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Following on from #User:Ariobarza above, I am also concerned about the behaviour of Tundrabuggy (talk · contribs). I clashed with this editor earlier this year over his promotion of conspiracy theories on Muhammad al-Durrah. Since then I've disengaged from anything to do with him. Unfortunately he has chosen to do the opposite. He now appears to be wikistalking me from article to article, opposing whatever I support, supporting whatever I oppose, allying with and aiding editors with whom I have an editorial dispute. He has now done this on with least five articles relating to ancient history that he's never edited before I edited them - Cyrus cylinder, Cyrus the Great, Battle of Opis, Kaveh Farrokh and now Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Battle of the Tigris. He appears to be systematically watching my edits and involving himself in any dispute in which I'm involved. He has accused me of "pushing a particular pov" [1] and of being part of a "campaign" [2] to push a "pro-Palestinian nationalist perspective" of ancient Babylonian history [3]. (I've never heard of such a perspective and have no idea what it would look like). Other editors have expressed concern and disagreement with his tactics and comments [4], [5], [6]. Instead of responding to these concerns, he blew them off. [7] He has now turned up on the AfD mentioned above (which I didn't start), where he was specifically canvassed by Ariobarza, the editor who created the article in question. Ariobarza has presented a very hostile view of my involvement to encourage Tundrabuggy to get involved. [8] Tundrabuggy duly turned up to support Ariobarza in the AfD, in which I had !voted to delete the article. This is looking like a systematic feud on Tundrabuggy's part, and it needs to stop or be stopped. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:18, 28 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Particularly since Tundrabuggy has contributed nothing useful or indeed informed. From my experience of Battle of Opis he is acting purely to harass ChrisO. It's not acceptable. Ariobarza etc at least have a genuine interest in the subject: I do not think this is the case with Tundrabuggy. Moreschi (talk) 23:45, 28 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Thanks so much for your perspective Moreschi. I don't remember seeing you at the Battle of Opis lately. Were you one of the canvassed ones? Tundrabuggy (talk) 06:02, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(to ChrisO) This is an unfounded accusation against an opposing editor, with whom you're involved in an ongoing dispute. As Tundrabuggy pointed out, "all the articles above are intimately related to each other, and thus to be involved in one is to be involved in them all." ([9]) Khoikhoi 23:51, 28 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ariobarza ... if you want to strike your comments on this page, then I recommend using <s> </s> rather than deleting them like you did to these Noticed they were re-added a few edits later-t BMW c- 00:00, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's hardly unfounded. I quoted what Tundrabuggy himself has said: he has already made it clear that he's following me around because he believes I'm pursuing some sort of political agenda and he's seeking to oppose that. That's a nonsensical line to take. It's also a completely inappropriate reason to pursue an editor. Wikipedia is not a battleground. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:04, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For clarity, Khoikhoi, are you an uninvolved or involved party? Jehochman ^Talk 00:16, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Clearly involved, since he has been actively supporting one side - Tundrabuggy's, essentially - in four of the five pages I listed above. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:19, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and your comment proves my point that these pages are all part of the same dispute, and I have been involved in these pages for the same reason. Tundrabuggy has not done anything out of the ordinary here. This is the same dispute which has spanned across several pages. Khoikhoi 04:40, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A few notes:

1. I'm trying to avoid ANI's but was asked to review/participate on this post.
2. Just about everyone who commented thus far, myself included, are somehow involved. It's a bit of a shame to see the same "old faces".
3. Speaking as a person who knows what it's like to be followed and harassed by fellow Wikipedians, I'd like to try and keep things in proper perspective. i.e. I'm not sure I see much more than a somewhat 'new to wiki-policy' editor responding to a canvassing note. Has there been anything new other than the AfD within the past 10-14 days? Tundrabuggy has been active on several articles which were not mentioned, and to be frank, I considered his contribution to the Battle of Jenin talk page a bit of a relief considering some of the highly provocative statements made by fellow editors.
4. Considering my (mostly ignored) proposition to both Tundra and Chris to break off from active disputes was made a bit under a month ago and that there doesn't seem to be anything new, I would personally recommend a canvass related warning to relevant editors.
5. My apologies to everyone involved for meddling in.

Cheers, Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 02:26, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

p.s. I have not read the "Ariobarza" section above this subsection. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 03:06, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I just want to emphasize that KhoiKhoi is absolutely right, that all of these articles are (intimately) related to each other and have spidered to one another through the talk pages. As one of ChrisO's diffs pointed out, all are related by virtue of time-period -circa 450 BCE- subject and place. The seemingly obscure article, Kaveh Farrokh, is related as an historian. The idea that ChrisO is being wiki-stalked is out in left field, frankly. As for Ariobarza, I thought (s)he had tried consciensiously to make her points on the talk page before making small edits in the article. Then when she tried to write an article herself, before it is even finished, ChrisO and friends vote to speedily delete it. A sympathetic admin might have steered her into writing on her own name-space and helped her in making a better article. What is gained by doing a speedy delete? Nothing except [more] bad feelings are generated. That is why I voted against deletion. At least give someone a chance. I didn't vote the way I did to vote against ChrisO (as part of some [imagined] "systematic feud") but to vote for Ariobarza. I hope the distinction is clear. And @ Jaakabou -- I do appreciate your input. Tundrabuggy (talk) 06:02, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Considering the heightened sensitivity between you and ChrisO, I would suggest that you try and avoid even the impression of following him to future articles - there's plenty of articles out here. Also note that responding to WP:CANVASS notes is frowned upon. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 09:47, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Tundrabuggy, I've already pointed out on the articles for deletion page that this is an ordinary Articles for Deletion process, not a WP:speedy delete. And I've been telling Ariobarza since June that he needs to stop adding original research to articles and to stop creating articles with no references. He's had far more chances than most editors get. And when you take part in an articles for deletion policy, you shouldn't be 'voting' for or against an editor but stating your views based on Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Doug Weller (talk) 10:17, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Of course Tundrabuggy, you have followed Chris0 around. It stands out like dog's balls. Anyone with commonsense and good faith would raise an eyebrow to see how you followed Chris0 to the five articles after the dispute with him over the MDurrah article. The latter is an I/P article. The Cyrus articles have nothing to do with politics (though you edit there as though Chris0's putative POV on I/P issues influences his judgement on Persian battles). He has a professional background in ancient history, you apparently don't. What are the odds (wiki brims with mathematicians) that it is a mere coincidence that, after two editors had a conflict over a contemporary I/P article, on an obscure incident, the one worsted by technicalities that favour form over substance, moves on to work over several articles on Persian history that require a rather involved understanding of assessing abstruse sources, requirements he was trained in academically under a major authority in ancient history, only to find that, by pure chance, his whilom adversary shows up to edit against him over exactly the same range of articles? Almost zero. It has nothing to do with chance. To ask people seriously to believe that this is mere coincidence is a charming piece of chutzpah, nothing more. From an outside perspective, it looks as though your 'victory' in one article ran to your head, and you thought it worthwhile seeing if you could follow it up against the same antagonist. This is harassment.

You show, unlike Chris0, no technical understanding of, or informed knowledge about the historical evidence, evince no record (I stand corrected if wrong)of a long-standing intrinsic passion for the subject, but you are very strong in making 'political' assessments of the former editor's ostensible POV. That is wikistalking, and you do it by siding with, or defending, editors of little experience, nationalistic in approach, with whom Chris0 clashes on quite straightforward questions of RS. You appear in many edits, to me at least, to be a POV-headhunter, unaware of your own. That is your right. Nothing of course will be done about this, since wikistalking is quite commonplace. People enjoy niggling at others, especially when they've won one suit. Far too many editors don't contribute substantively to articles, but hang round to monitor POVs. You, at least here, are doing precisely that.Nishidani (talk) 10:29, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Finally some commentary with brains! Nishidani has it in one. Now could someone please do something about this? Moreschi (talk) 10:49, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd have no objections to topic bans on disruptive editors from articles; clarification: I'm not sure if this is the current state on the articles ChrisO and Tundrabuggy are comunicating on since last I looked was almost a month ago.

AS AN OFFTOPIC, I'd use this forum to note that I got a bit of a DE issue (myself) on Land of Israel (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) with 2 editiors strongly promoting a personal misunderstanding of the Likud charter as a must be listed in the lead. Or as one of them put it in his revert edit: "It is important for article NPOV". Could someone please do something about this?

p.s. Tundra, Doug Weller is correct that !voting is not made on personal perspective but should be based on (preferrably also linked to) existing policy. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 15:05, 29 October 2008 (UTC) wikilink 15:07, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Tundrabuggy, would you voluntarily stop following Chris O, or would you like an admin (!me) to make a ruling? Jehochman ^Talk 15:10, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Re: the AfD vote, I thought the article had some merit and that it should be allowed to take shape. It was not part of any "feud" other than that that ChrisO would like to make it. Re what is called "canvassing," it appears that that complaint is only going to apply to me, and not ChrisO who has canvassed most of the contributers on this page. I have canvassed exactly zero. I am the 4th contributer to these articles (the Cyrus-related ones) that ChrisO has tried to take some kind of wiki-lawyering action against. The others have apparently been intimidated sufficiently to no longer contribute to these articles at all. I did approve of the effort to have a content issue resolved with mediation, though it is not clear where that went. Tundrabuggy (talk) 15:42, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say that's a "no". Tan | 39 15:44, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No this simply doesn't the mustard as a serious reply, Tundrabuggy. (a) Specialist qualifications are not required in Wiki for contributing to articles. At the same time, the encyclopedia is particularly happy if it can enjoy expertise, esp. in difficult fields. ChrisO has been professionally trained as an historian, in the area of antiquity. We don't know your background, but from following the edits, it does not appear that you have a formal grounding in the field of the history of antiquity. (To the contrary (need proof?), your remarks elsewhere strongly suggest you lack even an elementary understanding of historical method). That said, the rules are that you are equally entitled to edit there and anywhere else but (b) you both had a conflict of some considerable intensity over MDurrah. Chris0 left that, and, if I recall, on request, went to the Cyrus Cylinder and associated articles, as a duck returns to water, to his 'proper element'. Soon after, you turned up, and sided with editors who disagreed with him. We are not asked to assess, as you intimate, the merits of that conflict. We have been asked whether, in turning up, after your MD 'victory', to an area where he has expertise and you do not, you came there by pure coincidence, or by design? Indeed, you have, in your reply, as elsewhere, earlier, snubbed requests to clarify what appears to be a patent example of adversarial stalking. The gravaman of the charge is you have stalked ChrisO, on his natural terrain, in an area you show no particular knowledge of, immediately after the MDurrah conflict with him. He left, perhaps, to adapt an idiom from Sophocles, to browse in solitude his thoughts on quieter pastures, and finds you moseying up again to ride shotgun, herding his ideas, barely after the bulldust from your shootout with him at the OK corral had settled. So explain what you're doing there, and why your reappearance on five consecutive pages he was editing is merely random, against all mathematical odds. Nishidani (talk) 16:16, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, Nishidani, we know nothing about ChrisO's qualifications, since "ChrisO" is an anonymous username. If ChrisO decides he wants to publicly identify himself, then we'll be able to ascertain his expertise. Lacking that, it is inappropriate to speculate about these matters, or to claim that he has an expertise that other anonymous userids lack. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:26, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose 'we' will now have to open up a section, 'Who can prove Nishidani is not a liar', while studiously ignoring the point, documented in the diffs, that Tundrabuggy subscribes to what can only be called a fringe theory redolent of the hermeneutics of paranoid suspicion. He has intimated that all editing on the Middle East, from articles about Sumer to Sozomenos, is subject to suspicions of partisanship that reflect on the contemporary Israeli-Palestine conflict. It is this absolutely bizarre statement that set the bells ringing for me. Anyone who subscribes to this lunatic theory should not be editing articles on ancient near Eastern history, apart from considerations of incompetence. Nishidani (talk) 09:00, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, Nishidani, we know nothing about ChrisO's qualifications, since "ChrisO" is an anonymous username. If ChrisO decides he wants to publicly identify himself, then we'll be able to ascertain his expertise. Lacking that, it is inappropriate to speculate about these matters, or to claim that he has an expertise that other anonymous userids lack. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:47, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's called Wiederholungszwang in the technical literature.Nishidani (talk) 11:34, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Again, Nishidani, I urge you to read my earlier responses as these are not "merely random" pages but all very clearly and obviously related, and it shouldn't take a formal grounding in history to realise this. It seems to me that had you been following this "dispute" closely, you would have been able to see this as well, unless of course you are one who has been recruited as support for ChrisO, in which case in a cursory look you might have missed it. Nor, as you have noted, are such formal qualifications required to contribute, to read or be able to understand the source material referenced, much of which is available either on Amazon or on Google books. Now to the point that my editing of these related pages is somehow related to my "victory" as you call it, regarding the MD conflict, I would simply say that I cannot even imagine how you would consider a victory an event that dragged my wiki reputation and others' through endless wiki accusations, taking I don't know how many hours of life to defend against, even to the point of one water-carrier trying to get another uninvolved administrator recalled... it was endless. No user would want a repeat of that kind of "victory". Tundrabuggy (talk) 23:38, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

clarification. I did not say the pages were random. I said you turning up, straight after the MaD incident, on five interconnected pages your erstwhile adversary was editing on obscure episodes in Persian history, cannot be coincidental, or random. I find misconstrual of the obvious offensive, Tundrabuggy: it is called wikilawyering.Nishidani (talk) 09:50, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Answer the question. You now have several people, not nobodies like myself, but administrators, asking you: 'why, immediately after the Mohammad al-Durrah dispute, where Chris0 was sanctioned to your editorial advantage, did you turn up on five pages where Chris0 had begun to edit, dealing with obscure events in Persian history?' Everything else is waffle. Either this is a one-off cosmic freak occurrence, warranting investigation by Pascalian mathematicians and a wiki page itself for the advent of miracles in probability theory, or you were and are wikistalking. I've asked you to explain this bizarre coincidence three times. Three times you have rambled on about other things. Not to answer it is, in my book, a tacit admission that your appearance there comes from trailing him, to a purpose. Nishidani (talk) 09:00, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Tundrabuggy has already made it clear that he sees this as an ideological conflict. Note his comments that he thinks I'm pushing a "pro-Palestinian nationalist perspective" of ancient Persian history [10]. He seems to have no interest in ancient history as such - he's not contributed anything to the articles other than sniping at my edits - but he seems to think he has to act as some sort of "watchdog" to push back against my edits where they conflict with his ideological views. This is, of course, completely inappropriate behaviour. I'm not pursuing any kind of ideological agenda, though he seems to view everything through the prism of his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - a very unhealthy approach. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:01, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Tundrabuggy doesn't seem to be addressing the central concern raised in this section, which is: did Tundrabuggy start contributing to articles on ancient Persian history because he was continuing a preexisting conflict with ChrisO? As far as I can tell, the answer is yes. Furthermore, the allegation that there's such a thing as a pro-Palestian perspective on ancient Persian history is bizarre. This kind of ideological perspective is bad enough on I/P articles, it doesn't need to be imported into ancient history articles. I think Tundrabuggy ought to just step away from this topic area. --Akhilleus (talk) 01:51, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've suggested before that we need to crack down on this sort of politicisation of ancient history. Modern Greek/Macedonian nationalist feuding being projected into the distant past in our articles is bad enough, but this is ridiculous. It's a clear violation of WP:BATTLEFIELD. --Folantin (talk) 08:28, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I can at least understand modern Greek/Macedonian feuding over ancient history, since it's a fundamental issue of national identity for them, but as you say, it's just bizarre to project the I/P conflict onto ancient Persia and Babylonia. I have no idea what a "pro-Palestinian nationalist" POV of that period would even look like. Some of Tundrabuggy's comments on Talk:Battle of Opis (see [11]) suggest that he is being influenced by a literalist reading of the Bible/Torah, which portrays Cyrus in complimentary terms as the liberator of the Jews. He appears to believe that I'm trying to "undermine" Cyrus. Khoikhoi appears to believe the same (and perhaps for the same reasons) - see Talk:Cyrus cylinder#Tags. There may be some sort of Jewish fundamentalist undercurrent here as well. They are both currently tag-teaming to remove sourced info that apparently conflicts with their POV [12], [13]. Not helpful behaviour. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:20, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) "it's just bizarre to project the I/P conflict onto ancient Persia and Babylonia". It's ludicrous, especially since an equally valid (i.e. irrelevant) accusation of being "anti-Israeli" could be made against those promoting the opposite view. Given the current tensions between modern Israel and Iran, "pro-Persian" could be interpreted as "anti-Zionist". --Folantin (talk) 09:39, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia's rules on wikistalking, to my brief knowledge, are hardly ever the object of administrative action, since it is intrinsically hard to prove. It is also true that far too much niggling for technical advantage is one unfortunate consequence of the rule book's articles. All editors with minimal experience will have abundant anecdotal evidence of odd coincidences on pages they edit, of people wandering in to edit, not the article, but, apparently, to resume a conflict begun on some other, often unconnected page. In my own interactions with Tundrabuggy, I have nothing to complain about. He readily accepted a correction of a confused remark he made about the circumstances of Mussolini's death. Sign of a responsive editor. We exchanged views on the Nahum Goldmann page. But I'm afraid this particular matter is serious. It may be inexperience, it may be overconfidence, it may be an inner conviction that, in the I/P area, Chris0 is biased, and therefore must be watched. But I doubt whether he will ever convince anyone that it was pure happenchance that he turned up on the 5 Persian pages Chris0 was editing, after the Mohammad al-Durrah episode, simply because he too happens to have an abiding interest in Cyrus. Jehochman made a decent suggestion, and I think Tundrabuggy should take it to heart. Admit this has, at the least, the strong appearance of an impropriety, and refrain from editing historical articles on the ancient Near Eastern history for a while. That restores the conditions for renewing a bona fides that is now under a shadow. No administrative action need be made, if a simple unilateral gesture to reassure those who are troubled by this incident is taken. There is a certain honour in admitting an error. Nishidani (talk) 09:37, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, there's an editor who edits only for the purpose of following me around, insulting me, and reverting me. I'll tell you what, if that other editor is blocked, then I'll take the suggestion of blocking Tundrabuggy more seriously. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:47, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Name him, provide the diffs, and if the evidence is strong, I would add my name to blocking him, whoever he is. I'm not calling, by the way, for Tundrabuggy to be blocked. I am asking that he stop dragging fantasies of a contemporary I/P agenda into articles on antiquity that have no bearing on Israel, and to lay off being a proxy in a some administrator's attempt to game the system, by tracking Chris0.Nishidani (talk) 21:30, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For those who are asking how I happened to get involved in the Cyrus Cylinder article, it is really quite simple. There was a discussion on Elonka's talk page sometime around Sept 8th [14] on this issue and I commented on it [15] [16] and [17]. I was actually motivated by the response of another univolved user Arcayne who made a contribution here [18] and whose point I agreed with. An administrator, (not Elonka) recognizing my interest in Jewish history, wrote me in email some days later suggesting I look at the page and its Talk page, and asking if I had any associated references. After careful reading of the article and talk page, {see: [19]} I saw what I considered WP:UNDUE and I contributed my first post on the TALK 13th Sept [20] to that effect. I did my first edits on the article on some 10 days later. [21], adding a reference [22], and generally tried to make the article better. As I have explained earlier, this subject has tentacles that stretch through numerous other articles (Cyrus the Great, Battle of Opis, Nabonidus etc) dealing with the same/similar subject matter, some of which I have edited and ChrisO has not -- ie the Nabonidus article. This really has nothing to do with any feuds with ChrisO. It is merely an area in which I have an interest. Other of the articles I work on have nothing whatever to do with him, as I am sure there are other places ChrisO edits where I do not. It is not accurate to say that I "followed" ChrisO anywhere. I know my own motives, and they are targeted to the benefit of Wikipedia, not toward antagonizing any particular editor. Tundrabuggy (talk) 04:45, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is called shooting oneself in the foot, or, though this is not a court of law, 'turning state's evidence'. You contradict yourself, and your explanation only underlines the point Chris0 and others raise.

You say (a) you have an 'interest in Jewish history' and then that (b)the five articles Chris was editing cover 'an area in which (you) have an interest'. The five articles deal only very marginally with Jewish history, if at all (the Battle of Opis? I've never read a mention of it in several volumes on the History of the Jews I have in my library). You then admit that your interest in this area arose from (c) Arcayne's note to Elonka, which was silly in its wildly semi-paranoid assertion that

'Some of these articles - esp. the Cyrus Cylinder article weigh heavily upon the questions of Israeli-Palestinian discussions (notably, the repatriation of the Jews to their homeland, used by some as proof of Jewish rights to populate the area).'

I.e. Arcayne made an absurd suggestion that Chris's editing on ancient Persian history was motivated by some political bias against Israel. The 'reductio ad absurdum' is obvious. If after moving on from the I/P area, I were to edit Chinese history (given my qualifications as an Orientalist), someone who tracks me on I/P articles might start reverting or controverting me on the Han historian Sima Qian because Jews are thought to have begun settlement in China in that dynastic period.

To your credit, while Arcayne's arcane suspicion gave you the 'motivation', you didn't act on it.

You then say some anonymous administrator tipped you off some days later (because you weren't sufficiently motivated?) to look at the Cyrus Cylinder article.

'An administrator, (not Elonka) recognizing my interest in Jewish history, wrote me in email some days later suggesting I look at the page and its Talk page, and asking if I had any associated references.'

Here lies a great impropriety, not ‘’directly’’ ascribable to yourself. You have unwittingly fingered an administrator for the irresponsibility at work here. The reasons are straightforward ones.

Whoever the administrator was (I don't think anyone cares), the suggestion (s)he made was improper, (a) given the well-known conflictual relationship between you and Chris0, to prod you to go to articles he was editing, in his natural area of interest and qualification, was an clear invitation to open those articles up to personal enmities or antagonism. (b) Of the hundreds if not thousands of Jewish editors around who have a natural interest in the history of their people (and it is the most natural thing in the world to be interested in own's own ethnic history), why should that administrator think that you of all people have a particular competence in ancient Persian history? There are numerous editors in here with magnificent linguistic talents, who read Hebrew and Aramaic, who are deeply familiar with the intricacies of Jewish literature, and who are engaged in writing pages on Jewish antiquities. To my knowledge, you do not have these gifts (correct me if I am mistaken). Therefore the administrator was not suggesting you go there because of some recognized expertise in ancient history, Biblical studies, and the recondite intricacies of Persian history. He or she made that private suggestion improperly, to not write 'maliciously'. There is nothing in your wiki record, and in your edits to those pages after you joined Chris0, that indicates your informed suitability to edit articles on ancient Persian history. If one looks at Arcayne's comments, and your follow-up, where you both suggest there is some obscure link of a POV kind between I/P articles and Persian history in 539BC, one twigs to the game, and it is a dangerous one. I.e., that you were emailed because of your 'expertise' in confronting pro-Palestinian POVs, which were manically suspected of polluting wiki articles on ancient history not bearing to any notable degree on Jewish history. Once there you assumed an oppositional role. This is not to say you should agree with Chris0's edits, which are challengeable, as are everybody's. It is to state the obvious. That you transferred the adversarial relationship you had over an I/P article to an article on Ancient History, independently of the merits of Chris0's many contributions to those 5 articles. That cannot be coincidental either.

So while your reply gets you slightly off the hook (you were emailed by an admin suggesting you might look at those articles), you and the administrator reattach yourselves to it. You may not, under this reconstruction you make, have followed Chris0: you followed an anonymous administrator's suggestion to follow him,(an exquisite prevarication) to go an edit pages where he certainly does have the kind of competence wiki ideals asks for (ancient history, classical languages), a competence you lack.

You did so fully aware, as also the administrator must have been, of the inherent confrontational possibilities your presence there risked creating. The administrator could not have been unaware of your conflict with Chris0, nor your expressed sympathy with the view (Arcayne's) that all wiki articles on Middle and Near Eastern history can be construed as reflecting heavily on I/P pages, and thus under suspicion for subtle POV stacking. It is, by your own implicit admission, wikistalking, though by proxy. But you went there wittingly, as though under a semi-official authorization from administration.

I/P articles are notoriously idiotic areas where only masochists or POV warriors thrive. A pity, but the nationalist obsessions are too strong to bring these pages to a mere semblance of NPOV. But that now the infection of tactical biasing seen there is to be extended to, potentially, all articles dealing with the Ancient Near East, one cannot but feel disenchanted.

I have seen in the past two days several lamentable cases of extremely poor POV editing by people who know nothing of the subjects. I have mostly not intervened, precisely because to do so might have the odour of counter-stalking an I/P editor who gives a strong appearance of stalking me. (Jewish terrorism, for example (See Category:Palestinian terrorists and Category:Israeli terrorists). No mention of the Irgun there, because the article defines Jewish terrorism as 'religious' , ergo, the many books that cite the Irgun as a Jewish terrorist organization cannot be used, because the major groups were secularists. Clever gaming of the article by that strategic use in the lead definition of the qualifying adjective 'religious', but completely unencyclopedic, and wholly partisan. People who do not correct errors, but only hang round to defend a POV or prosecute what they consider someone else's should not edit encyclopedias). Attempts by other parties to make the article to wiki standards fail by immediate reversion. One watches, as so often, in silence and leaves the mess, to avoid possible charges of wikistalking. All of us must have many such experiences. One should preferably step into neglected pages to avoid this suspicion, unless invited as someone with specific, recognized ability for area knowledgeability and competence. When the bait was hung before you, you failed to avoid the obvious implication of conflict of interest with the encyclopedia’s aims, i.e. writing to the article, not writing against a known adversary who is recognized for his competence in that area (many of the primary sources on Persian history are in classical Greek, and Chris0 is a classicist). You didn't hold back, but accepted the challenge, having declared your belief that anti-Israel-POV gaming is part of all ancient history articles where a Jewish connection might be present. Blame the admin concerned, but not to recognize the risk was a failure of judgement on your part and tantamount to wikistalking. Nishidani (talk) 15:03, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is no contradiction here. The Battle of Opis was one of the connections from the original article the Cyrus Cylinder. That finally went under content-dispute resolution, though it is not clear how that has been resolved as yet. Regarding Arcayne's comment, it simply motivated me to comment, as I did, including finding a source to support it. It is not necessarily the case that administrator was aware of the earlier (editing) conflict between ChrisO and myself, since (s)he (I am not sure myself) was not involved in it in any way. I am not sure it was all that well-known throughout Wiki. I did not edit for some time for the very reasons that you have brought up, simply read and watched, and perhaps I should not have edited since ChrisO was involved there, but I did so for honorable reasons; these were the reasons supported by others on the TALK pages [23][24][25][26][27] (though obviously not all) and there was nothing inherently wrong with having done so. It is better for the encyclopedia that articles read in a balanced and neutral way. That was (and continues to be) my only purpose. Tundrabuggy (talk) 16:58, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I hate to press this, and I will admit my bias. I don't edit articles I haven't read up on and (2) I have a degree in classical Greek, and can see where much of Chris0's edits are coming from, since they reflect the same training I had. I think having people with this background working on articles dealing with classical antiquity a huge boon to the project, and I dislike seeing the equanimity of a scholar troubled by piddling charges of bias, when he is on his own terrain, and the critic is a raw outsider with some generic curiosity. We are all biased. Only some are trained to be aware of it, while most are used to seeing it in other people.

You haven't shown the slightest familiarity with the historiography of antiquity, have no qualifications in the area, are taken by a risible Montypythonesque fringe theory about I/P implications in the battle of Opis, and followed Chris0 there under advice from an anonymous admin. To say now that the admin may not be aware of the earlier conflict is disingenuous. For there is absolutely not a skerrick of evidence in your editing record to suggest to any admin that you in particular would have useful indeed distinctive (compared to any of a few dozen Jewish editors here) abilities to review the complex historical evidence on the Cyrus articles. The only imaginable motivation for such administrative advice is that of gaming the system on Cyrus articles, and building numbers to engage in POV wars, where they are least appropriate. The editor who contacted you, by your own admission, must have known two things. Chris was editing Cyrus articles, (since the admin who drew your attention to them must have been following the edits there) and your record, since he hardly picked your name out of a hat. There is absolutely no trace in your prior record that you would be qualified to assess and contribute to Cyrus articles. There is an abundant amount of evidence in your immediate prior record that you had a substantial conflict with Chris0 on Mohammad al-Durrah. The conclusion is obvious, or otherwise some very weird people, with phenomenally quixotic mental associations that privilege the aleatory over rational connections, have been elected to administrative functions.

You made a naive remark on the Bible as an historical source, implying that it has a myth component and an historical component. Strip away the former, and you are left with the latter. This was a respectable view sometime from the late 1830s onwards for a good part of the 19th century. No historian of contemporary repute would say that, without very attentive qualification. For myth itself is an index of an historical mentalité, is itself subject to the stresses of historical change, while what 'historical' facts we might have are not 'objective' but traces in earlier documents, with their POVs, that have to be deconstructed hermeneutically in order to (a) ascertain the mind and cultural set of the author(s) and (b)deduce how this cast of perspective influenced their representations of events we can only know by inference from the texts (a vicious circle), or by cross-reference to independent archeological evidence of a corroborative character. Classicists are trained in these subtleties of reading, and, with regard for example, to the 'propaganda' quarrel, all ancient historians, biblical or classical, are propagandists for a particular world-view, political perspective, cultural outlook, ethnic interest, class bias, etc. etc. That is why, ideally, unless one is well-trained in how to sieve through the labyrinthine intricacies of source evaluation, generic amateurish participation carries risks. It is hard enough for scholars to sort this out, without someone with a vague interest in 'things Jewish' to rush at a series of articles and challenge systematically someone who, at least, is trained to evaluate this kind of complexity in the evidence. I've nothing personally against you. I think your behaviour in this stresses an editor who has gifts you lack. They are relatively few and far between, people who combine advanced linguistic and historical training, and Wiki needs every last one of them. POV sleuths are tuppence a dozen, and generally (not referring to yourself but the problem in I/P articles) fit David McLellan's description of an ideologist, someone who can see everybody's ideology but his own. Nishidani (talk) 17:55, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's called logorrhea in the technical literature. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:49, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, let's unpack this a bit. I got involved in this series of articles following a general request for input from Dbachmann here [28]. From Dbachmann's comments, I was expecting some backlash from Iranian nationalists who idolise Cyrus the Great. I was not expecting a Jewish nationalist/fundamentalist backlash, though of course I knew about Cyrus's reputed liberation of the Jews from their Babylonian captivity. In editing these articles, I've done nothing more than reflecting faithfully and accurately what mainstream historians say.

Tundrabuggy has acknowledged being canvassed by an unnamed administrator. I have a pretty good idea who this was and I know for a fact that the same person has canvassed other editors, who he thought would be on his side, to support him - some of those canvassed haven't been very happy about it. Tundrabuggy has never previously shown any interest in ancient Persian history. On the other hand, as his contributions show, he has been highly active on articles of interest to Israeli politics. In fact, he joined Wikipedia as a single purpose account to push a conspiracy theorist POV on Muhammad al-Durrah immediately after a French court judgment relating to that case. That's how I first came into contact/conflict with him. To be fair, he has widened his editing interests since then.

It's obvious that Tundrabuggy was canvassed off-wiki to intervene in the ancient Persian articles not because of any experience or expertise that he has in this field - he has none - but because the canvassing administrator saw him as an ideological ally. This was quite clearly an act of stealth canvassing and votestacking, both forms of disruptive and inappropriate canvassing. It's very disappointing that an administrator should be behaving this way. Unfortunately some people seem to think that having a sysop bit exempts them from the normal rules of conduct. I hope the person responsible (yes, I know who you are) takes the hint and starts behaving like a responsible admin. As for Tundrabuggy - you've been exploited by your recruiter. In future, I suggest that you avoid playing into other people's hands like that; please don't let them take advantage of you. -- ChrisO (talk) 12:39, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's quite simple at this point. The evidence he was canvassed by an administrator to follow Chris0 to those articles is admitted. Tundrabuggy should simply withdraw from editing that kind of article where Chris0 has an academic interest as a classicist. For I/P articles, he should be free to roam at will. This should be a matter of gentlemanly withdrawal on his part from that area, since on his own evidence, he went there under an administrative indication, and not spontaneously, which mitigates the infraction, which remains one of wikistalking, and is proven verbis suis.Nishidani (talk) 21:40, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was not recruited to perpetuate a feud with ChrisO nor for known expertise in the area, but for much the same reason that Chris was originally solicited, ie for his particular pov, as he pointed out in his link above at the FTN: [29]. There had edit-warring going on at the web page due to the perceived lack of balance. It was hoped that I had the knowledge and information to back up my comments at Elonka's web page and thus help make the article more neutral. I have not touted any particular expertise here at wiki because as Jayjg pointed out earlier, being anonymous users, none of our "credentials" are verifiable. Thus it is necessary for people to actually look at my edits to see if there is merit in them.

The block being considered below seems to me to be an extension of the one attempted on three other users here [30] all lumped together as "Iranian nationalists," as my editing has been tagged by ChrisO as having a "Jewish fundamentalist undercurrent." While I have come to appreciate the difficulties with User:Ariobarza, I don't believe that the wholesale blocking and banning of those opposed to one's POV is a productive method of problem solving.

It would have been far better, as I had been considering in recent days, to develop an RfC on the issue to determine if a particular POV was actually getting undue weight rather than this strategy to block users that espouse one side or another in a dispute. Tundrabuggy (talk) 13:42, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: 1-month topic ban for Tundrabuggy

Proposed: Tundrabuggy is prohibited from editing in the topic area of ancient Persia for the month of November, 2008, due to abovementioned stalking and topical problems. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:12, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Summary

People have requested below that some diffs be provided to provide info on this issue. Key points:

• Tundrabuggy has a prior history of conflict with me due to our mutual involvement in Muhammad al-Durrah, an article relating to contemporary Israeli politics.
• Tundrabuggy has since followed me to five pages on ancient Persian history in which he was not previously involved, but involved himself very shortly after I did - Cyrus cylinder, Cyrus the Great, Battle of Opis, Kaveh Farrokh and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Battle of the Tigris.
• He has been canvassed twice by editors in dispute with me: first by an unnamed administrator who "wrote me in email some days later suggesting I look at the [Cyrus cylinder] page and its Talk page", [31], second by the now-blocked Ariobarza [32]. He responded to both canvasses by involving himself in those disputes.
• He has accused me of "pushing a particular pov" [33] and of being part of a "campaign" [34] to push a "pro-Palestinian nationalist perspective" of ancient Babylonian history [35]. Many other editors regard this as ridiculous, as do I.
• He constantly assumes bad faith of myself and engages in sophistry and unreasonable behaviour, indicating that he has a personal issue with me; see this exchange.
• Other editors and I have asked him to desist from this pattern of behaviour. [36], [37], [38]. Instead of responding to these concerns, he has dismissed them out of hand. [39]
• He appears to be intent on treating Wikipedia as a battleground, sustaining personal conflicts and importing ideological issues into new areas. I have left him alone since our conflict over Muhammad al-Durrah; he has not reciprocated, but seems to think that he has to "police" my edits. -- ChrisO (talk) 12:53, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support:

• Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:12, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• See my comments below. ChrisO (talk) 12:01, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. A classically obvious example of our need to protect expert contributors from ideology-driven ignoramuses. That is one of the most urgent quality issues that Wikipedia faces, IMO. Bishonen | talk 12:15, 2 November 2008 (UTC).[reply]

Oppose:

• I'm not seeing the stalking issue. I've been following the edits of all three of them for some time, and despite the rhetoric from ChrisO and Nishidani, I'm not seeing any major issues with Tundrabuggy's work. --Elonka 22:37, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Not seeing any on-going issue. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:49, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments:

The evidence won't go stale. Why not wait a few days and start a topic ban discussion on WP:AN when things may be calmer. I would prefer to see the evidence presented in a clear fashion, rather than rely on people new to the discussion to dig through an ANI thread trying to work out what has happened. Topic bans are, in my opinion, best started in a new venue, not started from an ANI thread. In theory, the result of the topic ban discussion should be the same, regardless of where and when it is held, so why not see if the result really would be the same if held in a few days time on AN, with a careful presentation of the evidence? If the discussion remains here, could someone do an executive summary rather than rely on the phrase "abovementioned stalking and topical problems" to refer people to the above? i.e. distill out the most relevant diffs and evidence. Carcharoth (talk) 22:36, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with Carcharoth. This proposal won't get full consideration because editors will not want to wade through a long, boring, disorganized thread. It would be far better to provide a concise summary of the evidence on a new thread. Jehochman ^Talk 08:35, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I happen to be against a one month ban topic, which seems punitive and extreme. I just don't want him trailing a competent, trained historical editor into areas Tundra knows nothing about, but has lynx-eyes for all potential POVs he reads as 'anti-Israeli', a farcical position. I twice wrote as much, (oppose) until I saw two remarks, in successive edit conflicts last night which gave personal opinions, without evidence, and that simply declare 'I support Tundrabuggy'. I therefore withdrew my comment. Leave aside my own analysis of what Tundrab.'s own words mean, if analysed (what Elonka calls 'rhetoric'). By all means give a snap summary of the gist on the other administrative page. But by his own admission he was a proxy in vote-stacking organized by a canvassing admin. This is not a partisan matter, but simply remarking on the obvious, which has to be construed 'rhetorically' (i.e. at length) because some editors refuse to note the obvious meaning of words, giving the impression this is a 'political' fight over I/P POVs. Since Tundrabuggy is convinced there is a political bias in all I/P editors who write on ancient ME history, not take some measure, here or elsewhere, is to open up these obscure pages to the kind of one-eyed POV-sleuthing that makes contemporary I/P articles an unreadable mess. He should simply not edit where Chris0 works on ancient historical articles not dealing directly with the history of Palestine, until at least he shows he has read sufficiently to have a reasonably solid knowledge of the area. Nishidani (talk) 09:53, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oops. This is absolutely incorrect: "But by his own admission he was a proxy in vote-stacking organized by a canvassing admin." I was simply recruited to "Cyrus Cylinder" by an admin. The "vote" for the Battle of Tigris article was solicited by the author, not by any admin, and I take responsibility for my "vote" for the reasons I gave earlier. I have however come to see that as a mistake, but it has nothing to do with any administrator. Tundrabuggy (talk) 13:51, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would support a ban - preferably longer than a month, but that's a good start. Tundrabuggy consistently refuses to assume good faith on my part, which makes working with him unnecessarily difficult. Read this exchange for a case in point. He clearly has personal difficulties with working with me as well as an aggressively ideological approach. He responded to an improper off-wiki canvass. Since then he's actively gone to several articles in which I've been involved, deliberately following me from article to article and creating conflict. He's already been counseled several times that this is inappropriate behaviour. Since he has repeatedly disregarded the advice of others and requests to desist, something stronger needs to be tried. -- ChrisO (talk) 12:01, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(added) I've added a summary of key points and diffs above per Jehochman's suggestion. However, I think it should be kept in one place rather than splitting it into multiple threads. -- ChrisO (talk) 12:54, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have no other recourse but to ask for admins' intervention in the edit war at Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate). Over the past week I've tried everything to stop the revert war with User: Kuban kazak, unfortunately none of them worked, he rejected all attempts at compromise and continues to revert even referenced text. This is the user with multiple blocks for edit warring, the last being just in July of this year. Since then he got several warnings from users and admins for edit warring[40][41][42], and yet he continues to wage edit wars not just in that article but in others as well. I understand that admins cannot deal with every content dispute, but this has gone above that. This is a pattern that would not change and it's become a real nuisance. I would appreciate if admins could have a look at this.--Hillock65 (talk) 16:10, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well all I can say is that Hillock65 has in the past year with the exception of interwikis and the odd article Grégoire Orlyk, has limited his participation on wikipedia to edit warring with me. Please look: here, if we filter away the interwiki edits:

• Zaporozhian Cossacks (no additions on Hillock's behalf, but nearly a year of arguing whether the term destroyed was applicable, in result by majority of users, Hillock failed to add his opinion there)
• Zaporizhian Sich (again no additions, same edit war, result Hillock gave up)
• Cossacks - A huge dispute over the lead, where Hillock attempted to first push through a WP:FRINGE theory of modern Ukrainian Cossacks, and then continued an edit war for nearly month about how the historical aspect of Ukrainian Cosascks should be given a greater portion than others.
• Mukachevo, there was a dispute on the name, yet Hillock pushed to have the official spelling added into the article, again failed.
• Kuban Cossacks, Ukrainians in Russia, Template:History of Ukraine the irony is that when I make an edit, to any such article, Hillock, always WP:STALKing me wound follow on and revert me. On the second example he got caught by 3RR by being completely careless. (Again there was a discussion in the archives about it).
• The biggest piece of evidence for the above is that during my wikibreak from 5 August 2008 to 15 September 2008 Hillock made no more than two dozens edits. Yet the moment I came back, so was he. His new victims are Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) and History of Christianity in Ukraine.

All in all he is first a WP:SOAPboxing nightmare! Second a ruthless POV warrior, with whom its impossible to have any consensus. However the biggest irony about him, is that unlike some active POV-pushers and stalkers like User:Piotrus, Hillock's contribution to main article space is minute by any measure. Again in all his time on wikipedia one can postulate about no more than 10 significant contributions to article space, and about 1000 reverts and talk page rants.

The biggest irony here, is that he accuses me of being a Russian nationalist anti-Ukrainian editor, yet out of six barnstars four were given by Ukrainian editors.

With respect to the issue above, the usual case scenario, is to ask for a WP:THIRD and follow through a normal WP:DR, but for Hillock its important to raise as much noise as possible, and its too bad for him there is no Wikipedia:Request for block page. --Kuban Cossack (По-балакаем?) 16:38, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Notwithstanding personal attacks, the issue here is not his or mine contribution to Wikipedia, but rather this user's never ending edit wars, which is easily checked by looking at his edit history and history of blocks. He has selected a patttern of stalking me and starting edit wars whenever I edit. Anyone interested can easily check him following me in articles where he never even edited before [43][44][45][46][47]. I know arguing with him over this is a waste of time. I'll just wait for someone impartial to have a look at this. Enough is enough. --Hillock65 (talk) 16:49, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Let's see adding Russian language to Nuclear power plants is not a revert, and in particular South_Ukraine_Nuclear_Power_Plant Hillock's attempt to remove the passage was reverted by a third party. Ivan Bohun, was not a revert, unlike Hillock's but a correction of facts, I then went on and edited all the other Hetmans of Ukraine, and nowhere did I add Russian language, but copyedited many of them. History_of_Christianity_in_Ukraine and Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church contrary to his statements of he never even edited before were partially written by me, I can't claim all the credit by the fact that others have added before and after me, but both articles have been in my to do list and on my watchlist since autumn 2005! Anyone can check the history. Given the above statement, apart from a POV-pusher and an edit warrior, Hillock is also a liar! Spreading disinformation is a usual trait more examples of which I can easily provide. --Kuban Cossack (По-балакаем?) 16:56, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The original complaint "I have no other recourse but to ask for admins' intervention in the edit war" points to where the problem lies. I see no attempt to file an article RfC, asking for a third opinion or do any other thing normally expected in a regular content dispute. Hillock and Kuban are both useful content writers who frequently disagree in article disputes. Nothing unusual in that. However, I am troubled but what seems like Hillock's obsession with Kuban and persistent attempts to resort to block-shopping to "win" his content disputes with this editor. Hillock follows Kuban's contributions and seems to look for every occasion to block-shop against Kuban (last time he has done it about two weeks ago.) This thread could be just as well named "User:Hillock65 and never ending edit wars" as Hillock's actions is at least no better than Kuban's. I checked the talk pages of the articles in question and Kuban seems willing to discuss. So, I don't see as an ANI matter, users should be advised to seek consensus and compromise, and if unable to reach it, they should ask for more input rather than shop for blocks. --Irpen 20:03, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Even a cursory confirmation of the diffs posted confirms that, despite how Irpen attempts to frame this issue above, this is not a content dispute as Wikipedians understand the term. There's evidence of an interpersonal conflict; there's evidence of WP:STALKing; there's evidence of WP:OWN, and there's evidence of assumption of bad faith. For an example, let's consider this edit made by Kuban kazak. First thing to be noticed about it is that it is a partial revert of an edit by Hillock65 about 18 hours earlier. The second thing to be noticed is that in the whole Wikipedia edit history of this article, this is the only edit by Kuban kazak. What do these two facts give us? I submit that by Occam's razor, this gives us a clear episode of wikistalking.

But there's more. Consider Kuban kazak's edit summary in this partial revert: Nothing wrong with this... Such an edit summary attached to an user's sole edit so soon after Hillock65's exercise of editorial judgment -- one could debate it, but that's what the talk page is for -- smacks, to me, of deliberately searching for things that are wrong with Hillock65's edits. In order words, it's not just wikistalking; it's also a clear case of assuming bad faith, if not battleground creation. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 22:23, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Request for intervention

"However the biggest irony about him, is that unlike some active POV-pushers and stalkers like User:Piotrus..." - this is a clear violation of WP:NPA/WP:SLANDER and such, and I assume the community will address this.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:34, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Piotrus, I sort of wondered who will pop up here immediately after my post. I guessed right. --Irpen 21:01, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, Piotrus was advised to come here by an admin, having already filed a complaint on AE hours ago [48]. --Folantin (talk) 21:06, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Irpen, will you please apologise for your assumption of bad faith that has turned out factually incorrect? Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 22:03, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What "assumptions"? Kuban kazak states that some users (Piotrus among them) is following the contributions of the target editors all around Wikipedia. I don't think bringing up any names here was useful. It may have been unhelpful in sense of bloating the discussion on the narrow issue but as far as facts are concerned, my own experience with Piotrus is that he is one of the users who regularly does that sort of thing (see here, for example. So, how is stating what seems obvious from the Wikipedia actions becomes a "slander"? I wonder who else will follow me into this discussion now but this is all beside the point. The original complaint was that the content disputed between Kuban and Hillock needs an admin intervention skipping any usual steps used to resolve content disputes. Then people totally unrelated to this start magically popping up blowing and expanding this simple and narrow issue to use them for their own agendas. This is a text-book example of WP:BATTLE conduct. --Irpen 22:36, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

From the context, it is clear that you accused Piotrus of stalking you, and even smugly take credit for the assumption. From Folantin's post, it's clear that you were incorrect in raising such an accusation. As the primary promoter of the so-called 'sophisticated incivility' doctrine, you know as well as anybody that an insult needs not to be spelt out to be uncivil. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 22:45, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Natalia Korolevska

I never edit with most of you (not interested in Ukrainian politics?, strange it so much fun and a lot of female Ukrainian politicians are very good looking!) but still I think the last edits here are not helping, if not making things worse... This seems only a problem between Kuban Cossack & Hillock65. I don't see a need to drag all wikipedians in it especialy if the suggest nothing to fix the problems between Kuban Cossack & Hillock65. Mariah-Yulia (talk) 23:31, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The behavior of Kuban Cossack is nothing new. I think he should be warned for incivility and placed to this "Digwuren" list. Biophys (talk) 02:23, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse - this is what the discretionary sanctions for EE are for.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:41, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is not completely on-topic, but I can't believe that Kuban Cossack is being threteaned with sanctions while for months nothing is ever done about, say, Jo0doe (talk), whose behavior in terms of never ending edit wars, disruptions of articles, etc. is 100 times more egregious than what Kuban Cossack is accused of. Kuban Cossack and I often - indeed usually - take different sides on issues but despite some instances when things have gotten "hot" in general we have been able to collaborate very effectively on articles such asUkrainian Russophiles or Danubian Sich. This is so much the case that when I recently created the article Conversion of Chelm Eparchy one of the first things I did was invite Kuban Cossack to make contributions to that article. I am frankly floored that Kuban Cossack has been sanctioned and may be here when a truly disruptive editor such as Jo0doe is allowed to do his thing with impunity. Faustian (talk) 13:52, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I completely agree with Faustian and would like to ad that I got the idea that Kuban Cossack is getting targeted because of his controversial userpage, don't judge a man on his looks, but on his behaviour. When dealing with Kuban Cossack I found him being very collaborative while I (also) often - indeed usually - take different sides on issues then him. Mariah-Yulia (talk) 16:09, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Actually, I agree with both you of. Sanctions against Mr Cossack and Mr Jo0doe are probably warranted. Moreschi (talk) 22:01, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have placed this elsewhere, and will repost it word-for-word here....

Whilst I am reasonably new to this area of WP editing, I have obviously taken the time to familiarise myself with others who edit in this area, their interests, their style, etc; and I can say I am familiar with KK's edits on mainspace. I am not completely familiar with Hillock65. I have gone thru the previous "attempts" at mediation also, and have come to the conclusion that this is not warranted for Arbcom.

Hillock refers to an RFC and Medcab above. If we look at the article in question, Podilsko-Voskresenska Line, it appears that KK and Akhristov worked on this together (with some edit warring), and the dispute that arose was whether Russian language names are suitable for "Ukrainian" topics. Hillock prior to that dispute doesn't appear to have edited any articles relating to Metro topics before this, and it appears that his intervention was due to this message left for Hillock65 on the uk:wiki (in which he calls KK a rabid Russian nationalist), so it appears that Hillock65 had no place in that dispute, except for his being canvassed by another editor to get himself involved; the dispute being hijacked as a result. Before Hillock initiated the medcom request, he filed an RFC against KK, which appears not to have been anything but an attempt to corner and get rid of an opponent.

The AN/I comment by KK may demonstrate that Hillock's editing pattern on en:wiki is somewhat limited to interwiki links and perhaps stalking of KK's edits; for example: [49], [50], [51]....the list goes on, but a pattern has emerged; KK would make an edit to an article, which he would be familiar with. Hillock would immediately revert, provoking an edit war, and takes an uncompromising stance; for example Talk:Ukrainians in Russia#Kuban section and neutrality when KK presented sourced material to Hillock, he removed it completely, not even bothering to check it; when User:Faustian re-presented it to Hillock, he accepted KKs version. It appears the only way Hillock can compromise with KK is when a third party (often an Ukrainian editor) repeats what KK has said. Thus, are we to say that it is KKs additions that are not justified and warranted?

KK has a huge number of contributions, has written countless articles from scratch, and for that, despite sometimes holding opposite viewpoints on history and politics to many Ukrainian editors, he has been able to get on perfectly with the majority of them. Indeed, as KK pointed out on AN/I out of the six barnstars, four were given by Ukrainians, that is at a time that Hillock was unable to get on with any editor (including non-Russian ones) that opposed him. At the same time, KK has been a somewhat stabilising force in the Ukraine-Russia area over the edits of his that I have familiarised myself with.

In regards to the edits picked out by Hillock above, using Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant as an example, I have reverted Hillock's removal of the Russian name out of the lead; this appears to be a major thing with Hillock, in that perfectly legitimate insertions of Russian language names are removed, in what appears to me to be a desire to rid legitimate entries of Russian from Ukrainian-related articles. So I think, that this arbitration request should be looking at some severe issues that Hillock has, instead of simply being an attack on and an attempt to get rid of an opponent that is clearly what he is trying to do. --Russavia ^{Dialogue Stalk me} 03:27, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I did advice Hillock65 this summer (see:[52]) to be more cooperative with Russian editors (Kuban in particular). I gave 2 of the 6 barnstars to Kuban and despite my deep affection for Ukraine and my dear friends there (and 1 from there). I'm not a Ukrainian. See section "languages" on my userpage. But I consider it a compliment you see me as one ;) -- Mariah-Yulia (talk) 21:28, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to referee between Hillock and Kuban at Talk:Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) but soon lost a clue what they argued about, in my view (although I know little about any Orthodox Church) I didn't see an attemp by Kuban to "Russification" it, quite the oppisite, he could have (according to wikipedia infobox rules) removed "Moscow Patriarchate" from the infobox (making the "other" Ukrainian Orthodox Church look illegal) but didn't. Mariah-Yulia (talk) 21:44, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd just like to note that apart from past uncivil and childish behaviour from KK (on political subjects), he's apparently falsified sources not too long ago during an edit dispute. He cited a book that had no information about said subject at all. I don't know if this is the right place to bring that up, but it made me lose a lot of good faith in him. Grey Fox (talk) 20:47, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Anonymous user 65.254.165.214 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has periodically vandalized the Negima!? article by blanking for several days now. What can be done against this user? This guy has to be stopped ASAP. - 上村七美 (Nanami-chan) | talkback | contribs 02:58, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:AIV? John Reaves 07:22, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I tried that moments before this message, but they only deal with recent vandals, not those who have done so hours after the report. And check out the recent edit history of the article. It seems that those in the 92.8.*.* and 92.10.*.* are backing him up as well. The article now currently on semi-protection, but I feel that its protection should be longer. - 上村七美 (Nanami-chan) | talkback | contribs 08:38, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You are probably right. If a few days protection doesn't stop them, come back here after it expires and ask for a longer one. Theresa Knott | token threats 09:19, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You can also check out the protection log and the edit history. The blanking phenomenon has been going on for almost a year and a half now, possibly by the same person across a lot of IP addresses. I was hoping for a longer protection than the three month semi-protection imposed on the article last year. Is it possible for this article to be semi-protected indefinitely? - 上村七美 (Nanami-chan) | talkback | contribs 11:45, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is technically possible but not something I'd be willing to do with this level of vandalism. Theresa Knott | token threats 19:16, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just seeking insight, Theresa...may I ask why that's not a good idea? Tide rolls (talk) 03:34, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Semiprotection prevents unregistered and newly registered editors from editing an article. That's all of them not just the ones who are vandalising. Now most people edit as IP addresses at first and everyone is newly registered at one time. Preventing these people from editing articles does two things. 1) It makes their editing experience less than satisfactory and may therefore fail to encourage them from becoming regular editors and 2) deprives the article of the edit that they would have made and who knows if they'll bother to come back to it when they become autoconfirmed? For this reason semiprotection should, in my view, be used sparingly when other antivandalism efforts fail. It's a temporary solution used to deal with a situation. Now unfortunately some articles, (politicians, some sexual articles etc) are vandalised so frequently and by so many different people, that permanent semiprotection is the only option. It's not ideal, but it is better than an article being vandalised 20 times a day. This article does not fall into that category IMO. Theresa Knott | token threats 19:45, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Problem is that in previous times after protection on the article expired, vandalism started again within less than 24 hours. I know there was surely hate against this anime (I know one), but stating this by blanking the article or vandalizing it is really an unacceptable action. But hunting down the instigators by the forums in which they gather is really a difficult task as well.

In addition, the Negima!? article in the English Wikipedia is the only one targetted. Its counterpart articles in the German, French, Polish, Japanese, and Thai Wikipedias are virtually untouched by vandals.

In a related note, in about thirteen hours or so from now, the protection on the article is about to expire. I won't be online by then to report anything to you and so will Skier Dude, the admin who imposed the protection, to do the necessary action (he said he will be out "Friday PM - Sunday AM"; not sure if that's US EST or GMT). The question is: Will anyone be kind enough to protect the article (for a period of time longer than a week) once the vandalism starts again, or at least list it in WP:RFPP? - 上村七美 (Nanami-chan) | talkback | contribs 13:26, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

After I tried intervening with several baseball card articles, Libro0 has on more than one occasion branded me a sockpuppet of Baseball Card Guy (see: Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Baseball Card Guy) and has engaged in several passive aggressive attacks on me. His latest attack [53] where he says: "facade account(YRE) conveniently comes to the rescue of a contributor(BCG) whose edits are all reverts of my edits whenever he is in a bit of trouble". I have had it with these two who have wasted people's time with this nonsense (for example see: Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-09-04 1950s Topps). I have to constantly check up on these two to see if they are slandering me again instead of doing things that are constructive. Can we just ban these two and get on with making an encyclopedia? Your Radio Enemy (talk) 15:10, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As an observer of this WP:EDITWAR on various articles notably 1950s Topps and 1960s Topps I've seen vicious verbal attacks on Libro0 (talk · contribs) by Baseball Card Guy (talk · contribs) here:[54] and I filed a WP:3RR report the other day to no avail here:[55] Frankly administrators need to take action and stop these two from continuing to tie up every article they touch. Abuse, calling names, political slurs, you name it and this guy does it:Baseball Card Guy (talk · contribs) - why hasn't he been blocked or even warned by an administrator about his abusive and appalling behavior? Modernist (talk) 23:22, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My god, I remember making my comments at the SSP reports however long ago that was... it seems like an eternity! Anyway, I would be totally shocked if YRE were a sock. On the other hand, the SSP is probably worthy of a second look... I have not looked at it exhaustively, but there is some suggestive evidence that makes me think Baseball Card Guy has done some socking in the past. I do not believe YRE is one of those socks, but the SSP could use a second look, maybe even a CU. --Jaysweet (talk) 19:24, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

After looking into this issue, it is readily apparent that Baseball Card Guy (talk · contribs · block log) has issues with WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA, and as a result has been blocked for 31 hours for disruptive editing. Additionally since the last dozen-plus edits to 1950s Topps have all been part of a slow-motion edit war, I fully protected the article for ten days. Finally, since SSPs are difficult to adequately resolve in a complicated situation like this (and largely only serve to inflame tensions), I would strongly encourage the parties involved to either let it drop, or file a WP:RFCU if they have sufficient evidence. --Kralizec! (talk) 21:12, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure what to do here. There is a user, RMHED, who is nominating a lot of BLP's for AFD. (Please note, I am talking about BLP's where there is NO controversy about the content, not speedy material either). I don't think he is doing this in bad faith, but I think he is seriously misapplying policy and causing problems because of it. The issue is that he seems to simply take every bio that doesn't have sources, and put them to AFD without searching. This means everyone else is forced to go dig up sources, add them, vote, OR the article will get deleted. This seems to violate WP:DEADLINE. It would seem that nominating an article where there are obvious sources available, but not in the article, would be an abuse. In otherwords, if you nom an article, you are at least morally required to make a good faith effort to see if sources are available, particularly if you are flooding AFD. The reasoning we are hearing is "If you wish the unsourced BLP content to stay then please source it, I'm certainly not inclined to do so" which violates WP:V as well. I am not sure what to do, but I don't want to keep following an editor down just to "fix" his AFD's. I have tried to politely explain this to him, but he seems to not care. If we are going to nominate every article that is unsourced (but sourceable), then why do we have tags? PHARMBOY ( moo ) ( plop ) 01:18, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• All BLP's should be adequately sourced or deleted, any part of a BLP that is unsourced should be removed per policy. RMHED (talk) 01:55, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• • RMHED, let me make sure I totally understand you: Are you saying that every BLP that has no sources at all should be deleted in whole, as well? PHARMBOY ( moo ) ( plop ) 01:59, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes Pharmboy reasonable time should be given say 5 days at AfD for interested parties to source it if they so wish. If after that time the article remains unsourced then it should be deleted. If it is partially sourced then that portion should be kept and the unsourced parts removed. RMHED (talk) 02:08, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • If that is the case, then a blp/source tag should automatically start an AFD discussion, no? There would be absolutely never a reason to use that tag. Why does it even exist? This flies in the face of wp:deadline, and even wp:v, which doesn't say everything must be perfect on day one, it just must be possible to verify. PHARMBOY ( moo ) ( plop ) 02:17, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Uh, yes, isn't that the way Wikipedia works? Tan | 39 02:02, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

didn't we have this conversation, about this editor, a couple of weeks ago? Let me ask the same question as I did then. What percentage of the articles he is sending to AFD are being deleted? if it's 90%, then I say we have no problem. If it's 10% and he persists in sending articles to afd, we have a problem. _{obviously I don't expect the numbers to be like that but you get the idea.} --Cameron Scott (talk) 01:27, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

He has 20 up currently in the past couple days, two have been snowball keeps, and one closed as no consensus. The other 17 we'll have to see what happens, though none currently have a delete consensus. Wizardman 01:32, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've looked at them and I've noticed that a lot are easily sourceable. I've fallen into this trap a couple times — nominating something for AfD without sufficiently checking for souces. I know he's trying to act in good faith, but I agree that this is of concern. I'll wait to see how the rest turn out before commenting, but it's not a good sign when he's 0 for 20 in getting a consensus. (Unless he just has that same curse that User:Synergy does.) Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells • Otter chirps • HELP)} 01:36, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Where the problem with an article is a lack of references, I think an editor should make a good-faith effort to find references before nominating an article for deletion. It doesn't take much time to copy-and-paste the title of an article into the search box at http://news.google.com/archivesearch , and refusing to do so shows a lack of respect for other editors. -- Eastmain (talk) 01:37, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• On that point I agree. While it's true that some of us aren't that good at finding sources (you seem to be really good at it, Eastmain), I haven't really seen any proof that RHMED is even looking for sources. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells • Otter chirps • HELP)} 01:39, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Before the last few days, he hasn't nominated anything for deletion that I can see from looking. I am trying to gentley get across to him that he may be radically misunderstanding his responsibility as the nom of an AFD, and his actual words seem to indicate that he thinks "well, if it isn't sourced, it should be deleted", period. It isn't about faith, and I don't want anyone blocked. I think he just grossly misunderstands the process and was hoping someone could convince him of this fact. As another editor pointed out, he almost seems to be making a WP:POINT in the way he is doing it. Some of these articles literally took 30 seconds to find sources for. PHARMBOY ( moo ) ( plop ) 01:43, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Point In Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Erkin_Alptekin he is basically saying that he is challenging any BLP that is unsourced, thus, that makes it contentious, thus, that makes it an AFD candidate or subject to the content being deleted. Please tell me I am reading that wrong. If that is what he is saying, then WP:POINT does apply and my faith would be getting a little stretched. PHARMBOY ( moo ) ( plop ) 01:53, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• That is what he is saying but is isn't strictly a WP:POINT form of disruption. "wikt:Contentious" doesn't just mean what wiktionary says it does. It means (for our purposes) anything liable to cause debate. We don't need to source that the world is round. We need to source that Person X is notable for act Y. We need to source that Joe Schmoe is an elected official from Winnipeg. These are things that require sources if we are to say them. They are contentious. Protonk (talk) 02:01, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• RHMED is no stranger to skirting the border of WP:POINT, and these seem to be following down that path. The logic goes: WP:BLP says that in no uncertain terms, contentious, unsourced material can and should be deleted without comment. However, RHMED sees that attempts to delete, blank or nominate unsourced BLP's results in strong pushback. So he nominated (I assume) a bunch to force the point that BLP requires one thing but commong practice results in another. I don't think it is actually WP:POINT, because he seems to believe that BLP would dictate that these articles be deleted (in other words, POINT requires that we show intent to disrupt for the sake of making a statement, here he may be disrupting because he feels a certain way about BLP), but honestly it is tiresome. I don't want to roundly repudiate him because he's basically right: we have a community practice about new articles that stands in obvious contrast to the supposedly widely accepted BLP policy. RHMED's actions aren't going to help close that schism, though. Protonk (talk) 01:57, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Forget WP:BLP (and this is the only time you'll catch me saying that): per WP:V, "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material." Somebody has inserted this material; RHMED is trying to remove it. The burden then falls to the people wishing to retain the article to verify the information in the articles. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 02:03, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • The policy says "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic". That isn't the case here. wp:v says an article must be verifiable, not verified. WP:DEADLINE says it doesn't have to done today. WP:BLP says if there is any controversy, remove that part of the content post haste. Nominating articles without even searching for sources is not in policy. PHARMBOY ( moo ) ( plop ) 02:06, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • That's a separate clause from the one that deals removal of material. As for WP:DEADLINE, I think a more appropriate read is that we don't need an article today; we can afford to wait until the sourcing's in place. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 02:14, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • That is fine logic to use when creating an article (and I use it personally), but when the article already exists, are we not just biting other editors for getting the facts right but not putting the sources in on day one? PHARMBOY ( moo ) ( plop ) 02:37, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • Frankly, no. Biting the newbies doesn't mean ignoring policies because someone is new. Likewise, WP:DEADLINE is not very helpful in this discussion. BLP doesn't apply to the hypothetical end state of an article. It applies to every revision. We can't just say "well, eventually this will have sources" and ignore the issue. I don't think RHMED's actions are very helpful, but we can't appeal to BITE and DEADLINE in condemning them. Protonk (talk) 03:46, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
          • I didn't say to say that. I am saying that an experienced editor (expecially one who is trying to RfA) should first LOOK for sources briefly before going to AFD. If they are found, the energy should be spent adding a couple of sources instead of going to AFD. This is what a good contributor should do. Otherwise, it is making a point. If the sources are easy to find, yes, IMO, an experience editor and RfA candidate should be expected to exercise better judgement and fix instead of delete. To simply AFD a bunch of aritcles without a good faith attempt to source or fix (or at least look at google, then walk away), where the subject matter is not controversial and sources are easy to find, *is* abusing the process, in my opinion. Even if it isn't breaking a particular rule specifically, it is abusing the process. At first I thought he was misunderstanding the policy, but his comments seem to indicate another issue. PHARMBOY ( moo ) ( plop ) 10:46, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
            • I wholeheartedly agree with what a good editor should do. See User:Uncle G/Wikipedia triage#What to do. I haven't looked at RMHED's nominations, but I recommend this to you RMHED: If you follow that triage process, and User:Uncle G/On notability#Giving rationales at AFD you'll experience comparatively few diffculties with your AFD nominations. I follow it, and I rarely encounter difficulties. (I've been wrong on occasion, but that's not the same as making a bad nomination.) Uncle G (talk) 11:36, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• If he's only nominating ten articles per day, then he's showing remarkable restraint given the magnitude of the problem that Wikipedia has in this area. At ten articles fixed per day, we'll have cleared out Category:BLP articles lacking sources in just over two years. (Forget about doing the likely thousands articles that aren't even tagged, or the thousands of unsourced BLPs that will be created in the meantime.) Editors saying that he should just go and look for sources for those ten articles each day are missing the point — if we slap him on the wrist and tell him to sit quietly in the corner, we're effectively saying that we don't care that there's a massive backlog of BLPs without sources. (It's okay; RHMED will get to it eventually.)

  Frankly, if we don't get off our asses and start to be more proactive about requiring sources for biographies, we're going to get another Seigenthaler incident. When that happens, we'll probably end up with a duplicate of the 'non-free images' solution. A policy will be imposed from above, setting a hard deadline for all BLPs to be sourced, and permitting the deletion of all unsourced bios within seven days of their creation.

  Sure, we can shoot the messenger here, but what we should be doing is getting our house in order. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:09, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • I appreciate where you're coming from, but I think you and RHMED are both misidentifying the problem. The problem isn't that there aren't citations - articles can have plenty of citations and still do things like falsely allege connections to the Kennedy assassination. The problem is that anybody can put whatever information they like into any BLP, and in the vast majority of those cases nobody's likely to notice. All the citations in the world aren't going to fix that. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 02:18, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Fair enough, but I think that having sources does have (at least) two major benefits. First, it gives our readers a fighting chance — they can check on the cited source, to see if our articles actually reflect those sources. Second, it at least helps to protect our reputation – it shows that we're at least trying. I agree that articles which misrepresent the contents of cited sources (accidentally or deliberately) are quite worrying, and that many articles which do contain sources don't have nearly enough of them. Nevertheless, if we aren't prepared to go after even the lowest-hanging fruit – articles which have no sources whatsoever – where will we start? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:26, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well you know I'm in agreement with you there Sarcasticidealist, the sooner all BLP's are permanently semi-protected the better. RMHED (talk) 02:30, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's different to putting BLP up for deletion. The bits to remove are anything that is contentious if it's unsourced, if you wish. You could always stub it and rewrite it without needing to much time to do it. There's no need to send articles which do not violate, or could be made to not violate, BLP to AfD. RHMED has had problems at AfD before, with dodgy non-admin closes. They were one reason he didn't pass RfA. Sticky Parkin 02:10, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Now let me recall how many of my dozens of dodgy non-admin AfD closes were overturned by an administrator...Just one I think. RMHED (talk) 02:27, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • To everyone, the RFA and "dodgy NACs" aren't the issue. The issue is, do you AFD an article that takes 30 seconds to source? It literally takes longer to start an AFD than source many of these. Can we call information "contentious" simple because we don't have a source for it? That someone "is a professor", this is contentions because there isn't a ref for it. Is THAT what the policy says. That is what is at issue. PHARMBOY ( moo ) ( plop ) 02:32, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've yet to see a BLP that takes only 30 seconds to adequately source, even a one line stub would take longer than that. If it's that quick and easy then the ten BLP's I AfD should only take approximately 5 minutes to source by your estimate. RMHED (talk) 02:55, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Pharmboy, I'm not saying the NACs are the issue- I'm just saying RHMED has a history at AfD of overly 'keen' actions. What does it matter if finding a source takes a bit longer- WP:TIND. That's better than losing valuable articles. Contentious bits are all we need to/should remove from most BLPs if they're unsourced. Of course feel free to nominate a BLP for deletion if you think it has borderline notability and may be doing damage to the individual. Otherwise, it's just getting rid of potentially useful content for fun and pleasure. If I were nominating for deletion I'd first look at google news etc and see if there's WP:RS- to do otherwise is laissez-faire. Sticky Parkin 03:20, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Do you mean "lazy", rather than "laissez-faire"? That's not the best description. (See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Don't be lazy.) I characterize not looking for sources onesself as unhelpful. It doesn't help to achieve the goal of writing an encyclopaedia. It doesn't help in the collaborative process of making bad articles better. See User:Uncle G/On sources and content#How to deal with unsourced content. Uncle G (talk) 11:36, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• For those who (rightly) believe that these must be sourced, the obvious thing to do upon seeing an unsourced one is to try and source it. One person won't be able to source all they find that could be sourced, but it would help a little in a positive sense. Articles that cannot be sourced after an effort appropriate to the subject must be deleted, but while doing that probably 90% of the existing unsourced ones that could easily be sourced. Here's my test of someone who in good faith and not POINT wants to help--they select some articles which are particularly potentially harmful or dubious, and nominate them for deletion--not pick at random.If we are to effectively delete the junk, the people who select what we want to discuss deleting must make a good faith effort to start with what there is some reason to think is actual junk. I have elsewhere supported a requirement that anyone taking anything to AfD for deletion for lack of sourcing of existence or notability or verifiability be required to do at least a preliminary search-- if it convincingly shows lack of sourceability, the deletion will be all the smoother. it's afds like these which support what i proposed. DGG (talk) 03:35, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I thought there existed an unwritten policy (good faith) that anyone taking an article to AFD must do at least a basic search to see if it passes. Not searching first clogs up AFD with articles that don't need to be there. That is the big point, to me. PHARMBOY ( moo ) ( plop ) 10:38, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • It's not unwritten. This approach to verifiability has been written down since 2003. See Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion#Policy has said to look for sources first for a long time for details. Uncle G (talk) 11:36, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's appropriate to nominate a completely unsourced BLP for deletion. If nominating the article serves as a forcing function to encourage editors who want to keep it to source it adequately, well, so much the better. I concur with TenOfAllTrades here: it's not reasonable to say that the new standard for nominating an article for AfD is "First, fix it yourself!" Getting on RHMED's case for this is shooting the messenger. Nandesuka (talk) 03:43, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• When the guideline was written, I would assume the intention was not to have all non-sourced BLP's be nominated for AfD, and I don't think there's consensus on wikipedia to do this. We have to be careful that we don't wikilawyer all the guidelines, and work towards building an encyclopedia. In my view, there is a significant difference between nominating a slanderous or libelious article, and nominating a un-sourced BLP that isn't negative. We should be very careful with BLP's, but let's not delete most of them on wikipedia. Fraud ^{talk to me} 03:48, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Again: This is not a new standard. This approach to verifiability has existed since 2003. See Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion#Policy has said to look for sources first for a long time for details.

  What a lot of people miss (including the administrators who were involved in a high profile arbitration case a while back) is that deletion isn't the only tool in the toolbox. One can, quite legitimately, zap an entire biography back to a properly sourced stub and demand, with support from editors at the BLP noticeboard if necessary, that all expansion be sourced. Jimbo has done it. Other people have done it. RMHED xyrself did it here, and with the help of User:Scott MacDonald and Sam Korn that content was kept out of the article. I myself helped to expand that article properly, like this. "Kerrrzappp!" is a good tool, too. Uncle G (talk) 11:36, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• The AFD process requires editors to follow some steps before nominating an article and emphatically states that If the article can be fixed through normal editing, then it is not a good candidate for AfD. If this process is not followed in good faith then nominations should be speedily closed as premature and disruptive. Colonel Warden (talk) 11:51, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion

Why don't we create a BLP-ProD? Instead of 5 days, every 'completely unsourced BLP that has been tagged with this template can be freely deleted after e.g. three months. This gives authors plenty of chances to source the articles, while still in the end tackling the issues of all the unsourced BLP's hanging around Wikipedia. Fram (talk) 07:56, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• See User:Uncle G/Proposal to expand WP:CSD/Unsourced biographies and Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal/2 (and their talk pages, of course) for prior discussion on this. Uncle G (talk) 11:36, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• I was about to suggest PROD here as well. I have suggested before that any biography tagged as unsourced and not remediated after a suitable period should be nuked. Unsourced biographies are Bad, battles are Bad, PROD is good because it deals with crap but in a way that anyone who cares to fix the problem can uncontroversially fix.

• Other issue A new PROD may be a good idea, but still, this wouldn't address the issue that even before a PROD, an editor (particularly an editor feels experienced enought to RfA) should first try to source the article before any delete, CSD/PROD/AFD. Imo, if you are going to participate in deleting any article, using any method, you have the responsibility to try to conduct a brief search first, in order for WP:AGF to apply. Another issue is his interpretation of the policies. He is saying that any BLP is automatically contentious if not sourced, and should automatically go to AFD. Combine the two, "delete all unsourced BLPs" and "I won't try to source an article" and you might as well change {{BLPsources}} to become an autodelete template. This is enforcing a self-created policy that doesn't exist, instead of creating/fixing the existing policies. At some point, editors participating in wholesale deletions have to be held to a higher standard than they currently are. PHARMBOY ( moo ) ( plop ) 12:53, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm still concerned that you're putting the onus in the wrong place. Saying that editors who see a problem need to try to fix it by themselves is, frankly, letting the commmunity off the hook for its own bad practices. Just like with non-free images, all BLPs need to be sourced, and sourced correctly. It's a problem for all of us, not just for the few editors like RHMED who are trying to bring the issue to our attention. At some point, editors participating in biography creation have to be held to a higher standard than they currently are. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:13, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes, it is a problem for all of us. And I agree that BLP creation should have a higher standard. The question is, what do we do with the ones we have today? Good faith demands that we attempt to source ANY article (BLP or otherwise) before we AFD it. Even if it takes twice as long to stubify and cite an article with *obvious* and easy to obtain notability, an experienced editor should be expected to do this instead of wholesale delete, when fixing is as easy as deleting. Again, none of these are controversial BLPs with negative or defaming info. Both sides of the problem should be addressed, and yes, I would hold a higher standard for an editor that has been here a couple of years than I would for a newb creating his first article on Wikipedia. Or at least the same standard. PHARMBOY ^{(moo) (plop)} 13:51, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Remove any unsourced contentious material, and often stub is what they usually seem to do at WP:BLPN, rather than send an article to AfD, unless it's unfixably problematic. And as some people work in that area often, I think they would know.:) Sticky Parkin 14:15, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Saying that editors who see a problem need to try to fix it by themselves is, frankly, letting the community off the hook for its own bad practices" -- but those very editors are part of the community, and saying they need not try to fix could be seen as letting them off the hook as well. It's not a question of blame--articles were originally written here to very low standards, and many continue to be. We need to upgrade them--which will in the process mean removing quite a few that cannot be upgraded--but the real need is to upgrade. The practical problem is that its much easier to nominate for deletion than to fix. Anyone with HG or the like can nominate 10 or 20 articles a day with no effort at all in perhaps 5 minutes, especially if they don't bother to investigate the article enough to use an individual rationale. I find that, working in a good library, it takes me between half an hour and half a day to properly source an article. I try to fix one a day. Sure, minimal sourcing can be done quicker, but there remains an asymmetry--articles can be nominated for deletion much more rapidly than they can be fixed. The way to cope with it is for people to nominate for deletion only those articles they've checked enough to feel confident that they should be deleted or think it unclear enough that a group discussion is needed. We're concerned, after all, with building an encyclopedia.DGG (talk) 17:09, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Attempt to conclude this

• Comment I think Uncle G and others have pretty much cleared up the main issue by demonstrating that there IS a policy that says an editor is obligated to try to source an article before he nominates it for AFD. I thought it was an unwritten rule, he proves it is a real policy. As Sticky Parkin points out, we have always been able to stubify an article when needed. We all agree that BLP's should be sourced (maybe even requiring it at creation), and the standard is higher than in a regular article. No doubt. The only question would then be, did RMHED try to source the article before he went to AFD, or did he flood AFD wholesale without trying? Even if well meaning, is this conduct acceptable? Uncle G's research only strengthens my original claim that it is not, and this isn't normally allowed here. The other additions to the conversation have demonstrated that yes, we need some work to fix BLP as well and can't do "nothing" either, and we should move it to the proper forum to further the discussion. Am I reading this wrong? PHARMBOY ^{(moo) (plop)} 15:41, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, arguably unless a BLP is of borderline notability and the subject says they want it gone.:) Why is this not the right forum to discuss it? Or are you saying we should all find all the AfD'ed articles by RHMED to which it applies, and !vote? Sticky Parkin 17:14, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Do you want to know what I am really asking for here? A concensus to say "RMHED, you acted in good faith but this is the wrong way to deal with these BLPs. You must make at least a good faith effort to see if they are notable first, and if you find something, put it in the article instead. Please don't do AFDs in this way in the future." I am asking nothing more, nothing less.

I agree with the goal of getting all BLPs sourced, I just don't approve of these methods. I made it clear I wasn't trying to block him or cause him administrative headaches. To be honest, I had thought this would have only been 5 to 10 paragraphs worth of issue when I initiated it. My goal is to simply stop people, anyone, from posting any article without first making SOME kind of effort to source it. Accidental or not, it is disruptive and when most of the AFD's are kept or lean that way (see history), then it isn't helping Wikipedia. I genuinely had no idea I was stirring up a giant hornets nest, and to be honest, I came here to AVOID controversy, hoping that the fact that "an editor is obligated to try to source before deleting" was an obvious policy. That BLP is borked isn't the issue at hand, and should be handled in THAT forum, as it doesn't justify not trying to source a series of articles first. PHARMBOY ^{(moo) (plop)} 18:24, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Where is the policy that says "you shall search for sources or seek to improve an article before deleting it" or words to that effect? Because I know proposals to mandate WP:BEFORE have failed pretty spectacularly. Protonk (talk) 17:16, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• See Uncle G's comments above. PHARMBOY ^{(moo) (plop)} 18:24, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• I read his comments below the Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion#WP:BEFORE thread, but I also read (and participated in) that thread. Pointing to past revisions of policy where at present a consensus does not exist to force WP:BEFORE doesn't resolve the issue. Right now the community doesn't have consensus to dictate that attempts be made to source an article prior to nominating it for deletion. We can find this in discussions or in practice. We do, however, have a robust practice of rejecting nominations of easily sourceable articles. So I don't see the debate as solidified on either side. I'll ask again. What exact wording in a current revision of policy says that we "must" or "shall" search for sources or seek to source an article before nominating it? Protonk (talk) 18:43, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• WP:AFD at a minimum, strongly implies it: If the page can be improved, this should be solved through regular editing, rather than deletion. I truly, completely fail to understand why this singular concept is so controversial when it seems so obvious: you should briefly try to source before going to AFD. PHARMBOY ^{(moo) (plop)} 19:02, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• It's not controversial at all. I agree with it. It is good as a normative statement. It does not work as a policy proscription. In other words, WP:BEFORE says "you should do these things before nominating an article" for good reason. It does not say "you must do these things or else". My point is that people are misinterpreting the former to mean the latter. Protonk (talk) 19:09, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is sad. Wikipedia is a work in progress, that is why many years after its creation it is still open to new editors. We should all expect to encounter articles that are missing things, even lots of things. It used to be that when someone came upon an article that had a mistake or was incomplete, they would do research and fix or add to the article. Now people just delete? I know that is an easy way to up your edit count, but that is not how anyone builds an encyclopedia. This is just obvious common sense: we come here to research and write an encyclopedia. If an article is missing a citation, instead of taking up lots of time with a long AfD process, why not use that time to find good sources? If everyone who would vote to delete instead used the time to find sources, we would have those sources pretty quickly, or we could confidently delete that part of the article. Isn't this exactly the work one expects to do in writing an encyclopedia? Slrubenstein | Talk 17:53, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• I'll be frank. This isn't that simple. It isn't a case of "building an encyclopedia vs. deleting for the lulz". Some balance must be struck between allowing articles to grow into a great references and meeting community expectations for what an article must be at minimum (and what it must not be). That such a balance must be struck doesn't mean that RHMED is right. I don't think he is. But it most certainly doesn't mean that we can announce that deletion of content is always adversarial toward building an appropriate reference. Protonk (talk) 18:11, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Well, first, RMHED (talk · contribs) isn't violating policy, so there's no need for administrator action. WP:DEADLINE is an essay, it can't really be "violated". Sending ten unsourced articles a day to AfD seems to be about the right level of activity. The articles proposed for deletion seem to be about people of marginal notability; there's no great loss to Wikipedia here. I'd suggest using PROD first; if nobody cares enough to add a reference or two and delete the PROD, the article can be flushed without the overhead of an AfD. --John Nagle (talk) 18:34, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree completely with Protonk. I am commenting on a drift I have seen over the past couple of years. It is true that there is nothing here calling for administrative action, so it is a moot point, but I do think it is important periodically to remind ourselves, encouragingly, about the value of research and writing as a way to improve flawed articles ... Slrubenstein | Talk 19:33, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reply

I've noted all the comments above and in future will mostly avoid AfD, I'll just remove any unsourced BLP content per policy. Wikipedia needs to face up to its BLP responsibilities, the number of unsourced or poorly sourced BLP's is staggering. Saying that these problems should be fixed by those who come across them is nonsensical, there are thousands of them and more being created by the hour. The Wikimedia Foundation I'm quite sure doesn't want its long term survival put in jeopardy from a libel lawsuit. I imagine the last thing they would want is their assertion that they aren't a publisher tested in a court of law. If such a verdict went against them, then there would undoubtedly be an almighty BLP purge on Wikipedia. Now the best way to prevent such an eventuality is to exercise due dilligence, Wikipedia most certainly isn't currently doing this. The Foundation may survive one libel lawsuit it most certainly wouldn't survive two, so for all those who care about Wikipedia's long term survival I urge you to remove all unsourced BLP content. RMHED (talk) 18:50, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• I should say here that libel law in the united states is pretty forgiving and that the DMCA safe harbor exemption protects wikipedia pretty well. IANAL, but focus on BLP should be more justified on the basis that unsourced biographies have a grave potential to distort the de facto public record for private figures rather than some worries about legal status of BLP violations. Protonk (talk) 18:59, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Any biographical material that is sensationalist or prurient must be sourced, I would take a hard line on that, and delete any such content that is not sourced. However, this does not mean that all biographical material has to be sourced right away. BLP simply emphasizes the importance of sourcing controversial or sensationalist material. It does not say that any article with biographical material without sources must be deleted. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:36, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest you re-read WP:BLP. The word you're looking for is contentious, all unsourced BLP content is IMO contentious and thus should be removed. RMHED (talk) 19:40, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think that willfully ignoring the intended meaning of "contentious" in WP:BLP is not a constructive thing to do. We should not require citations for every sentence of a biography. It lacks common sense. Pete.Hurd (talk) 21:14, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, RHMED, I am glad to stand corrected, the word is "contentious." And thanks Pete for making the obvious point. If BLP says that contentious material has to be sourced, it goes without saying that there can be uncontentious material. You cannot define "contentious" as unsourced, that would violate the English language as well as our BLP policy. What makes something contentious is not the fact that an encyclopedia article is missing a source. What makes something contentious is the fact that people outside of the encyclopedia argue over its merit, validity, or significance. RHMED, are you being deliberately disingenuous? If BLP meant that ALL material must be sourced, it would not use the modifier "contentious," it would use the word "all." Since it uses the word contentious, it obviously cannot mean all. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:39, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• RMHED, I don't want you to avoid AFD, I want you to exercise a little bit of caution, source a few that are easy, avoid them if you aren't sure. Nothing would make me happier than if I could see your AFD's, and say "That is very likely a valid AFD, lemme go google it a bit, then add my !vote". Seriously. There are many editors here that I will automatically go and google their AFD's because I know they have done their homework first, so I can do a basic search and offer a valid !vote. Believe it or not, you and I likely agree on 90% of BLP, even if we disagree on methods of fixing it. I just don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater by deleting everything, particularly when the content isn't controversial. I didn't come here to "get you in trouble", and I damn sure didn't expect it to turn into this slugfest (maybe I'm dumb, but I thought it could be cleared up with 2 or 3 admins telling me I was either wrong or right in my interpretation). In the end, I would rather work *with* you than against you, and hopefully we can find a way to do that in the future. PHARMBOY ^{(moo) (plop)} 22:48, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

BAD FAITH / ACTION REQUESTED

Ok, now I'm tired of getting slapped in the face, and just saw what breaks the straw after I tried everything to offer an olive branch. RHMED, I have tried to be as open minded and fair handed as I can, but your edit here [56] which was explained in your talk [57] go beyond good faith, and taken with what you said here, clearly demonstrate you are trying to prove a WP:POINT. You deleted a football players entire page because you find it "unsourced". A complete blank page. Nothing controversial was on the page. At this stage, you leave me no choice but to ask for administrative action. You are basically saying "fuck you guys, I will delete the articles one way or another", even while you try to "get along" in this discussion. PHARMBOY ^{(moo) (plop)} 23:31, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Please note, this is not the only page he has blanked, which conveniently makes them db-blank targets as well. PHARMBOY ^{(moo) (plop)} 23:37, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's completely inappropriate. I've reverted and warned him. fish&karate 00:01, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • At this point, I have to ask for strong administrative action. Everything in this heated discussion up to now has been in good faith (even when spirited), and everyone assumed good faith. His actions show a complete disrespect for the policies, but more importantly, it shows disdain for the process of building concensus itself. This isn't a misunderstanding, this is vandalism to prove a point. Otherwise, we are endorsing his actions. PHARMBOY ^{(moo) (plop)} 00:11, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • He started reverting to re-blank pages, so has been blocked for 24 hours. fish&karate 00:19, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • (ec)Everything mentioned in RHMED's RfA still applies it seems- his actions at AfD are still random in various ways, and he is not the politest of people. This is a new development though as far as I know. But I don't expect much to be done about it (though it would be nice.) Good block:) Sticky Parkin 00:26, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just because they are tagged {{db-blank}} doesn't mean that they will be deleted. Administrators are supposed be diligent when it comes to speedy deletions. That includes checking the article history. Uncle G (talk) 11:56, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• I was actually thinking we might have a loose concensus before this (agree to disagree on some issues, BLP is borked and needs work, contentious != controversial, at least try to source easy ones before deleting, new bios should be sourced). Now we are back to square one, and the primary question that drove me to seek help here still isn't answered. Why is it that every time I stumble into a BLP issue, I end up with a sore jaw and the taste of blood in my mouth? PHARMBOY ^{(moo) (plop)} 00:27, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • What do you propose? Slrubenstein | Talk 04:25, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Probably resolved

Fish and karate's appropriate 24 hr block for continued disruption in the face of at the very best of a lack of consensus has probably resolved this. He's placed a "retired" stamp on his talk page. Don't know if that is a protest over this or he actually intends to leave, but my guess is that this issue is at least resolved. I don't think that we will solve the underlying issues here (what is contentious? What can be removed from an unsourced BLP? Should we have them? Is our BLP policy written to really reflect community consensus? etc.) will be solved from this conversation or at AN/I at all. I'll wait a few hours before marking the whole thread as resolved. It people feel otherwise, please yell at me here. :) Protonk (talk) 01:23, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons — whether the material is negative, positive, or just questionable — should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion, from Wikipedia articles, talk pages, user pages, and project space. This appears to be the policy and it is quite clear that unsourced material should be removed immediately (the bold is from the policy page). Without commenting on the block itself (the policy speaks for itself), we do have a serious problem of unsourced material sitting around on BLP pages. How am I, as a wikipedia user, supposed to know if any of that material (for example, in the Aaron Brown article that triggered the block [58]) real or not? --Regents Park (sink with my stocks) 03:02, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sorry, which part of the Aaron Brown bio was contentious? and what happened to the word "contentious" that was in the quote in your first sentence, but wasn't in your second sentence (the one that has the words "This appears to be the policy and it is quite clear")? Pete.Hurd (talk) 03:46, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I also want to know what part was contentious...looking at the article history, it doesn't look like there were ever any arguments over his draft status, birthdate, etc. --Smashville^talk 04:01, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I fully agree on the point that you, with your reader hat on, should have sources cited that you can consult to verify the article against. The issue here is not a disagreement over verifiability. I think that everyone here agrees that all content, biographical or not, should be verifiable. The issue is one of judgement, as to what material we should zealously, immediately, firmly, and repeatedly exclude from the encyclopaedia until it has a good source, whose author has a reputation for fact checking and accuracy to protect, cited right there in the article, to back it up.

    The judgement involves, in part, the answers to the following two questions: Is the material something that, on the presumption that it is false, would cause the subject or any other living person harm, or cause xem to complain, or invade xyr privacy, by being published on a high profile web site that is read by millions of people around the world? Is the material something that would bring Wikipedia into disrepute?

    Clearly "XXX is a giant poopy-head." is an example of the latter, and we immediately remove such rubbish as simple vandalism. Equally clearly, material that stated, without a good source cited in the article saying the same, that "XXX is the leader of a neo-Nazi hate organization and is a convicted criminal." is an example of the former. If false, it would cause significant harm, objection, and outrage. So again we immediately remove such material on sight. A false statement that someone is an American Football player would be unlikely to cause harm or objection, however. At worst, the peanut gallery gets to laugh — Haw! Haw! Haw! — at Wikipedia. So a measured procedure of looking for sources onesself, asking other people for sources, and challenging the material is instead in order. See User:Uncle G/On sources and content#How to deal with unsourced content.

    One should use the tool that is appropriate for the task. Just as deletion isn't the only tool in the toolbox, neither is wholesale zapping the article back to a good stub. (Blanking and not writing a good stub is not a good way to proceed, note. One should provide editors with at minimum the first brick to build upon, not least in order to demonstrate by example to those who aren't familiar with Wikipedia's standards the proper way to build the article. Jimbo's infamous "X is a person" stubs in years gone by aren't really good stubs, by 2008 standards or even by 2005 standards, although in that singular case the identity of the editor is a factor.) One should employ a range of tools, as appropriate to the type of material. Sometimes the big instant on-sight deletion of the article and the entirety of its edit history is called for. Sometimes just a little "citation needed" is called for. Sometimes renaming and refactoring the article to be about an event and not a person is called for. Sometimes yet other approaches are called for.

    With biographical material we always err on the side of caution. But that does not mean using one tool for everything. As administrators, we should not forget that we still have the tools that we had when we weren't administrators, as well. Those who would like to have administrator privileges should show that they understand this. Uncle G (talk) 13:36, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hopefully final note Only time will show if this is really over. I think that if we used the word "controversial" instead of "contentious", it would make more sense or at least cause less confusion. (or not, who knows) Every AFD/BLP that we have discussed in this long, drawn out process had zero controversy. Football players, professors, musicians, etc. If there was, I would have been the first to agree to remove the material or delete the article if it couldn't be sourced reasonably quick. That isn't the way I had hoped this would work out. I am beginning to think that it is impossible to enter a BLP discussion at Wikiepedia without losing a few teeth, or some blood, or some faith. PHARMBOY ^{(moo) (plop)} 10:30, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

IMHO "contentious" is a better word than "controversial" because "controversial" implied a controversy has to exist, and we don't want to set the bar that high, we want it at something closer to "has the potential to cause a controversy, if anyone read and discussed it". If editors don't know the meaning of "contentious" then they might want to spend their time reading a dictionary, rather than writing an encyclopedia. Pete.Hurd (talk) 14:42, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you're right with that one. I still think that saying 'this problem is resolved' is a bit like saying 'Finally, the pain in my hand is gone', when the reason it's gone is that your arm was cut off. PHARMBOY ^{(moo) (plop)} 18:03, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent) Sorry. I misread the policy (as my strike out was intended to show!) and my point was more that there are hundreds of biographies out there on wikipedia that are not only unsourced but are also incorrect. I've nominated a few for deletion and have been pleasantly surprised to see that some articles get rewritten well sourced (this one is a great example). My point was not to drag this out further but to say that something needs to be done about unsourced BLPs and sometimes nominating for deletion is the best way to get things done. --Regents Park (sink with my stocks) 15:32, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am all caught up in electoral fervor, watching fox news about 7 hours a day. I was told about Wikipedia; the upcoming Arb Com elections already have my interest. This is my first edit: 30 October 2008 -- I am looking for a few mentors and a team to get me prepped to run for Arb Com by December. Please point me in the right direction so I can help lead Wikipedia into 2009! Morris Battle (talk) 02:14, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

...And blocked. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:20, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

...And bitten. Was that really necessary? Even vandals get warnings, and this guy appears to have good intentions, if unrealistic goals. Mangojuice^talk 02:27, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Mangojuice, why was a block appropriate here? I am not seeing any imminent danger to the project. --Elonka 02:32, 31 October 2008 (UTC) amended post below[reply]

Unless there is some other information we are not privy to, I echo Mangojuice (talk · contribs)'s confusion as to why this user was blocked. Cirt (talk) 02:33, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(multiple edit conflicts) I think he should use his original account if he's interested in running for ArbCom. (Does anyone really find it plausible that I bit a new user here? His very first edit was the above post to AN/I. His three subsequent edits were tag-bombing an obscure science article. It took him less than three minutes to discover that he was blocked and figure out how to write a disingenuous {unblock} on his talk page.) I will resign my adminship right here and now if a consensus develops that I actually bit a newbie in this instance. Y'all were trolled. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:36, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) The user’s first edit was the one above followed by three edits adding tags to an obscure article. I agree with TenOfAllTrades’s assessment of this user being a troll. —Travis^talk 02:39, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think this user wants power and I don't trust that. I think his tag-bombing was probably designed to give the account the appearance of legitimacy. So yes, I agree, this behavior isn't good. But I do think it's too early to conclude that this user will never do anything but troll. Mangojuice^talk 02:40, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Very bad block if ever I saw one. And by golly have I seen some. Sarah777 (talk) 02:42, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, though on first glance I was scratching my head here, I'm starting to come around to Tenofalltrades' view. This new account does seem to have extensive knowledge of wiki-procedures, and this edit[59] is highly suspect as he tagged the Cytomere article as a hoax. Granted the stub could use more sources, but to put in an edit summary "can't find any references", when even a simple Google search shows it's a valid term, is not reasonable. Though I think it would been better to warn first and block second, I do support the block at this point. --Elonka 02:44, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK - I'd bet real money he's a troll (apologies Morris, if you're not) - but where isWP:AGF? Sarah777 (talk) 02:47, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) To Sarah777: Perhaps you don’t speak Morris’s language, but to someone fluent in it, their first edit is, to say the least, disingenuous. —Travis^talk 02:51, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Travis declined the unblock request, and I've left a note explaining the block just in case. I expect that if the user comes back with a good answer they'll be given a second chance, since this was a stronger reaction than truly necessary. Mangojuice^talk 02:53, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Elona- rubbish AfDs because people haven't even bothered to google to see if there are sources happen all the time, so I bet tagging things as a hoax without googling happens sometimes too.:) Mind you, most new users perhaps wouldn't know or care what arbcom is, let alone run for it. Sticky Parkin 03:14, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Support the deserved block. There have been a rash of new accounts crop up lately, make strange AN/ANI postings, and then post some obscure crap elsewhere. I'm sure it's some teenager jacking around or a serial troll. Nothing new. seicer | talk | contribs 03:40, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Eh, block wasn't necessary. Highly likely to be a troll but blocking simply created more drama than anything else. The post would have been ignored or we would have given the user a polite explanation. And in the unlikely case this was a real user it would have been a very bad bite. JoshuaZ (talk) 03:59, 31 October 2008 (UTC) Thinking about this more, I'm not sure I want blocks like this in general, but there does seem to be a major DUCK element to this block which is reasonable. I doubt any real user would run right over to ANI to post this sort of thing as the very first edit. JoshuaZ (talk) 20:26, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• What an absolutely horrible block. I think Ten need a short block to remind him of wiki policy. Bstone (talk) 04:40, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• I consider it possible that Morris Battle lives under a bridge, is a "smallish giant" , possibly akin to ogres , and inclined to eat up any goats who attempt to cross the bridge. Edison (talk) 04:50, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

de-lurk (I'm retired, dammit :) ) - this is a  Confirmed Wiki_brah/Jeanlatore sock, yet again. Here for the lulz and the trolling. Nothing to see here, folks, move along now - Alison ^❤ 04:53, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Alison -- either you read my post or read my mind.  :) Antandrus (talk) 05:00, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Someone contacted me off-wiki. Good guess, though :) - Alison ^❤ 05:05, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Next time I won't say anything here, I'll just block the troll and be done with it. Sorry for letting all of you get sucked into feeding the troll. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 05:33, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I would prefer if you did say something, because the alternative would be just as bad, as the no-explanation block would also raise questions. A better way to handle this, would have been to post a reply here at ANI with a bit more information as to why you blocked. I have to admit, when I first saw this thread, I saw what looked like an overeager newbie posting something, and then your immediate block made it look like you had blocked him for saying he wanted to run for ArbCom. It appeared (on first glance) to be an over-reaction bite of a newbie. Many established editors and admins here are already on pins and needles as we await both the on-wiki (ArbCom) and off-wiki (US) elections, and the concept that someone was blocked just for saying that they wanted to run for ArbCom, understandably got some hackles up. So if you would have posted something such as, "Based on this user's other contributions, this appears to be a troll, so I am blocking," that would have de-escalated the situation. Or, you could have simply chosen to not block, but post a warning to the user's talkpage, and a message here that you felt it was a troll (and why). But just saying "blocked" without any reason, was what increased the confusion. --Elonka 16:42, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The thing is, even after the detailed explanation from multiple users, we still had people chiming in to tell me what a terrible admin I was for making the block, right up until a couple of minutes before Alison ran a checkuser to confirm what was patently obvious from the user's contributions. People are telling me not to bite and to WP:AGF. Well, AGF is a two-way street. Why can't people be willing to assume that in four years of Wikipedia experience (most with the admin buttons), I might have a bit of a clue? Why is the automatic assumption made that the Big Bad Admin^TM must be oppressing the innocent newcomer?

Elonka, you've been editing Wikipedia almost as long as I have. Instead of immediately agreeing with Mangojuice, why didn't you look at the guy's contributions? Anyone with some experience on Wikipedia's high-traffic noticeboards should know what a troll looks like by now. While you're right that I should have been more descriptive in my first message, I honestly thought that the block would be both obvious and uncontroversial. I will also note that even after my explanation was posted we still got at least four editors (Cirt, Mangojuice, Sarah777, Bstone) insisting I was wrong (with varying amounts of invective). If we're genuinely at the point where we can't block obvious, returning, block-evading socks without needing a Checkuser every time, we're very deep in the shit indeed. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:15, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think the point is that an experienced user should also know that this sort of misunderstanding and thread is common (you have seen threads like this before in your time on Wikipedia, right?) so an extension of the "experienced user" argument is that a warning, followed by a block if there were subsequent edits, would have been slightly more effort, but would have avoided the possibility of this thread. I suppose you might not have had time to hang around and see if the troll carried on editing after the warning, or you might have been worried that another admin might have wasted time with another warning, when you had correctly assessed that this was a troll, but in these mental calculations and cost-benefit analysis, did you consider the cost of this ANI thread? I suppose the benefit of this ANI thread is that those reading it are now less likely to react like this in future. Maybe you, Elonka, Cirt, Mangojuice, Sarah777, and Bstone could clarify how they would react to a similar situation in future, and we can try and avoid ANI threads like this in future (or at least work out how to close them efficiently and sensibly). Carcharoth (talk) 05:55, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are a large number of admins who have been round long enough, shown good faith and care often enough, that when they do summarily block an account, they are unlikely to be doing so on a completely unreasonable basis. Perhaps mistaken in good faith, but usually well within reasonable judgement and with forethought. Users who develop enough cluefulness to spot disruptive users early should obviously still take care, but it's more in line with assuming good faith to ask them for more explanation, rather than just diving in to declare it a bad block or whatever. Those who have complained about this thread being on ANI should note that the blocked sock-user himself started the ANI thread, and should expect a competent admin to spot the trolling and quickly deal with it. That said, Elonka's point is a reasonable one too. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 08:31, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are at least three problems with the warning-only approach. The first is philosophical. Why give a warning only when the purpose of the account is obvious? It's a waste of my time and it's a waste of the time of the admin who eventually blocks later. It's also damned disingenuous — why should I pretend to be clueless when I'm not? What should I say in a message that isn't utterly phony? What is the point of a message that says, 'You're obviously a troll, but I'm not going to block you because I'll get grief for it from less-perceptive editors at AN/I'?

The second is that it offers the opportunity to make the trolling more effective. We offer an oh-so-stern warning while the troll laughs up his sleeve. He then goes ahead and continues trolling here or on his talk page, while some suckers fall for his innocent act and rail against the Evil Newbie-Biting Admin.

The final issue is the risk of harm to the encyclopedia. If the troll actually does stop (for a couple of hours, even) then he's free to resume the same behaviour later on. Be honest — are there any admins here who have the time and inclination to follow a trolling account's contributions for more than a couple of hours? In a few days, he's got an autoconfirmed account that can be used for much more serious mischief (and this is a problem I've seen multiple times). Heck, he can clear his talk page and it's at least even money that no one will even notice that the first warning was issued. We go on and repeat the 'final' warning cycle two or three times.

I've finally realized my mistake here. I should have followed the process at WP:RBI. No attention at all for the troll. I had hoped that this experience could be educational and helpful to new admins and admin candidates who read this board. I had hoped to demonstrate that we could demonstrate that we could respond quickly and effectively to obvious trolls, without a lot of wasted time and effort. Obviously a different lesson was delivered. Next time I'll blank the whole thread and block without comment, and leave the armchair admins in blissful ignorance. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:05, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's really amazing to me how hard some long-time contributors allow themselves to be trolled. Seriously. Grandmasterka 07:33, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm visiting here to bring my actions up for a broader look. I supported a delete in this AFD. I looked at the people that wanted to save it, so I basically rewrote the entire thing, and changed my vote. The AFD is here. I closed it because the nom withdrew. Nothing has transpired, but I feel like I might have had a conflict of interest because I not only voted, but changed my position and turned this into this. I may have saved this, and learned that it is possible to change a stance, but I still feel like my closure may have been bad. If someone who puts an article up for deletion retracts it, should I have asked an admin to close it? Any and all criticism would be welcome. Is it wrong to add closure when the person putting it up retracts it? If so, my bad. I just felt that anyone, admin or not, would have done the same. Ideas? ^Law _shoot! 09:58, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See the above thread. (No, really do!) If the nominator withdraws, AND no one else is currently making a case for delete, speedy closure (by whomever performed) is the right answer. We don't keep debates running for no good reason.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 10:04, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I had to turn myself in. I am the Law. :P ^Law _shoot! 10:06, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We ignore the Law here. ;). --Scott MacDonald (talk) 10:09, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Related question: Would it have been OK for me (being the nominator) to close the AfD after I'd withdrawn the nomination? I was vacillating about it, but Law (who did an excellent job fixing the article) did it before I'd done vacillatin' :-) --Bonadea (talk) 12:44, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Basically, unless someone else has argued for delete, you can withdraw it. If no-one is currently asking for deletion, the thing is moot.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 12:54, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Concur with other editors. This close is fine. You, the nom, and Jeremiah were the only editors moving to delete; you were all happy; any complaints are likely based on wonkery. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 16:14, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ditto from me too. You did nothing wrong, the AFD resulted in a better article, and Wikipedia is improved for the whole incident. As such, there is no reason to feel uncomfortable or ashamed. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 17:27, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The teamwork done here is an example of why I can put aside my pride and save an article which I wanted deleted. People provided good sources and I felt compelled to rewrite, as the nom was compelled to retract it. I don't often run into this, as I stick to more content-based editing, but it is very refreshing and I think the end result is all around a good thing. Thanks for not yelling at me! ^Law _shoot! 07:12, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

YOU DID EXACTLY THE RIGHT THING - THIS IS WHY WP:AIV EXISTS!! (If someone has acted to the betterment of WP, why not yell it from the rooftops?) LHvU (talk) 13:16, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On an unrelated note, Kinobe are actually a pretty decent band. "Slip Into Something More Comfortable" is one of my favourite electronic chillout songs, and "Butterfly" and "Summer in the Studio" (a cover of "Living In The City") ain't bad either. Surprised it came up for deletion to begin with, but pleased with the end outcome. Orderinchaos 00:05, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've just come across the following userbox, which, if I'm honest, I think should be immediately deleted due to the rather divisive message inside:

Am I the only one who can see a problem with this? FYI, I'm not Greek, or Macedonian, but that last sentence is overly insulting, I think. Opinions? Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 16:50, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, that userbox should be deleted. I think userboxes with divisive messages should be deleted. Our job is to build the encyclopedia, not express our personal or political views. AdjustShift (talk) 17:00, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That looks like a pretty clear WP:T2 deletion to me. Out of courtesy, I'm notifying the owner of the userbox of this thread now, however I strongly recommend removal of the userbox. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 17:08, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is it transcluded from a seperate file, or is it just manually added to the userpage? If its transcluded, the original should be deleted post-haste. Regardless, it should also be removed from the userpage post-haste as a violation of WP:USERPAGE. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 17:19, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This seems to be an issue that might be better handled at WP:MFD. SWik78 (talk • contribs) 17:23, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if it's a userbox template, I think it might have been copied and pasted. I can't find the template anywhere. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 17:26, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree strongly with SWik78. This is beyond MFD. I see no compelling reason to keep this sort of shit around longer than about 5 more minutes, never mind 5 days. Per WP:SNOW, there is no defensable reason to put that kind of polemic on a userpage, and it should be removed ASAP... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 17:30, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Anyways, is there a [[RL:LAME]] for the lamest real-life conflicts? Support delete. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:32, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just a note: there's a whole host of similar boxes on a lot of userpages of Greek and Macedonian contributors. The topic has come up repeatedly; we've occasionally purged the worst excesses of POV screeds on userpages, but these smallish box things have typically been left untouched. If you delete it (no objections from me), be prepared for a boatload of OTHERCRAPEXISTS complaints. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:43, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I'm concerned, such overt hostility and divisiveness is blockworthy. I say (a) remove with prejudice, warn user that such declarations are completely unacceptable, and (b) block immediately and without further sommation if the box returns, especially if it has been tweaked to wikilawyer around the warning. Enough with the national disputes already! — Coren ^(talk) 18:04, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Since Cavalry didn't bother to do so, I've just removed the userbox code from User:The Cat and the Owl's page, and left an explanation for the removal and a warning not to re-add the box here. I again invited the user to comment here if they have questions. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 19:31, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've just removed it from User:Alexikoua too. Theresa Knott | token threats 19:53, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How are you chaps looking for it? Google and Mediawiki's searches aren't picking it up for me - hence why I'm not removing it! Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 20:03, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I clicked on the flag image and looked for the pages that linked to it. Theresa Knott | token threats 20:10, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is a fine tool for searching Wikipedia. SWik78 (talk • contribs) 20:13, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Special:WhatLinksHere/Fyrom is helpful. That particular spelling (vs. all-caps FYROM) is perceived as pejorative (as in "Fyromians" to refer to the people), so many of those links should be examined. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 20:23, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I'll check up on the FYROM links. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 20:25, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Check this one. --Smashville^talk 03:37, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Deleted that one. Let us know if you find more... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:17, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Eek. I'm just not up enough on the whole Macedonia thing to know the acceptable from the unacceptable, so I didn't want to delete...but looking at the user's other ones...eek. --Smashville^talk 04:25, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

yeah, I saw those. Most seem fairly innocuous, you know of the "I support my side" without being overtly offensive towards the other side, but some probably need to go. If you see any that are questionable, try MFD for those. If there are any that seem WAY over the line, then delete on sight. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:39, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Don't know if anyone has removed them yet (too lazy to look), but I made a list of userpages with that stuff ages ago: user:Republic-of-Malakia (even offensive username), user:Fallacia83 (including a disgusting rant), user:Gagauz, user:Sthenel, user:The-Real-ZEUS, user:Waterfall999, user:Scott Anafas, and user:Maggas. Some of these users aren't active any more, but still. BalkanFever 04:37, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and user:DefendEurope. BalkanFever 06:49, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And user:Hectorian. BalkanFever 08:42, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What's the problem with this userbox ? apart from expressing an unrealistic position for the name. --Zakronian (talk) 09:31, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Still pretty political, IMHO. The whole issue is. Ethnically says "I don't care if you think you want to call yourself Macedonian, you're not". To me, that's uncivil - and I'm 100% uninvolved. -t BMW c- 11:11, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Determining if it's extreme or not depends on the weight one gives to the self-determination right "against" the protection of another nation's cultural identity. In this case reality shows these two are highly connected and cannot be jugded separately (you can deny that in theory and in lack of personal experience of course), and we're talking about a userpage, where you have the most freedom to express any opinions and to balance things your way. This userbox does not imply something that can be seen as more offensive or controversial than for example a userbox where an ethnic Macedonian editor states he has ancient Macedonian ancestry by piping "Macedonian" to "ancient Macedonian" (the worst way to say it) next to the Vergina Sun, a primarily ancient Greek symbol. It may be his right to claim something silly that cannot be really determined, but it also clearly antagonizes the Greek identity, and from an objective view it is mostly backed from the lack of information. You might find all that irrelevant, but then you'd have to be strict in general about rules and i could in turn comparatively extent that to other usepage content issues. The pro-Kosovo and pro-Serbia templates for example. Or, what really makes this issue any different from a template supporting say the unification of Romania and Moldova without solving the Transnistria problem first or calling for respect of Georgia's territorial integrity ? Anyway, i don't support the expressed position on the naming dispute, just spending my free time sharing the Greek perspective with you. :)--Zakronian (talk) 13:21, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know the protocol here, but it appears that Rtally3 (talk · contribs) is a single purpose account created specifically to edit war on William Timmons; the account was created a few days ago, and every edit relates only to one paragraph that I tried to add to the page. I have since started an RfC regarding the material as I found it strange that two users and an anon ip were all edit warring to keep the material out, and ignoring the substantive arguments for keeping the material in. It is possible there is some unlicensed sockpuppetry afoot. The Rtally3 account seems to be someone who has been around Wikipedia long enough to know our policies and how things work; that is inconsistent with the fact that the account was created less than a week ago. Again, there may be nothing suspicious here -- I acknowledge I am a party to the dispute on the page -- but it sure looks suspicious to me. csloat (talk) 22:58, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I'm even more sure there is something suspicious afoot now -- another of the editors warring on that article is Jmcgee2 (talk · contribs), created on the same day as Rtally3, whose first edit was to blank the William Timmons page, and who also ONLY edits that page. Surely this is worth looking into. csloat (talk) 23:06, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh my, it seems a third person edit warring on the same page is the Washington DC-based anon ip 68.100.74.123 (talk · contribs), which started editing a few days earlier than the other two accounts, and has only edited the William Timmons page, and has exclusively focused on getting the one paragraph removed. Very interesting. csloat (talk) 23:10, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Update, we have confirmation that the Rtally3 account is editing from Washington DC as well, with an ip close to the anon ip. Perhaps this is all a bizarre coincidence but that seems unlikely to me. csloat (talk) 23:46, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

•  Confirmed Rtally3 and Jmcgee2}} are the same person,  Likely the same as the IP as well as Kbhickory (talk · contribs). Thatcher 00:27, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note that this is a BLP, and the item that all these socks are edit-warring to keep out is sourced to the Huffington Post. Looie496 (talk) 01:31, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It looks as if they're still edit warring. Is anybody going to block them? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.245.4.252 (talk) 18:40, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is frustrating, they are not only edit warring but claiming that the collection of socks represents a "consensus" -- see this edit for example -- I think all of the accounts should be blocked; it's a pretty clear case of sockpuppets being used to violate the rules of Wikipedia. csloat (talk) 20:04, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Rtally3 and the IP blocked for a month, Jmcgee and Kbhickory permanently. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:34, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This post was originally made at WP:RFC/U in the admin's section. I think it is better suited here. Regards SoWhy 02:50, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm having to write this unlogged in because shell kinney (admin) has made made every effort to silence the facts i've put forward regarding his/her application of a ban I and others feel was arbitrary. His/Her original ban was not rooted in wikipedia policy or openly discussed. He/She has even removed my uninflamatory and purely fact based responses on my own talk page and protected it so I cannot even respond. I'm requesting a third uninvolved party to review the situation. The discussion can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ASgeine&diff=248923964&oldid=248923865 Shell has a long history of heavy handed tactics but I'm not here to address that or get bogged down in whatever personal matters exist. Just a review of the facts with a resolution.01:43, 1 November 2008 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.198.198.66 (talk • contribs) [reply]

This fellow has been using Wikipedia to pursue his personal agenda against Helio (the wireless carrier), by adding content attacking them and sourcing it to documents hosted on personal websites. I dealt with him before Shell. He needs to head over to wikileaks.org, as the content he is trying to add is not acceptable here. I've blocked the IP for a short period, as it's pretty clear it's being used for block evasion. --Versageek 04:01, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not quite sure why the block-evading user's rant was copied onto ANI. Surely we shouldn't be using this board to give disruptive users a place to vent after they've been properly blocked? --Akhilleus (talk) 04:06, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've been trying to help this user (User:Sgeine) in the last few days, breaking my informal wikibreak to do it. I do not believe this is a proper block at all, and believe Shell is being way too heavy handed with this. In my talks with the user I've helped him to understand what he needs to do next, and why his current sources were considered original research. I suspect he actually listened to me because I didn't treat him like trash or assume the worst out of him.

I do not agree with Sgeine on everything he's said, but most of this is happening because he's frustrated and doesn't understand some of our policies. Shell has, on her own, given him a "topical ban", which she believes he was trying to evade by editing as an IP. However, as an IP he tells her who he is and logs in to continue a discussion with Shell, completely voluntarily on his part. Him editing as an IP was not a malicious act, and most people who edit Wikipedia every so often don't really care if they're logged in or not. The warning of a ban is shown in this edit [60], and sure enough Sgeine did violate this. However, I believe this only happened because we failed to properly explain the situation in the first place, and that an indef block on someone who's never been blocked before is an over reaction. No offense to Shell, but she does tend to be a bit too heavy handed with blocking, and when other admins review they are quick to side with the other admins.

Now he's talk page has been protected for this. I assume it was because he posted a chatlog, but if you look closely the long consists entirely of him saying (to Shell) things like "hello?" with no response (hence, only his comments were posted). Wether or not those logs have any weight on anything, that's another matter.

This is not how we should deal with people. I understand that some people are very sensitive about COI worries, but treating this guy like trash is wrong. After having talked with him, I think he better understands what he needs to do next and won't insert the disputed information anymore. Shell refuses to discuss the matter because it involves an OTRS ticket from Helio. At this point I'm probably aware of more information than Shell is, and there is still no reason to come down so hard on this guy.

How many times has this happened with users who come across Wikipedia and have a culture clash with us?

If I can get him to agree on not editing the Helio articles then can we stick out a hand of friendship and say "no hard feelings, we look forward to working with you"? He's very smart and likely has a great deal to offer us on other articles. -- Ned Scott 05:53, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If he stays away from the Helio articles, I don't have a problem with it.. As to not explaining things.. If he had asked questions in response to my warning back in July rather than just blanking the page, I would certainly have attempted to help him understand. (Apparently Shell had dealt with him a few weeks before my first encounter, and tried to help him as well.. ) --Versageek 06:12, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I must correct myself here. Sgeine has pointed out to me that he did not re-insert the information that Shell warned him about, and I've stepped through the history of the article and this is correct. He did tag the article for deletion because he felt it should be merged/covered in another article, but then that's more newbie stuff. So at this point he has not violated any ban that Shell has given him, at least none that can be verified on-wiki. -- Ned Scott 06:24, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Versa, I don't believe that page has ever been blanked, let alone by me. And if you take a look at the edit history I actually did listen to you. You'll notice my _last_ edit with that information was two hours before yours and 9 hours before shell's... That's all I've been saying is hey, lets tone this down. I didn't readd it after you guys said that so why are we going crazy here 6 months later? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.198.198.130 (talk) 06:26, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

nm you're talking about my talk page not helio's page. I wiped my talk page because I didn't feel it was an issue any longer as I had already decided not to add that paragraph again and didn't edit wikipedia for some 4 months. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.198.198.130 (talk) 06:44, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, one more time for teh win: There is considerably more information about this issue than Sgeine or Ned is giving here; other administrators have reviewed and declined to unblock (twice). Sgeine has been informed of the ability to have ArbCom review the indef block as a next step.

Sgeine has been incredibly dishonest about this entire situation and unfortunately has suckered Ned into believing that he's a poor guy trying to do right that just didn't know what he got in to. I've explained a few times now, several of those being to Ned, that what can be seen on wiki is simply the tip of the iceberg. By the way Ned, what Sgeine told you about OTRS is a complete fabrication - that's not who wrote in nor was he honest about the content. Here's the great part about that - the reason he thinks that's who wrote in is because that's who outed him and complained to other websites - that's right, this isn't the first place he's done the same thing to the company (and that's not the only tool in his "campaign" against Helio).

I know that in this case following the Foundation's privacy policy makes reviewing this inconvenient, but them's the rules. I have offered repeatedly to share this with an editor (with appropriate permissions) of Ned's choosing and I'm still happy to do that. If nothing else, perhaps then he could throw a little good faith the way of the long time admin instead of handing it all to the stranger leading him down the rabbit hole.

Contrary to what's being said here, I spent a *lot* of time with Sgeine off-wiki (his preferred method) educating him and encouraging him. Originally, even though the information supported it, I tried a topic ban instead of indef blocking the account. When he came back this month as an IP, I started a discussion to help him learn - even though this IP address had vandalized and added skewed information in the articles before and even though he kept attacking me and my motives. I even went so far as to assist him in putting one of the articles up for AfD and went and found a crapload of references when he peppered another article with fact tags (including those where he first deleted the references that were already there).

It wasn't until mid-way through the AfD that he decided to sign back in to his account. Whether or not this was intentional (i.e. logging out to avoid being caught) doesn't really matter here - what matters is that he violated a clear topic ban and has shown no remorse nor indication that he will desist. Of course now he's pretending that he's never spoken to me and had no idea that the ban was in place; Mangojuice read our correspondence and felt otherwise.

Btw, the reason I protected the talk page is twofold: One, the logs he posted were fake, intended only to make people think I hadn't talked to or answered him, notwithstanding he shouldn't be posting private information. And two, he's clearly going to keep making things up until something sticks. Frankly, had he not behaved like this, I'd be all for letting him back on to edit other things, but the blatant mis-truths and continued manipulation have me convinced that letting him edit would be a very bad idea. Shell ^babelfish 11:41, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This is the 3rd IP range "Sgeine" has used to avoid his block. Shell ^babelfish 11:43, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is the way this user is treating his talk page ok? It makes it very hard to find previous warnings. They've made User talk:Stpuidhead a redirect, which also makes it harder to find the editor's contributions. Thanks. Doug Weller (talk) 06:58, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See his rationale. He was doing it to make a WP:POINT, and I reverted it with a warning. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:02, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And I'm watching him now. Rarely useful edits and games like this should be getting him blocked. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:08, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked 48 hours. Gwen Gale (talk) 13:34, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was going to try and clean up IP 67.186.20.215 (talk · contribs) user's page, but after seeing edits like these [61] [62] [63] and the other messages he's left on his talk page, I just figured I should bring it here for admin attention. It seems to be an ongoing problem with racist slurs. Dayewalker (talk) 07:39, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Revert and put semi-protection for an hour. That should stop the nonsense. I'm watching in case he comes back. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:42, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My tolerance for racist slurs like this is remarkably low. As such, the IP has been blocked for two weeks. --Kralizec! (talk) 21:51, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone take a look at Yue Chinese? User:Newzebras is rewording the article to fit the title he wants it moved to,[64] since he hasn't gotten his way with the actual move. I feel that the text should match the title, but it's now turned into an edit war.

Blanking? No. That paragraph is too long and too detailed to be placed outside the main topic. So I merged those sections into the [topic]. --Newzebras (talk) 10:02, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe a month ago I started a discussion at Chinese naming conventions about how to handle the language/dialect issue, since I and several others felt the existing solution was awkward, and I moved several of the articles in accordance with the consensus we reached. The new conventions allow some leeway, and of course it will take some time for everything to settle down. Recently Newzebras suggested (actually demanded) three moves of the Cantonese articles. Two of these were agreed to, and I moved them. The third, Yue Chinese (the wording used in Ethnologue), was not agreed to. Newzebras then placed a second request, and meanwhile has been rewording the text from "Yue" to "Cantonese", which is ambiguous. ("Cantonese" generally means Guangzhou dialect, and when a distinction is made, as here in our articles, people generally try to use more precise wording.) He has started making similar edits to Guangzhou dialect, blanking large sections of the article in the process (such as the section on written Cantonese).[65] kwami (talk) 07:41, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, a few persons' "consensus", but the page-remove IS TOO imprudent. Former articles associated with Cantonese language or dialect all use commonly used English word "Cantonese", but it was you who replaced all this texts into "Yue", which is a Mandarin spelling romanization and a seldom used term in about a moth ago. (see discussion 1 and discussion 2). Since the newly replaced "Yue" by kwami is argumentative, the best way to end the controversy is to revert back to "Cantonese". ("Cantonese" generally means "廣東話(Guangdong hua)" or it's alias "粵語(Yueyu)". Guangzhou dialect is a smaller subset of Cantonese though people of Hong Kong directly call it using the bigger subset name "Cantonese" due to it's prestige and representative of the whole Cantonese language). Now we have moved Guangzhou dialect to the proper place per consensus reached on the discussion page. The article describing the whole Cantonese language certainly should be moved to a page like "Cantonese (language topic)" or "Cantonese (language/dialect)", rather than current terrible name, see move request.--Newzebras (talk) 08:44, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Newzebras, this is not the place to discuss the merits of the move, but rather your behavior. kwami (talk) 09:24, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So you delate me here and said that I delete paragraphs? (I merged those paragraphs to the main topic since they are too long and too detailed, not blanking them as you said.) This is ordinary editing behavior, not "destruction". I think it's necessary to announce this point.--Newzebras (talk) 10:02, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Confirmed, NZ did as he says, so I struck out that complaint. Without an edit summary, I didn't see what had happened to the text. kwami (talk) 10:24, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Um, this looks like a simple content dispute, which administrators are in no more position to mediate than any other uninvolved editors at Wikipedia. Perhaps you two should consider asking for a third opinion or a request for comment on this issue? I don't see anything in the history of this problem that would constitute requiring an admin to block a user or protect a page. Indeed, going through dispute resolution will likely prevent admin action, and we ALL want that, don't we?!? Would anyone object to marking this resolved?--Jayron32.talk.contribs 13:41, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, sorry. I don't bring many of these. Should've gone elsewhere. Sorry for the bother. kwami (talk) 17:33, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A Man in Black has been in a content dispute with multiple parties over his claim of a copyvio for general information in a infobox on Gundam (mobile suit). He has threatened and followed through on blocking Jtrainor in blatant violation of our blocking policy in the following manner: You do not block those who you are involved in a content dispute with. I would suggest that Jtrainor is unblocked immediately and AMIB be reminded that you do not use the tools to gain an advantage in a content dispute and that blocking is not to be used in a purely punitive manner. There was no other dispute resolution tried other than AMIB threatening this user. Thank you. Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 09:37, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure that "this is a copyvio" constitutes a content dispute. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, and citing "policies" will get you nowhere. Admittedly, it might have been a better idea to ask somebody else to block, but I'm not sure that an immediate unblock is warranted.

Also, it's a long-standing practice to block people who insert copyvios – it's not necessarily punitive, but deterrent (which is, of course, a legitimate preventative purpose for a block). — Werdna • talk 09:49, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I understand that he claims it is a copyvio, however, claiming that a character has blonde hair or a spaceship has laser beams does not seem to be copyvio, but simply a ploy to hide the fact that he's attempting to camouflage his violation (which is threatening to use the mop to quell dissent and gain advantage in a simple content dispute). Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 09:54, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm having a look at this. The relevant diff seems to be here. The website in question is here. The next few edits to Gundam (mobile suit) were reverts of this information about the character. One of the reverts was by Kyaa (who started this thread and should have mentioned that she was involved in this). Kyaa was carrying out the same edit as User:Jtrainor, but Jtrainor was the only one to re-add the information more than once. Presumably that is why User:A Man In Black blocked, but I need to check the user and article talk pages and the block logs, and check they've been notified. I'll do that now, as well as consider the copyvio claim. Carcharoth (talk) 11:10, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Initial follow-up: there is another article involved: MSN-03 Jagd Doga. See this diff and this website and then step through the page history from there. Kyaa mentioned this thread on Jtrainor's talk page, but didn't link to the thread, so I've left a link there, and at AMIB's talk page. Looking at the block log and contributions now to find out if this is being discussed elsewhere. Carcharoth (talk) 11:21, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've found another article where this dispute has erupted. See RGM-89 Jegan, where with this edit AMIB says " All of this is copyvio from mahq.net" ([66]). The root of the dispute seems to be at Template:Infobox Mobile Suit. It seems to go back as far as November 2007. See here (compare with Infobox MS Gundam, now a redirect). There was an edit war over that infobox back in November 2007. Then things started up again a few days later with this edit and this edit ("Why do we have two infoboxes for the same thing?" - from User:TheFarix), which led to this edit by AMIB ("Because I never finished converting them to dump all the in-universe nonsense"). The diffs for that infobox from here to here seem to sum up what is happening:

• AMIB - "Dumping a bunch of unencyclopedic in-universe detail; a lot of this still needs to be retooled to better emphasize RL, but hey"
• TheFarix - "rvt; given past opposition. The fields previously removed where those suggested by proponents as unnecessary"
• AMIB - "It's still highly in-universe, unencyclopedic, and wholly unsourced"
• L-Zwei - "oh, then exclude heigh as well. I think weapons are actually more important in represent mech's characteristic"
• TheFarix - "I agree, the height and weight doesn't really tell you anything about the mecha while aremaments and special equipmenet does"
• AMIB - "It's not the most important facts about the subject as an object in the real world. If a weapon or special system is important, it's in the body of the article. If it isn't, it doesn't bear mention"
• TheFarix - "rvt; You are not going to dictate what can and cannot be included in the infobox without discussion and consensus. You don't WP:OWN this template"
• AMIB - "Offer a single non-licensed source discussing the armaments in the detail that these infoboxes go into and I'll relent"
• Jtrainor - "rv vandalism by someone who has no interest or knowledge about the subject matter and insists on inserting his version anyways against consensus"
• AMIB - "Reverted edits by Jtrainor (talk) to last version by A Man In Black"

OK. That's enough for now. I think I've uncovered enough of the history for something sensible to be decided. Hopefully AMIB and Jtrainor will add more if I missed anything. Carcharoth (talk) 11:42, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Missed a few. See Template talk:Infobox Mobile Suit and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Gundam. Particularly the sections Ahem (from the November 2007 dispute), and Redesign (the October 2008 dispute). At the WikiProject, we have numerous threads showing clashes between AMIB and the WikiProject. Starting from around here (June 2007). More clashes are here, here, here, here, here, here (what is the "I believe the differing parties are engaged in a resolution process occupying their attention right now" referring to - from November 2007?), and here (the latest dispute in October 2008). So what we seem to have is a long-running dispute over in-universe and possible copyvio stuff, running from at least June 2007 through July 2007, November 2007, and now October 2008. Anyone have any ideas how to handle this? What was the resolution process back in November 2007? The first "Characters and Episodes" arbitration case? Carcharoth (talk) 12:06, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And more to point, was the block justified? I'm not entirely convinced that the copyvio case is not debatable, but I do see a long running attempt by AMIB to clean up an in-universe area (the Gundam anime articles), along with dealing with copyright issues (non-free images and possibly character information - if that turns out to be copyrightable - see for example the note AMIB left for Kyaa [67]), and a long history of resistance at the WikiProject and poor interaction between AMIB and Jtrainor, culminating in the confrontational exchange here: Copyright warning by AMIB, "Why yes, please do block someone you are involved in a content dispute with. I am utterly underwhelmed by your threats." (Jtrainor), followed by "Well, okay. You're blocked for 24 hours. Please don't do that again." (AMIB). The block is due to expire 08:47 UTC, 2 November 2008, which is around 20 hours from now. No response yet from either side. I would hope AMIB manages to answer here before the block expires - someone should also keep an eye on Jtrainor's talk page for any response there. Carcharoth (talk) 12:22, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've seen blocks overturned, due to the block being done by "involved admins" - overturned on far flimsier grounds than this. It looks to me like AMIB simply doesn't like that info being in the article, and is using whatever reasons he can come up with, to keep it out. It looks like blatant abuse of admin power. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 12:14, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) The simple fact is that AMIB is POV pushing in template and article space. His claim that listing the armaments and other statistics of fictional elements amounts to a copyright violation is simply the latest argument he has used in order to remove these statistics. Originally, it was that the statistics overwhelm the page giving WP:UNDUE weigh to in-universe details, that they violate WP:WAF, or that no reliable third-party sources list such information. At no point has he ever sought a third opinion or any other dispute resolution procedure, instead preferring to use his administrative tools to enforce his preferred version.

If you also look at WT:GUNDAM who will see a long history of AMIB and the Gundam WikiProject bumping heads over various issues. At times, I do think that AMIB is deliberately antagonizing them. As a result, the WikiProject has lost its focus in cleaning up and improving Gundam-related articles. This is one of the reason why I've suggested that WP:ANIME absorbs WP:GUNDAM as a work group. --Farix (Talk) 12:23, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I saw that. AMIB does make some good points though. There is a point at which sourcing/copying character information from a website probably can become a copyright violation. The essential points are whether the basic elements of the information is copyrightable (probably not), and whether the information as a whole for a character, or set of characters, is copyrightable (a bit like a database copyright, but not quite the same as here we have artistic [fictional] content). If Wikipedia is presenting the information here in the same way as it is being presented on the official websites, then we are, in effect, directly competing with them for web traffic, even if some of our readers follow the links to the sources and to the official website. It is also easier to justify including such information when it is discussed and placed in a real-world context in the main text of an article (using third-party sources) rather than just repeated verbatim as in-universe information in an infobox. One final point - it is possible for different editors, working over months and years, to separately add stuff from a source, and for the final article to end up being a copy of all the information from that source - this is a problem of unintentional "piece-by-piece" copyright violation that is peculiar to the wiki-model, and that Wikipedia will have to address at some point. Carcharoth (talk) 12:38, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're generously making AMIB's argument for him, whereas it would be much better if he himself would comment - if he decides it's worth bothering with, since there is currently no hint of any sanction against him. While his claim of "copyright violation" is pretty lame, it would have more credibility if he hadn't been all over the map with his previous arguments against it, which simply add up to "I don't like it". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 12:42, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Those are actually my arguments, not AMIB's arguments (though he may agree with me). I will say that I'm not impressed with AMIB's flippant "well, OK" response to Jtrainor's "this is a content dispute". As I've laid out above, AMIB does have a long history of disputing what should go in that infobox, and in the past, AMIB has started from trying to clean up in-universe stuff, to switching to copyright stuff. He may be right in both cases, but it does feel like another stage in the same long-running dispute. AMIB is clearly heavily involved here, and should have requested a second opinion, instead of allowing Jtrainor's 'block me if you dare' comment to bait him into blocking. Carcharoth (talk) 13:32, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Whether AMIB has a point does not justify him enforcing that point by edit waring, blocking one editor, and threatening to block a second editor involved in the dispute. --Farix (Talk) 12:57, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. You've said that. I'm waiting to see what others say. I think there are two issues that need resolving here. The immediate issue of the block, and the wider issue of the long-running festering issues at the Gundam WikiProject. Carcharoth (talk) 13:32, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Update - it seems that the previous dispute resolution wasn't an arbitration case. It was a mediation. See Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Gundam. See Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Gundam/Archive 1. Not sure how far that got things to improve (seems to have been withdrawn when things started to improve), but it is clear that things have taken a turn for the worse again. I've also noticed that the dates of Jtrainor's other two blocks (July 2007 and November 2007) coincide with the dates of Gundam-related disputes. Unfortunately, the blocking admins did not specify the articles that were involved in the blocks. I could dig through Jtrainor's talk page history, but will drop a note off for the blocking admins as well and see what they can remember. Carcharoth (talk) 13:32, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Final update for now - there is quite a history of this on Jtrainor's talk page. See here, here, here, here, here, and here. This is a mess. Jtrainor has filed an unblock request under the latest section. See here. I have to go out now for the rest of the day, but I hope there is enough here for others to review and sort out what needs doing. As I said, it is a mess and a long-running dispute. I'll check back in the evening and see what has happened then. Carcharoth (talk) 13:50, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • • FYI the November 2007 blocks probably revolved primarily around Gundam Mk-II, Psyco Gundam and MSN-03 Jagd Doga (disputes over "in universe" content and sourcing) and Jean Carry Talia Gladys (along with all the other characters in the ZAFT / OMNI / PLANT alliances) re: copyright material. GundamsЯus (talk) 14:49, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • For what it's worth, I was also blocked my A Man In Black (my first block on Wikipedia) over almost the same thing, though things were more civil back then. I had hoped that that big mediation process we went through with AGK had resolved some disputes, but obviously that is not the case. This is an old issue. MalikCarr (talk) 18:46, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • Addendum, interested parties ought to review Jtrainor's unblock appeal, in which interesting and relevant points are made on the topic of copyright violation. See here. This issue has also been addressed before, wherein some consensus was gained and to which A Man In Black was opposed to, in the infobox template's talk page which has been previously addressed above. MalikCarr (talk) 19:32, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The request for mediation on Gundam was exclusively for edit warring on in-universe-like items in one of the Gundam infoboxes. At its worst, they were repeatedly reverting each other without discussion. Then they seemed to be getting better at talking more than reverting, and so I didn't think mediation needed to be pursued. hbdragon88 (talk) 19:41, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is very similar, except what AMIB is saying is not just that they are in-universe, but that they are copyright violations as well. I haven't looked closely enough into this 18-month-long dispute to work out when the copyright concerns first surfaced (a few days ago, six months ago, a year ago?). Hopefully AMIB will turn up and clarify that. There have been more developments on Jtrainor's talk page, by the way. Carcharoth (talk) 20:01, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I do have a question. If Jtrainor is going to remained block for edit waring, should AMIB also be blocked for the same violation? --Farix (Talk) 20:00, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That would be punitive and unhelpful. A warning would be justified if consensus finds that AMIB did anything wrong. I personally would warn him not to block in cases like this where he has a long history of clashing with Jtrainor. If someone wants me to explicitly put that on his talk page, I will do so. But a block would not prevent anything here. Carcharoth (talk) 20:03, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've unblocked based on the discussion here and on the user talk page. If Jtrainor resumes the edit war, he can always be reblocked. PhilKnight (talk) 21:12, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And if AMIB also resumes edit warring, I assume he will be blocked as well? After all, it wouldn't be appropriate to give such a stipulation to one party but let the more aggressive party in the dispute off the hook. --Farix (Talk) 21:43, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would certainly hope so. Policies should apply to everyone, sysop or no. MalikCarr (talk) 00:59, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

-undent-

The locus of this dispute is based around whether it is acceptable to include some of the fictional statistics of the items in question. AMIB's latest position on this issue is that it is not, because they are a copyvio. This is clearly false, as the information falls under fair use, and is not as detailed as in, say, model kit manuals and so forth, as well as the official guides on the matter. The current material in virtually all cases serves to better describe the items in question, similar to the stat blocks on, say, Star Destroyer, or USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), or Battlestar Galactica (ship), or Andromeda Ascendant, or . It provides additional information in a concise form that is of interest both to fans of the subject and to people who are seeking information about an item. Certain items in these lists of equipment are even linked elsewhere, to better provide understanding about the subject to those who may be unfamiliar with it. For example, in the previously mentioned MSN-03 Jagd Doga article, there are links on the words Newtype, psycommu, mobile suit, and funnel, to points in the appropriate article which explain what these things are. Likewise, the name of the designer, the series it appears in, and the fictional pilot of the unit in question are highlighted as well in case one wishes to find out further information about them.

It is unclear what AMIB's actual position on this material is, other than he doesn't like it and wants it to go. It is very clear that his dislike is not truely based on policy and a desire to better Wikipedia, as he has changed this reasoning several times over the years concerning the same material, and has displayed erratic behaviour when he hasn't gotten his way, including blocking those who disagree with him, such as myself and User:MalikCarr. Jtrainor (talk) 04:03, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Previously, I was pretty sure much of the content in question was copyvio from somewhere. Now I know specifically where it's copied from. I removed it as such, was reverted, warned the users, and blocked the one who reverted copyvio into an article the second time. Jtrainor didn't attempt to defend himself, he just removed my comment from his talk (which is the typical acknowledgement of a warning) and replaced the copyvio content.

This is not the first time MalikCarr and Jtrainor have engaged in brinksmanship over copyright to affect an aggrieved posture. I am not interested in playing political games over copyright.

The dispute over in-universe content is being discussed at Template talk:Infobox Mobile Suit. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 11:09, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So, if they properly attributed those bits of trivia as being from [68] would that fix everything? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 11:18, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It would not satisfy WP:FUC #2 (Bandai and its licensors publish their own guides, either for sale or to guide people to their promotional websites), #3b (we can discuss the weapons with encyclopedic prose, so there's no need for blocks of stats), or #8 (the blocks range from somewhat to entirely trivial detail). Copyrighted material requires not only a source, but a valid fair-use rationale.

It is important to note that these are not uncopyrightable statistics, like the weight of an aircraft or the caliber of a firearm, but instead copyrighted fiction that affects the style of a technical readout.- A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 11:26, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So if the editors re-stated that info in prose style, and properly attributed it, then it would be OK? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 11:35, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is getting into the actual content issue. Personally, I don't think it would be okay using a stat dossier as a source, because parroting fiction of lesser importance only serves to obscure the important facts, like the object's role in the story, artistic development, impact on licensed goods, etc. Disagreeing about this is a content dispute.

That said, I'm not blocking anyone because they disagreed with me on that; I'd have blocked dozens of users by now if I blocked people because they disagreed with me about how to present fiction in an out-of-universe way. I blocked Jtrainor because he replaced a block of text copied verbatim from a copyrighted source after being warned. That's not a content dispute. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 11:42, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

AMIB has once again reverted an edit[69] that restored the disputed text. Since he has reengaged in the edit war, I expect another admin to take appropriate actions. --Farix (Talk) 11:37, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The "disputed text" was copied, verbatim, from here. That's not a content dispute, that's copyvio.

I also removed a section immediately below it, apparently since my first edit; this was in error, and has since been corrected. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 11:43, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

He also added a "primary source" template to try to pre-empt bringing the information into the article directly from its source. This is nothing more than a content dispute hiding behind a claim of copyright violation. The claim of the info being "trivial" was AMIB's original complaint, and that's what this is really about. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 11:51, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The material I removed was copyvio. I don't like a lot of things about that article, but I excised only the portion copied directly from a copyrighted source, despite the fact that the history is riddled with copyvio at this point.

If someone were to rewrite the block as prose, I would be unhappy and would disagree for the reasons above, but I wouldn't treat it as a copyright violation because it wouldn't be. I would rather the article be written based on sources that aren't fiction, yes, but, like I said, not blocking people over it.

I don't really appreciate these accusations of bad faith, especially immediately explaining directly to you that I understood the difference between what I would like and what the rules are. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 11:58, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And I don't appreciate being accused of bad faith, especially since you yourself originally brought up triviality as the complaint, and have since gone looking for "legitimate" reasons to delete it. And you yourself blocked someone with whom you were having a content dispute, which is a gross violation of your authority. I don't know anything about you except what you write. And you're all over the map on this one item. Maybe you should leave it alone for awhile. There are plenty of other articles that need improvement. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 12:34, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would like trivial information to be marginalized or removed. Copyvio needs to be removed on sight. The complaint I have always had is that the blocks made the articles too much like a fansite, and being copied exactly from an official fansite is a pretty excessive example of that.

On top of all of this, I had moved on. Someone reopened the issue, I limited my edits to the template, and for the last several days limited my edits to the talk page of the template. Someone suggested that the stats were copied verbatim from somewhere, and after checking two articles I'd edited a year before, I found them to indeed be copied verbatim from there. So I removed the copyvio, tagged one of them for style, and moved on, until my removal of copyvio was reverted with undo or edit summaries of "rvv". I warned, saw the warning ignored in one case, and blocked in that case.

I have more or less abandoned what I would like, save in the limited case of not cramming things into infoboxes, where I've been discussing it on a talk page. This vague suggestion that I'm trying to muscle my way through a content dispute makes no sense considering that Jtrainor, Kyaa, and until today MalikCarr hadn't even commented on Template talk:Infobox Mobile Suit, the only place I was pursuing what I would like. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 12:52, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So if they rewrite it as prose, with proper attribution, that removes the copyright issue, and takes it back to your original complaint, as stated in your first sentence: That you don't like it. Hence, it still comes down to a content dispute, and you were out of line blocking someone in that circumstance. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 13:26, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Jtrainor didn't rewrite it as prose with proper attribution. He reverted copyvio into an article. He was warned, and then blocked.

Farix rewrote as attributed prose, and got no warning and no revert.

So if people are rewriting as prose, I'm not much happy, but, for the third time, I'm not warning or blocking people for making me unhappy. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 13:38, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For two days a registered SPA user has repeatedly vandalized the Eastern Lebanon County High School article by posting an essay which was reverted by myself and others while on vandal patrol. The essay concerns the actions of an alleged student and ends with a threat of violence against the high school. (e.g. "The skies will rain with bloood and the earth will tremble at his every step. Those who speak his name in vain shall perish at by his hand.") The user has been persistent in their vandalism - registering two accounts and being reverted 7 times. Following Wikipedia:Threats of violence guidelines, I have taken the side of caution and reported this incident by e-mail to the Police Department in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. I wanted the Wikipedia administration to be aware of this. — CactusWriter | ^needles 10:06, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have blocked the two accounts, semi-protected the article on the school for a month (if it turns out that full is needed, let me know, or go to WP:RFPP), and I have protected the article he's made a couple of times against creation. I've also contacted MySpace to make sure that he's not threatening anything on the profile to which he keeps linking. To clarify, CactusWriter, did you contact the Lebanon County police, the city of Lebanon police, or the police in Myerstown? Metros (talk) 10:36, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I contacted the Lebanon City Police Department -- and only by e-mail, with a request for them to acknowledge the receipt of my e-mail. I did not contact the Myerstown police because I didn't see an e-mail address on their website. I decided if I hadn't received acknowledgment from the Lebanon City Police by this afternoon (my time in Denmark), then I would make a phone call to Myerstown. — CactusWriter | ^needles 10:45, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I have contacted the County sheriff's office by email, as well. It is highly likely that Myerstown doesn't actually have a police force and relies on the sheriff's office, instead, for its force (this is typical in areas with smaller towns). The sheriff's office appears to not have Saturday/Sunday hours, so, I'm hoping that by a stroke of luck, someone happens to check the email this weekend. Metros (talk) 10:52, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea. I agree that the sheriff probably has jurisdiction in Myerstown, but I think the Lebanon city police probably have more personnel on duty. As I said, if I don't receive word back, I'll make a phone call within the next few hours. Thanks for your attention. — CactusWriter | ^needles 10:58, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, CactusWriter. The sheriff's office contact is here should you feel you need to call them as well. I've marked this as resolved since I've blocked and protected and since we've reported. Please let me know (email, my talk page, or here) what the response is from the office, Metros (talk) 11:00, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I received an e-mail response from a Captain Daniel Wright of the Lebanon City Police Dept. He informed me that ELCO High School was under the jurisdiction of the Pennsylvania State Police. He said that he has forwarded my e-mail to them as well as spoken with one of their representatives. — CactusWriter | ^needles 14:29, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a good call. Good job all. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:51, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone uninvolved have a glance at this edit [70] to Talk:Wolfberry by Paul144 (talk · contribs)?

Paul144 has been the subject of a COI discussion WP:COIN#Wolfberry. He claims the edit, which expunges from discussion evidence of his strong COI, is justified under WP:OUTING (despite there having been no outing - he self-disclosed his identity - and the authors of a book and details of a company are public knowledge. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 13:56, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can you can point out his self-disclosure? Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 16:55, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here [71], where he provided a link to a biographical page and article list ("I am a contributor to a few of these, e.g., http://www.npicenter.com/news/DrPaulGross_articles.aspx"); and here [72] ("I am the son of the subject"). Gordonofcartoon (talk) 17:29, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

ControlFreak (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has already been blocked twice for uploading copyright violations and adding them to Mýa discography. Today, he has done it again.—Kww(talk) 14:05, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked indef, img deleted. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:17, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've blocked this user indefinitely (not infinitely). I'd be happy to have any admin unblock this user upon acknowledgment that he or she has read and understood the relevant policies and has given a promise to stop uploading improper images. henrik•talk 14:28, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

User:Pedofenion first vandalized the page for Magibon with obscene language, then proposed it for deletion Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Magibon_(3rd_nomination), claiming BLP violations. Someone needs to look for socks as well; multiples SPAs showed up at AfD. VG ☎ 14:24, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've indef blocked for the username which in Irish slang more or less means pedophile Catholic. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:33, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is a comment, porportedly from the subject (which I responded to as such), at WP:AN. At that time the AfD was live, which I advised the editor at their talkpage. I am unsure if they will be happy with the keep decision, but keeping the vandalism out may go some way to mollifying them. LHvU (talk) 15:08, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone run checkuser on User:Magichan, User:Firithfenion, User:Pedofenion, User:Forryga and User:TrueForryga. Based on the unlikely interaction between Japanese Americans and Irish users, this whole affairs seems a giant troll farm to me. See [73] and [74]. VG ☎ 15:22, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sadly, trolls are notoriously poor farmers. Although they are often full of sh|t, they often bury their good ideas too deeply in the ground, and end up with merely chaff on the surface. -t BMW c- 16:18, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Likely so. Mind, User:Forryga and User:TrueForryga were already blocked yesterday for vandalism/trolling. Gwen Gale (talk) 15:37, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Pedofenion (talk · contribs) was already name blocked. Found several of these accounts were using an anon proxy and I blocked it's whole range as well some socks I found using it, including Magichan (talk · contribs) = Magibonchan (talk · contribs) and two seemingly unrelated to this case.  Inconclusive as to Firithfenion (talk · contribs), Forryga (talk · contribs), and TrueForryga (talk · contribs). — Rlevse • Talk • 13:39, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dubious line of questioning

One of the editors involved in that AfD, User:Ariana-hime has very unusual talk page, which consists of dozens of unanswered personal questions from User:Hetelllies, who (you've guessed) is also interested in Magibon. VG ☎ 03:34, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any socking or CU-type stuff going on there? — Rlevse • Talk • 13:35, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Probably not. It just looks like User:Hetelllies was trying to flirt with User:Ariana-hime, who didn't quite appreciate the advances. VG ☎ 13:58, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is being pasted from here [75] where James Forrester like to keep things tucked away. Giano (talk) 15:51, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

IRC #admins

I do not wish to be slandered, or even mentioned, in your #Admin's channel again. Please ensure it does not happen in future, or it will be closed down. Most editors are thoroughly sick of it and its pernicious influence on the project. I suggest you bear that in mind and control it. Giano (talk) 22:03, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I share your generalised concerns about abuse of the channel. As and when you have evidence of any such activity, I would greatly welcome you drawing them to my attention. However, as we have previously discussed, vague claims of you being "slandered" without context don't let me help you, and merely encourage division.

James F. (talk) 14:16, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Try reading the bloody logs of the sewer, or is it so disgusting you never go there? Giano (talk) 14:21, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I lost regular IRC access for the past fortnight, so do not have a reliable set of logs.

James F. (talk) 15:47, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you have not the energy to read the logs have this one on me for a start: How's this "<DanielB> To Giano, who invariably reads this: You are a fucking wanker." Bad enough for you? Giano (talk) 15:28, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's certainly not remotely close to "slander", but yes, I agree that that is completely unacceptable. I will have words with Daniel. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

James F. (talk) 15:47, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You will be having far more than a word I can assure you. Giano (talk) 15:48, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

JamesF, to give you context...well, there is no context for that comment. Daniel logged into the channel, made the comment, and logged out, all within 25 seconds. And no, I did not give anyone my logs, although because you have responsibility for the channel, I will offer you my logs for the last 36 hours, which contains much of interest. This isn't okay, and it wouldn't be okay regardless of whose name was mentioned. I hope we can all agree on that. Risker (talk) 16:25, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't he an op, as well? That sort of thing needs to be discouraged in the strongest possible terms - revocation of access for such trolling wouldn't be over the top (since it is obviously trolling - no question he knew what the response would be). Avruch ^T 16:38, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Feh, trolling, ignore it. If he did not know that someone was systematically leaking the logs and thus making the channel useless for any kind of open discussion then I am sure Daniel would not have said a word. And for the record I would have absolutely no problem with a log available only to arbitrators, it's the passing-on of logs which are then used by detractors for the purposes of quote mining that I consider problematic. Guy (Help!) 17:18, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Being a fornicating masturbator isn't so bad. It generally only has a negative meaning if you're already involved in an altercation with whoever calls you that. I mean, if some random person walked past me and called me an asshole, I'd honestly think they were either deranged or had Tourette's. It certainly would qualify as "uncivil" (it was prefaced as if the target would see it, somehow), but neither slanderous nor worth "closing the channel." In fact, it's sure not worth a coronary. -t BMW c- 18:01, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nice to meet you, Bwilkins. If you want to bring Tourette syndrome into a completely inappropriate use of "fucking wanker" to describe Giano, at least educate yourself. Thank you, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:16, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Pardon me for a moment, are you suggesting I need to learn even more about Tourette than I already do? Thanks, but I have significant experience with the affliction, and indeed had an fellow writer early in my career who would use quite similar terms while sitting at the desk next to me - not specifically directed, of course. There was no insult to those afflicted. Have a nice day. -t BMW c- 13:09, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You are completely wrong. Other than being a contradiction in terms it is very uncivil, while we all know that this is typical of the shennanigans that our Admins get up to in their channel - it is the rubbish that they usually tell us does not happen. Only last night one of the pseudo-Admns of the channel was telling me, on WP, that I had not been discussed for ages, when in fact I had the logs proving I had been discussed there only a few hours previously. We are far better off without the channel and being able to see just what these people are in fact doing - which is principally block shopping, wastimg their time and indulging in idle gossip. I am considering posting logs on Wikipedia as and when necessary to prove just what does go on in James Forrester's private channel. Giano (talk) 18:12, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Shades of WP:TINC? I have two main concerns:

1. If this is a private channel for certain WP users only, or to discuss WP, then, in effect, it is a cabal, is it not?
2. If it is permitted by policy, or is not for discussing WP, and is a friends-only channel, why the hell do the private logs matter? I can call some users whatever I like - and I do - but only to my friends, and only off official channels. For example, "Yeah, I'm having loads of problems with UserA, he's being a difficult prat", to my girlfriend or close RL friends. If it's a friends-only channel, then what goes on in it is not of Giano's concern, unless it's a channel where people are meeting specifically to out him - surely? Posting logs from a private, friend-only channel would be spying. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 18:26, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Which is what in effect Giano has been doing-spying. I don't care about that, but it is a private channel and I don't see how the wiki has to get involved with it. Didn't we already go over this at ArbCom with the IRC case? Until they say otherwise, we don't do anything. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 18:31, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Seriously? You're adding a section to AN/I because someone insulted you? That's slander now? Yet when you are uncivil to others that's supposed to be ok (don't claim you haven't said as much). While I will agree that anyone that's so childish they can't behave on an IRC channel should have their access revoked, your doublespeak apparently knows no bounds. Though I don't know why I bother commenting on this since you've long ago proven you are blind to the benefits of the channel and think that as long as people talk about you it must be banished. Clue: it's a tool and just like Wikipedia bad things go on on Wikipedia too. Should we throw that baby out with the bathwater too? - Taxman ^Talk 18:37, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Very well Taxman if you think it is fine for Admins and Arbs to behave in such a fashion so long as it is a secret place that ordinary editors must not know about, then that is your perogative. So why not say it has nothing what so ever to do with Wikipedia remove all Wikipedia titles etc from it. Cast it adrift. Giano (talk) 18:41, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Since that's not what I said, I guess I don't need to say more. - Taxman ^Talk 20:00, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Remember, everyone, just because you aren't paranoid, doesn't mean people aren't out to get you... And if you don't want people to call you names that make you feel bad, don't behave in a manner that causes others to hold negative opinions of your actions... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:30, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe its the season, but that made me think of "If you don't want the government to arrest you for being subversive, don't vote for the other guy..." Maybe more appropriate is that old maxim about not righting a wrong with another wrong. Anyway, there is no reason to tolerate that sort of thing on the admins IRC channel - its poisonous on a number of levels (not least because it results in this sort of problem). I'm curious about the reaction to that comment in the channel - did anyone say anything against it, was it ignored, was it echoed? Avruch ^T 18:43, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is a BIG difference between holding an unpopular opinion, and behaving in a rude manner. One can hold unpopular opinions, and should not be sanctioned for it. However, the holding of unpopular opinions does not also excuse behaving in a generally rude and obnoxious behavior. If you behave obnoxiously, you can't then expect that people are NOT going to react to that. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 19:21, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Daniel joined the channel, made the comment, and left. Nobody commented on it. I wasn't active at the time. It's clear to me that Daniel was trolling Giano there. The context of this is probably the conversation between Giano and Daniel yesterday, on Daniel's user talk page. Each of these two is egging on the other one. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:53, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How is asking him to desist attacking after I had assisted in tth e ublock of a wrongly blocked editor egging him on? Giano (talk) 10:09, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify - is this about #wikipedia-en-admins, or a different channel? Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 18:57, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A: #wikipedia-en-admins. With that clarified, I'm disengaging here. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:59, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Also, edit summary? Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 19:12, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Might I suggest that both sides are in the wrong here? Giano has always made his opinions on civility clear, and so getting upset about the above comments seems a tad pointless (even if I and others don't see it as such.) On the other hand Daniel is not doing the project any favors. Both are baiting each other, and Giano seems to go out of his way to gather up more drama than he naturally attracts. Either way, this is about individuals, not the channel. David Fuchs 19:18, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I see, so no drama and let IRC do as it pleases. Good idea. The project would collapse in 6 months. Giano (talk) 10:09, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My own summary

1. Giano apparently took Daniel to task over a block that Giano disagreed with
2. Giano may not have actually seen the entire history of the altercation with that other editor
3. Daniel took exception to Giano taking him to task
4. Daniel vented, inappropriately ... although maybe he'd had a dozen run-ins with extremely bad vandals, and this was the "last straw"?
5. Giano got his feelings hurt.

Sound about right? Rule #1 of broadcast journalism: never say anything in front of a microphone that you wouldn't want the world to hear. Just because you THINK the microphone is off, doesn't mean it is. Yes, Giano should not have access to those logs, but it let's not go on a witch hunt there.

Giano - leave Daniel alone. Forever. Daniel - leave Giano alone. Forever. If you need to template/block him for some reason, let someone else do it (even if you have to discuss it in IRC first :-) ). -t BMW c- 13:29, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

fairness

• You know, I'm left asking what would have happened if this remark had been made on wiki? Because I think that IRC incivility should not be tolerated any more or less than we tolerate incivility on wiki. There should be no allowance made for the fact that the remarks were made privately. So, an established wikipedian who called another a "wanker" on wiki, could face a 24 hour block. So, maybe Daniel should be banned fro IRC for 24 hours? On the other hand, on wiki, a civility block is very likely to be undone by someone, especially if there was no warning beforehand..... So, I'm not sure what should happen to Daniel.....except perhaps that he should face the same strong consequences for incivility that, say, Giano might face if he used similar invective on wiki. How does that sound?--Scott MacDonald (talk) 19:14, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • These sorts of comments aren't supposed to be tolerated in -en-admins, though unfortunately it depends on whether somebody is around to enforce channel rules and is willing to do so. I've personally had to +q Daniel in the channel before; these comments of his were clearly inappropriate and shouldn't be tolerated in the channel. krimpet✽ 19:36, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But the IRC channel isn't part of the project. Indeed, it's not official - if you start moving it in as part of the project, then you start bringing in the possibility that decisions can be made "per IRC"... Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 19:32, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is a major difference between bad behavior on the channel being being the concern of the people at Wikipedia, and making decisions at the channel. In fact, it's the possibility of bad behavior there being of concern here which should prevent decisions being made there. Personally, I've never participated or even listened there. DGG (talk) 19:47, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And ArbCom has repeatedly stated per IRC isn't a good reason for anything. If you agree with something on IRC, then it can be brought to Wikipedia. It should aid rather than thwart. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 19:56, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but it's not a good reason for anything because it isn't part of the project. — Coren ^(talk) 21:41, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Calling someone a fucking... anything is bad and highly inappropriate. Leaking logs is also bad. Both are bad. And both should stop. Cirt (talk) 19:49, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unless, of course, you're calling them a fucking awesome contributor. :) Master&Expert (Talk) 20:18, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's more important to address the inappropriate behavior that motivates people to leak logs, rather than just addressing the log leaking (which is extremely difficult to hunt down in such a large channel). Better to address the root cause, rather than just the resulting symptoms. krimpet✽ 19:58, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Best to address both. Cirt (talk) 20:02, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I personally think it is more important to deal with the symptoms, but the root cause needs to be addressed. Master&Expert (Talk) 20:18, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Traditionaly, the argument is that if the IRC (and especially en-Admins) channels were closed then the badmouthing would occur on other even more off-Wiki (because, as is being argued, there is no indication that en-WP - via ArbCom or any other body - has any real jurisdiction over them) and the good things - which are generalised as "checking the recent action by an admin was appropriate" and "finding an admin quickly" - lost. Well... let the bucketmouths find another venue for their mass debating of other peoples perceived failings because, whether it is admitted or not by the channel ops, the IRC channels have the veneer of WP endorsement due to the servers they are hosted on and the connections between the regulators and owners with WP. The fact that someone can troll or engage in behaviour not tolerated on the publicly viewable WP pages on pages apparently sanctioned by the WP hierarchy does not reflect well on that section of the community. Also, if you are unable to find an admin from the 1000+ active sysops on one of the noticeboards... well, the few that are on IRC are unlikely to want to disturb their slagfest anyhow... (and shutting down en-admins give the inhabitants less reason to be missing in action re assisting the encyclopedia).
• Shut it down already. "You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing..." LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:14, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's hardly a slagfest. I am there a fair bit and very rarely see incivility. Yes, it does happen from time to time, but it's certainly not part of the cultural norm of the place. On occasions where someone has gone a bit berserk in there, ops on the channel seem to have been able to control the situation (in one particular case, a long-standing contributor got kick-banned for a short period until they learned to behave). I think there is a problem of perception because historically (and certainly, when I first joined, I was absolutely disgusted and quit after only a few weeks) the place's main function appeared to be sharing dirt and stacking DRVs. Some more fair-minded users realised this was because of the absence of wider scrutiny and went on a campaign to bring in arbitrators and a wider, less insular section of the community. The other activity ceased pretty quickly thereafter. That was if my memory serves me correct June or July of 2007. In around November through to March this year something of a code of conduct came together. I think it even helps as a function to moderate some of our more action-heavy admins - they propose a completely bizarre action at admins, people tell them just how bizarre it is, and they think better of it. Orderinchaos 22:45, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am, as is obvious, pretty biased against IRC - so can you tell me what exactly the purpose en-admins serve? If a sysop needs a sanity check before an action, is there not some senior admin/editor they can canvass if they are unprepared to take it before the community (which should be fair indication that it isn't going to be uncontroversial anyway). Same thing if said admin is suspicious of certain accounts behaviour; checking publicly - with AfD considerations - is the appropriate method, not poisoning the well of admin opinion were claims might not be rebutted. The fact that Giano can, above, point out that someone has trolled the channel, and the ops were unaware indicates both that there is some continuing abuse of the venue and that violations of toc are not always noticed (let alone sanctioned). LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:56, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking personally, very very difficult to find anyone online when in the middle of some situation where one might need advice. Been there and done that *many* times. Almost *all* actions are in some way controversial now that Wikipedia has gotten so large that it is impossible for any admin, short of those ones that spend every waking moment of every day here following all the dramas and parties and politics, to know the implications of any decision they take, even a seemingly obvious or innocent one. I think not having en-admins would decrease the quality of admin decisions. I'd point to the Ashley Todd situation last week as one where I took an action off my own bat and several en-admins people, even those who agreed with my decision, talked me into retracting it in order to reduce Wikidrama. That check or balance would not have happened without the channel as it was 3 or 4 am in my time zone, and the people I talk to on gtalk would not have been awake and may not have noticed, given their editing interests lie elsewhere. Orderinchaos 23:01, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One cannot hold channel ops who weren't online responsible for something they didn't see, or channel ops who were online responsible for a hit-and-run of this nature. Nobody is at fault here other than DanielB, who clearly acted inappropriately there. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:09, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. The fault is with the user who made the remark. I'm concerned that the user, user:Daniel, holds positions that require impartiality and discretion. I see that Daniel was the clerk of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Geogre-William M. Connolley in which Giano was a party. I'd hope that he wouldn't act in that capacity in any future cases where he's expressed such a strong opinion about the parties. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 00:10, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So... someone was insulted, in a semi-private place, where they couldn't see the insult (until someone showed them), so we're supposed to shut it down? I could almost understand the level of drama this caused if it happened in public, like on-wiki, or perhaps in a public channel. If this had happened in a different private channel or a private discussion between 2 people would it still be a problem? If we shut down every form of communication because someone got insulted on it and threw a fit, we'd be left with ... nothing. The gist of this discussion is basically that people shouldn't be allowed to say anything bad about anyone, anywhere, ever, where someone else might see it. Other users are humans and we aren't the thought police. Where is the harm here? Nothing would have been permanently recorded (until the insult was pasted here so it will be archived forever with the rest of this section). Can we all go back to doing something productive now? Mr.Z-man 23:06, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It seems like a single example of impetuous behaviour by one individual. Had it had any import (i.e. resulted in an action on-wiki) or turned into a channel-wide denunciation of the user concerned, there'd be more cause for concern. As it stands, someone delivered an intemperate comment probably "for the lulz" (which were not by any evidence presented shared), should be cautioned by the IRC ops against doing so again, and the lines of text being generated over the one line can come to a close. Orderinchaos 23:13, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Summary

It seems to me as if:

1. Giano is acting inappropriately by reading logs he's not permitted to read. Giano needs to stop looking for trouble, and stop reading administrator channel logs until he gets the mop. Any other user would get banhammered fast for spying on logs, and the only reason he isn't being is that it would split the community if he was blocked. I understand his concerns, and I'd probably do the same, but we need to have higher standards than this.

   I see so it's OK to act like that in the channel if no one knows. Shoot the messenger. Giano (talk) 10:18, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

2. Daniel is acting in such a way as to bring Wikipedia into disrepute, both with Giano and others. His edit summaries and messages are at times abusive, and I think he knows that they need improving. I have no doubt he's good at OTRS, and at other things he does, but an admin should never insult another user, for any reason.
3. In conclusion, both parties need to be topic banned from each other. And Giano needs to stop reading logs. If he's got concerns, he should take them up - politely - with the channel ops, but it's not a Wikipedia matter any more than WW or WR are. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 23:57, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Which is what I did and Forrester asked for proof, Giano (talk) 10:18, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Support. I support this rational, balanced and objective summary by Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 00:00, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Support This seems a fair assessment of the problems. This is a situation where neither side did anything defensable, and both should bear some blame for needless stirring up trouble. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 00:12, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Meh, logs should (ideally) not leak. But if someone sends me a log and tells me I'm mentioned in it, I will read it. Can't really blame Giano for that. I think he's overreacted, especially since he's not exactly delicate on civility. As people have learned not to over-react to Giano's directness with his opinions on others, Giano should learn the same when he's the subject of such. But reading logs.....not a sin.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 00:03, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Per Scott MacDonald; you are trying to convict Giano of reading a log to which they are not entitled, sent to him by a third party (I am surprised there isn't a posse/hanging party out looking for that "villain"), concerning an entry by which someone else completely violating the rules of the channel by denigrating Giano in foul and abusive language solely in an effort to irritate and create a reaction from Giano... Cml,I'mtC, this is the first time I have seen you miss the target but Giano is not the guilty party; it is the coward (who has not participated in this discussion) who made the offensive comment in an effort to provoke such a response. Without the initial comment there would have been nothing on which to castigate Giano for responding. LessHeard vanU (talk) 00:56, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Q: Banhammered for looking at logs? Is that really true? I mean, if IRC is completely separate from WP, and people can't be banned on WP for what they say on IRC, how can someone be banned for looking at the logs? IronDuke 00:57, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Damn, I wish I had your smarts! LessHeard vanU (talk) 01:00, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, hush :P . I know what you mean, but my point still stands, chaps: We don't know how he got the logs, and at the end of the day the channel is secure. There are ways to deal with problems on IRC, reading logs then shouting about them in a public forum, whether given to you by someone or gotten in some other way, is not the way to do it. Giano should have gone to the ops when he found this out, and let them deal with it. Equally, however, Daniel should be looking at a stern talking to. LHVU - this is a sincere request - come and lurk in the IRC channel. You'll see it's nothing more than a friendly forum where people can ask for help. Like #wikipedia, but with more mature humour and the occasional amusing link thrown in. I'm not suggesting Giano should be banhammered - but imagine what would happen to a new user if they were 'spying' on the chatroom - they'd get more than Giano would get, yes? Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 01:08, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You shouldn't need to rely on the privileged nature of the forum protecting the miscreant for uttering the offending verbiage to de-escalate potential problems; it should not be permitted in the first instance... I'm sorry, and I have noted my bias regarding IRC previously, but I have no interest in participating in this anomaly; a venue run by WP "high ups", populated by WP admins, discussing WP related matters, but having no authority from WP and no means of redress via WP. LessHeard vanU (talk) 01:40, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Giano should have gone to the ops when he found this out, and let them deal with it" Exactly what I did - and was aked on wiki for proof. I provided it Giano (talk) 10:18, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• I want everyone in participation in this discussion to remember something very important - Daniel is a long-standing, highly valued administrator who does great work for the project, both in terms of content contributons and maintanance. It is not typical of him to call people "wankers". Therefore, the most I endorse with this incident is a trout to the face. Likewise, Giano is a quality editor who's writing skills are practically brilliant. He may be blunt and sometimes even tackless in some of his dealings, but all the good he does for the encyclopedia is truly to an exemplary standard. Poking around in other IRC conversations is intrusive, but Giano can be forgiven. He, also, should garner a good trouting.

• I agree with topic banning them from each other. They clearly aren't overly compatible with each other, and it would be best if they stayed out of one another's way.

Master&Expert (Talk) 01:05, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't edit the same topics as Daniel. I have never had any contact with him before, his attack. Giano (talk) 10:18, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Master: Well said. that's the point I was trying to make. A slapped wrist to them both, and we'll leave it at that. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 01:10, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cav, I'm still confused about the banning for IRC thing, hope I'm not being thick. (LHVU, were you saying you wished you had my smarts?) IronDuke 01:13, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, yours... theirs... anybodies... I ain't choosy, and I reckon they would come in usefull... LessHeard vanU (talk) 01:28, 2 November 2008 (UTC) (small "v" btw)[reply]

I guess it's hard to describe. The logs shouldn't be reposted without permission from all involved - this much is mentioned as soon as you join. I very much doubt Giano will reveal his sources for the logs, so we're left with about 3-400 admins who have to be very careful what they say - even in jest - because it will invariably be taken out of context if posted. I don't see why Giano needs to spy on the channel. When I talk about my girlfriend's medical condition in there, I don't want it being posted around some secret mailing list for all to see. It's a private channel, and I'd like it to stay that way - with oversight by a few trusted users, if required - but if I'm talking to my friends about anything, I don't want it subsequently read, used against me and taken out of context by people I hardly know. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 01:23, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you discuss your girlfriend's medical condition in an open chatroom with a group of strangers....Well, not a lot I can say to that one. Giano (talk) 10:18, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Right, I think I knew all that. I can absolutely see how posting logs would get you kicked off the IRC, if it were known. But I cannot see how it would have repercussions onwiki, especially as it doesn't go the other way, ie, that things said on IRC are blockworthy here. Without picking a side here, I'd also agree that if someone was saying negative stuff about me on IRC, I'd like to know, and "privacy" concerns would hold little weigh with me in that context. IronDuke 01:30, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Shoot the messenger. Giano (talk) 10:18, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) If reposting logs is banned on IRC, then the punishment takes place on IRC. Otherwise, everyone's actions on so-called 'Wikipedia' IRC channels becomes subject to the official policies and scrutiny of Wikipedia (which is what several ArbCom cases revolved around). I hope that when Cavalry is talking about banning for "spying" on IRC, he is talking about IRC ops banning people from IRC, not people being banned from Wikipedia. I suspect loose talk about "banhammering" (a horrible word, anyway) without saying whether the reference is to IRC or Wikipedia, has led to the confusion here. Carcharoth (talk) 01:31, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A quick question. I was under the impression that permanent logs were being kept by arbitrators of the activity in the admins IRC channel to allow independent review if needed. Is that still being done? Carcharoth (talk) 01:34, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

They don't care what happens there. Giano (talk) 10:18, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Way up at the top Jdforrester notes that his logs don't include the period including this particular event - it seems possible, likely even, that he is the person who supplies ArbCom with the channel logs upon request. This whole thing is a simple channel management problem that doesn't need to become a big community-wide debate. By and large, the volume of problems originating from IRC has gone way down. Daniel should probably have his #wikipedia-en-admins channel access suspended for some fixed or indefinite period, and everyone should go back to doing something else. Avruch ^T 01:56, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is all phooey. Giano complaining that someone used rude invective against him? Pot meet kettle. If Daniel should be sanctioned for these remarks, then it should be with the same measure that we deal with Giano. (That is no sanction at all.) No, I don't blame Giano for reading logs - if anyone sends me sekrit logs and tells me I'm mentioned, I'm sure to read. The real villain of the peace here is whoever sent Giano the logs. Not so much because logs were confidential, but because it is hard not to assume their motive was not pure trolling. Sitting anonymously somewhere and using your access to deliberately poke sticks in the cage to get the inevitable reaction is disruption of the worst type - the leaker should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. If the leaker had a problem with the Daniel they should have gone to the ops - telling an explosive, habitually incivil, editor that someone was incivil about him, was never going to do anything other than cause a drama and was a fruitless waste of time.—Scott MacDonald (talk) 02:35, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's right shoot the messenfer leave the problem. Giano (talk) 10:18, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• On a procedural level, if ArbCom doesn't sanction people for comments in IRC then is that anything the community should do? If that's what Daniel wrote then he should be ashamed of himself, and the chanops should be taking appropriate action. Yet it's hard to suppose restricting him on-wiki would be anything other than punitive: had the proposed restriction already been in place it wouldn't have prevented him from posting that at IRC, and wouldn't prevent that from happening again. The community rejected BADSITES soundly, and one of the associated principles is that only a very narrowly defined range of off-wiki actions is actionable on-wiki. If an editor posts coercive threats elsewhere we can siteban them here, and off-wiki canvassing would be actionable, but matters of incivility are best taken up with the local venue where the incivility occurred. Durova^Charge! 03:52, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If this is the kind of behaviour we're going to get in that channel, then I say thank the Lord for those willing to leak logs for helping keep that channel accountable to the community. (And no, I do not leak logs myself.) Heimstern Läufer (talk) 07:09, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The most sensible comment I have read here - and no he did not! Giano (talk) 10:48, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As someone who has boycotted IRC for years, and who's gotten heads up from time to time about being the target of nastiness, I can't quite agree. The first step ought to be to have a private word with the person who posts something that rude, or bring it to the chanops' attention. Log sharing should be a last resort. And for something of this nature--just an obscene potshot--there's hardly a need to defend oneself. It's the sort of thing mature adults normally handle discreetly or rise above. Durova^Charge! 09:40, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Are you seriously suggesting Durova that editors should turn a blind eye to the insults of the IRC #admin's ratpack? This time they picked on one well able to defend himself - what happens on the occasions when the editor is not? He is just driven off or walks off in disgust. Shame on you Durova for even thinking such a thing. I will always point out the many shortcoming of that Arbcom sanctioned sewer. Giano (talk) 10:48, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

All present drama aside, IRC is a tool

As someone who has a great deal of difficulty communicating clearly in written form without the ability for real-time interactive clarification, I find IRC to be quite useful. On-wiki communication options (especially very busy pages..) are extremely difficult for me to follow, much less participate in. By the time I've managed to compose what I want to say in a semi-coherent form, the discussion has moved on.. I can't tell you how many times I've spent half an hour working on a few sentances, ended up edit conflicted - then discovered that what I was going to say was no longer relevant due to other developments. At least on IRC I can spit out my thought & follow up with a clarification. IRC is a tool, no better nor worse than the individuals who use it. I've said this before, and I'll say it again.. Individuals are responsible for their own conduct... the medium shouldn't be condemned just because a few individuals behave improperly. --Versageek 02:37, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OTRS

FWIW, DanielB has op access on other channels, and has discussed me often in private channels, such as the OTRS one, calling me names along the lines of "wanker", "asshole" etc. Giano is not alone as the receiving end of abuse. Additionally, DanielB abused op rights and kicked me from the open OTRS channel for no reason whatsoever, then banned me when I was asleep - I had to contact an OTRS admin to have the ban removed, and the admin agreed the ban was highly inappropriate. I asked Daniel about this, over on Meta-wiki: his response: "because". It's utterly disgraceful someone like this is representing Wikipedia, both as an administrator, and an OTRS respondant. He needs to grow up and get off his power trip. It's embarrassing watching it. It's because of people like him I no longer volunteer for OTRS, or assist in its related IRC channels. Al Tally ^talk 23:26, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm moving this comment off into its own subsection. OTRS, arguably, is more crucial to the functioning of Wikipedia than the en-admins channel, and deals with more sensitive private information and public relations areas, as far as I'm aware. If there is inappropriate behaviour in the OTRS channel and this affects how the OTRS system works, that is something that people should be concerned about. So I would ask the following: "What is the connection between the official Wikipedia:OTRS system and the OTRS IRC channel?" Carcharoth (talk) 23:40, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I am aware, it is quite official. The open channel is for users who are not on OTRS, who can ask questions of agents (such as "Does x ticket say n thing?" or "I need a permissions check".) All agents are voiced. The private channel is open to only users with access to the "info-en" queue - the one that deals with common complaints (such as vandalism, errors in articles, FAQs, as well as the "quality" issues such as sensitive BLP enquiries - often dealing with the subject). The private channel is a fairly recent creation - the biggest difference to the open one is that contents of tickets can be openly discussed, since only "trusted" users have access. The channels are run by the OTRS admins (most active being Cary Bass, Guillom, and Jredmond), and a handful of ops, afaik, they are Rjd0060, Cbrown1023 and DanielB. I'd say they are pretty official. On the private wiki, for example, there is a page one can use to request access to the private channel. Since it's run by the administration, I think it's the official channel. Al Tally ^talk 23:48, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No channels are officially official, as far as I know, and there is no way of legislating to prevent people getting annoyed and venting. Mining for such examples and then presenting them without context is hardly an act of good faith. And these are really very trivial attacks (especially compared with, say, what User:ParalelUni has written about me on Encyclopedia Dramatica). Since these events have not taken place on Wikipedia I don't see much need to discuss them here; if you have a problem with what Daniel has written in the OTRS channels then I recommend you talk to Cary about it, as Cary can probably resolve the issue without escalating it further. And if anyone is leaking the OTRS channels then we have a very serious problem as these may contain personal data. Guy (Help!) 00:10, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't expect an ED writer to be the politest of people. I would expect someone like Daniel (long term admin here, Meta, Wikinews, OTRS agent, board election committee, op on several IRC channels) to be a lot better behaved than that. I spoke to Cary (and to Jredmond). Cary ignored my private message, and Jredmond listened, but didn't really do anything about it. Daniel, as far as I know, still has access, and is still acting incredibly immaturely, be it in the OTRS channel or the admins channel. If Cary doesn't think it's a problem, that's Cary's business. I very much find it a problem. Al Tally ^talk 00:19, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

At Majorly: I can confirm your statement that the #wikimedia-otrs channel is open to all users, and that non-OTRS agents are still welcome. I myself have idled in the channel for some months with zero incident. AGK 00:16, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's great to hear, AGK. Daniel obviously doesn't have personal issues with you. Al Tally ^talk 00:19, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Executive summary: IRC should still be avoided for managing, against all expectations, to actually be worse than nothing at all. Nandesuka (talk) 03:04, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is all totally amazing isn't it? I assist in the unblock of an editor who was wrongly blocked. For this, I am then attacked on IRC. I then post in wiki requesting not to be attacked on IRC. A "Pseudo-Admin" then says I imagined it. Then logs prove I did not - he retracts. Then I'm attacked on IRC again "fucking wanker" So I ask James Forester to ensure it does not happen again. He asks for proof. He gets it. I'm then attacked by many IRC users here for complaining about it. Funny old world isn't it? I'm afraid, IRC wants us all just to put up and shut up. Giano (talk) 09

52, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Which user did you help unblock who was wrongly blocked? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 10:55, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have found Daniel to be rude to some people before, on wiki. But don't expect anything to be done about it because as someone said the other day, in most organizations the further you go up the ranks the better the standard of behaviour expected of you, but on wiki the further you go up the ranks, the more leeway you're given to misbehave.:) Sticky Parkin 13:37, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Could an admin please review this article - I've tagged it twice for issues, which have been removed by the author. I'm not even sure the person is notable, but have been (imo) fair in just tagging issues, rather than tagging for deletion. I don't want to get into a 3RR situation, so would appreciate some input. CultureDrone (talk) 16:43, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

User:Theresa knott has requested speedy deletion of the article. AdjustShift (talk) 16:47, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I have, I tagged it rather than deleted it myself because I'd like another opinion but this looks like self promotion to me. Theresa Knott | token threats 16:49, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My concern with doing that was that the article does assert notability - in terms of his music having been performed. I've been informed by admins in the past that asserting notability (even if it the article doesn't prove notability) means that CSD A7 cannot be used, and it would have to be a PROD/AfD. Have I been misinformed ? :-) CultureDrone (talk) 16:52, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm he doesn't say where or when so i would say this is speediable. However I'm willing to go through afd if you like. Theresa Knott | token threats 17:12, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The rule is that to avoid speedying, an article has to give a reasonable indication of notability. This one doesn't -- no useful sources or indication that any might exist. Looie496 (talk) 17:32, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, there doesn't need to be any sources to avoid A7 speedy. The requirement is only that the article actually claim importance, not that it is referenced in any way. The phrase "award-winning" is a claim to importance. Whether or not those awards are enough to pass notability tests is a subject open to debate, which is why in these situations, we open a debate at AFD... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:26, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Award winning is meaningless and must be believable, awards should/must be named. I've deleted the article as a CSD A7 (the trend was a WP:SNOW delete either way). Gwen Gale (talk) 18:32, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's fine too... It should also be noted that there is no impending destruction that will fall upon the earth REGARDLESS of which deletion process is used in these cases; though oftentimes hurt feelings and unneccessary conflict can be avoided by taking a conservative approach towards deletion. The article was certainly below any notability standard, and the debate was certainly WP:SNOW-able. I was just commenting that, in general, there is no great harm in at least opening an AFD discussion, and in many cases a small benefit can result from it... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:37, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't it customary for the article to have a notice pointing to the WP:DRV discussion? VG ☎ 18:29, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:SOFIXIT... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:33, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

DRV started on the 25th, might be a little late now. Wizardman 18:35, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And so this thread was started why? --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:40, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mlpandia (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) This user seems to edit only to add either his name or his family name to various articles. I've warned him in the past but am not sure what is the best thing to do right now. He hasn't responded to warnings. Thanks. Doug Weller (talk) 19:25, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked indef for advertising only, COI edits. He's welcome to say he'll stop. Gwen Gale (talk) 19:31, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is a strange one. The new user log shows several of these in numerical order being created within minutes of each other. We're up to number six as of now. I've left a note of concern here with number one. --PMDrive1061 (talk) 19:48, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Matches the name of a company. Block per policy? Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 19:55, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Something tells me they're not here to flesh out all the articles linked from Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Gwen Gale (talk) 20:00, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This has the smell of an automated tool. Might ask them whether they created the account in the usual way, or are experimenting with an account-creating tool, or something. Looie496 (talk) 20:14, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, but in regards to Gwen's comment, we may never know.  :) --PMDrive1061 (talk) 04:19, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

People are removing discussion from the talk page of Barack Obama and then deleting the edit. This is harmful to WP because we NEEED to discuss things. By removing the discussion, the end result is that things are being hidden.

The administrative action needed is to warn people not to remove comments from the discussion. (this is not a content dispute). The edit was done by BBBH who just summarized the sub-article. The sub-article mentions that Obama's first election: he got everyone disqualified so that he would run unopposed.

This is not vandalism.

There are violent supporters of Obama. We need to maintain neutrality of the article and state the facts. If we allow removal of the edit and the discussion, we have defacto censorship, not neutral writing. Midemer (talk) 22:15, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can you supply diffs? Removing talk page comments can be allowed, but there needs to be good reasons.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 22:19, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

BLP violations, plain and simple. The account making this report has been attempting to include BLP-violating material, and start discussions on a blatantly BLP-violating topic that has no hope of being included in the article ever. The claim that Barack Obama disqualified all his opponents in his state legislative career, as made here, is unsubstantiated gossip. There is no evidence whatsoever Obama had anything to do with his opponent's divorce records being released whatsoever. --GoodDamon 22:26, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Midemer needs to be given a warning about adding potentially libelous info to articles. Remind the user about the sourcing all additions to wikipedia and to assume good faith. --neon white talk 22:33, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. In one edit, she even compares him to Kim Il Sung - not very neutral... Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 22:54, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The user was also informed of the Obama article probation, and then again added back the unreferenced BLP violation. Note that this all began with their 5th edit ever made, yet they knew enough to immediately come here. ~ priyanath ^talk 23:10, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also, this user - 15 months ago, in their last edit before today - opposed redirecting Obama to Barack Obama because "they were looking for someone else named Obama" ([76]). So their relationship with the truth is also pretty suspect. Nothing much to do here except to revert any more edits like the current ones. Black Kite 23:23, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've always wondered why Wikipedia allowed the deletion of entries from the discussion pages. It's an opportunity for fraud and what useful function does it serve?Aaaronsmith (talk) 01:07, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've got to agree; article histories (let alone talk page histories) aren't indexed by search engines, and unless the contribution has edit summary vandalism or includes dangerous personal information (i.e., a typical oversight situation), I don't see the purpose of deleting said contributions. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 01:44, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(EC)Direct deletion from talk pages isn't done often, but without that people could make personal attacks, leave unsourced material, or the like. This editor was replacing material that directly compared Obama to Kim Jong Il. It doesn't seem like a stretch to say that doesn't fit with WP:BLP. That's something that doesn't need to even be brought up without a reliable source, so it wouldn't be discussed on the talk page either. Dayewalker (talk) 01:46, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Short block requested for bad behavior and POV pushing

I know that Barack Obama is a controversial article. Another editor added a sentence which was a summary of information covered in the sub-article (was about Obama getting all his opponents off the Illinois Senate ballot so he ran unopposed). I never edited the sub-article so I have no conflict of interest.

This is not about the edit content but improper behavior of GoodDamon. Good Damon needs a short block.

GoodDamon removed a legimate discussion on the talk page. This kills discussion and isn't what Wikipedia is about. This is very disruptive. A non-disruptive editor would calmly allow discussion.

This is what GoodDamon removed...http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ABarack_Obama&diff=249122163&oldid=249121591 He says he is removing vandalism, but this is clearly an excuse.

Midemer (talk) 03:37, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Midemer has reverted 3 times against consensus on Barack Obama, which is on article probation. He was notified of the article probation after his first revert. He can and should be blocked. ~ priyanath ^talk 03:40, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This appears to just be an attempt at continuation of the above thread, here. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 03:42, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(EC)Agree with Priyanath. :Midemer has claimed consensus [77] to reinsert a very contentious sentence into a WP:BLP. His report here is a response to being reverted. Dayewalker (talk) 03:43, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So why hasn't he been sent on a short vacation yet? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 03:50, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

[unindent, ec] Per an earlier discussion which established that BLP violations would be dealt with stricter on the pages I recently unprotected, I have blocked Midemer for 24 hours for edit warring and disruption. However, I also suggest to GoodDamon not to remove talk page posts for maximum transparency. ~ L'Aquatique[talk] 03:53, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Damn, he's fast. Posted an unblock request before I even got around to posting a block notice... ~ L'Aquatique[talk] 03:58, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• note: User:GoodDamon isn't "removing" discussion. The same thing has been archived multiple times. He is simply removing repeats as the editor was persistent and fully intent to war on the article talk page. Digital^Ninja 04:06, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I see. My full apologies. ~ L'Aquatique[talk] 04:18, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's probably no merit to this threat, but I feel it's my civic duty to report it anyhow. Cosmic Latte (talk) 02:39, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like Hersfold took care of it. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 02:56, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, don't worry about it - here at Wikipedia, disruptive unblock requests are dealt with as promptly as possible. :) Master&Expert (Talk) 02:58, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This user refuses to follow and or read the non-free content policy, repeatedly violates it and reverts good faith edits within policy as vandalism. β^_command 05:53, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am not going to get into a "pissing match" about this. - NeutralHomer • Talk • November 2, 2008 @ 05:55

Why are you reverting my edits that are 100% within policy? β^_command 05:56, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Because when you claim a image doesn't have an F-UR when it does, that is vandalism. Now, you are officially talking to yourself, OK? I am off to find a Vicodin. - NeutralHomer • Talk • November 2, 2008 @ 05:59

the image in question has a rationale for a separate page. there are no rationales for the pages where I am removing it. β^_command 06:00, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One more time, I am not getting into a pissing match, you are talking to yourself. - NeutralHomer • Talk • November 2, 2008 @ 06:02

A little background would be nice. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:08, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

user claims that per a email from mike godwin (Foundation counsel) that our Non-free content policy is void and that fair use is standard, (with liberal usage of copyrighted images). Obviously that is incorrect. I attempted to explain, but he refuses to listen and read what I link to. So I started spot checking his uploads and ensure that they are within policy. I found a few that had been uploaded by others that failed WP:NFCC so I started tagging them, he considers this vandalism and returns to his old habits of mis-using twinkle. β^_command 06:14, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I guess Image:WVNS-DT2.PNG this image wasn't F-UR'd to his liking. Currently, though, we were in a pretty heated discussion here and here about Image Galleries (Fair-Use or NFCC). He made several edits to WVNS-TV and I reverted and that turned into a revert war and us both Warn4im'ing each other. - NeutralHomer • Talk • November 2, 2008 @ 06:13

Comment - At the time this entry was listed, the logo in question had a valid fair use rationale for the article in which it was being used. There had previously been a revert war, but it could have been avoided had the complainant simply added a fair use rationale for the image in question rather than deleting its use in the article. Likewise, had the subject of this complaint added the fair use rationale before reverting, there would have been no cause for continuation of the war. I see no reason for sanctions, as both parties share blame. dhett ^{(talk • contribs)} 06:24, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I take partial blame (as Dhett said) for the revert war on the above mentioned image. - NeutralHomer • Talk • November 2, 2008 @ 06:27

may I also point out List of animals in The Simpsons's history where NeutralHomer stalks my edits and ignores policy? β^_command 06:28, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To "stalk" your edits, I would have edited on each and every page you did...which I didn't and don't have time to do. I looked at your edits, thought you were "jumping the gun" before the discussion was over and reverted. You reverted back and templated me. - NeutralHomer • Talk • November 2, 2008 @ 06:35

Only if I may point out the truth: you originally removed the images as copyright violations without explaining why they were such, then when NeutralHomer reverted, asking for a discussion, you again deleted the images, claiming violation of NFCC #8, a totally different reason than copyright violation. When he again reverted, questioning your reason for deleting and citing that the images had passed legal muster, you again deleted the images and accused NeutralHomer of vandalism. Your conduct is appalling. dhett ^{(talk • contribs)} 06:36, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - I've been looking through this dispute, and it seems to come down to this:

Fair Use is a legal concept in the USA, where WMF servers are housed.

WMF requires that all content comply with relevant US legal codes (city, county, state, federal) for Fair Use.

WMF further requires as Terms Of Service that content be held to a higher standard.

NeutralHomer seems to be arguing that US law trumps any restrictions which WMF imposes upon projects under its purview. WMF clearly follows all US law, but adds that in order to post content to what is a private website run by a private corporation, all content must follow specific rules that expand upon what is required by generalities in US law.

To argue by analogy: federal employment laws state that discrimination on the basis of gender is not acceptable; men and women must be hired equally if equally qualified for a certain position. A local fire department requires that new employees be able to lift and carry 250lbs. This is not unreasonable, and imposes a simple metric on all applicants. Yes, there will be a bias towards male applicants due to simple biology, but it is well within the law.

Similarly, WMF requires that on top of US law, content must abide by certain rules. These rules don't discriminate; they merely state that within the extant law, there are further requirements for inclusion. Given that these further requirements do not contravene US law in any way, there is no basis for challenging them.

In short: WMF requires certain things. Abiding by those things is something we all agree to every time we contribute. [ roux ] [x] 06:41, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(EC) Like I have said, that is the way I understand it. I will be the first to admit I don't understand NFCC and F-U that well. I understand it the best it has been explained to me. Explain it to me, give me a short version, without 10 pounds of legaleze and I might understand it more clearly. Yelling at me ain't gonna help. Also Roux, insulting me on IRC (I am there too ya know) doesn't help. - NeutralHomer • Talk • November 2, 2008 @ 06:46

Seeing as I didn't, that's a moot point. I offered an opinion here; you are free to take it or leave it as you see fit. Cheers. [ roux ] [x] 06:58, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

<[roux]> At what bloody point do admins say "OWAIT, blocking not working, BYE BYE YOU"

<[roux]> Taking AGF to extremes is bloody stupid.

-and-

<[roux]> Also sweet jebus, but that many userboxes indicates serious OCD issues.

Seems like an insult to me. - NeutralHomer • Talk • November 2, 2008 @ 07:01

Yes, offhand comments which do nothing to detract from the point I have made here. Cheers. [ roux ] [x] 07:09, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure if reposting irc logs is allowed or not, but assuming it is... While the comments might not be completely pc, it's not clear he's even referring to you? I feel like I might be missing something here. ~ L'Aquatique! [^talk/_stats] 08:10, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was referring to him, but again, they have nothing to do with the substance of the comments I made in this thread. [ roux ] [x] 08:12, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Both users are, imho, acting inappropriately. [This looks like edit warring to me, and there really isn't much excuse for that. Both of you need to take a deep breath and maybe step away from the computer for a bit. Remember, it's only a website. ~ L'Aquatique[talk] 06:45, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

...and I take full responsibility for my behaviour. I should have walked away, I didn't...my fault. - NeutralHomer • Talk • November 2, 2008 @ 06:47

Twinkle abuse

In the past, NeutralHomer has had his access to Twinkle removed for abusing it. Administrators can see this history at Special:Undelete/User:Neutralhomer/monobook.js and others can see one of the discussions about it here. It's quite obvious that he is abusing it again based on edits like this, this, this, and this. NeutralHomer is already on a short leash based on this unblock of his account (personally, I'm a bit surprised he wasn't also told to stay away from Betacommand in addition to JPG-GR and Calton because these two have had bad interactions in the past). Is it time to "detwinkle" again? He is using Twinkle to revert valid edits in an area where he admits he is absolutely clueless, yet he goes around reverting anyway. Metros (talk) 12:52, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And add these two to it as well (both of these occurred in the last couple of days). Metros (talk) 13:11, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Don't forget his tagging of me as a vandal and his attempt to bait me into outright making me violate Wikipedia: Civility. He is quick to blame me for being a vandal, yet will not apologize for a remark that he made that I considered to be baiting just as I was about to accept someone's acceptable explanation over another matter, which wasn't called for..--293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 13:18, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I can't believe I forgot his abuse at WJLA-TV just a week ago (I was involved in that dispute). See the article's history and NH's edits such as [78], [79], [80], and [81] where he used the tool to revert valid changes per the manual of style and our verifiability and sourcing policies. As I have been involved with disputes with him in the past, I will not enact any blocks or removals in this case, however, I think something clearly needs to be done if there are at least ten examples of Twinkle abuse in the last week by a user who has had it removed twice in the past. Metros (talk) 13:26, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes - tagging perfectly good edits as vandalism is the very definition of Twinkle abuse. I have de-Twinkled. Review invited. Black Kite 13:47, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As I've put some comments on the talk page I probably shouldn't take action, but there is edit warring going on, a 3RR warning from someone whose edits also may be 3RR, etc. Thanks. Doug Weller (talk) 09:05, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've blocked one user (Slipgrid) who made four reverts for 24 hours, and warned one (Kaiwhakahaere) who only made three reverts to knock it off. Gentgeen (talk) 09:21, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

People on Huggle struggling to keep up - can we have some help? \ / (⁂) 11:03, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

With what, specifically? There are quite a few articles on wikipedia. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 11:06, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

He's just asking that we go to recent changes and take a look. Theresa Knott | token threats 11:09, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There appears to be an edit war on Common Travel Area right now, between an anonymous user (with multiple IP addresses from the same range) and User:Blue-Haired Lawyer. I warned the 78.16.196.21 IP yesterday, and today, before the 24 hours is up 78.16.109.244 reverts. As the revisions are the same, and the edit summary is in keeping with previous reverts I'd guess it's the same user. Of course that's a wide range to block; but I am at a loss over what little I can do here. I can certainly see the argument for both sides *shrug* --Blowdart | ^talk 11:52, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Standard Republic of Ireland pipe-linking edit war. Both sides could technically claim to be right, but pipe-linking thus [[Republic of Ireland|Ireland]], as the IP is doing, is also generally accepted, as the name of the country is Ireland. (We wouldn't, similarly, call France the French Republic.) The IP(s) do appear to be edit-warring across multiple articles, though, and with somewhat uncivil edit-summaries too. A block may be in order if the behaviour continues. Black Kite 12:16, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh indeed; but User:Blue-Haired Lawyer reverts saying it's a banned user. Now I can see the point for greater clarity on this one article; as confusing the island with the political entity is possible when it just becomes "Ireland", which makes the summary open to misreading. --Blowdart | ^talk 12:27, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and he's probably correct about it being a particular banned user; however although the geographical location is correct, there's no real way of actually proving it, so the IP will have to be judged on their own merits, and if they continue to edit-war with incivil edit summaries, they can be blocked on their own merits. Black Kite 13:18, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]