valid concerns raised from his behavior thereafter, as a guarantee, I will endorse the indef block and have my sysop access automatically revoked for one month as a correction to my mistake as appreciating the wrong person. @pple complain 18:39, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- @pple, this was completely against consensus. Keilana|Parlez ici 19:01, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- If I remember correctly, you opened one of the discussion debates and closed another. I object to your unblocking - but not because you have been involved in the issues that have not endeared TlatoSMD to the community, but because consensus was so clearly against your actions. A crowd of users and administrators above you strongly endorsed this block as necessary to prevent further disruption and as inevitable in any case given his seeming pro-pedophile point of view. And yet you unblock him, quite awhile after most of the comments in this thread. It just seems strange, and I'm at a loss for understanding your actions in this whole situation - from your strident reaction to my questions on PeaceNT's talkpage, to your involvement in the various deletion discussions, and finally to this action against clear consensus. Avruch T 19:02, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- That is an outrageous unblock against consensus. You do not appear to have made contact with the blocking admin, aprt from anything else. Please reblock straight away. Black Kite 19:06, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'm a bit late to this one but I totally agree - consensus overwhelmingly supported this block and it seems borderline disruptive to unset it without raising an opportunity for consensus to be obtained first in a venue such as this. Orderinchaos 03:35, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'm counting over half a dozen admins and at least 1 crat who endorsed the block. You did not give any time for anyone to respond to your reasoning for unblock. This seems to tread very close to WP:WHEEL by unblocking against known and recognized conensus. MBisanz talk 19:12, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Note: User:Tlatosmd has ALSO been unblocked by @pple. MBisanz talk 19:36, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Reblock straight away - this was completely against consensus. This isn't a wheel war - just a really bad admin action. Ryan Postlethwaite 19:45, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I've reblocked based on all the above comments objecting to @pple's action, plus all those endorsing the block in the first place. I would have loved to hear @pple's side of the story here but @pple appears to have stopped editing Wikipedia for the day, and based on his/her edit patterns we may not hear from him/her against for some time. Mangojuicetalk 20:08, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I was just about to do the same, per my message on User:@pple's talk page and thus endorse this action. I suggest this does not contravene WP:WHEEL, given
- that it was an obvious unblock against consensus
- User:@pple is an involved editor in this dispute
- No attempt was made (apparently) to contact the blocking admin.
- I have other concerns about this admin's recent conduct, as exemplified by this diff [20] where he calls a user he is in dispute with "ignorant" and his editing "nonsensical" and "vandalism". Black Kite 20:12, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I was just about to do the same, per my message on User:@pple's talk page and thus endorse this action. I suggest this does not contravene WP:WHEEL, given
Looking at [21] I'm really hoping this action by @pple wasn't the "plan" VigilancePrime was referring to. MBisanz talk 20:31, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- It wasn't, the conversation about the plan was with Keilana and concerned a civility parole. Avruch T 20:44, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Seriously, where has all the good faith went? ~ Homologeo (talk) 21:20, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Homologeo, I think it would be fair to say that the history Tlato's edits and behavior have given good reason for that to no longer be the case. AGF is valid until a user shows us otherwise and TlatoSMD/smd has managed to do that. — Rlevse • Talk • 21:32, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I don't think there's much doubt about that, but I believe Homologeo was referring to MBisanz's posting about @pple, rather than TlatoSMD. Black Kite 21:37, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Homologeo, I think it would be fair to say that the history Tlato's edits and behavior have given good reason for that to no longer be the case. AGF is valid until a user shows us otherwise and TlatoSMD/smd has managed to do that. — Rlevse • Talk • 21:32, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
AH, I see now. I can see where MBisanz has concern since @pple had not particicpated in this discussion as far as I recall and then took unilateral action that was totally against consensus. I agree that VP's "plan" was probably referring to his talks with Keilana, though. — Rlevse • Talk • 21:56, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
@pple brought up a lot of good points. We're really quick to condemn people on AN/I, and I would certainly like to see this get some more attention. ArbCom sounds like a great idea, and we shouldn't see it as drama at all. It would be nothing more than a calm and productive way to review the situation. -- Ned Scott 06:14, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
VigilancePrime
I'm becoming concerned about this editor. The lawyering to the point of trolling is just the tip of the iceberg - a cursory glance at his talk page with sentiments such as "Call the WAH-mbulance!" "Undeniable Admin Abuse", "More (Typical) Admin Abuses of Peasant Editors", etc shows me that he will rarely, if at all extend the courtesy of WP:AGF. Several warnings by admins have been ignored. What do we propose to do? Will (talk) 00:16, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I assume you mean all the collapsible boxes and content contained within? That would probably be something that could go to WP:MFD if the user declined to remove it and you felt it was disruptive enough to warrent action. MBisanz talk 20:33, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Please, let's have some good faith here. Besides, there's nothing wrong with a little criticism. ~ Homologeo (talk) 21:16, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- If Will has more evidence, I think it should be presented. I also agree that "Call the WAH-mbulance!" "Undeniable Admin Abuse", etc aren't the best way to phrase things — Rlevse • Talk • 21:58, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Edito*Magica
Just my day for ANIs I guess. User:Edito*Magica was brought to my attention by another editor, User:UpDown who knows I am well versed in creating episode lists and requested my assistance on List of Keeping Up Appearances episodes. Edito*MagicaJ kept changing for format of the list to one that removes the lead, and does not follow proper episode list format, going against the consensus for proper episode list formatting. (see good version versus his version). I reverted his edits, and tried to explain to him why his edits are incorrect. He refuses to listen, however, and appears to feel that he knows better than the main Wikipedia MOS, the TV project, and existing consensus and standards for episode lists (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Collectonian&diff=next&oldid=190484465 talk page discussions). UpDown also tried talking to him. I warned him that if continued his attempts to mess up the list, his edits would be considered vandalism, but he continues to revert, now calling the undoing of his edits to be acts of "sneaky vandalism." (his talk page with warnings that he has since blanked)
He is also removing content from various articles under the claim that information shouldn't be repeated in an article (examples: [22], [23]), despite it being appropriate information and my explaining to him that information can and should appear both in the lead and within the article proper.
At this point, its down to just undoing everything he is doing in these areas, and I'm hoping perhaps he will be more willing to listen to an admin since he is completely discounting the comments of other editors. I'm not entirely sure his edits are fully vandalism, but they are becoming very disruptive. Collectonian (talk) 23:22, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- As an update, he is now leaving false warnings on the pages of those undoing his actions [24], and is selectively canvassing relatively new, inexperienced editors to try to get them to agree with him [25] in an attempt to "form a new consensus" [26]. He is also continuing to edit war over his changes, blanking out content of infoboxes [27] or outright reverting the undos of his bad formatting and calling it vandalism [28]. He is showing that he has absolutely no desire to actual improve or work with the community, and is ignoring more notes from experienced editors telling him that his format idea is wrong. Collectonian (talk) 01:16, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Collectonian (talk) 06:43, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Firstly, the reason why I persist in making the alterations on the Keeping Up Appearances episode page is to improve it for other users. I have the good of the community in mind and for that reason I want to help improve Wikipedia. Secondly, it is true I contacted two other users for a second opinion, both are not inexperienced and both agree with my minor adjustments to the layout. Collectonian does not like the fact that other users agree with me, and to report me for making changes he does not agree with is folly. It is he who is reverting constructive alterations that I have made, which still follow the Wikipedia policy on the “lead”, which isn’t even compulsory to follow anyway. I will stand up to the likes of Collectonian; if he can get people banned for undoing his edits and get them banned for making improvements, then how unjust the Wiki system actually is. I would report him, but i don't thing it is a constructive method in solving deputes. Edito*Magica (talk) 11:11, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Have either of you considered stopping the accusations of vandalism and trying to follow dispute resolution? Someguy1221 (talk) 11:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Good faith or not, the policies have been show to EditoMagica, who ignores them. That is vandalism whether he thinks he's improving the pages or not. --UpDown (talk) 14:11, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- I AGFed at first, and tried to explain in detail why his edits were wrong, but EditoMagica has made it clear that he doesn't care. He removes content from articles because he thinks it shouldn't be "repeated" in the infobox (despite being told the infobox is a summary, not a standalone) and he is refactoring episode lists articles to remove the lead in favor of another section of lists of statistics, despite again being told that it violates the MOS, the lead, and the consensus for episode list formatting. He is now taking these edits to other episode lists[29][30][31] and of course he is continuing on the KUA list[32]. He also completely blanked the talk page of Keeping Up Appearances[33] despite his edit history showing he knows very well how to properly edit a talk page. Its hard to AGF when he has already said very plainly that he doesn't care about Wikipedia policies or guidelines and instead is calling the clean up of his mess "sneaky vandalism" and making other accusations against the editors keeping him from ruining the articles (such as the one he left on your talk page which is obviously not a good faith remark). He's been told numerous times this isn't just the opinion of UpDown and myself (who normally, by the way, tend to disagree), but of the entire Television project, Anime project, and BBC project, all of which deal with television episode lists, and of the FL process, which EditoMagica would realize if he would actually look at the MOS and featured episode lists as was suggested. This was brought here because he will NOT listen to other editors, hence the need for admin intervention as his edits are very disruptive. His claims of support are from one or two other editors who are also as inexperienced as he is, and he continues to claim this support of two trumps to consensus of the hundreds of members of those projects and of Wikipedia guidelines as a whole. He is also blatantly ignoring two other editors telling him he is wrong. Despite his accusations, I'm not asking for him to be banned, but corrected and only blocked if he continues to be disruptive. Collectonian (talk) 15:30, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- This really is getting out of hand now; EditoMagica is being hugely disruptive and seems to think that his way of writing an episode list is the best way, and the fact one or two editors apparently back him up he thinks means he has "popular support". These things are backed up policy, guidelines and by looking at relevant FA. All these go against EditoMagica but he ignores this. In addition, he fails to understand that what is in the infobox is always repeated in the article proper (like the LEAD). If he won't listen to advise and guidelines he will need to be blocked for the sake of Wikipedia.--UpDown (talk) 14:11, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
And he continues leaving fake warnings on people's use pages[34] and again trying to mess up the KUA episode article[35]. I really wish an admin would look at this. Edito*Magica is trying to harass other users to get his way, insulting other editors, and being disruptive. He is not going to listen to warnings from "regular" editors as he thinks he knows better than all of us, and his actions will only discourage people from working on those articles to give them the final polish they need to be potential FL candidates. Collectonian (talk) 15:21, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- So today, List of Keeping Up Appearances episodes was given a much needed update/clean up to bring it into line with the established format for episode lists. User:Edito*Magica reverted it then again put back in the version he prefers that he has already been told is not appropriate. He is also trying to get other users to come attack me [36] Collectonian (talk) 01:25, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Create an RfC and if that fails to generate a resolution move on down WP:DR. However I note he's already making personal attacks--Crossmr (talk) 02:20, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Can an RfC cross multiple articles though? While he's concentrating on the KUA episode list at the moment, he's been trying with others as well. Collectonian (talk) 03:24, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
To all admins closing AfDs created on 10 Feb and 11 Feb
If you are closing an AfD which was created on 10 February or 11 February, you will see a "(delete)" link. Please do not click on it! Due to my egregrous screw-up it will delete the AfD page or whatever page you viewed the AfD from. I have just fixed the mistake (passed wrong parameter to the delete link). AfDs created on 12 February onwards will not have this problem. Pegasus «C¦T» 01:23, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Would this be all AfDs for 11 Feb, or just the ones in the first hour or so before the error was caught (per your timestamp above)? Thanks for the heads up. UltraExactZZ Claims ~ Evidence 13:43, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
User:Craigtalbert blocked due to vandalism on Justine Ezarik
I have just blocked User:Craigtalbert for one month due to perceived repeated vandalism to Justine Ezarik's article. Over the past few months, a number of anonymous IPs have repeatedly tried to add/change Ezarik's signature phrase to "Deposit me in your spank bank", while masking them with deceptive edit summaries, (the following diffs are a sample of the disruptive edits: [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42]). Craig was the first registered user to vandalize the article in this fashion, which gives me strong reason to believe that he is the anon-editor who has been disrupting the article for a while. Based on this user's edit history, he is somewhat of an established user who has been involved in a number of editing disputes, which is the reason I'm bringing this up to AIV. Most of the anon edits come from the Colorado area (a state Craig claims to be from), which makes me feel that the editor is one and the same. If possible, I would like to have another editor take a look at this situation, possibly a checkuser. --wL<speak·check> 01:53, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Just a note, that all the IPs in question (or nearly all) were from one university. Note sure if this would be valid for RFCU, just throwing it out for discussion. For BLP reasons this article probably needs it's Semi-protection reset. Lawrence § t/e 03:10, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- This would be better listed at WP:SUSPSOCK. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 03:23, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- I think it's a fairly clear cut case. The IPs all resolve to University of Colorado at Boulder, and Craigtalbert's userpage states that he is a student at that university. It also says he is a resident of Denver, Colorado (~20 miles from Boulder). No need for SSP reports for such a case. Endorse block - auburnpilot talk 03:28, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Comment Unrelated to Justine Ezarik, I perceive issues with article ownership that have led to edit disputes and personal attacks.
I had not been aware of Craigtalbert until about 25 hours ago, but for no reason that I could discern, our interactions in our brief acquaintance were threatening to erupt into a full-scale edit war. Fourteen of Special:Contributions/Craigtalbert Craigtalbert's last 17 edits after vandalizing Justine Ezarik were directly related to me, including reverting changes I had made to articles that he has had an interest in, responding to my questions and comments on talk pages, and accusing me of being a troll. Since the majority of his edits seemed to be thoughtful and responsible, I was taken aback by the vehemence of his disagreements with my edits. (It was clear that he vehemently disagreed with me, but his reasoning was not communicated nearly as effectively as his vehemence.) I was surprised to see that he had been blocked, and that the block had nothing to do with me.
In retrospect, I guess that I must have triggered something several days ago, when I saw the AfD for Schizophrenics Anonymous, reviewed the article and its topic, and commented that I thought it should be kept. As it happens, this is an article that he had earlier proposed for speedy deletion. Subsequently, by editing Schizophrenics Anonymous and a couple of related articles, I seem to have wandered deep into territory that he considered his own.
I hope that the block helps him cool off and return here with a more cooperative attitude.
--Orlady (talk) 04:01, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- The consensus appears to support the block, but the original reason for the block was because of the vandalism. Other issues have come up as well. Should they be taken into consideration. Also, the reason I have blocked for a month is because Craig tried to justify his vandalism because of Ezarik's "attention whoring" [sic], which in my view showed a complete disregard to Wikipedia:LIVING. Is the length of the block proper? --wL<speak·check> 07:12, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- He's invoking WP:RTV, and his user page was deleted while I was viewing it. I don't think he'll be back, but it might be a good idea to keep an eye on Justine Ezarik for a while. Horologium (talk) 19:45, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- He made a post in the Wikipedians community on LiveJournal, in which he explained he was afraid of losing his job over the incident (apparently he was editing from work). That post is now deleted. I think he is spooked and won't be editing in the near future. --Ginkgo100talk 22:28, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- I just recieved an email from him asking to have his username changed. I've forwarded his email to the unblock mailing list. Being that he is/was an established editor, I would say yes. But being that this is a serious offense, I won't do it myself. --wL<speak·check> 00:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I have found out that he has changed his username to Scarpy (talk · contribs), however he is still blocked. and I have rejected the CSD on his usertalk page, pending further decision here. Your thoughts? --wL<speak·check> 00:17, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Seems to be a one-off and the guy is spooked, as said above, since he used his real name to vandalize. Lets just leave the Ezarik article semi-protected, and the next time someone "spank banks" it we'll know who may be responsible, and it's an easy RV and possible block them. Let him RTV. Lawrence § t/e 07:53, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I have found out that he has changed his username to Scarpy (talk · contribs), however he is still blocked. and I have rejected the CSD on his usertalk page, pending further decision here. Your thoughts? --wL<speak·check> 00:17, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Viridae
- 03:39, February 11, 2008 Viridae (Talk | contribs | block) unblocked Athoughtforyou (Talk | contribs) (incorrect block)
- 03:39, February 11, 2008 Viridae (Talk | contribs | block) unblocked OrionClemens (Talk | contribs) (incorrect block)
- 03:39, February 11, 2008 Viridae (Talk | contribs | block) unblocked Slintfan (Talk | contribs) (incorrect block)
- 03:39, February 11, 2008 Viridae (Talk | contribs | block) unblocked Academic38 (Talk | contribs) (incorrect block)
- 03:39, February 11, 2008 Viridae (Talk | contribs | block) unblocked Drstones (Talk | contribs) (incorrect block)
No, these were single purpose accounts with no contributions other than to stir up a problem we have with Oxford Round Table (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views).
More to the point, Viridae has an agenda against me and has a habit of undoing my admin actions, including undeleting a WP:CSD#G5 by request fo the banned user with discussion solely on Wikipedia Review. I think Viridae should not be undoing my actions, given a stated (again on Wikipedia Review) agenda against me.
I also think we need single purpose accounts like we need holes in our collective heads, but I'm happy to see what Carcharoth's discussions bring forward on that. Guy (Help!) 09:25, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Comment: How can you judge whether an account is a SPA if it has been created for only 2 days, makes 2 edits and is then blocked. A wee bit of good faith is always helpful. I make no comment on the dispute between you two. Woody (talk) 09:29, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Not relevant. Admins should not undo the actions of other admins with whom they have a long-standing dispute. And a single purpose account can indeed be diagnosed if it is registered in order to take part in a deletion debate on an article which is itself merely a vehicle for an off-wiki dispute. But I'd not have objected if it had been someone else, the problem here is Viridae's repeated actions against me, which are starting to look just a little personal. Guy (Help!) 09:33, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Comment: I'm not an admin, but aren't you guys not supposed to revert each others' administrative actions without discussing it first? I think I heard that somewhere. Equazcion •✗/C • 09:33, 11 Feb 2008 (UTC)
Guy care to look half a dozen sections up where a request that those accounts which were not CU confirmed sockpuppets be be unblocked was made, which I happened to catch and perform. Also nice of you to notify me of this - I caught it on my watchlist. As woody said, you can't determine a single purpose account on half a dozen edits - every account to start editing WP would come under that banner at first. ViridaeTalk 09:37, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Then you should've linked to that discussion in your summary, contacted Guy on his talk page, or otherwise made clear your reasons for the revert. "incorrect block" is flip and a wheel-war invitation. In my opinion. Equazcion •✗/C • 09:40, 11 Feb 2008 (UTC)
- Apart from the fact that it WAS an incorrect block, I was in a hurry - as evinced by the fact that I asked Ned to do the non-admin apologies. I work in science and frequently have short breaks in the day while something is incubating in which I log onto wikipedia. Sometimes I block someone reported on AIV, sometimes I check the requests for rollback and grant that if necessary - this time I saw the request for unblock, and having followed the previous discussion decided that these accounts were clearly good faith (anyone denying that?) and should not be block for a second longer. We do not need more of the academic establishment driven away while wikipedia argues with itself. As tro contacting guy on his talk page - he has taken to deleting anything I put there anyway so that is entirely pointless. The edit summary therefore came about because I was somewhat at a loss as to what to actually put there. ViridaeTalk 09:48, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- If you don't have the time to carry out an admin action properly, then you should leave it to someone who does. I'm sure there were others who saw the same discussion you did, and there are no emergencies on Wikipedia. Equazcion •✗/C • 09:51, 11 Feb 2008 (UTC)
- It was carried out properly, the only part of that that was actually an admin action was the unblock. The apology for the unblock could have been dealt with by anyone - and that was done quite sucessfully by Ned. While there may have been no huge hurry in the grand scale of things, had the wait cost us some very qualified editors wikipedia would have been so much worse off. ViridaeTalk 09:58, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Discussion of an admin action needs happen in conjunction with that action by the admin taking the action. They aren't two separate acts. If you revert another admin, you need to communicate your reasoning to them, preferrably before you even take the action. Again there are no emergencies, and that includes the potential to lose valuable editors. If you couldn't communicate, you shouldn't have acted. Equazcion •✗/C • 10:09, 11 Feb 2008 (UTC)
- Actually Guy knows exactly why those were overturned as he was involved in the original discussion, there was no need for further communication that would almost certainly be ignored given recent history. And yes, it is always urgent to unblock a potentially valuable contributor. Especially one with academic qualifications - a species of editor wikipedia is sorely lacking. ViridaeTalk 10:14, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- If you have "history", ie. an ongoing dispute with Guy then that's all the more reason not to take it upon yourself to revert his actions. Perhaps you should steer clear of policing that particular admin for a while, and let others be the judge of his actions. Equazcion •✗/C • 10:17, 11 Feb 2008 (UTC)
- Other WERE the judge, did you not see the lengthy discussion further up the page? ViridaeTalk 10:44, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- The leave it to the others to do the action. You should not be reversing my admin actions, you have an existing agenda against me. If others agree, let others do it. I suppose I should be grateful that at least this time the discussion took place on Wikipedia rather than Wikipedia Review, but somehow I'm not. Guy (Help!) 11:28, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- I don't have an agenda Guy, you just think I do. Yes I dislike you, yes I believe you frequently make rash/incorrect decisions (like for instance deleting something as a G5 when it has significant contributions from other people) and yes I find you possibly the most uncivil person on the project at times but that does not make it a longstanding dispute. I have no grudge to bear however, this is my personal opinion - I find it INCREDIBLY hard to believe you have never performed an admin action on someone you dislike or overturned someones admin action when you dislike it. Smarten up and fly right (assume good faith and stop attacking other people) and I will no longer have a problem with you. That is NOT a longstanding dispute. ViridaeTalk 11:36, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- The leave it to the others to do the action. You should not be reversing my admin actions, you have an existing agenda against me. If others agree, let others do it. I suppose I should be grateful that at least this time the discussion took place on Wikipedia rather than Wikipedia Review, but somehow I'm not. Guy (Help!) 11:28, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Other WERE the judge, did you not see the lengthy discussion further up the page? ViridaeTalk 10:44, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- If you have "history", ie. an ongoing dispute with Guy then that's all the more reason not to take it upon yourself to revert his actions. Perhaps you should steer clear of policing that particular admin for a while, and let others be the judge of his actions. Equazcion •✗/C • 10:17, 11 Feb 2008 (UTC)
- Actually Guy knows exactly why those were overturned as he was involved in the original discussion, there was no need for further communication that would almost certainly be ignored given recent history. And yes, it is always urgent to unblock a potentially valuable contributor. Especially one with academic qualifications - a species of editor wikipedia is sorely lacking. ViridaeTalk 10:14, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Discussion of an admin action needs happen in conjunction with that action by the admin taking the action. They aren't two separate acts. If you revert another admin, you need to communicate your reasoning to them, preferrably before you even take the action. Again there are no emergencies, and that includes the potential to lose valuable editors. If you couldn't communicate, you shouldn't have acted. Equazcion •✗/C • 10:09, 11 Feb 2008 (UTC)
- It was carried out properly, the only part of that that was actually an admin action was the unblock. The apology for the unblock could have been dealt with by anyone - and that was done quite sucessfully by Ned. While there may have been no huge hurry in the grand scale of things, had the wait cost us some very qualified editors wikipedia would have been so much worse off. ViridaeTalk 09:58, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- If you don't have the time to carry out an admin action properly, then you should leave it to someone who does. I'm sure there were others who saw the same discussion you did, and there are no emergencies on Wikipedia. Equazcion •✗/C • 09:51, 11 Feb 2008 (UTC)
- Apart from the fact that it WAS an incorrect block, I was in a hurry - as evinced by the fact that I asked Ned to do the non-admin apologies. I work in science and frequently have short breaks in the day while something is incubating in which I log onto wikipedia. Sometimes I block someone reported on AIV, sometimes I check the requests for rollback and grant that if necessary - this time I saw the request for unblock, and having followed the previous discussion decided that these accounts were clearly good faith (anyone denying that?) and should not be block for a second longer. We do not need more of the academic establishment driven away while wikipedia argues with itself. As tro contacting guy on his talk page - he has taken to deleting anything I put there anyway so that is entirely pointless. The edit summary therefore came about because I was somewhat at a loss as to what to actually put there. ViridaeTalk 09:48, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- I think given the obvious illwill here between Guy and Viridae, that keeping out of each other's way where possible is advisable; that means don't get involved in each other's actions, at all, period - not to reverse them, not to comment on them, nothing. If there's any actual concerns then present them (sans commentary) to WP:AN or WP:ANI. Neıl ☎ 11:40, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- This whole thing is silly. Nothing in the blocking policy justified these blocks. Undoing them was the right thing to do and making it about Viridae obscures the issue. The issue is whether or not we can expect non-Wikipedians to read tree leaves to determine our policies or whether we should attempt to engage them before hitting the block button. If someone is a flagrant vandal and is replacing pages with nonsense, ok, I really am annoyed with the "you can't block them without 4 warnings" crowd, but these were good faith users who were simply unfamiliar with our policies. Blocking them is bad. When some of them requested unblock, declining those requests without attempting to engage the user compounded the error. I don't really give a flip about assessing blame, but I think we need to make clear this isn't how we do business and there's a difference between a flagrant troll and someone who just isn't familiar with our policies. --B (talk) 11:47, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- There's 1,488 other admins on Wikipedia. If Guy has made a bad block, one of them other than Viridae can unblock, as anything Viridae does (irrespective of intention and making no judgement as to who is or is not "correct" here) now upsets Guy. Neıl ☎ 12:25, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Guy has been given chances to communicate about his admin actions before, and is almost always either argumentative or dissmissive. ANYONE overturning one of his actions gets this response, so frankly I don't care whether it upsets him or not, if he makes an obviously bad call and I am in the position to deal with it, I will do so. If guy wants the lines of communcation to be opened again before I do so as I am quite happy to do, he can be civil and actually respond to queries. ViridaeTalk 12:34, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Just post your concerns here in future rather than acting on them - please? Neıl ☎ 12:39, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Neil, this is a red herring. A month or two ago, I nominated a template for deletion that happened to have been created by Guy. I had no earthly idea (didn't look, didn't care) who created it, but Guy accused me of nominating it as retaliation because I had disagreed with a block of his in an ANI discussion. It was utter nonsense, but the point is, it was refocusing the issue from one of whether or not the template was appropriate and trying to make it into merely a personal issue. Most of us really don't care one way or another about Wikipedia factions or personalities or anything like that. We don't sit here and debate political expediency and whether the blocking admin is someone we like or don't like. This is an encyclopedia, not a grade school club or a MMORPG. If Guy is right, we'll call him right - if he's wrong, we'll call him wrong. That's all there is to it. --B (talk) 13:25, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Unblocking should be discussed with the blocking admin. I am as guilty as anyone of broaching this on occasion. Anyway, Guy has decided he doesn't like Viridae for whatever reason, and whenever Viridae does try and contact him, Guy tells him to "go away". So I have suggested that instead of just countermanding Guy's admin actions, Viridae posts them here for review. I am neither defending nor agreeing with Guy's actions - that is a seperate issue. I'm simply asking Viridae to refrain from directly reversing Guy's admin actions, as the drama it creates tends to obfuscate the issue. Neıl ☎ 13:35, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Neil, this is a red herring. A month or two ago, I nominated a template for deletion that happened to have been created by Guy. I had no earthly idea (didn't look, didn't care) who created it, but Guy accused me of nominating it as retaliation because I had disagreed with a block of his in an ANI discussion. It was utter nonsense, but the point is, it was refocusing the issue from one of whether or not the template was appropriate and trying to make it into merely a personal issue. Most of us really don't care one way or another about Wikipedia factions or personalities or anything like that. We don't sit here and debate political expediency and whether the blocking admin is someone we like or don't like. This is an encyclopedia, not a grade school club or a MMORPG. If Guy is right, we'll call him right - if he's wrong, we'll call him wrong. That's all there is to it. --B (talk) 13:25, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Just post your concerns here in future rather than acting on them - please? Neıl ☎ 12:39, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Guy has been given chances to communicate about his admin actions before, and is almost always either argumentative or dissmissive. ANYONE overturning one of his actions gets this response, so frankly I don't care whether it upsets him or not, if he makes an obviously bad call and I am in the position to deal with it, I will do so. If guy wants the lines of communcation to be opened again before I do so as I am quite happy to do, he can be civil and actually respond to queries. ViridaeTalk 12:34, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- There's 1,488 other admins on Wikipedia. If Guy has made a bad block, one of them other than Viridae can unblock, as anything Viridae does (irrespective of intention and making no judgement as to who is or is not "correct" here) now upsets Guy. Neıl ☎ 12:25, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Endorse Neil's suggestions. I'm not familiar with the relationship between Guy and Viridae though, have other means already been taken to prevent this sort of stuff occurring? Rudget. 11:53, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- This whole thing is silly. Nothing in the blocking policy justified these blocks. Undoing them was the right thing to do and making it about Viridae obscures the issue. The issue is whether or not we can expect non-Wikipedians to read tree leaves to determine our policies or whether we should attempt to engage them before hitting the block button. If someone is a flagrant vandal and is replacing pages with nonsense, ok, I really am annoyed with the "you can't block them without 4 warnings" crowd, but these were good faith users who were simply unfamiliar with our policies. Blocking them is bad. When some of them requested unblock, declining those requests without attempting to engage the user compounded the error. I don't really give a flip about assessing blame, but I think we need to make clear this isn't how we do business and there's a difference between a flagrant troll and someone who just isn't familiar with our policies. --B (talk) 11:47, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
You guys seem to be forgetting to do something here, so I'll start it off:
- Standing Ovation. Thank You Viridae for having the courage to stand up for the rights of the many. A lot of admins seem to feel that blocking people is an adequate solution for almost anything, when the truth is that it is only meant as a last resort. And, frankly I don't see any real cause to even get that far. --BETA 12:52, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- OK, now sit down. There's a difference between "standing up for the rights of many", and specifically targeting the actions of an admin based upon discussion at an attack site. As already stated, there are well over a thousand admins here; any one of them would have been a better candidate to analyze Guy's actions than Viridae. This sort of cowboy play doesn't work well either for developing consensus or developing community. Reverting admin actions without discussion is the sort of thing that inevitably leads to desysopping; are we sure that's the direction we want to take this? --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 17:20, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- JP there was endless discussion on this page about these blocks, which is why I was so quick to overturn them when the request was made because I fel there was some agreement that they were incorrect. I didn't bother to contact Guy directly because 1. he had already been involved in the discussion of his blocks and 2. part one meant there was no point given that he would just ignore any notification/attempt at communication anyway. ViridaeTalk 20:39, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- I think many of the original blocks were a violation of WP:AGF and WP:BITE. Newbies can't be expected to know our policies about canvassing. They should be gently reminded about how Wikipedia works. Only blatant vandals should be blocked on sight. The unblocks were justified; I don't care who posted what on which third-party website. That has nothing to do with us. JzG really needs to work more cooperatively with others; he seems to have been given a pass from following WP:CIVIL. That needs to stop. *** Crotalus *** 19:05, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Good, then that could have been discussed. Reversing admin actions without discussion is not acceptable behavior. That needs to stop. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 20:15, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Per Viridae's original response, these unblocks had already been discussed and per the results of a checkuser a request was made a few sections above. Does every request for admin action need to be carefully scrutinised to ensure the sysop preparing to action a request will not upset the sensibilities of another involved admin? It will seriously dilute the effectiveness of this board if this is the case. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:31, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- If reversal of admin actions must always be discussed, then admins must always be willing to discuss their actions, even if they don't like someone. You can't have it both ways. -Amarkov moo! 00:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Good, then that could have been discussed. Reversing admin actions without discussion is not acceptable behavior. That needs to stop. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 20:15, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
No doubt that Viridae and Guy have an ongoing dispute, so Neil is correct that it would be best if Viridae had posted notice here and gain consensus to revert Guy's blocks. Jpgordon is 100% correct...admins shouldn't be reversing other admins just because they can, and in this case, the reversals appear to be done to incite Guy. This is far from the first examples of questionable admin actions made by Viridae.--MONGO 00:13, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- "be best if Viridae had posted notice here and gain consensus to revert Guy's blocks", Rough consensus was already established in the above threads. --BETA 14:03, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- MONGO you believe everyone who has ever disagreed with you is in an ongoing dispute. You now appear to be trying to try that on with Guy. ViridaeTalk 04:03, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- They do not have an "ongoing dispute". Guy has just decided that he does not like Viridae. Now, there's no obligation to like every admin. But that doesn't mean Guy can say "I don't like you, so you're never allowed to talk to me again, HAHAHA". -Amarkov moo! 00:24, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Odd...here Viridae clearly states he doesn't like Guy...so reversing his admin actions was obviously done to incite Guy.--MONGO 19:03, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Of course! That's the only possible explanation for undoing an overzealous admin action that wasn't backed by CU evidence. Jossi (talk · contribs) must have been in on it too, since he also performed an unblock. — Scientizzle 20:15, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Odd...here Viridae clearly states he doesn't like Guy...so reversing his admin actions was obviously done to incite Guy.--MONGO 19:03, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- They do not have an "ongoing dispute". Guy has just decided that he does not like Viridae. Now, there's no obligation to like every admin. But that doesn't mean Guy can say "I don't like you, so you're never allowed to talk to me again, HAHAHA". -Amarkov moo! 00:24, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Amarkov, you are wrong. Viridae openly declared a dislike for me on that other site where you both hang out, and the dispute started when Viridae honoured a request from Gregory Kohs to undelete an article on one of his clients that he had created with a sockpuppet while banned, which I deleted under WP:CSD#G5. That undeletion was discussed only on Wikipedia Review, the request was made by a banned user while banned and acceded to without on-wiki discussion by a Wikipedia administrator - about as clear a case of unacceptable wheel warring as you can get. That is the foundation of this dispute, as far as I'm concerned, and subsequent reversals of my actions by Viridae before this action, again also without any discussion outside Wikipedia Review, have served to entrench it. That is why Viridae is not welcome on my talk page, especially given what's on there at the moment, and it's also why Viridae should be leaving it to someone else to review these blocks. Guy (Help!) 18:40, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Guy, you're bringing up a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with the unblocks here. If you're not willing to deal with your underlying disupte appropriately, then drop it. You don't get to choose which admins fix your mistakes or otherwise perform any administraive action (similarly, I would reject any potential claim by Viridae or someone else that you should be verboten from reconciling any of Viridae's actions). You don't like each other; we got it. Were these unblocks wrong? I have yet to see any indication by anyone here that they were inappropriate. For someone with this on his userpage, you're stirring up quite a bit. — Scientizzle 20:15, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Amarkov, you are wrong. Viridae openly declared a dislike for me on that other site where you both hang out, and the dispute started when Viridae honoured a request from Gregory Kohs to undelete an article on one of his clients that he had created with a sockpuppet while banned, which I deleted under WP:CSD#G5. That undeletion was discussed only on Wikipedia Review, the request was made by a banned user while banned and acceded to without on-wiki discussion by a Wikipedia administrator - about as clear a case of unacceptable wheel warring as you can get. That is the foundation of this dispute, as far as I'm concerned, and subsequent reversals of my actions by Viridae before this action, again also without any discussion outside Wikipedia Review, have served to entrench it. That is why Viridae is not welcome on my talk page, especially given what's on there at the moment, and it's also why Viridae should be leaving it to someone else to review these blocks. Guy (Help!) 18:40, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- This whole thing was discussed in depth in a thread that has now been moved to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Oxford Round Table. There was no unblock without discussion or any such thing. There was no agreement that the non-socks should be blocked. We engage users - we don't block first and ask questions later. This is doubly important since some or all of these users are academics and certainly have a lot that they could contribute to Wikipedia if we reach out to them rather than chasing them away. The arbitration committee hounded valued admin Adam C out of the project for a questionable block of a marginally disruptive user where Adam had asked for and thought he had ANI approval before making the block. Contrast that with blocking users for commenting on an AFD opened by the blocking admin. I have a real problem in the consistency here of going after Viridae for undoing obviously inappropriate blocks. --B (talk) 01:12, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I agree with B's excellent comment immediately above. This is stupid. Oxford Round Table was discussed here and then a big ol' discussion was moved to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Oxford Round Table. The Summary of account activity resulting from Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Drstones came back with a list of clear socks as well as accounts that were unrelated from any others, including those listed here and in the ANI archive. Guy, if you can provide a valid rationale for these accounts to be re-blocked, please do share. If not, what's the problem?
- The shoot-first action of blocking a slew of accounts from Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Oxford Round Table had some significant collateral damage...We don't block accounts for being single-purpose if they're not clearly disruptive; it would have been much better to have done the checkuser first. I reject the idea that any sysop should necessarily recuse themselves from undoing another's action just because there's some sort of personality conflict. Guy, you admitted that your actions weren't perfect (please do "keep the definition of single purpose rather more focused" in the future), so why does it matter which of us 1500 admins took care of your loose ends? It seems pretty clear from the prior discussion on this matter that there was little support for these accounts to stay blocked (Guy even softed his stance) and at least a few questioned their validity. — Scientizzle 01:39, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Thank you Viridae for unblocking users who were in exactly the position I was when I first edited, all that time ago. Ideally someone else would have done it before you, but thank you for making sure it was done. Merkinsmum 02:23, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
As several other users have pointed out, Guy's allegation that there was no prior discussion is FALSE. There may not have been direct one on one discussion between Viridae and Guy, but there is no requirement, and there is no reason to have a requirement, that after a community discussion has occurred in which the blocking administrator participated (or declined), another admin has to have a separate one on one conversation with the blocking admin before unblocking. There was no community support for Guy's block, he knew that, he had had opportunity to explain his actions. No foul was committed by Viridae, even though it would have been better if another administrator acted sooner. Guy's complaint here looks like him prolonging a battle, and Guy, you need to stop this behavior of never letting go of old battles. GRBerry 20:50, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Muhammad protected, yet again
I appealed to the protecting admin (whose only editing periodically now) and posted an unprotection on WP:RPP about this (at which point I was referred to ANI), so I'm here... again. Essentially, without repeating everything I said a few days ago and which was said by others on the talk page of the article, this article is not really being subjected to (much) edit warring. We mostly have a variety of a drive-by editors removing the images without any willingness to participate in the ongoing discussions on the talk page and/or heed past (even recent past) consensuses. As a result, most of these editors have been blocked (or they have merely stopped). That appears to be the most sensible route to take, especially because the level of disruption is dwindling; we currently have a manageable number of drive-by removers. We should just leave this article without full protection (but with semi-protection), then refer drive-by image removers to the talk page of the article. If they still persist in removing the images without any discussion whatsoever, they can be blocked. A similar proposal was made by, among several others, Daniel (talk · contribs). His proposal is mentioned here, but none of these proposals has every reached a solid conclusion. -- tariqabjotu 18:52, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- It's going to be difficult to come to a perfect consensus, but I !vote that the article remain semi-protected unless we see 4 day old accounts starting to edit war, then full protection. Wikipedia is not censored, leave the Muhammad images there. We don't have to fold to any religions, activist groups, or any other crowd that wants to change our goal: provide information to the world. Useight's Public Sock (talk) 19:00, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- I agree with Useight entirely. Horologium (talk) 23:13, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- You should remove the images , this website might get a "message" from some crazed out Islamic radical group or something. Does Jimbo Walles or the Foundation has a protocol for "anything" like that.Rio de oro (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 22:47, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- We don't censor out of fear about what some un-named radical might or might not do. While I personally would probably have removed the images out of my personal sense of propriety (so as not to offend someone's sensibilities), the community has decided that they're important to the article and should stay. No faceless, nameless, potential threat should deter us from intellectual honesty. - Philippe | Talk 00:09, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- So Wikipedia is going to stand there if OBL(Osma) or some crazed out nutjob makes threats to Wikipedia or the Foundation on that article here. Someone should removed the pictures. It the same thing with people putting pictures on paintings of the death of Christ. People dont want to see SHOCK. Is there a policy for this. I thought we cannt show images of the Prophet because we might get sued or get threats from Mr. OBL or his "buddies". If you pics of the Prophet Wikipedia is going to be in the news or in hot water just as that Danish-Cartoon BS in 2006.Rio de oro (talk) 01:03, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Something tells me Osama has more important targets to blow up than some website he's likely never heard of. The apparent threat that random, unknown people will somehow harm Wikipedia's servers because the project won't bend to radical Islamic thinking isn't going to affect change. As far as the original topic goes, I'd support going back to semi-protection, if it hasn't already been done. There are plenty of eyes watching it, and we are weeding out the sleeper accounts. Resolute 03:31, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- The relevant policy is WP:NOT#CENSORED, by-the-by. WilyD 03:45, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Osama's got better things to do with his time, and he's frankly far more likely than many of the so-called radicals that hit that page, to be aware of the variations in Islam that led to devout Muslims making that art. A lot of the 'radicals' here are likely to be teenagers in their middle eastern nations, finding that it's easy to vandalize WP, not much different that any other vandals. The few 'true believers' arent' the highly educated ones who could carry out any sort of attack. If they WERE educated, they'd understand the controversy. But how often do they assert that the 'wrong branch' of Islam made them? rarely, if ever. It's never a theological argument, just dogma. ThuranX (talk) 05:41, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Osama is dead [43]. In any case, this section is to decide whether we want to unlock Muhammad or not per Tariqabjotu's comment above. --Be happy!! (talk) 08:35, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Osama's got better things to do with his time, and he's frankly far more likely than many of the so-called radicals that hit that page, to be aware of the variations in Islam that led to devout Muslims making that art. A lot of the 'radicals' here are likely to be teenagers in their middle eastern nations, finding that it's easy to vandalize WP, not much different that any other vandals. The few 'true believers' arent' the highly educated ones who could carry out any sort of attack. If they WERE educated, they'd understand the controversy. But how often do they assert that the 'wrong branch' of Islam made them? rarely, if ever. It's never a theological argument, just dogma. ThuranX (talk) 05:41, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Pax Arcane (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), despite several warnings by three editors: User_talk:Pax_Arcane#AN_notification, User_talk:Pax_Arcane#A_caution, User_talk:Pax_Arcane#Don.27t_do_that, he continues disrupting [44]. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 03:21, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I would object to the very existence of this account, as it closely resembles mine. That the user is misbehaving might relfect poorly upon me. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 23:41, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Barefoot?
I just noted a page in AfD called List of fictional barefoot characters that rang a bell -- I can't pin it down exactly but I remember reading a report of a persistent vandal who inserted references to the barefooted status of various individuals into articles. Could User:Darkfighterman possibly be a sockpuppet of User:Creepy Crawler? I know there's someone out there who knows more about this than I do, and I'm sorry my memory is so poor. Accounting4Taste:talk 03:32, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Creepy tends to focus on creating categories for comic book characters and soap opera characters, usually using capital letters to begin each word. Pairadox (talk) 04:04, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Sounds like BorisTheBlade (talk · contribs). JuJube (talk) 10:44, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks, that seems correct judging by previous contributions -- he may have disappeared upon suggestion of sock-puppetry, but if he pops up again, I think I know what to do. Accounting4Taste:talk 17:17, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
A user named Betacommand has been acting very rude to me. I uploaded an image: Image:Cultofgreed.jpg, which I understand is free to use as a magazine cover. I was unable to add the image to a page because my account was too new, but Betacommand tagged it as orphaned. I tried to explain to him that I would be able to add the image, but he reverted me and called my edits vandalism. He has been spamming my talk page about once every 10 seconds now with frivolous vandalism warnings, even though this obviously is a content dispute. After I added it to the page, he changed his dispute to one over the rationale. I have tried to familiarize myself with your policies, but I am no expert. So I would have appreciated some guidance from him instead of edit warring on my own talk page and accusing me of vandalism. He's also removing my image from the article. Is he supposed to be your ambassador? I'm trying to help Wikipedia by adding a good image to an article. I'm certainly not a vandal. The image is perfectly legal and does not violate Wikipedia policy, either. So, why is he wasting so much of our time edit warring and attacking me? I understand there are rules on civility, being helpful to newcomers, and disruption. So, how many rules does he need to violate to enforce some obscure rule of which I admit I am unaware? To add an image I shouldn't have to fight such an intense struggle with this guy.--Guywithdress (talk) 04:06, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- That's because you don't realize you're wrong. You have to provide a fair use rationale with the image. You haven't done this, and instead repeatedly removed the valid warning tag, which is vandalism. --Haemo (talk) 04:10, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) Betacommand isn't doing anything wrong. You inappropriate removing the notice from the image without adding a fair use rationale (which the warning clearly states) and you ignored multiple warnings that you were violating policies in doing so. Also you are not allowed to use non-free images on your user page, so if it is not going to be used in an article, it should be deleted, otherwise yes, it does violate policy. Collectonian (talk) 04:14, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Or alternatively, people could stop acting like unhelpful dicks round here? When someone says they can't add an image due to their account being new and the page being semi-protected, don't blindly quote policy. How about asking them what page the image should be on and adding it yourself? One Night In Hackney303 04:15, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
I was contributing valid content to your encyclopedia and was acting in good faith. The only person acting in bad faith is you. It doesn't need a rationale, anyway. All you two seem to care about are rationales. That's the most important thing in the world to you. Add it yourself since you know so much about policy instead of vandalizing the article and insulting me. See if you can contribute something useful to the site.--Guywithdress (talk) 04:21, 12 February 2008 (UTC)Vandalism is any addition, removal, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia. The most common types of vandalism include the addition of obscenities or crude humor, page blanking, or the insertion of nonsense into articles.
- (EC)this is not a new user. this is a long time user coming back under a new account. they threaten me with WP:CIVIL, WP:3RR, WP:BITE and ANI. As for not adding the image, one it has no rationale, two the page he wants it on should not have it per our NFC policy. βcommand 04:19, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah, as no existing users ever complain about your civility or makes other complaints on ANI.... Let's not forget how many times you reverted to the orphaned tag before claiming it lacked a fair use rationale - one, two, three, four. Then 90 minutes later you claimed it lacked a fair use rationale. One Night In Hackney303 04:25, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- sorry I only pointed out one of several errors with that image. it was flagged by BCBot as orphan so that is what I tagged as. once it was used in an article then it needs a rationale. you cannot have a rationale for a usage that isnt there. Once the image was used without a rationale I tagged it as such. either way I was correct. βcommand 04:44, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
I've blocked User:Guywithdress for 24 hours for 3RR (actually 11RR) after several warnings to stop removing appropriate tags from Image:Cultofgreed.jpg. - Rjd0060 (talk) 04:29, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- My views on this are as follows: Endorse 3RR violation block of Guywithdress for repeatedly improperly removing the DI tag 11 times. In response to One Night In Hackney, edits considered to be vandalism - including the improper removal of CSD and DI tags - nullify the 3RR. And then, another question: If Betacommandbot, a bot which monitors fair use violations on images, tags your image, if I understand the bot mechanics correctly, if you remove the tag without rectifying the problem, the bot will re-add the tag. This would result in the same cycle that is being discussed at this thread currently. There is no point in creating an ANI report about that, because it is a bot doing what it is supposed to do. There is no difference here between what was done and what the bot would have done, so why treat it as such? --FastLizard4 (Talk•Index•Sign) 04:58, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't have a lot of patience for people who pretend to be new users so they can needle Betacommand about "biting" them and such. Well, maybe if he didn't WP:BITE people, he wouldn't get "needled" for it. —Random832 19:43, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Random832, nothing I did was BITEing. the user in question has made it clear that they are not a new user. All I did is tag an image for deletion, and revert obvious improper deletion tag removal. nowhere did the user ever have questions. all the user did was revert and threaten. βcommand 22:40, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Sockpuppetry of Solumeiras?
For as long as he's been a member here, there has been a cloud of suspicion from some editors (myself especially) about Solumeiras (talk · contribs) and his connections to past users. A checkuser was brought back as unrelated, but this looks like it may have been because of stale data on the past accounts (see the now-courtesy blanked Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/SunStar Net).
It's always been a suspicion that he's been related to TheM62Manchester (talk · contribs) for similar edit patterns and general focuses. Both display a love for templates. Both focus on articles that involve cars. Both focus on radio articles (see TheM62Manchester's deleted James Kerr (radio presenter) which is on a Q103 presenter and Solumeiras's Q103 edit as well as two non-notable radio presenters up for AFD Sheri Staplehurst and Lara Rorich).
But the edit that sent all my suspicions over the edge today is this: Solumeiras added a controversial tag to Talk:Girls Aloud with this edit. This is exactly what TheM62Manchester did here on the same article. In fact, TheM62Manchester had a very fond liking to adding controversial tags to non-controversial pages (see a large sum of his talk page edits). This edit is so minor and unnecessary in nature that it is extremely unlikely two unconnected editors would make the same edit. It seems that Solumeiras is taking on a similar interest in controversial templating with 3 added today ([45] [46] [47]).
And while researching this just now I discovered yet another remarkable discovery. Solumeiras has taken a strong liking to Police Camera Action! as a point of edits. Guess who else did. Here's the talk page archive with TheM62Manchester and Solumeiras both featured and here's the article history for hte last 500 edits. Note that in addition to Solumeiras and TheM62Manchester, you'll also find User:Sunholm who was connected to TheM62Manchester.
I believe that with all this evidence laid out, we definitely have a sock situation at hand. TheM62Manchester and Sunholm were part of a large good hand, bad hand accounts that even went as far as Willy on Wheels. With his edit nature, I wouldn't doubt the same situation is in place with Solumeiras where he is the good hand with other bad hands out there. Thoughts? Metros (talk) 04:35, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- And I forgot to mention Solumeiras loves to edit the pages of banned/blocked users like Special:Undelete/User:Sunholm and Special:Undelete/User:TheM62Manchester. Metros (talk) 04:55, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- My question: does it matter? TheM62Manchester has been blocked since November 2007, but he/she is not on the list of banned users. Is there any evidence that Solumeiras is using abusive sockpuppets currently? Is Solumeiras causing disruption to Wikipedia at this time? We're supposed to act proactively, not punitively. I don't care if Solumeiras was or was not a misbehaving user in the past. What matters is what he/she is doing now. The bottom line is, based on current activity, is this person a net benefit or detriment to Wikipedia? *** Crotalus *** 05:00, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- The belief is that Solumeiras, like the past carnations of this vandal, was using a good hand/bad hand system. Solumeiras would be the good hand in this situation. So while the Solumeiras account might not appear as a vandal, the person behind it is acting as a vandal. Metros (talk) 05:02, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- And yes, there has been disruption through Solumeiras personally. He has been making nonsense edits like the controversial tags, creating inappropriate articles like the two "radio personalities/models", he has been requesting unprotection on pages that are not going to be unlocked (George W. Bush and Lindsey Lohan being two prime examples), and some other issues as well including this Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User:Solumeiras/VfD where Solumeiras was using his own AFD template which was creating deletion discussions at Votes for deletion instead of Articles for deletion for, what he deemed, "nostalgia". Metros (talk) 05:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I have taken a look at this with CheckUser and I can confirm that Solumeiras (SunStar Net) is very likely the same as Sunholm/Sunfazer, who I gather is probably the same as TheM62Manchester (though I don't have records on that one). Dmcdevit·t 05:14, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- His requests for unprotections lately are interesting.--MONGO 09:03, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I have taken a look at this with CheckUser and I can confirm that Solumeiras (SunStar Net) is very likely the same as Sunholm/Sunfazer, who I gather is probably the same as TheM62Manchester (though I don't have records on that one). Dmcdevit·t 05:14, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, one of the unblock requests was for Wikipedia, which was vandalized three times within an hour of removal. He seemed to be looking for long-term protected articles and asking for them to be unprotected, simply because they had been protected for a long time. Horologium (talk) 13:06, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I don't believe he's a sockpuppet of any of those users, nor is he being deliberately disruptive. Dmcdevit, I don't think he is likely to be the same as those users.
Crotalus, I agree with your point though. Anyway, leave the guy alone, people, do you want him to become another {{retired}} editor (like Jaranda (talk · contribs) was, ages ago.).
I'm only really a sporadic editor here, but I'm commenting anyway purely because I have a bias: I know the guy in real life. Also, Metros, you're violating WP:AGF - you're treating him in the same way as the Armenia-Azerbaijani editors in that Arbitration case.
Please leave him alone. --Windmill 000eh (talk) 10:04, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- One more thing... he's not a good hand/bad hand account, and is a separate user from them.
You might think I'm a WP:SPA, but I'm just a sporadic editor. Anyhow... he hasn't done too much wrong with his mainspace editing. Yes he tagged talk pages as controversial, but what's wrong with that?? Anyway, I've courtesy-blanked his user/user talk pages for him... nothing wrong with that. --Windmill 000eh (talk) 10:12, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
One more thing:
Clean start under a new name
- If you have a negative track record and you have decided to make a genuine, clean, and honest, new start, and do not wish it to be tarnished by your prior conduct, you can simply discontinue using the old account(s), and create an unconnected new account which becomes the only account you then use, and is used in a good manner. Note that the "right to vanish" does not cover this, and repeated switching of accounts is usually seen as improper.
The most common two concerns and their usual answers are:
- I'll be noticed: If you change your behavior, and also the articles you work on, there is no reason for a connection to be made. If you continue on the same articles or your writing style is so distinctive it will quickly be noticed, or you return to problematic editing, then it is likely a connection will be made whether or not you change account, and any perceived concealment will probably be seen more negatively when discovered.
- I'll be identified by checkuser or accused of being a sock puppet later: Checkuser is used for suspected breaches of policy. If you don't use the old account or engage in problematic conduct, there is little reason a request would be made, and a request without good reason is likely to be declined for lack of cause.
(That said, if future usage does draw attention by concerned users or administrators, then it is likely the connection will be made. See alternative account notification for how to reduce the likelihood of problems.)
--Windmill 000eh (talk) 10:38, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Heh, it's funny how when we discussed the Sunholm/Sunfazer and TheM62Manchester accounts on this here noticeboard, the same thing happened. Socks/SPAs/friends etc came out of the woodwork to tell us that the user was a good editor. Come on, Solumeiras. This is too pathetic and transparent for words. Log into your account and come and talk to us properly. Sarah 10:54, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- But I am not Solumeiras, honestly. He'll probably be editing today, I don't know. But I'm a sporadic editor, not a SPA. --Windmill 000eh (talk) 11:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'm sorry but I don't believe you...once bitten and all that. for example: [48] Meybe you can staart tiping liek a unliteatable prson. Either you're Solumeiras or you're a meatpuppet here at his request. Either way, we've seen this dance before. As Matt said eighteen months ago here "I have blocked the IP that Sunholm (former Sunfazer, it is claimed) uses, since the promises from last time it was blocked that no more vandalism or sockpuppet creation from this IP would occur have been proven to be lies, and the old tricks are back.
- I ask that no admin unblock this IP without talking to me. Vandalism and sockpuppetry from this IP has been going on for at least nine months; despite numerous blocks and promises to reform, the behaviour returns each time. The person/people behind this IP are playing us for fools; don't let them do so again. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 01:12, 21 June 2006 (UTC)" If Solumeiras is Sunholm/Sunfazer and this crap has been going on for another eighteen months then enough said, I think. We've wasted enough time on this and that IP over the last couple of years. By the way, if you're going to be maintaining the claim that you aren't him you shouldn't be retiring him on his behalf. Sarah 11:26, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
I just got an email from User:Doctor Nigel Lewis. This user's been blocked since March 23, 2007 as a compromised account. Who was the person the person to tag this user's user page as a compromised account? Solumeiras. Now, suddenly after all this time, the user claims it's not compromised. If that doesn't prove that good hand/bad hand is going on, I don't know what does. Metros (talk) 11:54, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Metros, that person emailed me, too. Look at User talk:Sunholm, the person/people behind that account claimed to have compromised some old account by guessing the passwords. I really don't think we need to tolerate this rubbish. I would support a community ban of the people/person behind these accounts. Sarah 12:12, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
This behaviour (good hand/bad hand, protestations of innocence, claims that the IP is now OK although yes it was a source of bad edits before ("it was my little brother", "it's a library", "It's a school", "my roommates did it but I've spoken to them", etc), unwarranted and keen interest in CUs and the process of CUing and other people who have been CUed, vandalism of admin pages after an admin takes action (often on other wikis), creating impersonator accounts, offers to be a CU/crat/admin/steward on one of their personal wikis, and a host of other things too long and bizarre to mention in detail here unless it's necessary) is not confined to en:wp... This user is a frequent topic of discussion on the CU mailing list and has been blocked on and off under various guises on many many wikis to the point that it's almost a running joke (as in "what has he come up with THIS time??"), so it strikes me that it's time to permanently block the IP, with account creation disabled, on en:wp at the very least. (I am aware this will probably get me some angry protestations of innocence in my mail, and possibly some vandalism of some of my pages somewhere). Note also that this IP and its accounts are poster children for bugzilla bug: 8707 Support global blocking ++Lar: t/c 13:42, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
What now? Block? Ban?
What is the best course of action from here? Something is clearly up and it seems indisputable that one user is responsible for all these accounts. Do we go ahead and block Solumeiras indefinitely for the disruption? Do we then ban whoever is behind all this (I'm assuming we're calling this "Sunholm" in terms of who it is, right? Obviously this can't keep happening and frustrating us all. Metros (talk) 14:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Ban the person behind the accounts, block Solumeiras and any other still not blocked accounts and reblock the IP as Lar suggested. I'm not sure if the IP is still 82.42.145.158 or not. Sarah 14:20, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I've blocked Solumeiras and his alternate accounts. What's funny is that each of his alternate accounts were tagged with {{User Alternate Acc}} which was heavily edited by...Sunholm, Windmill 000eh, and Solumeiras. It doesn't get any better. Metros (talk) 14:38, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- He's now started emailing unblock-en-l with the most utterly bogus stories claiming to be someone else unrelated who wants to claim the SunStarNet username but funnily enough they include the claim that the "SunStar Net" username originated from a university project which, of course, is what User:SunStar Net used to say. Ugh. He helpfully identified an IP that I've now blocked...it would be nice to have that confirmed but interestingly until today it had a notice on it saying it was Solumerias's IP, 'please don't block'. [49]. Sarah 01:39, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Metros, do you know if the User_talk:Ashford1982 account has been CUd? If not, I'll follow that up as I think there's a good chance that's another sock. I've also received private evidence that 82.42.237.84 is the IP that has been used for mass disruption and vandalism across numerous wikis. Sarah 04:44, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- He's now started emailing unblock-en-l with the most utterly bogus stories claiming to be someone else unrelated who wants to claim the SunStarNet username but funnily enough they include the claim that the "SunStar Net" username originated from a university project which, of course, is what User:SunStar Net used to say. Ugh. He helpfully identified an IP that I've now blocked...it would be nice to have that confirmed but interestingly until today it had a notice on it saying it was Solumerias's IP, 'please don't block'. [49]. Sarah 01:39, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I've blocked Solumeiras and his alternate accounts. What's funny is that each of his alternate accounts were tagged with {{User Alternate Acc}} which was heavily edited by...Sunholm, Windmill 000eh, and Solumeiras. It doesn't get any better. Metros (talk) 14:38, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
More sockpuppetry
I'm sorry to say, this user is doing more sockpuppetry. I need an admin to e-mail me, so I can release sensitive information I have on hand from another website. Additionally, I have evidence that may prove that Doctor Nigel Lewis is a sockpuppet. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 21:48, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Talk page edits
Continuing issues here [50] and here [51], from 142.162.195.175 who makes similar and sometimes identical edits as the following:
- 142.162.190.217
- 142.162.162.87
- 142.162.197.114
- 142.162.199.228
- 142.162.200.61
- 142.162.200.61
- 142.162.193.68
- 142.162.161.46
- Provider: Stentor National Integrated Communications Network
- Explanations from others as to the inappropriateness of the edits are ignored [52], [53], and talk page histories [54], and [55] reveal the process. JNW (talk) 05:04, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I have been enlightened by this information regarding the puppet's scope: [56]. Maybe an administrator can help. Thanks, JNW (talk) 06:45, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
BetacommandBot blocked
I've blocked BetacommandBot again: it's failing to follow redirects when trying to decide if an image has a valid rationale or not. See [57] for an example. --Carnildo (talk) 05:03, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- you know Carnildo you could have shown me a little respect and left me a talk page note about it. Please unblock and ill look into it. βcommand 05:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Im looking at what the API gave me as redirects to the article in question, and they are not the same information.
Image:Angyali udvozlet.jpg Lenght:752 Rationale:False Regex 1:(Angyali\sÜdvözlet|The\sAnnunciation\s\(film\)) Regex 2:(Angyali_Üdvözlet|The_Annunciation_\(film\)) Time:True
- but Angyali_Üdvözlet and Angyali üdvözlet dont match. the API have me the first page as instead of the second. Im not sure what caused that. but I will be looking further the API error. βcommand 05:23, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'll unblock as long as the bot doesn't do any image-rationale work until this bug and the μTorrent bug mentioned on your talkpage are fixed. --Carnildo (talk) 05:30, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Carnildo, there was no need to block the bot in the first place. Like I have stated several times to you. Leave me a talkpage notice and Ill stop the bot. I said im looking into this and will see if I can figure out if its fixable on my end. As for the μTorrent issue that is a seperate issue. βcommand 15:50, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- It's a quick easy way to make it stop. It's not remotely a big deal. Friday (talk) 15:57, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Friday, when people hold it against the bot in every argument, and a talkpage notice would do the same thing. and Ive asked Carnildo repeatedly to do it before blocking it, and he ignores my simple request. Leave a note and give me 5-10 minutes to kill the bot, instead of blocking. If I dont respond then feel free to block it. βcommand 16:24, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Blocking bots that are malfunctioning is standard practice. Why should yours be treated differently? Natalie (talk) 17:06, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Natalie, when there are as many improper blocks on the bot as there is, people saying there "BCBot is malfunctioning", when they dont understand policy. and I have repeatedly asked this user to discuss it prior to blocking (you get about the same speed results) and the user repeatedly ignores my request I have a problem with that. βcommand 17:16, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- You appear, however, to be making a general request of everyone: that they not block this bot without first telling you the issue. Since there's no instaneous way to know if a user is online, you're essentially asking any admin to contact you, hang around while they wait for you to answer, and then block if they haven't received an answer from you in some indeterminate period of time. Why is it such a problem to block, tell you the issue, and unblock once it's sorted out? Natalie (talk) 19:53, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- waiting 5-10 minutes is not that long. its a problem when the "follow redirects" is not the issue. and its been ~15 hours since the bot was blocked and its not been unblocked. this was sorted out over 12 hours ago and the bot is still blocked. admins are quick to block and very slow to unblock. its a pain in the ass to work with a block when a 30 second post to my talkpage would do the same thing. Ive repeatedly asked the admin to post to my talk page but he refuses a simple request. βcommand 20:12, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I've unblocked the bot, since you say it's been fixed. I have to say that I agree that blocking it isn't an entirely satisfactory way of dealing with problems (particularly if the block is set to indefinite, as it was in this case), but you haven't provided much of an alternative. Perhaps you could implement a shutdown feature that would allow admins to tell the bot to stop if it's causing problems? -- ChrisO (talk) 20:30, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Responding to Betacommand: I can see why this is frustrating, but in my experience at least it's pretty unusual to have to wait so many hours to have a bot unblocked. I would say that, in these cases, any admin could unblock a bot once the issue was fixed. The sticking point for me is that bots have one operator, but any admin can unblock. The chances of getting a hold of a specific bot operator are naturally much smaller than the chances of getting a hold of any admin, so the block-contact-unblock arrangement makes more sense than contact-wait-maybe block. Natalie (talk) 21:08, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Like I have repeatedly said when the bot is operational my normal response time to an issue is under 2 minutes. I have an IRC tool that pings me on certain things. editing my talk page or or the bots triggers a loud "Ping" from my computer. Natalie, its not contact-wait-maybe block, its contact, wait 10 minutes, if I have not responded block. is that too fucking much to ask? Ive asked countless times. when ever BCbot is blocked its always a pain in the ass to get someone to unblock. I have a great method for bring up issues but instead Carnildo has to be an ass and repeated ignore my simple request. βcommand 22:30, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- You're welcome to ping me to review a bot block next time. Any idea how the code ended up with a capitalized version of the redirect name? Gimmetrow 23:06, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Like I have repeatedly said when the bot is operational my normal response time to an issue is under 2 minutes. I have an IRC tool that pings me on certain things. editing my talk page or or the bots triggers a loud "Ping" from my computer. Natalie, its not contact-wait-maybe block, its contact, wait 10 minutes, if I have not responded block. is that too fucking much to ask? Ive asked countless times. when ever BCbot is blocked its always a pain in the ass to get someone to unblock. I have a great method for bring up issues but instead Carnildo has to be an ass and repeated ignore my simple request. βcommand 22:30, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Responding to Betacommand: I can see why this is frustrating, but in my experience at least it's pretty unusual to have to wait so many hours to have a bot unblocked. I would say that, in these cases, any admin could unblock a bot once the issue was fixed. The sticking point for me is that bots have one operator, but any admin can unblock. The chances of getting a hold of a specific bot operator are naturally much smaller than the chances of getting a hold of any admin, so the block-contact-unblock arrangement makes more sense than contact-wait-maybe block. Natalie (talk) 21:08, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I've unblocked the bot, since you say it's been fixed. I have to say that I agree that blocking it isn't an entirely satisfactory way of dealing with problems (particularly if the block is set to indefinite, as it was in this case), but you haven't provided much of an alternative. Perhaps you could implement a shutdown feature that would allow admins to tell the bot to stop if it's causing problems? -- ChrisO (talk) 20:30, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Natalie, when there are as many improper blocks on the bot as there is, people saying there "BCBot is malfunctioning", when they dont understand policy. and I have repeatedly asked this user to discuss it prior to blocking (you get about the same speed results) and the user repeatedly ignores my request I have a problem with that. βcommand 17:16, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Blocking bots that are malfunctioning is standard practice. Why should yours be treated differently? Natalie (talk) 17:06, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Zenwhat blocked again
I've blocked Zenwhat (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) for continued trolling after Jimbo explicitly asked him to stop. He continued here and was reverted by User:Crum375. As a result, I've blocked him for a week. Since this editor's conduct is currently being discussed in an above section that may be archived soon, I have started a new section for further discussion. Nakon 05:47, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- This is the first of this user's blocks that I actually endorse. Which is a shame, since I think that were it not for the previous ill-advised blocks, he might never have stooped to the level of deserving blocks. But he's responsible for his own conduct, and today his conduct hasn't been good. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 05:49, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Actually, this is exactly the kind of behavior I have come to expect from Zenwhat. He has been posting tripe like this at the Village Pump for some time, and its been getting tiresome. This is not new behavior since the last blocking above, and I do not expect this to stop when the block expires. I would really love Zenwhat to prove me wrong, but his past behavior has not led me to believe that that will happen. I endorse this block, and pray that he returns from it with a better attitude. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 05:54, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I've gotta endorse Nakon's actions. When Jimbo says "stop trolling" you stop trolling. A week (as opposed to a longer, perma block/ban) is being generous. MBisanz talk 05:55, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'm not being snarky, but if all he wants to do is discuss meta issues, perhaps someone should point him to an offsite area to do this, like the mailing list, forums, blogs, or whatever. I'm just saying the guy really likes talking about Wikipedia, maybe he can blow off steam elsewhere. daveh4h 08:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- If he put that energy into article editing-- wow. I think he has problems not necessarily related to Wikipedia, and that he should better spend his energy elsewhere. The one week block is fine for the sake of reducing the disruption level. I don't foresee any change in his editing patterns after the block expires. Dlohcierekim Deleted? 08:39, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Actually, Dave, he seems to have done just that and moved some of his efforts to Meta (m:Special:Contributions/Zenwhat), but aside from some possibly license-breaking copy-and-paste moves, his contributions there seem to be on the up-and-up. --jonny-mt 08:44, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'm not being snarky, but if all he wants to do is discuss meta issues, perhaps someone should point him to an offsite area to do this, like the mailing list, forums, blogs, or whatever. I'm just saying the guy really likes talking about Wikipedia, maybe he can blow off steam elsewhere. daveh4h 08:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
FWIW, I cannot bring myself to see his posts as anything else than a bit distressed and eccentric, but also rather interesting meta comment. That someone who adores Ayn Rand has considerable difficulties sharing that perspective doesn't come as a big surprise. User:Dorftrottel 10:55, February 12, 2008
- If I were a meta admin, I'd probably be inclined to do something about [58]. --B (talk) 13:57, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Agree with Dorftrottel, for the most part. My only concern is that repeatedly banning this user will make him back come more outrageous than the last time and eventually turn him against the project entirely. Some may say that he is already against the project-but I disagree. If he were, he wouldn't spend so much time commenting on it. That said, I don't see any of this ending well, unfortunately. :-( If he is doing this for attention, then the offsite alternatives like meta, mailing lists, and message boards won't provide him enough. I find it easy enough to avoid his commentary if I find it annoying. Violating the sanctity of Jimbo's talk page seems to be the latest offense. If he said it elsewhere it probably would have gone unnoticed. This user either has other problems or he just hasn't understood the subtleties of how to interact here yet, which is something to consider. I still think he should be encouraged to read and interact at other meta sites, maybe he can find something positive to do. daveh4h 17:42, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Fully agree, particularly with the word encourage. That's the key, imo. Discouraging him is definitely counterproductive. Maybe his energies can be gently directed into more appropriate channels, so why not give it a shot instead of jumping the gun on him (npi)? User:Dorftrottel 17:50, February 12, 2008
- Much as I apperciate Jimbo, "the sanctity of his Talk page" seems a bit excessive. Regardless, I do think Zenwhat is a tragic case of what happens when a Wikipedian is brought low by what we call Wikistress, and a downward spiral of incivility between editors. -- RoninBK T C 18:13, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Fully agree, particularly with the word encourage. That's the key, imo. Discouraging him is definitely counterproductive. Maybe his energies can be gently directed into more appropriate channels, so why not give it a shot instead of jumping the gun on him (npi)? User:Dorftrottel 17:50, February 12, 2008
Move?
I've seen a lot of discussions come up about Zenwhat in the past few days. To keep all discussions centralized and in one place, I think it would make sense to have discussions located at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/User:Zenwhat. Opinions (note, I will move this discussion if users below agree). Regards, D.M.N. (talk) 15:11, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I think that is a good idea. daveh4h 17:42, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I doubt it will be necessary, especially with the most recent block. - auburnpilot talk 21:08, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I do not think this is a good idea. (In general, I dislike moving discussions to sub pages, as the discussion is then fractured and the audience narrowed.) --Iamunknown 21:22, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Talk page protected
Per a request at WP:RFPP, I fully protected User talk:Zenwhat and reverted it. As you can see here, Zenwhat was continuing on the same sort of trolling that got him blocked in the first place. Just a long monologue about who-knows-what - conspiracies against him, etc. No discussion about wanting to be unblocked, no discussion about anything related to writing an encyclopedia, etc. Just a blog. Sorry, but to me, a week-long block is a week-long block. It doesn't mean a week of blogging. He can go about blogging when it expires.
Not particularly surprising, I've been called out on it so here I am for community review. If consensus here is to unprotect and let Zenwhat continue his blogging and pondering now instead of a week from now, then I welcome someone to unprotect it. —Wknight94 (talk) 22:11, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Good block, good protection. Wikipedia isn't a place for conspiracy-theory soapboxing. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:19, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Endorse. He was blocked, in part, for disseminating these pointless dull ramblings. Providing airtime for him to continue to use our bandwidth to witter on is pointless. Extended-RBI correctly employed. ➔ REDVEЯS has changed his plea to guilty 22:20, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Well, I won't act against consensus, but I see the talk page protection as pointless. Ranting privately on his talk page seems harmless, and protecting pages like that is what gives complainers fodder. Do we wish to make Zenwhat into a hero for WR and the like? -GTBacchus(talk) 22:24, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Creating an account to do nothing but chat with your friends is even more harmless - but try it and see how fast you're permablocked (after you're caught anyway). WP:NOT#MYSPACE. In this case, he was ranting about particular users conspiring against him - mentioning them by name - all while already blocked. He should thank me for protecting him from himself while he cools off for a week. As far as making him a hero for WR, sorry but I couldn't possibly care less. —Wknight94 (talk) 22:35, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Well, I won't act against consensus, but I see the talk page protection as pointless. Ranting privately on his talk page seems harmless, and protecting pages like that is what gives complainers fodder. Do we wish to make Zenwhat into a hero for WR and the like? -GTBacchus(talk) 22:24, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Endorse. He was blocked, in part, for disseminating these pointless dull ramblings. Providing airtime for him to continue to use our bandwidth to witter on is pointless. Extended-RBI correctly employed. ➔ REDVEЯS has changed his plea to guilty 22:20, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I don't consider Zenwhat's comments on his talk page to be trolling (posting rambling comments to one's own talk page - which people can readily unwatchlist and ignore - hardly seems to qualify as deliberate attempts at disruption) and I don't think his use of his talk page was particularly abusive (as mentioned in the protection log). I would support unprotecting his talk page. --Iamunknown 22:25, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- So would I. Not my call though. User:Dorftrottel 23:07, February 12, 2008
- Protecting the talk-page (it is only for a week) is a good call. Otherwise ZW can continue to post rubbish as has been happening for weeks, and this rubbish includes attacking insulting, misrepresenting, other users egregiously,(to no purpose whatsoever, except to gain attention). If I have to watch the page, to see myself slanderered, I would have to revert such rubbish off the page. I think I have the right to repair such damage on a WPpage put up by a blocked User. Why should I or others be forced to such troubles by a nuisance editor, and then run the risk of being blocked oneself? Wish I didn't have to say this, but Do not feed the trolls applies, as ZW has said so themself. ZW may in time learn to contribute without all the aggro and self-importance, (in time, but not at this time, so its preventative, not punitive.) Newbyguesses - Talk 00:44, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Let him use his talk page for ranting. If he insults or attacks other editors (not Wikipedia in general - railing against Wikipedia in general is fine), we can extend his block. If he doesn't, then there's no problem. Neıl ☎ 09:30, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
User:Duke53 edit warring and being uncivil
Duke53 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been perpetuating an edit war at Phil Ford, continually restoring material that is questionable under the WP:BLP policy. However, he has not crossed the 3-revert threshold in his recent edits. A short while ago, Duke53 left a rude note on the talk page of an anonymous user who reverted him at Phil Ford, which I view as a violation of the civility policy.
He has also recently edit warred at UNC-Duke rivalry, though a resolution to that dispute was reached by some patient editors. Duke53's behavior is worst at articles on whose subject he has a strong point of view: these two articles, for example, are related to Duke University, of which he is a strong partisan.
This comes a few months after a Request for comment on Duke53's behavior stalled, which happened after he basically dropped off the radar for a month or so. Upon his return he showed some improvement in his behavior, but this is a serious relapse.
I'm not sure whether to re-list the RfC (which was never resolved), to escalate this to Arbcom, or to let an admin here take whatever action they deem proper. Advice in this regard would be appreciated. I will notify Duke53 of this thread as a courtesy. alanyst /talk/ 06:17, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Well, alanyst, here you go again ... why don't you acknowledge exactly why you keep stalking my every move here at Wikipedia?
- I view your continual haranguing of me as harassment ... you can call it whatever you choose. Did you ever stop to think that I make those edits because I am correct? Seems to be like the pot calling the kettle black; your behavior is worst on the pages where you expect everyone to accept your edits as gospel, even when there is much disagreement about what is factual.
- We both know that this all goes back to the 'issues' at Temple garments and Undergarment and my not kowtowing to your attempt at censoring items because of so-called 'sacredness'.
- Again I will tell you: "you do what you have to do and I will do what I have to do". What I don't have to do is accept any guff from you, so don't expect me to take it lying down. Cheers. Duke53 | Talk 08:30, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- p.s. as far as "dropping off the radar": look to your own house first. Your M.O. seems to be 'attack & disappear'. Duke53 | Talk 08:30, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- p.p.s. I am just waiting for your usual 'gang' to start swarming this page. Have you notified them yet? Ho-Hum. Duke53 | Talk 08:30, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Regardless of whether or not your edits are correct, you are edit warring on Phil Ford. I would suggest that you actually try to discuss the sentence in question on the talk page rather than continuing to revert, as you will be blocked if you continue. I have no comment on the claimed incivility - the diff seems borderline incivil at worst, but obviously others may have a different opinion. Your comments here, however, are quite incivil and completely fail to assume the good faith of another contributor. If the two of you have problems this is not the place to solve them. If you do not, then I am at a loss to explain Duke53's hostility. Natalie (talk) 17:17, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm going to refrain from arguing anything here. I'm asking for admin advice or at least a look into the issue. If you want to start discussing things you know where my talk page is, and there's also the RfC page. If an admin has any questions for me, I'd of course be happy to respond here or on a talk page. alanyst /talk/ 17:12, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Please review my block
I indef blocked Crapitsalec (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) for attack page/inappropriate page creation as a VOA. Please unblock or reduce block if I was overly zealous. Cheers, and happy editing. Dlohcierekim Deleted? 08:26, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Looks like a good block based on the deleted contributions. Also, the user name is rather inappropriate so either way, that account's future isn't a bright one. --B (talk) 13:49, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Block review
- The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
I have blocked PouponOnToast (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) for 24 hours (originally 3) for disruption. His recent behaviour has been far from civil, he has been attacking Durova and has now decided to troll the Matanmoreland RfC. Block was originally 3 hours, but when i checked my watchlist to post this notice (quick link rather than typing) I notice he had re-added the trolling after it was removed. Thus block was extended to 24 hours. ViridaeTalk 08:34, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Please unblock. Editors are allowed to disagree with me. We were having a civil difference of opinion. I would have complained if I thought he'd gone overboard. DurovaCharge! 08:45, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- That went beyond disagreement, and is just one part of his recent problematic behaviour. Hd has been very caustic about the whole issue, so in the spirit of Jimbo's recent "tough on incivility" stance I blocked. I would liek to hear some more opinions however. ViridaeTalk 08:48, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- This (inserted twice despite being reverted) is pure trolling for instance. ViridaeTalk 08:50, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- (ec)He's also asked me to courtesy delete the section of my user talk, and promised to walk away from the conflict. I'd prefer to have people come to me with their opinions and express civil disagreement without fear of getting blocked for it. Please do a good faith unblock. DurovaCharge! 08:54, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Viridae is on the opposite side of the dispute with PouponOnToast...he is NOT a neutral admin in this situation.--MONGO 08:52, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- leave it out MONGO, I appear to be in a dispute with the whole site in your eyes. ViridaeTalk 08:54, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
(ec) Unblock. "It's a witch, burn it," is neither uncivil nor disruptive under the circumstances. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 08:58, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Thank you for unblocking. DurovaCharge! 08:59, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- (40th bloody ec tonight)NOte that was one of many exchanges that caused the block. He is now unblocked however having agreed to stay civil. ViridaeTalk 09:01, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Another block review: User:CBMIBM
I've blocked CBMIBM (talk · contribs) (former User:Wikinger) for a week for this and related stuff. This is a bit of a complex history involving various forms of disruption, a lot of sockpuppeting allegations (some true, some not), and difficult to see through for the outsider, so I decided to take the quick route and do the block myself, even though on a different unrelated level I'm currently involved in some content disagreements with this user. Therefore submitting for review here. Will gladly provide more background explanation if needed. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:11, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- The unblock request reads"admitting that my retaliation was totally wrong, possibility of editing articles" DGG (talk) 13:19, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- The trouble is: he was ostensibly insulting another user who some people believe is in reality a sockpuppet of himself. The suspicion is that he made those insults only in order to demonstrate they are not the same person. So, either it's a rather schizophrenic but quite elaborate sockpuppeting scheme, or it's a case of quite egregiously losing control of himself. In either case, it's a very deep-rooted personality problem. This guy reminds me of another disruptive user I used to be dealing with, who it later turned out suffered from Asperger's... Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:25, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
AntiVandal Bots and the Bot flag
I thought policy was that AntiVandal bots under no uncertain terms do not get the Bot flag? Has this policy changed? Q T C 09:14, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- As far as I know, they have the bot flag set so they can edit faster. Their edits are not marked as bot edits, though, so they do show up on the watchlist. Policy seems to be "anti vandal bots have a bot flag, but their edits don't". Kusma (talk) 09:17, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- That doesn't seem to be the case for all bots. Q T C 09:25, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Kusma's understanding checks with what I know. AV bots didn't used to get the flag, so that they would show up in recent changes (etc) for some measure of supervision. With rollback in particular, there was some interest in getting them bot flags so that they could be exempted from the rollback rate limiting; with that in mind, an optional URL parameter was added to allow bots to flag particular edits as non-bot (the idea being that AV bots could get flagged, but mark all edits as non-bot, thus hopefully having their cake and eating it, too). Is there a specific bot you're asking about, by chance? – Luna Santin (talk) 10:10, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Not really, just working through WP:VF and was curious as why some bots weren't showing up anymore. Q T C 10:21, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Whether or not an account has the bot flag or not has no effect on whether it shows up in the IRC Recent Changes (which VF uses). It's possible that VF automatically whitelisted the bots—you might want to remove them from the whitelist if that's the case. GracenotesT § 15:58, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Not really, just working through WP:VF and was curious as why some bots weren't showing up anymore. Q T C 10:21, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Kusma's understanding checks with what I know. AV bots didn't used to get the flag, so that they would show up in recent changes (etc) for some measure of supervision. With rollback in particular, there was some interest in getting them bot flags so that they could be exempted from the rollback rate limiting; with that in mind, an optional URL parameter was added to allow bots to flag particular edits as non-bot (the idea being that AV bots could get flagged, but mark all edits as non-bot, thus hopefully having their cake and eating it, too). Is there a specific bot you're asking about, by chance? – Luna Santin (talk) 10:10, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- That doesn't seem to be the case for all bots. Q T C 09:25, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
A range of IP addresses seems to be coming around simply to harass Ckatz (a prospective future admin) and interfere in articles he's involved in. See [59] (deceitful edit summary) [60] [61] [62] [63] [64] [65] [66]. Very likely socks of banned user EverybodyHatesChris (talk · contribs). JuJube (talk) 10:30, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Another revert. JuJube (talk) 16:47, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Consistent edit warring/POV pushing, pesonal attacks, 3RR violations, etc.
Someone please tell me what we should do with User:Esimal. Please see Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Esimal. He unapologetically edit wars against consensus and pushes a fringe point of view (see Talk:Religion in the United States), accuses everyone with whom he agrees of being a "radical Evangelical", and just willfully violated 3RR using socks at Religion in the United States (for which he was not blocked, because I'm less interested in reporting him than seeing a solution). That being said, I'm not entirely convinced we can work with this user on en at all unless we get some major promises of attitude adjustment. For admins, just look at the deleted versions of his userpage to get an idea. I'm reluctant to report this here at all due to the fact that the comments are certainly meant to illicit a m:Don't be a crybaby effect. Some help? And, BTW, please actually read the comments at the Talk:Religion page before commenting here. The Evil Spartan (talk) 10:34, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- The account has barely been used since December, though the IP's are obviously and admittedly related. They're not obligated to log in, but if there's an issue with edit-warring then the options are to block the IP or to temporarily semi-protect the page. I'm not sure what else can be done beyond encouraging the user to utilize the talk page, which has already been done. Is there a particular action you think is appropriate at this point? MastCell Talk 19:22, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Disruptive edits: User:Iwanafish
For over two months now, Iwanafish has repeatedly inserted POV material into the I Ching article. Here's the history:
- Iwanafish adds unsourced text [67] on December 5, 2007. His addition is reverted [68].
- He re-inserts the text and is reverted[69] with the edit summary: "undid changes made by iwanafish, as he attaches his own personal opinion to the end of the opening paragraph." Iwanafish again re-inserts the text.
- On December 9, 2007 User:64.186.47.226 adds a note on the talk page, stating that the material shows a lack of objectivity.
- On December 11, 2007 User:Antifamilymang edits and moves the text [70]. Iwanafish reverts.
- A total of six editors, other than Iwanafish, comment, on the talk page. All agree that the text is unacceptable, referring to it as original research. On December 16, 2007 it is proposed to give Iwanafish until the end of December to find citations for the text. All those who comment on this agree. Iwanafish responds with scorn for "Westerners view of the I Ching" but does not comment on the need for sources.
- The pattern of reverts continues. Edit summaries refer Iwanafish to the talk page [71], and then warn him that if he doesn't discuss his edits on the talk page his reverts will be treated as vandalism [72].
- On December 17, 2007, a note on his talk page describes the problem of lack of sources, explains that editorial decisions are made by consensus and warns him he could be blocked if he continues his actions.
- No sources are provided but the pattern of reverts slows in late December and early January, then starts up again on January 30, 2008
- On January 31, 2008, Iwanafish is given a 4th level warning. He ceases to edit the I Ching article as Iwanafish.
- On February 10, 2008 209.166.90.180 adds the identical text with the identical MO as Iwanafish. A 4th level warning is added to the IP talk page. On February 10, 2008 209.166.90.180 reverts again.
I recommend that a block of several days be given to his IP address. Sunray (talk) 11:08, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Having been a victim of more than one setup in my history on wikipedia, and having an interest and expertise in Chinese, this post caught my eye. When I investigated I found Iwanafish was not alone in wanting some of his edits included, despite Sunray's portrait. Indeed Iwanafish sourced one of his edits to p131 of Needham's classic. Sunray's rejection of Needham is most unwarranted. Needham's is one of the modern classics of world and China related scholarship. If his views on Chinese mysticism are not relevant then it is a very sad day for wikipedia. Having said that, I do not condone Iwanafish's style - though I point out that Sunray equally shares a tendency for reversion, and further, a tendency for ownership of the page in question. I recommend guidance for Iwanafish and Sunray, not the penalty Sunray seeks. Mccready (talk) 15:26, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Mcready has done a creditable job of advocacy here. However, I think he needs to go over the history of this more carefully. At least six editors have either reverted Iwanafish, (pointing out his POV), or tried to edit his text. Each time he has reverted, insisting on his version. Also six editors (not all the same ones) have commented that they were concerned with the bias he had introduced into the article. Iwanafish's comments on the talk page have generally been to express his distain for the I Ching and the "western Yijingers [who] think you can have your magic book, shake you coins and no one will laugh at you."
- I don't own the page. I do monitor it, though, and responded to the concerns raised by other editors. While I might have handled Iwanafish more gently, I've tried many different approaches and his intransigence related to this article continues to be a real problem right now. In my first warning note to him on his talk page, I did suggest that we could work on it:
- "If you wish to participate in the discussion on the talk page, that would be welcome. I believe that the paragraph could be re-written, sources found and many of the ideas included."
- Instead he continues to insist on his text, with its original research and one problematic source. Note that I don't say "block Iwanafish." It is his IP that is being disruptive. A short block might send the message that he needs to work with others if he wants to edit the "I Ching" article. Sunray (talk) 18:30, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I agree that Iwanafish has been rather disruptive, and he certainly needs to provide a source for the statement concerning the I Ching's popularity (or lack thereof) in Asia. Otherwise it just seems like he's trying to push his own personal observations. The Needham quote is fine, but so far hasn't been used very well in any sort of context. I don't think he realises how his tone comes off as within the article, and his talk page comments have been bombastic and almost universally hostile. And hostility tends to breed hostility. I don't agree that this requires a block (of any length), but it does require attention. Some kind of mediation. So far Iwanafish has been unwilling to simply discuss this (outside of comments like "You don't like my comments on the I-ching because they do not fit into your personal religion"...which is funny, because me? I'm an athiest :| ). I can't speak on Sunray's behalf, but he has at least brought discussion to the talk page concerning Iwanafish's ideas, which I can't say for Iwanafish concerning Sunray's.--Yossarian
07:52, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I agree that Iwanafish has been rather disruptive, and he certainly needs to provide a source for the statement concerning the I Ching's popularity (or lack thereof) in Asia. Otherwise it just seems like he's trying to push his own personal observations. The Needham quote is fine, but so far hasn't been used very well in any sort of context. I don't think he realises how his tone comes off as within the article, and his talk page comments have been bombastic and almost universally hostile. And hostility tends to breed hostility. I don't agree that this requires a block (of any length), but it does require attention. Some kind of mediation. So far Iwanafish has been unwilling to simply discuss this (outside of comments like "You don't like my comments on the I-ching because they do not fit into your personal religion"...which is funny, because me? I'm an athiest :| ). I can't speak on Sunray's behalf, but he has at least brought discussion to the talk page concerning Iwanafish's ideas, which I can't say for Iwanafish concerning Sunray's.--Yossarian
persistent personal attacks and deliberate vandalism
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/fb/Yes_check.svg/20px-Yes_check.svg.png)
I have been subject to persistent personal attacks from user User:Masalai who has taken exception to my edits of articles of Saskatchewan. Evidence of personal attacks can be found from edit summaries of [73], [74] [75], [76], [77] and a few other occasions. this user persists with the notion that I am not a native English speaker, which I clearly am as noted in the most recent personal attack on me [78]. Their recent revert changes refer to my proper labelling sections as "Notes and References" as per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:LAYOUT#Standard_appendices_and_descriptions which Masalai continues to revert in deliberate violation of these rules and I believe solely because of my role as a contributor. I have tried to ask this user to stop with no success. [79]. Masalai was given another warning today as well by another user [80] Masalai has previously tried to attack me as another user warned them about this last year. [81] Michellecrisp (talk) 11:51, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'm not an admin... but the edit summaries of Masalai's edits look downright idiotic. :\ JuJube (talk) 12:06, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
E-mail from user about taking legal action
I've been on an undeclared wikibreak but just received an e-mail from a user about a vandal I've blocked and how s/he continues to "commit acts of libel" and how the person intends to proceed with legal action. I don't know how to respond and haven't really the time to investigate it; would someone be so kind as to handle this for me? Cheers. -- Merope 14:54, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Just tell the person that you are not active in Wikipedia right now and direct the user to Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard and Wikipedia:No legal threats. That should be enough (we need to identify who the person is in order to prevent the person from editing Wikipedia according to our policy). -- ReyBrujo (talk) 15:02, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Don't reply to the email and reblock them with email disabled. Mr.Z-man 17:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)- I don't think the emailer is the one who's blocked, so that wouldn't really help. Natalie (talk) 17:22, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
(unindent) Ah, the editor is User:CamCham, and the dispute seems to focus entirely on the Miss Alabama USA article. Have fun. -- Merope 19:29, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Nice (I think, at least...) note left on the user's talk page. I guess we'll see where it goes from here? —αlεx•mullεr 19:35, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Btw I was the person who added the content to the Miss AL USA article in the first place and who reverted CamCham's removal of it, basically on the grounds that two reliable sources are cited to verify it. In edit summaries CamCham came very close to a personal attack on myself. Last night I received an email from that user stating:
- "Regarding your last edit to: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Miss_Alabama_USA&action=history. You'll need to send those sources because I can't find those references."
- I quickly replied with the copy & pasted sources (they come from a news database I have access to through university and thus I can't post urls. This morning I got a very strange reply:
- "We are reviewing these sources. Thanks for the quick response."
- My query is where does the we come into this? Hmmmm. Anyway, that's my take on things. PageantUpdater talk • contribs 21:09, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Btw I was the person who added the content to the Miss AL USA article in the first place and who reverted CamCham's removal of it, basically on the grounds that two reliable sources are cited to verify it. In edit summaries CamCham came very close to a personal attack on myself. Last night I received an email from that user stating:
I think WP:NLT is a policy on acceptable use of this site. I don't think it applies to legal threats made by private email.
To put it another way, the point of the policy is not to enable us to boot litigious people from the project, but to ensure that litigation goes through proper channels with a minimum of disruption to the project.
In fact that policy specifically states "You should instead contact the person or people involved directly", which would seem to be an endorsement of the course being taken here.
Hesperian 00:19, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jim62sch makes it pretty clear that threats of off-Wiki retaliation for on-Wiki actions are absolutely unacceptable, and the form of communication shouldn't matter. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:25, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- A question... the crux of the problem is that I've sourced information on the article that cannot be linked to directly - I got it from a restricted database available to me as a student at the University of Auckland. Is there some way (OTRS maybe) that the sources can be formally verified so that the revert war ends? I'm happy to email the articles to people but imagine there has to be a better way... PageantUpdater talk • contribs 00:37, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- PageantUpdater emailed me text from the two articles. Of course, it's still not 100% possible for me to verify them, but they did appear legit. I also found this court document that appears to substantiate it (though WP:BLP discourages the use of court documents unless those documents have already been cited in other sources). That said, is it really worth mentioning? The case didn't appear to have any bearing on the pageant as far as I can tell. OhNoitsJamie Talk 00:44, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jim62sch doesn't apply to this situation. Legal threat is not the same thing as harassment, nor is it always a bad thing. People standing up for their legal rights is a very good thing, and if we can help them with minimal disruption to the project, and in a way that makes sure things go through the proper channels, then all the better. I'm a bit confused to see some of the first responses to this were "disable their e-mail". That wouldn't help anyone, even if it were possible. -- Ned Scott 08:46, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Weird contributions
Can someone have a look at this users contributions starting from the beginning of this month. Something seems a bit fishy looking at some of the contribs. Could another user/admin look at the contributions and see what they think? D.M.N. (talk) 15:04, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- How very strange, few of this users edits seem legit, but they don't seem malicious. Perhaps a small child?--Jac16888 (talk) 15:13, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Um. This AFD creation stands out to me as it is not formatted properly, yet they can create pages, for instance Slowinski's Corn Snake, Red Owens and Zeke Zawoluk. Maybe more than one person is controlling this account? D.M.N. (talk) 15:18, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I didn't really get that impression. It's a tricky one - one one hand, it looks as if all the edits are made in good faith, but on the other hand, much of what they're doing is disruptive (albeit in a fairly minor way). Maybe we should encourage them to apply for adoption? Waggers (talk) 15:27, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Maybe. However, the user has a lot of CSD warnings on their talkpage. D.M.N. (talk) 15:48, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Some which have now evolved into at least usable stubs, others of which include a notable settlement in Senegal (but mis-spelled) and a reference to a Pokemon character, which arguably could have been at least stubified. The others, well, they are just nonsense redirects and come across to me as good-faith attempts to contextualise some local slang. I'd support adoption if the editor is willing, because some of his more complete articles have potential to be useful additions. * Meanwhile have advised editor of this conversation here --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 16:00, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks, my apologies, I forgot to do that. While scrolling through some more of the users contributions, this article creation seems bizzare to say the least. D.M.N. (talk) 16:24, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Some which have now evolved into at least usable stubs, others of which include a notable settlement in Senegal (but mis-spelled) and a reference to a Pokemon character, which arguably could have been at least stubified. The others, well, they are just nonsense redirects and come across to me as good-faith attempts to contextualise some local slang. I'd support adoption if the editor is willing, because some of his more complete articles have potential to be useful additions. * Meanwhile have advised editor of this conversation here --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 16:00, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Maybe. However, the user has a lot of CSD warnings on their talkpage. D.M.N. (talk) 15:48, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I didn't really get that impression. It's a tricky one - one one hand, it looks as if all the edits are made in good faith, but on the other hand, much of what they're doing is disruptive (albeit in a fairly minor way). Maybe we should encourage them to apply for adoption? Waggers (talk) 15:27, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Um. This AFD creation stands out to me as it is not formatted properly, yet they can create pages, for instance Slowinski's Corn Snake, Red Owens and Zeke Zawoluk. Maybe more than one person is controlling this account? D.M.N. (talk) 15:18, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
<outdent. What I see is a new user, keen to get on with article writing, but unfamiliar with our policies and ways. Some of the templates may seem to him to be a bit bitey, but he's still here. Other users might have given up in frustration. The above edit says to me that he's not familiar with {{inuse}} or {{under construction}} and wants to defend against having his article speedied. Hence the misplaced stub. I say he should have a chance, preferably with adoption, but once he knows what he's doing a little better, I see him being a useful editor. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 16:38, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I find the repeated creation of articles solely for the purpose of nominating them for AfD a bit concerning. On February 9th, s/he created Forest Avenue Plaza at 1:45 and created an AfD for it within a minute. (Itself since deleted: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Forest Avenue Plaza). At 5:43 that same day, s/he created Rockafella records. At 5:45, s/he created Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rockafella records(also since deleted). The AfD s/he opened on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tiger Bomb for the article s/he created, Tiger Bomb (February 7th) is still ongoing. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:45, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Unfamiliarity with {{db-author}} would explain this.--Rodhullandemu (Talk) 17:00, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- How? The Tiger Bomb page was created with the AFD template attached. Its not like the user created the article, then AFD'd it 15 minutes after. The user created the article with the AFD template. D.M.N. (talk) 17:09, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- CSD is usually within an hour; AFD gives the author five days to get it into shape. Desperate, perhaps, but I don't think it's useful to speculate further until we've heard from the editor. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 17:25, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- That is partially the reason why I think the account is being used by 2 different people. S/he created Zeke Zawoluk, which seems to be a solid stub article a month ago, yet now seems to be creating what look like test pages, hence my concern about two possibly people using the account. D.M.N. (talk) 16:56, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- That's something that needs to be looked at, but I don't see any need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 17:00, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Do you think it's possible that the user misunderstands the purpose of deletion discussions and is trying to confirm rather than delete the articles? I had a peek at the deleted AfDs, and neither of those nor the existing one actually indicate a desire to see the article deleted. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:26, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- That's certainly a possibility, although it would be a pretty masochistic editor who understood AFD who would do this. As I say, speculation is unhelpful, but it may be that the editor, having had a few articles CSD'd already, is trying to have their articles peer-reviewed, using the wrong process. Can we see what the editor has to say before getting into too much mind-reading, as I'm trying to work towards the best outcome here? I don't see any need for admin intervention at this stage. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 17:34, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'm not sure that anyone here is not trying to work towards the best outcome here. Indeed, it seems possible that we all are. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:49, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- That's certainly a possibility, although it would be a pretty masochistic editor who understood AFD who would do this. As I say, speculation is unhelpful, but it may be that the editor, having had a few articles CSD'd already, is trying to have their articles peer-reviewed, using the wrong process. Can we see what the editor has to say before getting into too much mind-reading, as I'm trying to work towards the best outcome here? I don't see any need for admin intervention at this stage. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 17:34, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Do you think it's possible that the user misunderstands the purpose of deletion discussions and is trying to confirm rather than delete the articles? I had a peek at the deleted AfDs, and neither of those nor the existing one actually indicate a desire to see the article deleted. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:26, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- That's something that needs to be looked at, but I don't see any need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 17:00, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Anglepush (talk · contribs) is known for his POV and propagandist material pushing into different Armenia-related articles. Currently that user made a redirect from Andranik Pasha to the Andranik Toros Ozanian and attacked me at the Talk:Denial_of_the_Armenian_Genocide ("modifications of the Andranik Pasha"), made some denialist statements and then deleted a large part of sourced text and bibliography on Armenian genocide denial [82]. Andranikpasha (talk) 16:15, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Repeated tactics
[83] If they dont get it its not my fault.Megistias (talk) 16:23, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Sorry, I don't understand the question - do you have a concern of some sort? D.M.N. (talk) 16:26, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- They refuse to interact and simply keep on reposting rejected material.Again on my ethnicity ,denying ,irony and ignore my postings and of any user or admin rejecting themMegistias (talk) 16:32, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Megistias is mixing up complaints against two different users: User:Dodona, who is indeed a disruptive editor and forever in danger of earning himself a renewed ban, and a new guy User:PelasgicMoon, who has so far not done anything outrageously disruptive by Balkanic standards. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:50, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- OK. In which case, can we have some diffs so that we can resolve, or try to resolve the problem. Regards, D.M.N. (talk) 16:53, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I am pretty frustrated.This is like deja vuMegistias (talk) 16:57, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Dodona is a loooooong story. I've been trying to guard him through a "second chance", that's the only reason I'm not just joining in with Megistias' cry for bans, but I have doubts if it's going anywhere. I somehow don't know where to start with the links :-( Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:04, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- They refuse to interact and simply keep on reposting rejected material.Again on my ethnicity ,denying ,irony and ignore my postings and of any user or admin rejecting themMegistias (talk) 16:32, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
MfD moved and vandalized
I nominated several pages in User:Jay Turner's userspace for deletion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Jay Turner/WikiPoints. He moved the MfD to Wikipedia:Miscegfc,mnfdjkndkfjsfkjfllany for deletion/User:Jay Turner/WikiPoints and blanked the page. I need an admin to move the page back and would request a 24 hour block of User:Jay Turner for purposefully disrupting the MfD. MBisanz talk 17:01, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Why do you want to delete a page on someone's userspace? Bstone (talk) 17:04, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Per WP:USER. Ryan Postlethwaite 17:09, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- The set of pages relate to a game the user created where people earn points for doing things on wikipedia that are redeemable for barnstars. I feel this is an inappropriate use of the userspace as it is a WP:NOT#SOCIALNET. I've nominated for MfD to allow a discussion on the issue. MBisanz talk 17:12, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Moved back to correct place and blocked Jay Tuner for 31 hours for needless page move vandalism. Ryan Postlethwaite 17:09, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- For the record, this page [84] seems germaine to this discussion. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:04, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Good find, now the tough question, since their both from the same IP address (no checkuser needed) do we trust the anon. IP or not? MBisanz talk 18:06, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- And now the old-user name request User talk:Jaytur1 MBisanz talk 18:10, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- For the record, this page [84] seems germaine to this discussion. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:04, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- In light of User_talk:ScreenagerPresents, I'm tempted to file an WP:RFCU to see how many other sleepers we have on this IP. MBisanz talk 19:47, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Per Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Jay Turner, User:Jay Turner, User:Jay Turner-Secret, User:Jaytur1, User:ScreenagerPresents, and User:86.135.46.88 are sockpuppets of banned user User:Iamandrewrice. Requesting indef blocks in line with ban policy. MBisanz talk 06:40, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Unblock request
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/fb/Yes_check.svg/20px-Yes_check.svg.png)
- Sportman2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
User is requesting an unblock to their indefinate block. The block was instituted for repeated image copyvios, and repeated refusal to abide by Wikipedia's image policy. They have been blocked for months at this point. I have proposed that he be unblocked if he agreed to a community ban on uploading any files at all, since that was the particular problem that led to his block. The user would be allowed to edit articles in good faith. Would other admins agree to endorse a conditional unblock, under the specific rules that this user is not allowed to upload any more image or other media files, and that doing so would result in a return of the block indefinately... Comments? --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:02, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
*Decline unblock but implement the 2nd chance template. D.M.N. (talk) 18:08, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- What good would second chance do? The user wasn't blocked for bad editing of articles, but for image violations... Second chance proves nothing with regard to reforming their prior behavior? --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:16, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Endorse unblock - Seems like I was wrong. I thought 2nd chance would be better so that he can prove himself before unblock, but either way I guess it doesn't matter. D.M.N. (talk) 18:23, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Endorse unblock. The user clearly still has no understanding of WP:IUP and so any image uploads are pretty much guaranteed to be problematic. But I think it is entirely reasonable to unblock provided the user refrain from image use or uploads. --Yamla (talk) 18:24, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Endorse unblock - After reviewing the situation, I have to agree with Yamla that the editor does not understand WP:IUP, however if the user agrees to stop the problematic uploads I am all about giving him another chance. --Kralizec! (talk) 18:29, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Endorse unblock - His comments still show a lack of understanding of policy regarding images (promotional photos ok for living people). Let him edit articles instead. Woody (talk) 18:33, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Based on the above consensus, I have unblocked the user in question. They have been informed that they are under a community ban against uploading any more image files, and have agreed to abide by these terms. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:36, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Complaint about this user who is deleting information, even if sourced, here: Western Goals Institute and here: Merlin Hanbury-Tracy, 7th Baron Sudeley. He lectures other users and tells them what he will permit here: User talk:Chelsea Tory as though we have just arrived. He may, of course, be someone's puppet. But we should not be bullied by editors who are effectively vandalising articles and deleting things they simply don't like. Chelsea Tory (talk) 18:09, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Disagreement over content and Ownership issues. No admin action required at this point. A reminder about discussion being useful, and free of speculation over motive, would be helpful, though. Relata refero (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 18:31, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'd agree this appears to be a content dispute. Chelsea Tory, please remember that personal knowledge is not considered a reliable source. Take these issues to the article talk page, rather than reverting each other repeatedly. Tony Fox (arf!) 18:40, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Complaint about this user who is deleting соурцед information here: Denial of the Holodomor. He lectures other users yet does not discuss changes on the Discussion page. I also belieive he is someone's puppet. He is effectively vandalizing the article bydeleting things they simply don't like. Bandurist (talk) 02:05, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- More eyes on that hideous mass of original research mostly referenced to community newsletters would be nice. Relata refero (talk) 08:04, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Ovi Online Magazine
Can someone look into Ovi Online Magazine and the recent edits that have taken place there? Apparently there are two sites calling themselves Ovi Online: ovimagazine.com, and theovimagazine.com, which are apparently quite different. An IP user has repeatedly changed the link back and forth; it's clear that one of those two sites copied the other but I have a hard time determining which. I presume ovimagazine.com is the original and correct one, but my reasoning isn't very good: that's the link that was first in the article when it was created in 2006. Also, I'm a bit concerned about potential WP:COI issues here. Mangojuicetalk 18:10, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- There is a serious COI issue, take a look at Ovi ace's contributions. D.M.N. (talk) 18:25, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Based on Whois, ovimagazine.com is the original. It is older and is actually registered to one of the names in the about us section of the website. The other site, theovimagazine.com is two years younger and is registered to domainsbyproxy. IrishGuy talk 23:41, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Warning given to JustaHulk (talk · contribs) on WP:ANI by Jehochman (talk · contribs).
- Harassment on Wikinews
- AFTER the warning notice by Jehochman, JustaHulk posts again - to talk page of Jimbo Wales (talk · contribs). JustaHulk calls the subject heading: "Wikinews is a crack whore".
- Twice calls me a "propagandist"
- JustaHulk claims to Jehochman that he is done with his inflammatory actions, admits he reneged on Jehochman's warning
- Justanother notes that his own comment to Thatcher was trolling
- That then gets reverted by Thatcher
- (That page was deleted by Jehochman (talk · contribs) with the comment: "Appears to be an attack page with no encyclopedic purpose." )
- Again making disruptive comments at talk page of Jimbo Wales
Durova (talk · contribs) comments at talk page of Jimbo Wales: JustaHulk, twice now you've proposed that Cirt is a "paid propagandist". Do you have anything more than an edit count to support that very serious accusation?
More recently, JustaHulk (talk · contribs) has posted an "announcement" at both the userpage for User:JustaHulk, and the userpage for User:Justanother, where he says: I found myself objecting strongly to a prolific propagandist successfully embedding him/herself in this project and at WikiNews where s/he found some willing cohorts and little moderating influence. -- Again, though not directly mentioning a particular user, this use of this language "prolific propagandist", again, is a blatant violation of WP:NPA.
- "prolifict propagandist" inflammatory wording at userpage for Justanother
- "prolifict propagandist" inflammatory wording at userpage for JustaHulk
- He calls attention to his "announcement" at the talk page for Jimbo Wales
This user does not seem to be able to stop, even after comments from Administrators of both Wikipedia and Wikinews, and a recent warning from Jehochman (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 21:28, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Note: I have posted this here, due to a comment by GRBerry (talk · contribs) at WP:AE. Cirt (talk) 21:49, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Please note that this is also being discussed at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement#JustaHulk (talk · contribs). -- ChrisO (talk) 22:52, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
There is a slow-motion edit war at Centennial College starting here, mostly consisting of IP editors adding arguably POV material on how badly the college is run. This included addition of a "CC is run by monkeys" image. Most of the recent IP edits are from within CC istelf.
Now a new user has entered the fray: User:Ccrbm They have created a userpage with picture of a monkey, created the redirect Ran by monkeys and started re-inserting the POV content. I again reverted this here and added a note to the user talk about unsourced content. The user has responded by removing existing content here and here, apparently making a WP:POINT about unsourced content. I've added another note to their talk. My second-last note was in-between Ccrbm's last two edits, hopefully they will now get the message and cool down a little.
Waited a while, message only partly received, the user added some {{tl:cn}} tags, which is OK, but now adding the original unsourced POV statement c/w "cite" tags. Please review for WP:UP, WP:UN, WP:POINT, edit warring, blah-blah. Franamax (talk) 21:48, 12 February 2008 (UTC) (put this at WP:AN first, should be here I think!) Franamax (talk) 21:55, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Block of User:Equazcion
Heyo. Would some editors please direct their attention to today's 24-hour block of Equazcion (talk · contribs) by John (talk · contribs) for "Disruption". Equazcion was ordered to remove himself from Category:Rouge admins, himself not being an admin. He declined to do so, edit warred over his own user page for a bit, and was summarily blocked for his insolence. I hope with some more eyes on the situation that a consensus can be found that this block is not within the bounds of the blocking policy and is in poor taste. To block good-faith contributors over nonsense like this surely infuriates them. Please help. Cheers, ➪HiDrNick! 22:18, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Unblock - really silly block. Isn't 3RR blockable either. Will (talk) 22:21, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'll be happy to unblock if the user will undertake not to continue to misrepresent himself as an admin. I already made this offer to the user but was turned down. This is an egregious misuse of our time and resources, a violation of WP:POINT (the user apparently believes the category is a silly one and is determined to show how silly it is by adding himself to it), and wikilawyering at its worst. I'd be happy to have some more input over it, but I stand by the block for now. --John (talk) 22:24, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Endorse block as sound. Note that several other admins have already declined (or commented on the decline, endorsing it) to unblock. Note also that I'm involved, I removed the category from the user's page the first time. I have made an identical offer to unblock if the user will undertake not to readd. As for not being 3RR blockable, remember 3RR is a bright line, not an entitlement. The user was warned not to redo a particular edit and chose to basically say "screw you" rather than discuss. I'm hopeful the user will be more reasonable going forward but it's a sound block. By the way, I'm not sure I agree with HiDrNick's somewhat non NPOVy description of events. ++Lar: t/c 22:29, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Good block and I see no problem with unblocking as soon as he says he won't do it again. John Reaves 22:31, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Endorsed. The wikilawyering (not 3RR because... not disruption because... not edit-warring because... others were also doing it because... etc) just adds to the endorsement. ➔ REDVEЯS has changed his plea to guilty 22:35, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Good block and I see no problem with unblocking as soon as he says he won't do it again. John Reaves 22:31, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Endorse block as sound. Note that several other admins have already declined (or commented on the decline, endorsing it) to unblock. Note also that I'm involved, I removed the category from the user's page the first time. I have made an identical offer to unblock if the user will undertake not to readd. As for not being 3RR blockable, remember 3RR is a bright line, not an entitlement. The user was warned not to redo a particular edit and chose to basically say "screw you" rather than discuss. I'm hopeful the user will be more reasonable going forward but it's a sound block. By the way, I'm not sure I agree with HiDrNick's somewhat non NPOVy description of events. ++Lar: t/c 22:29, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'll be happy to unblock if the user will undertake not to continue to misrepresent himself as an admin. I already made this offer to the user but was turned down. This is an egregious misuse of our time and resources, a violation of WP:POINT (the user apparently believes the category is a silly one and is determined to show how silly it is by adding himself to it), and wikilawyering at its worst. I'd be happy to have some more input over it, but I stand by the block for now. --John (talk) 22:24, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
This is why the category should not exist, and the block was WAY over the top. There should not be any user categories that are restricted to admins, except for Category:Administrators, which is not one to which a user can add themselves. Of course, I'm not an admin, and I argued strongly against the retention of this category in December, but my concern is being borne out here: it's divisive; it makes non-admins second-class citizens, by telling them that they cannot participate in something that is ostensibly humorous. It (and the equally stupid Category:Wikipedia administrators open to trout slapping) should be burned with fire and buried under a metric ton of salt. Horologium (talk) 22:36, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- "Second-class citizens" because you can't add yourself to 2 of our hundreds (or likely thousands) of user categories? If that's how you really feel, I would suggest re-aligning your priorities, else there is no reason to resort to pointless dramatics. Mr.Z-man 23:28, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Please show me any other categories to which users are not allowed to add themselves, (other than Category:Wikipedia administrators, which is not all-inclusive or guaranteed accurate, and the other "administrator by inclination" categories created without any form of discussion or consensus) and the justification for it (cite principles, policy, or guidelines, not some obscure essay) and I will gladly strike every single statement I have made in this discussion. This user category simply has no justification to exist, and your slap at me doesn't change that fact. As I noted at the UCFD discussion, this has nothing at all to do with the userbox (which neither Equazcion nor Allstarecho added to their page), or the essay itself (which I find to be amusing), but the category, which is useless and divisive. Except for the categories for rollback requests, copies of deleted articles, and admins open to recall, none of those categories serve any useful purpose. Horologium (talk) 23:58, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Endorse block. We're not here to argue the merits of the category, and Equazcion should not have continued to add himself to a category that defines those within it as admins, after being asked to stop. - auburnpilot talk 22:38, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Your concern is not "being borne out here" in the slightest - a single user who shared your "concern" was disrupting to make a point and got blocked when he didn't stop. That's the beginning and the end of it, I'm afraid. Black Kite 23:06, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- interesting twist on the earlier battle with WebHamster. But I just want to mention that "rouge admin" would probably refer to a communist admin (as in khmer rouge) and probably rogue admin is meant. Not that I should care, unless some rose` admins gang up on me. Pete St.John (talk) 22:40, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I have removed User:Allstarecho from the category too, who presumably joined in as a result of this discussion. This is all a bit trivial, but it's somewhat WP:POINT and more importantly could be confusing for an editor that comes across one of these user pages. Black Kite 22:47, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- User:Allstarecho is back in the category. I will not, however, take any action on this. I'm recusing myself due to prior involvement with this editor (and, frankly, because I feel like it's a pretty weak block). - Philippe | Talk 23:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, I put myself back in before I read all the drama on my talk page, and have since removed the cat again and replaced it with Category:Rouge editors. - ✰ALLSTAR✰ echo 03:30, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- User:Allstarecho is back in the category. I will not, however, take any action on this. I'm recusing myself due to prior involvement with this editor (and, frankly, because I feel like it's a pretty weak block). - Philippe | Talk 23:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Endorse block, though I am somewhat involved, having advised User:Equazcion not to continue to revert his addition to the category. It is a clear violation of WP:POINT, I'm afraid. Adding yourself to the category just to prove its a joke isn't helpful. Edit warring to keep yourself there after being asked by several editors not to, really isn't acceptable. For what its worth, I agree with User:Horologium that the category itself should be deleted, but it survived an AfD only two months ago and that's sadly not going to happen. Gwernol 22:51, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- To Gwernol: I wasn't trying to make any point! I responded to this accusation on my talk page already, many times. Just to prove it's humorous? I have no vested interest in convincing anyone of that. I just thought it was funny to add myself to it. No point involved whatsoever. Equazcion •✗/C • 22:57, 12 Feb 2008 (UTC) (brought over from user's talk by ++Lar: t/c 23:35, 12 February 2008 (UTC))
- Category:Rouge admins is clearly a joke, before the changes were made today, why would anyone assume that a name on that list was a real admin? I had no idea. - Epousesquecido (talk) 22:56, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- The joke may not be obvious to a new or occasional editor, though. Let's err on the side of not confusing people. Black Kite 23:03, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- To Black Kite: New users would find "rouge admin" confusing even if it were an admin who had it posted, so confusing the newbies doesn't seem like a valid concern here. Equazcion •✗/C • 23:09, 12 Feb 2008 (UTC) (brought over from user's talk by ++Lar: t/c 23:35, 12 February 2008 (UTC))
- Possibly, but why not err on the side of caution? The category got kept at AfD, fine, that was consensus (I didn't take part in that, btw). One of those things. This all just seems like a completely pointless argument over something trivial to me. Why not just commit to not adding again, then you can be unblocked and we can all go back to
editing an encyclopediaarguing about something important :) Black Kite 23:40, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Possibly, but why not err on the side of caution? The category got kept at AfD, fine, that was consensus (I didn't take part in that, btw). One of those things. This all just seems like a completely pointless argument over something trivial to me. Why not just commit to not adding again, then you can be unblocked and we can all go back to
- To Black Kite: New users would find "rouge admin" confusing even if it were an admin who had it posted, so confusing the newbies doesn't seem like a valid concern here. Equazcion •✗/C • 23:09, 12 Feb 2008 (UTC) (brought over from user's talk by ++Lar: t/c 23:35, 12 February 2008 (UTC))
- The joke may not be obvious to a new or occasional editor, though. Let's err on the side of not confusing people. Black Kite 23:03, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
I have notified AllStarEcho about this, since his name was brought up in the discussion and his userpage was modified without any notification. Horologium (talk) 23:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Actually, I notified him directly above the section you pointlessly added. Black Kite 23:08, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I apologize. I saw the first post in that section, and missed yours. Horologium (talk) 23:32, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- No problem. Black Kite 23:35, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- As a sidenote, shouldn't The Random Editor be removed from Category:Eguor admins? Or Avriette from Category:Wikipedia administrators who will provide copies of deleted articles? User:Dorftrottel 23:20, February 12, 2008
- yes. Only admins should be in any subcategory of Category:Wikipedia administrators by inclination ++Lar: t/c 23:35, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I wish to state that I also think it is kind of a silly category. However, there are ways to delete things we don't like, and this is not one of them. Adding oneself to a category of admins when one is not an admin seems calculated to deceive and disrupt. Doing it once was a bit silly. Edit-warring over it when three different admins have asked you not to seems blockworthy to me, which was why I blocked. I am still open to unblocking if a consensus develops here that the block was unwarranted (though I am not seeing that at present) or if the user will undertake not to disruptively add the category again. --John (talk) 23:36, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Wow, talk about a walled garden. Either the category itself is a joke, in which case it's fair game for all (an administrator-only joke area does not seem to be in the spirit of the project)...or else the category is for real, in which case administrators boasting about their contempt for rules is a pretty good argument for de-sysopping.Wikidemo (talk) 23:53, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- If the category is in any way not a joke, then it is in bad-faith, disruptive, divisive and deliberately so. If it is solely a joke, then some admins need to "get over it" and stop doing silly blocks. DuncanHill (talk) 00:00, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I suggest you and everyone else concerned about the category being " bad-faith, disruptive, divisive and deliberately so" might want to read Wikipedia:Rouge_admin. That essay/joke/whatever you want to call it is the definition of what it means to be "rouge" (not rogue, the typo is deliberate there) in the en:wp context. You can argue that irony doesn't work well on line, or that the category isn't making the point it is intended to make because people don't get the joke, or you can even argue that it has passed its day, if you like. But to say it's bad faith... misses the point. Back in the day, you used to gain admission to the category by some other admin spotting something particularly clueful you had done, some particularly astute or courageous edit or block.... to roll back the tide of linkspammers, POV pushers and assorted crazies with fringe theories to push. The addition sometimes even cited the diff, you never added yourself to it, that was declasse. It was a badge of honor among some. Again, perhaps that day has passed. Perhaps most in it now don't even recall that. Perhaps it needs deleting. Perhaps the existance of it is now divisive. Wikipedia is far bigger and more formal than it was even 2 years ago, and perhaps some inside lore and jokes that used to work, and work well, maybe they don't any more... Perhaps no one gets "Ha Ha only serious" any more? I don't know. But, whatever else it is, it's not bad faith. I hope that helps. ++Lar: t/c 04:03, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I don't mind either way, but it seems to follow from the block, that any non-admins should be removed from those categories for the sake of any coherence (joke or not), even if it's a (temporary) desysop on request. Another example is apparently User:JoshuaZ in Category:Wikipedia administrators willing to grant rollback requests. User:Dorftrottel 00:05, February 13, 2008
- JoshuaZ appears have been desysopped at his own request. A friendly note on his talk page should correct the mis-categorization. - auburnpilot talk 00:23, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Black Kite: Because I want to make it clear just how ridiculous it is to make a big deal out of this, especially to the point of imposing a block. There's no way I would make a promise like that, because it would be condoning all this ridiculousness. If you want to block a good-faith editor for doing something that really would not have caused any significant disruption (and most people do agree on that point), then so be it, it's your loss. But if you want to prove that this isn't some kind of turf war (not you personally, but you as the body of admins who adamantly oppose this) and that you support reserving blocks and two-mile arguments for situations that actually warrant it, then you'll unblock me and tell me that it's okay to post this stupid joke category on my user page. Again, if you don't want to, that's your loss, and not just because I'd be gone, but because of what it says about where admin priorities lie. Equazcion •✗/C • 23:52, 12 Feb 2008 (UTC) (please paste this over there -- thanks.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by DuncanHill (talk • contribs)
- By the way, my de-sysopping comment wasn't meant to be serious. It's hard to be serious about this subject. My recommendation is that everyone have a pint of beer, and not in front of their computers. Wikidemo (talk) 01:39, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I don't know - I'm rapidly reaching the conclusion that editing while sober is a major cause of wikistress :) DuncanHill (talk) 01:44, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Mr. WP:LAME, Table for two? Equazcion did this at first as a joke, but when pointed out that it's a joke the works best as an ironic joke about the attitudes of some admins to lock stepping down Policy Highway when the problems warrant a simpler, or more expedient solution, he decided that it was so funny for him that he made it into a POINT violation. That some commie editors are now insistent that in addition to all the pay and glamorous benefits of being an admin, like being dragged to RfC and ArbCom twice monthly for floggings, they must share one of two self-effacing categories with every piker who thinks they're that cool, or that funny, or whatever, is like 'not only do you get no coffee breaks, but if you sneak one, know that I've pissed in the filters, now get back to adminning.' Do we really need to antagonize these guys by shitting in the break room? Leave the block up, and leave the fuckin category alone. How childish is this? Rouge and Trout aren't secret clubs. If you want them so bad, go become an admin, and then join them. This is one of the stupidest fights I've seen here, and hell, I've BEEN in some stinkers. Support block. ThuranX (talk) 04:03, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Proposed
User:Equazcion is hereby blocked indefinitely for not respecting authority. User:Father Goose is also blocked indefinitely for mocking the situation disrupting Wikipedia.--Father Goose (talk) 00:40, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- This isn't helpful. I just don't understand why every single block turns into a big dramatic incident. If Equazcion hadn't been POINTY and hadn't violated 3RR, none of this would have occurred. If Equazcion will just say, "I won't do it again," this can all be resolved. And nobody needs to get on high horses over all of this nonsense. There's an encyclopedia to write, people. Corvus cornixtalk 00:48, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I think the block was pointy, and designed to ensure that non-admins don't get to share the "big boys' joke". This whole stupid saga is utterly pathetic. The cat would have been deleted ages ago if it wasn't "admin only" - but god forbid anyone point out the double standards operated by some admins. DuncanHill (talk) 00:52, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Equally, it wouldn't have happened if the removing administrators weren't embarrassingly bureaucratic and humorless. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:05, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- 3RR isn't really an issue here, but Equazcion has stated on his talk page that he intends to leave the project if he is not allowed to add Category:Rouge admins to his user page.[85] DuncanHill, if others want to share the "big boys' joke" as you put it, see Category:Rouge editors. There is absolutely no reason for a non-admin to identify as an admin, even for humor. - auburnpilot talk 00:55, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- See Rouge editors? Thank you - I already have. I was its second member and started the talk page. Maybe you missed that? DuncanHill (talk) 00:57, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- No, I saw it, but thanks for your kind response. My comment was a general one. - auburnpilot talk 00:58, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Category:Rouge editors was created two minutes before Eqazcion was blocked. It was not like he knew it existed when the banhammer fell. Horologium (talk) 01:37, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
And here's another one to AuburnPilot:
- "Equazcion has stated on his talk page that he intends to leave the project if he is not allowed to add Category:Rouge admins to his user page" -- I said no such thing. Equazcion •✗/C • 01:26, 13 Feb 2008 (UTC)
- I suppose I misunderstood the statement "Again, if you don't want to, that's your loss, and not just because I'd be gone, but because of what it says about where admin priorities lie."[86] - auburnpilot talk 01:38, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Off topic comment: This is why I read this board nearly everyday. My eyes are tearing from trying not to laugh in the office. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 01:54, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- You should be careful Rocksanddirt (or may I call you Rocks?) - laughing at the wrong things can get you in trouble here! DuncanHill (talk) 01:58, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- thank you for the warning DuncanHill (may I call you Duncan?) You may certainly call me Rocks or anything else (except late for dinner) - sfx:rimshot - --Rocksanddirt (talk) 03:53, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- It's a joke category. Stop taking it seriously. I thought admins had no greater authority, or stature on Wikipedia — hence, how could "misrepresenting" oneself as one be "disruptive"? I guess that tired "janitor" bromide has just been thrown out the window entirely. We might as well stop with the charade. --Haemo (talk) 04:09, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'd like to create a new category. [[category:participant in the lamest ANI thread ever]]. And, yes, I know I now would have to join. Bellwether BC 05:38, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Proposed also
I don't want to do it myself, but someone might create a Cat for Wikipedians who do not wish to be categorized. Though, in that case not sure if I would add (or delete) myself from the Cat. Just a thought. Newbyguesses - Talk 03:07, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm lost
Perhaps I've lost my way here, but could someone direct me to the section of the blocking policy that says that you can be blocked for not doing as an admin asks? I wasn't able to find it. The block summary used in this case linked to the disruptive editing guideline, but this guideline doesn't describe Equizcion's editing at all. Isn't blocking reserved for vandals, spammers, and trolls? What gives? ➪HiDrNick! 03:26, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- You need to scroll down almost to the bottom to where it says "Dealing with disruptive editors". You will see there that if an editor persists in being disruptive (which in my view he was by adding a category which falsely implied he was an admin, was at best intended as a joke, and could not at any stretch be seen as likely to benefit the encyclopedia), the recommended sequence is (my summary):
1. Revert unencyclopedic material. Post to talk page asking for discussion and/or sources.
2. If editor unreverts. Revert again, notifying the author.
3. Problems continue. Attempt to engage new editor in dialogue. Refer to policies and guidelines as appropriate.
4. Talk page discussion fails to resolve. Request a Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct or other impartial dispute resolution.
5. Editor ignores consensus. Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents administrator intervention: warning or temporary block as appropriate.
- The way I see it, Equazcion had been through stages 1-3 with Gwernol and Lar, taking up inordinate amounts of their valuable time with wiki-lawyering and argument. I could see no benefit in Equazcion's proposal to make a WP:POINT about how silly the category was by displaying it even though it was misleading, and after two people had explained to him nicely that it wasn't ok. I came in at point 4 as the "impartial dispute resolution"; although I know Gwernol and Lar well I would not have suppoted their actions if I did not agree with them. I did agree with them and so I warned the user again, then issued a temporary block, as per 5. This isn't about the category (which I have my own qualms about), or about the user's previous good edits. It is about somebody thinking they were right, getting into a textbook WP:POINT violation, getting a final warning and then a short block. I stand by what I did. I am mystified by your apparent mystification about the content and spirit of the guideline, HiDrNick. --John (talk) 04:23, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- We're talking about a category that displays an emblem modeled after that of a terrorist organization; I think the content of page indicates that we are confident people will understand it's a joke. Why is it a joke when all the member admins misrepresent themselves, but not a joke when an ordinary editor does it? In my view you were engaged in a (silly) content dispute and the block was problematic. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:28, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Lar and Gwernol and John weren't forced to take up any of their time, they chose to use their valuable time bickering over a silly usercat - someone mentions above another non-admin who added themself to the cat and an admin just ignored it after a couple of reverts. Why not do the same in this case? I'll say it again - with such a silly category I think that blocking in this case was pointy. If the category IS a joke, then it don't matter a damn who is in it. If it AIN'T a joke - then it is blatantly divisive and disruptive. Some admins seem to me to want to have it both ways (it's a joke so keep it but it's serious so don't "misuse it") - and that is guaranteed to cause the drama and stress and wasted time that one would have hoped admins would be working to reduce. I have on the category's talk page proposed removing it from the admin cat tree in order to reduce confusion, but I don't have any realistic expectation of any sensible discussion there, as the cat seems to attract an excessive amount of stupidity and belligerence. Blocked for wrongful use of a joke on a userpage? Does anyone seriously imagine that a block like that is in any way helpful to the Wikipedia? DuncanHill (talk) 04:39, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I fully endorse duncan's statement here. madness. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 05:18, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Lar and Gwernol and John weren't forced to take up any of their time, they chose to use their valuable time bickering over a silly usercat - someone mentions above another non-admin who added themself to the cat and an admin just ignored it after a couple of reverts. Why not do the same in this case? I'll say it again - with such a silly category I think that blocking in this case was pointy. If the category IS a joke, then it don't matter a damn who is in it. If it AIN'T a joke - then it is blatantly divisive and disruptive. Some admins seem to me to want to have it both ways (it's a joke so keep it but it's serious so don't "misuse it") - and that is guaranteed to cause the drama and stress and wasted time that one would have hoped admins would be working to reduce. I have on the category's talk page proposed removing it from the admin cat tree in order to reduce confusion, but I don't have any realistic expectation of any sensible discussion there, as the cat seems to attract an excessive amount of stupidity and belligerence. Blocked for wrongful use of a joke on a userpage? Does anyone seriously imagine that a block like that is in any way helpful to the Wikipedia? DuncanHill (talk) 04:39, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Could everyone live happily if the category were renamed "Rouge editors" (and merged with the category recently created under that name) so that everyone can be in on the joke on the same terms? --Reuben (talk) 05:30, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- There IS a rouge editors cat. ViridaeTalk 05:48, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Christopher, I find it ironic and a little off-colour that you consider the fact that it uses "an emblem modeled after that of a terrorist organization" to be a mitigating factor here. To answer your question, it is a silly joke when admins do it, but when non-admins do it it is a silly joke that could cause misunderstandings, as the category contains the word "admin", and the category itself describes the members as "admins". As there is no prospect of any intention to improve the project, I have to look at the equation: Net potential gains = 0, net potential losses = small but positive, potential for disruption and time-wasting = high, and think, as the two admins before me did, warn, discuss, explain, then block.
- There IS a rouge editors cat. ViridaeTalk 05:48, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Duncan, on a political and philosophical level I agree with much of what you say. As I said, WP:POINT is there for a reason though. Whether we agree or disagree with the political stance he was taking, this is not the best way to achieve the deletion of a user category one has qualms about. At least I hope not.
- Viridae, that is a good idea. I think I would support the merging of the two, or indeed the deletion of both. It all gives me a most unfortunate flashback to the great user box wars of a couple of years ago. Let's not go there; we all have better things to do than fight over silly categories.
Proposal
I strongly propose that all non-admins that are reading this also add themselves to Category:Rouge admins until Equazcion is unblocked. The blocking admin might have a point had this not been a joke category in the first place, but since it's supposed to be for humor, that makes this all the more absurd. I supported keeping this category the last time it was at CfD, but it this nonsense continues then it will be clear the category is not being used for humor, and needs to go back to CfD. -- Ned Scott 06:27, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- ...and this is a fucking brilliant way of resolving this issue? — Dark (talk) 06:32, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- It can also a clear violation of WP:POINTBalloonman (talk) 06:34, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Can I just add...
... that this entire ordeal is retarded? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 06:35, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
BIG HUGE FREAKING PURPLE BOX
Am I mistaken, or is this big huge freakin' purple box on Category:Rouge admins? -- Ned Scott 07:13, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- And I would really like to emphasize "It is not intended, nor should it be used, for any remotely serious purpose." -- Ned Scott 07:14, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- We need one that says "no serious purpose unless the cabal disagrees." dihydrogen monoxide (H20) 07:46, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- And I would really like to emphasize "It is not intended, nor should it be used, for any remotely serious purpose." -- Ned Scott 07:14, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
CfD
This is why we can't have nice things. Wikipedia:User categories for discussion#Category:Rouge admins. -- Ned Scott 07:30, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Gah, really? Come on. GlassCobra 08:00, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I doubt it will get deleted, it's just a way to formalize the discussion on it and develop some consensus on the issue. Outside of this issue, I have no problem with the category. -- Ned Scott 08:40, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
The user DJIRREMIXES has recently been blocked under WP:U. Compare contributions of this user (deleted) and Tigereye1240 (deleted) and the symmetry is almost uncanny... Could an admin please investigate and consider blocking the master account? Since there is only one child account which is already indef-blocked, this is probably an ANI case rather than SSP. haz (talk) 22:37, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I don't understand what the problem is. Presumably DJIRREMIXES was blocked for a Username? That isn't explained on the block explanation. And tigereye1240 is not blocked at all, so Haza-w's "sockpuppeteer" template on tigereye's User page was inappropriate. If DJIRREMIXES was blocked for username, that doesn't mean that he can't use another Username, it just means he shouldn't use one that violates the Username policy. Corvus cornixtalk 22:56, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/fb/Yes_check.svg/20px-Yes_check.svg.png)
- Editor has now been blocked - for using multiple sock puppet accounts and disrupting wikipedia.--VS talk 10:32, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Gaogier (talk · contribs)
This editor has maliciously removed content from my user page two times through their account, and I believe two times through the IP address 81.102.235.167 (talk · contribs), I believe this is the same editor as shown by the additions of signatures to comments posted here and here, I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I am having other problems with them, their user pages showing up on Category:WikiProject Sega, and the way they are running the Sega Project as a whole (specially the use of templates, stolen from other editors/projects and using disruptive styles and colours), I have tried to raise this problem within the project, but the editor is making it hard for anything to be changed! There are other petty issues, I just don't know what to do? Though I would really like the help of experienced editors/admin with the problems with Wikipedia:WikiProject Sega. Doktor Wilhelm 22:52, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- This may not help much, but you could request that your user page be semi-protected. Bovlb (talk) 01:30, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- It appears to me that there is a strong likelihood that 81.102.235.167 (talk · contribs) is Gaogier (talk · contribs) editing without logging in or as a sock puppet. I will place a suspect notice on the IP talk page. User:Gaogier will also receive a warning as to his editing style. Please contact me directly if you wish some further help and I will do what I can.--VS talk 08:23, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Transformers vandal is back at 74.46.211.155
This anonymous guy was blocked last week for making up nonsense in Transformers articles, at a different DNS, but he's back making up things again. Can anyone block him? Mathewignash (talk) 23:17, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Done. – Steel 23:22, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Ahem, what you meant to say was By the Matrix, I've defeat that meance! --Fredrick day (talk) 23:24, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Over the last month, Wolfkeeper has been making a number of edits to the WP:LEAD guideline and has been engaging in extensive discussions on the article talk page. These contributions have led several editors to question whether Wolfkeeper's contributions are an AN/I issue, and have left many other editors simply perplexed about what Wolfkeeper is trying to achieve. The latest comments by Wolfkeeper at WT:LEAD suggest the kind of paranoia that WP:CABAL attempts to discourage, in its own light-hearted way. This made me wonder whether Wolfkeeper might be trying an experiment. So, assuming good faith, I asked him, as politely as I possibly could. My question was unanswered, and when I pressed the point, my contributions to his talk page were removed. Twice. The most recent diff is here, which rather confirms my concern.
I've only been very mildly involved in the WT:LEAD discussions myself, but I've been involved enough that I don't feel it appropriate to take action myself, so comments from uninvolved editors would be most welcome! Geometry guy 23:43, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, I deleted your rather creepy edit to my talk page; and it confirms nothing whatsoever.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 02:14, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- As a non-admin who just took a look over there, I think a neutral admin or two should go take a look and maybe try to reign things in a bit. Wolfkeeper seems to be bordering on edit warring over the guideline and is claiming consensus for all of his edits, when the number of other editors arguing with him would seem to say otherwise. While normally content arguments would go elsewhere, as WP:LEAD is a style guide that is heavily used, and the following of that guideline can make or break FAs, GAs, and FLs, it is important that it not be casually or arbitrarily changed.Collectonian (talk) 01:01, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Someone should give him a courtesy notice that he is being discussed here. I would but I'm a recent target of his accusations of caballing, for which I gave him an AGF and CIVILITY warning on the guideline talk page. I agree that this could be a problem in the making...but then again it might not blossom into a full-fledged problem. Wikidemo (talk) 01:33, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- As an uninvolved party, I've left him a courtesy notice. Collectonian (talk) 01:40, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Nice, I just spotted this, without being notified. I utterly resent the contention that I am edit warring, on the contrary the admins involved here are warring; they are simply reverting every single edit. There is a discrepancy between the Polices in WP:NOT and this guideline, and whenever I point this out, the admins 'don't understand'. I'm sorry, but I'm not that smart, and they're not dumb. I have been unbelievably reasonable and civil, over a long period to an absolute fault. I cannot say the same about some of the people I am discussing this with. It's also bizarre that the admins editing the WP:LEAD claim not to be aware of the policies involved; I checked and the policies involved have almost complete consensus going back 6 years. My point about consensus is that policy consensus trumps guideline consensus every single time; particularly such old, old policy.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 02:14, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- The word 'define' where it applies to the subject of an article has been systematically removed from the guideline (except one place where they talk about uncommon terms, which is quite different), and yet policy talks very clearly about defining the subject, and diferentiating it from other subjects. etc. etc. (see WP:NOT). Is it completely unreasonable for me to expect that a guideline should, at the very least, point out the applicable policy to the editors?? Because all my edits that make this or similar points have been systematically removed.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 02:26, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- If the WP:NOT/WP:LEAD question were an isolated incident, I would not be raising the issue here: that discussion belongs at WT:LEAD. However, Wolfkeeper has repeatedly tried to make non-consensus changes to WP:LEAD, and discussing the matter with him has been, for many editors, frustrating to say the least. He seems not to want to give direct answers to direct questions, to believe that it should be obvious that he is right and that there is some sort of conspiricy against him. This attitude is indicated, for instance, in him finding my straightforward question "creepy". It was nothing of the sort. If Wolfkeeper's edits are partly aimed at making a point, then he will not be the first person to do this, or the last. I'm assuming he is not, but the evidence suggests otherwise, and I, for one, would like to know. Geometry guy 08:46, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Take a look at this. Look's like a vandalism only account. I reccommend a permanent block. Doubt it will be granted but I thought I should report the user. Blizzard Beast $ODIN$ 00:39, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Vandalism from 198.109.249.27
Suggesting an IP block for 198.109.249.27. The user has changed the names of the main characters in Retribution (novel) to some non-sense. As seen on "User talk:198.109.249.27", he's obviously just a bored vandal.
PS: Not sure if we have a bot for it, but you might want to reverse his past edits. Pages like Retribution (novel) simply aren't viewed often enough by people, who know the names of the characters, etc, to be cleansed from vandalism via the classic method. Thank you. ~~MaxGrin (talk) 00:58, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
This user has been rude towards me repeatedly, constantly. The issue is that Paeerduag is a self-confessed Michael Jackson fan. To quote his user page "My most important mission on Wikipedia is to cleanse the Michael Jackson article of all the rubbish spread by the media and tabloids, and to return it to a fair and neutral state, uninfluenced by any lies."
I found issue with a number of pages he had created/edited within the Michael Jackson WikiProject. Largely my edits have been approved by the project's other main contributor, User: Realist2. Other people have also approved these in general, and only Paeerduag insists on reverting them. Because he/she perceives my edits as personal, which they are not.
I don't like being insulted. I don't like people swearing at me. So far, I have yet to do either. I repeatedly say "doing that is not allowed, I operate within the confines of the rules, you have to as well or I will report you". It has only aggravated the situation. Such things can be found spread out accross a variety of pages.
Here's a few examples:
From the edit history of Just Good Friends (song), here is an explanation of an edit "elfoid is engaging in vandalism - he has reached NO FUCKING CONCENSUS and yet he removes pages as if he alone can make that call - reach concensus you asshole)". That's for turning a page into a redirect, since it was a non-notable article which was tagged for notability, lack of sites and a stub. Realist2 agreed with me it was a fair edit, and the merge tag (since some information was moved) was kept up for about 2 weeks before I did it (within this time someone else approved my suggestion).
Another one, on (Speed Demon (song) - "no consensus reached - elfoid, you do not operate above consensus. what the heck is your problem". I didn't think it needed consensus...I kept the merge tag up for a while and no one commented. I felt that made it fair. What else did I have to do, post on talk pages for everyone I knew?
"I refuse to allow you to turn this into some sort of source-scrounging marathon - I don't care what some obese white piece of shit says about the Ultimate Collection this is about the SONG not sources"
That was part of a debate about the deletion of an article. Insulting the overweight, and the white. My mother is very overweight and I am white.
I put an article up for deletion that I felt was fair. Here was the edit summary for why he removed it "so this is what you've been reduced to, randomly putting articles I made up for deletion? I will not let this happen without a fight". Hardly justified. That was We Are Here to Change the World.
"FUCK YOU seriously - all you want to do is revert all my edits because you have some problem. I don't really give a fuck, because this should be in a separate section", "no offence, but sometimes your sentences are just painful to read". - Thriller 25.
Another Thriller 25 thing....I called Michael Jackson "significantly older" for being 49, compared to people in their early 30s he collaborated with. I was responded to with "drop the anti-MJ stance RIGHT NOW. I will not let you pollute this article with hater-filled lies and disgusting rubbish. if you think 50 is 'significantly' old, you have problems"
From my userpage:
"Is it your hatred of MJ that makes you want to know every single editing update on all pages related to him, just so you can scan them to make sure that they aren't too positive towards MJ? Why do you edit MJ pages? I mean, normally on wiki (well, in my experience anyway), people edit articles on subjects which they have a passion for. So, I ask again, why do you edit MJ pages?"
Showcasing a biased POV, something else that isn't allowed.
I tried to explain problems with his edits and justifications for my own to him. I got these in his responses "I'm not going to bother to read what you posted on my talk page." "There's one rule I like to follow, and it's called IGNORING ALL THE RULES. and I do it because I try to make wikipedia a better place", "seriously, I'm not going to read your propaganda"
Here's the one that really hurt. The most recent. "don't you dare threaten and harass me, as if you are somehow superior and can 'report' me whenever you want. YOU HAVE CONSTANTLY UNDONE, TRIED TO REMOVE AND GENERALLY RESISTED MY EDITS. All you did on Thriller 25 is continually change things I did. You work without concensus, and you think you're above the law. You personally attack me, even though you are in the wrong. I HATE WHAT YOU ARE DOING, and how you treat me. It is disgusting. I will NOT cooperate with an autocrat such as yourself, you despicable person"
When I made that edit to Thriller 25, I didn't even look at the edit history...I just edited it. I hadn't touched it in a while so knew there'd be too many changes to check up on and just got to work. And I got this abuse in response. Sometimes, like AFDing a page he made, I knew I'd get an argument. But I didn't think I'd be in trouble for that.
And on User: Realist2's talk page, I found this: "people like elfoid are the reason I stopped going on wikipedia for a while. he personally attacked me, and then turned it around and said I was attacking him. It is really horrible and mean."
I've noticed he's reverted edits on other pages, like HIStory World Tour offensively. Someone changed the figure for the tour attendance. Maybe they read a different figure? Well in his edit summary, he justified the revert as "hater lies". His POV is an issue everywhere. He sees everything Jackson does as notable.
1984 in music he put in this: "Michael Jackson's scalp is burnt during the filming of a Pepsi commercial and he remains calm. Around this time, Jackson also releases the final single from his monstrous Thriller album "Thriller". At the time, the music video is considered to be the greatest ever created."
No sources either. And who would care if he "remained calm"?
His userpage claims he has "entirely written" pages I know myself and my friends have worked on.
This guy's verbally abused me. Insulted me. Sworn at me. He's shown something that is borderline racist and insulted overweight people. He's falsely claiming to have written entire articles. He's reverting my edits and basically using "fuck off you evil michael jackson hater" as an excuse. He's gotten un-necessarily offensive in reverts of other people's edits. He publicly admits to and showcases repeated over-POV problems. He's accusing me of personal assaults with nothing to explain it. He's tried to plead to Realist2 about what a horrible person I am, which I did not need. He's made frequent poor edits because he sees too many things as notable, then gets angry when I pick up on it. He's got in arguments with other users frequently (e.g. User talk:Remisser) but it's hard to track since he deletes anything he doesn't like from his usertalk (which isn't a crime, but makes the scale of his troubles hard to track).
Please, someone deal with this. I'm upset, hurt and angry. I'm being treated unfairly by someone who I've repeatedly been trying to deal with. When I say he's breaking rules I get told "I don't use rules". When I say I'll report him, I get "don't you dare threaten me". How can I deal with someone who says that, then when I reason with them, tells me to fuck off? I'm aware this edit could anger him and make the argument worse. But I'm not concerned...since I doubt the situation could get worse anyway. Please help me...I'm losing the will to live over this. (The Elfoid (talk) 01:06, 13 February 2008 (UTC))
EDIT: I'm aware this is a huge thing for what should be a summarising edit. But it's spread accross my talk page, Realist2's talk page, Thriller 25's edit summaries, and about 5 other pages' edit summaries and other pages. I'm hoping putting it together makes it easier. (The Elfoid (talk) 01:07, 13 February 2008 (UTC))
yikes, i really didnt want it to come to this!, how terribly unfortunate, some of the alligations made here are quite serious particularly the alleged "racial" comment. I think there needs to be a link to that edit. Realist2 (talk) 01:50, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Personally, I'm aware of behavioural problems with this user and have blocked him for his incivility and abuse in the past myself. However, please see the note at the top of the page: "Please make your comments concise. Administrators are less likely to pay attention to long diatribes." I think you need to condense this report to only things that admins can take action on and you need to provide diffs. For example, things like him taking credit for articles you helped write aren't something we can do anything about on this board. The ANI noticeboard is for reporting incidents that require administrative intervention. If you can't provide a concise report which shows breaches of policy with diffs supporting your claims it is unlikely (m)any admins will bother reviewing this because they're just too busy. Pasting in the quotes isn't good enough without diffs as we need to be able to look at the evidence ourselves. I think your article content related complaints require some form of dispute resolution but the personal attacks are absolutely unacceptable and Paaerduag knows this and has previously been blocked before for his rampant incivility. Also, you might pursue mediation or a third opinion for your article content disputes. Sarah 02:11, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- tl;dr - say it concisely and you will get more response. ViridaeTalk 05:21, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Semi-protection request for Brian_A._Scott
I need semi-protection for en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_A._Scott -- there is now no longer a references dispute I have added proper references and believe these references to be true to the best of my ability. An anonymous user or someone with a registered account less than four days old willfully removed content without explanation or justifiable cause.
Winlundn (talk) 01:11, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Firstly, your references aren't proper. Secondly, I don't actually see anything in the history of that page to suggest semi-protection is required. Anons haven't even edited it in over a week. And if there was a dispute over sourcing, protection is not used to win a dispute. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:21, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
continual lack of good faith and WP:OWN displayed by one editor
I wish to report the behaviour of user User:Mathsci who continually has tried to discourage me from contributing and editing articles on French localities in a significant display of WP:OWN and particularly WP:OWN#EVENTS. This first started with accusations of being lazy and unconstructive [87] and being disruptive and having "special knowledge of French or France" [88] and [89] then reverted a legitimate edit of mine [90] which I believe this was solely done as I did that edit. This developed into a personal attack as shown in the edit summary of [91] and still displaying WP:OWN in [92]. And then accused me of "not aiding the WP project" today at [93] At no point has this editor assumed good faith about my edits. I have tried to reason and warn about lacking good faith on numerous occasions to no avail [94], [95], and given warnings [96], [97]. Michellecrisp (talk) 02:31, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
civility problems and copyright violations and exposed a person's real name
[98][99][100][101][102][103] EBDCM is a newbie but is making uncivil remarks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Chiropractic#copyright_violation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiropractic#Safety_issues The safety issues section has a text dump of copyrighted information.[104]
Please take a look here.[106] EBDCM has put a link on the talk page claiming he knows who I am and by clicking on the link at the website exposes a real person's name.
Regards, --QuackGuru (talk) 03:04, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- A brief look at the edit history of chiropractic and the talkpage will show I have also been the subject of abuse from EBDCM. I have pleaded with him and other editors have advised him to desist. He has not done so. Mccready (talk) 04:06, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, User:EBDCM is a newbie, and you guys are very experienced. Perhaps if you wouldn't WP:Bite he wouldn't have to be so defensive. I've been trying to work with him because he seems to have some knowledge and good writing style. Give him a chance. -- Dēmatt (chat) 04:27, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- According to Dematt: User:EBDCM has a good writing style. Copyright violations and deleting well sourced information is not a good writing.[107] QuackGuru (talk) 04:31, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I have erred on the side of giving EBDCM some slack by virtue of being new and entering a war zone early in his/her Wikipedia career. His approach is far too combative, but there is a real learning curve - I was much more combative (believe it or not) when I started out. I have a lot of confidence in Dematt, so hopefully EBDCM can be directed toward the light side. The above sort of confrontational and combative behavior from EBDCM is inappropriate; let's note that, and give him a chance to improve. If there's no progress, then we can revisit the issue. MastCell Talk 04:33, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Besides, we all know who really is Stephen Barrett now, don't we :-) Shot info (talk) 06:52, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- As someone who has dealt with copyright violations before, I would say they are a really serious issue and it is imperitive that editors understand this and don't introduce them. When they are noticed like they were in this case, they can be dealt with easily but when you only notice them several months or years later, it is very annoying having to delete large chunks of an article, which has often been worked on quite a bit, because it was a copyvio. If EBDCM doesn't understand copyvio issues, I suggest he/she get a polite but firm explaination ASAP. Nil Einne (talk) 09:55, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/fb/Yes_check.svg/20px-Yes_check.svg.png)
It is obvious that certain editors with admin rights are trying to block off cleaning up a seriously racist article by blocking those they disagree with. This happened most recently to an editor 1948Remembered whose posts on the talk page remain unanswered and one Riana has just threatened me as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.30.98.149 (talk) 04:35, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Admins, please look into 76.30.98.149's racist comments at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:1948_Palestinian_exodus#Real_funny, I fail to see how it is acceptable to use temrs like "jew hating" as valid arguements. --FreeThoughts (talk) 06:10, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
This Riana has now abused her powers to edit the article after one Krimpet had protected it. This is clear racism and abuse on her part. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.30.98.149 (talk) 21:39, 12 February 2008
- Perhaps you could be better served by discussing your concerns on the talk page of the article itself? I don't even see what's "racist" about the article. Your edits probably appear to be vandalism to other editors. Discussing your concerns on the talk page without getting too aggressive would help out a lot. --clpo13(talk) 04:46, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) Protection by Krimpet and reversion by Riana occurred in the same minute of the day. The most likely explanation is that the page was not protected when Riana began her edit. I don't know how popups work, but generally speaking protection warnings are displayed when an edit screen is loaded to begin the edit, not when an edit is saved. Looking in more detail, add me to the list of people that consider the IP edit being reverted as an edit not intended to improve the encyclopedia. GRBerry 04:55, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- The article was semi-protected, not fully-protected. There is nothing wrong with someone semi-protecting the article at the same time another editor -- admin or otherwise -- is reverting vandalism. -- tariqabjotu 06:33, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Nothing to see here folks, it's just a returning disruptive user, 1948remembered (talk · contribs), who's been trolling around on IRC too. krimpet✽ 04:54, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Hmmm... This looks fishy. Riana responsible for the 1st indefinite block (1948remembered), Krimpet for the IP, and Krimpet even blocks what looks to be a DHCP IP address on indef? I'm not through looking at the edits but the article is tagged as under dispute, yet Riana not only has blocked an editor but then edits without once editing on the talk page to say why she's doing something. Whether it's legit or not it's enough to look suspicious and could easily give some people the wrong impression about Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.30.206.74 (talk) 05:34, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Oh, hey, you're right, it is a dynamic IP. ;) krimpet✽ 06:56, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Uh, yeah dude, because I need to discuss my removal of the words 'failure to wipe out the state of Israel'. Put a WP:SOCK in it. ~ Riana ⁂ 08:56, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
V-Dash sockpuppet
We have another one; it's already been referred to the V-Dash RFCU, but User:Jéské Couriano has advised that any V-Dash sockpuppets or impersonations of his account be reported here. MelicansMatkin (talk) 04:45, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I said that in case a nonadmin noticed him first; The Placebo Effect (talk · contribs) already threw this sock into the moth closet. -Jéské (Blah v^_^v) 06:10, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Vendetta account
Could someone perhaps take a look at this & try to sort it out? NHguardian appears to be a single purpose vendetta account directed at User:Jrclark & engaged in edit warring with that user across dozens of articles [108]; Related IP's of abuse also used include [109] and [110] for instance, among others. User also exposes the personal information of Jrclark on the talk pages of about ten articles such as this one [111].
As far as I can tell, NHguardian appears upset because s/he feels that Jrclark is making conflict of interest additions to external links sections in articles; although there may be some truth to this, I informed Nhguardian that his/her methods of dealing with Jrclark have been inappropriate. Does not seem inclined to talk things out. Nhguardian maintains that s/he will continue to edit war. This has been going on for some time now; it was dormant from December to February, but has erupted again. See also related dialog: Talk:Mount_Sugarloaf_State_Reservation. Thanks so much, --Pgagnon999 (talk) 05:11, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Chris Berman, videos or BLP?
Over at the Chris Berman page, there's been a lot of activity lately. Several videos of Berman in embarrasing situations have popped up on YouTube and other places, leading to someone (usually anon IP editors) adding them to a new section on "Controversy."
I thought'd I'd ask for clarification on this, since it seems to be up against the line for WP:BLP. On the one hand, Berman is in the videos saying some pretty embarrasing things. However, none of the references discuss where any of the "controversy" is coming from, they're only links to the videos, sometimes with detail on the various questionable things Berman does in each one. There's no references to secondary sources detailing any controversy.
I've tried to start a discussion on the talk page, but no one seems to want to talk things over before rushing to add the videos and descriptions. Is this appropriate, or a violation of WP:BLP? Snowfire51 (talk) 06:42, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'll hop by the talk page to offer some extended thoughts, but I imagine that one should be able to find references to secondary sources discussing the controversy; ESPN has, in fact, apparently, albeit in an e-mail, and one reproduced on a blog (a blog, though, that is prominent and, if not a reliable source for the underlying matters, a reliable source toward the prominence of the controversy), released a statement about the videos. Joe 06:53, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- As hilarious as they are, we don't link to sites that violate others' copyrights (he took these photos as an ESPN employee - ESPN owns the copyrights) and Youtube isn't particularly verifiable. If mainstream (not blog) media is reporting on it, talk about it and link to the story, but I don't think we need to be linking to the youtube video. --B (talk) 07:10, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Likewise, WP:NPOV requires that any topic not be given undue weight in an article relevent to its importance to that topic in mainstream media. People do goofy shit all the time, and many of them get YouTube videos while doing it. I don't see ANYTHING here worth reporting AT ALL about these videos in the Chris Berman article. To put anything at all in the article would be providing undue weight to some silly vids with no real importance to the person or why he is notable in the first place. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 07:14, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I work in the business, and that kind of stuff is honestly commonplace. The only thing noteworthy about it is that it showed up on YouTube. Somebody cuts in front of my prompter, and I'd yell, too. Snowfire51 (talk) 07:20, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- When those YouTube videos become themselves prominent and the source of controversy reported/referenced non-trivially in prominent publications (certain blogish media are prominent publications, of course, especially where they are essentially reliable online news sources [e.g., Yahoo Sports], but I haven't really any idea about whether any of the various places the Berman videos have been discussed is such a publication), they might merit mention in the article; whether that is the case here is, as we see, a matter subject to some debate (and one about which I don't have an opinion), and one that ought to be discussed more fully at the article's talk page or BLPN. Joe 07:30, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Likewise, WP:NPOV requires that any topic not be given undue weight in an article relevent to its importance to that topic in mainstream media. People do goofy shit all the time, and many of them get YouTube videos while doing it. I don't see ANYTHING here worth reporting AT ALL about these videos in the Chris Berman article. To put anything at all in the article would be providing undue weight to some silly vids with no real importance to the person or why he is notable in the first place. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 07:14, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- As hilarious as they are, we don't link to sites that violate others' copyrights (he took these photos as an ESPN employee - ESPN owns the copyrights) and Youtube isn't particularly verifiable. If mainstream (not blog) media is reporting on it, talk about it and link to the story, but I don't think we need to be linking to the youtube video. --B (talk) 07:10, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Calling me a propagandist
talk, User:Taulant23 at the bottom of the talk says"his main propaganda agenda" referring to me.Megistias (talk) 09:31, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Not really the worst of personal attacks, if it even qualifies as one. What do you want done about it anyway?--Atlan (talk) 11:43, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Jimbo says Mantanmoreland is in fact Gary Weiss.
Jimbo said "I just want to go on record as saying that I believe the reason for this is that Mantanmoreland is in fact Gary Weiss." 9/15/2007 on Slim's Sooper Seekrit Syberstalking list WAS 4.250 (talk) 11:21, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I asked Jimbo on his talk page if this is true or not. I'm going to suspend judgement and further action until he replies, or chooses not to reply. Needless to say, I'm currently as concerned and upset as anything I've ever experienced before in my two years of participation here. Cla68 (talk) 11:24, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, he said it--that was during the two weeks or so that I was subscribed before I bailed out. Obviously Jimbo's opinion carries no more weight than any other editor who is aware of the matter; if he knew it to be true, from personal conversation or some such, then I would have expected him to say so or be silent. And of course, simply having a conflict of interest is not a blockable offense, it is how you behave that counts. Thatcher 11:48, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah, well, he also said he tried like anything to find out if there was any proof, and couldn't satisfy himself that there was. He says he didn't want to act on a mere 'belief', and I don't think I see anything wrong with that. Relata refero (talk) 12:01, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, he said it--that was during the two weeks or so that I was subscribed before I bailed out. Obviously Jimbo's opinion carries no more weight than any other editor who is aware of the matter; if he knew it to be true, from personal conversation or some such, then I would have expected him to say so or be silent. And of course, simply having a conflict of interest is not a blockable offense, it is how you behave that counts. Thatcher 11:48, 13 February 2008 (UTC)