User:Wiarthurhu has contacted me by email to ask whether his community ban could be lifted. He was banned after exhausting the community's patience after several months of incivility, personal attacks and disruptive behavior. The discussion of his ban can be found here. Wiarthurhu's email proposes a set of conditions he feels are reasonable to accompany the lifting of the ban and which he agrees to abide by. I have listed these below verbatim - although this technically allows a potential breach of the fifth condition he lays down, any discussion of undoing a community ban has to take place in the open and I see no other way to fairly discuss this proposal.

I am an involved party having blocked Wiarthurhu before for WP:POINT violations. My personal opinion is these conditions are not acceptable given the user's past behavior, but might with modification by us be the basis for lifting the ban. Obviously this is the broader community's decision.

Thanks, Gwernol 21:40, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal:

• I do have a problem with all of the authors listed on my rfC

• I have very few problems with anybody else anywhere else on WP as long as I don't reference anything these above editors have done.

• I agree to a three month self-imposed block on any article ever touched by any of the editors listed on the rfC, including talk pages

• user wiarthurhu and all associated pages and records are deleted

• I get another username which will not be disclosed to the above editors, some who have shown a pattern of searching everywhere I've ever been and attacking both my material and myself. The terms of this user agreement will not be disclosed to the above parties, who will assume that I do not exist, and I will provide no reason for them to believe that I still exist as a WP user. If detected, you can terminate this agreement.

• I will cease to worry about the sort of things you folks have been tasked with fixing such as bullying behavior, or inaccurate content. Therefore, if challenged, I will defer. If ticked off, I will remain silent. It is no longer my job, it's the job of admins to enforce civility and factual correctness until WP rules are changed otherwise.

Can we give this a 1 week trial?

According to WP rules, a ban can be lifted if the user agrees to change behavior. I believe the above rules of engagement will eliminate all cases of conflict.

Ex-wiarthurhu.

I am willing to assume good faith and believe that he wants to change. I would support a second chance for him, but he must realize he is on a very short leash. If this is refused by the community, however, he could take it to the arbitration committee. Cowman109^Talk 22:01, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As the dispute in question was beyond simply a user dispute but involved repeated violations of content guidelines and policies including WP:POINT, WP:RS, and WP:V, I am uncomfortable giving the user a fresh start unless these issues are addressed. The user still seems to believe the dispute is limited to "problems" between editors, and not incompatibilities with his edits and Wikipedia guidelines and policies. If the proposal is accepted as offered, the user will simply run amok of other editors and the processes we have observed over the last few weeks will be repeated. --Mmx1 22:08, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can't say I care much for "user wiarthurhu and all associated pages and records are deleted", beyond the normal right to vanish I can't see why we'd grant this user any special favours. --pgk^(talk) 22:23, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm deferring my comments until I see what others like Tony Sidaway or Cyde have to say on the subject. Beyond that, Wiarthurhu has been warned plenty of times that his behavior would either end up in an ArbCom case or a permaban, so he really can't say that he hasn't been warned. I personally warned him of this fact several times, and that didn't stop him from personal attacks or incivility. Perhaps I'll have more to say later, but for now, I'm at a loss for words. CQJ 05:45, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just a thought ... How about if all that is initially promiced is that he is allowed to edit under the conditions he has set out except that he edits as an anon - which differs from his current position in that it won't be violating his ban. A month from now he can provide a list of his edits and it can be decided whether or not to grant him a user name or not. Just a thought. WAS 4.250 10:35, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• I have no problem with him being unbanned; some form of mentorship should be agreed on, a la JarlaxleArtemis (talk · contribs) - remember Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/JarlaxleArtemis and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/JarlaxleArtemis 2? --TheM62Manchester 10:39, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. I've had about twelve hours to sleep, eat, and think about this. I think it's obvious to me that Wiarthurhu has a problem with all of the authors listed on his RfC, particularly because some of them (not all of them) tried to get him to edit within the rules several times. I think part of the problem that Wiarthurhu cites was created by Wiarthurhu himself, especially by the creation of the now deleted Wikipedia strategy article and repeated WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA violations time and time again. I saw the problem in WikiProject Automobiles brewing long before he was banned, about the time our mediation at F-14 Tomcat ended, and I didn't interject or start looking for things until the second and third MedCab cases were filed.

Wiarthurhu's references to these editors who he has a problem with are part of the problem itself. He has referred to the editors joining the RfC in a very negative tone, to the point of crossing the WP:CIVIL line, even to the point where some of his comments are within the scope of WP:NPA. He repeatedly has made comments along these lines in reference to Mmx1, ApolloBoy, and Karrmann at least, even going as far to call them Wiki-bullies and their supposed interference with him "evidence of Gang activity on Wikipedia".

If Wiarthurhu is to come back to Wikipedia, I strongly oppose deletion of his userspace and his associated records on the grounds that he's shown the same type of behavior in two separate disputes in two unrelated content areas against two groups of editors. What happens when the third or fourth group runs afoul of his intent? Further, Wiarthurhu has agreed to follow rules or suggested actions before which he's broken, and allowing him to create another name and dissappear from the radar would not be a prudent course of action, in my honest opinion. I don't think that he would follow a three month block of any article that these editors have touched, including talk pages, because if he was capable of self-restraint, I don't think he would have been permablocked in the first place. I don't mean that as a personal attack, either. Wiarthurhu has brokered "cease-fires" and peace agreements before, but when the other person doesn't play the game as he wants it played, then all hell breaks loose and more conflict comes to light.

Wiarthurhu has not been attacked here. To the contrary, it is usually him doing the attacking on other editors, especially ApolloBoy and Mmx1. Karrmann has also been a recent target of Wiarthurhu's scathing wit in addition, albeit Karrmann has also done a bit of pot-stirring in this case as well (for which he's been warned to cease). And, if Wiarthurhu's material and edits are called into question, it is because of the quality of his edits, not the fact that he makes them in the first place. So again, I strongly disagree with the community allowing him to get another username under the pretenses of non-disclosure.

Now, with that said, I would be in favor of Wiarthurhu coming back and being allowed to edit again, but not under the conditions which he proposes, and on a very, and I mean very short leash. I will pause here to save my contribution, and then I will continue in a moment. CQJ 19:22, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Here's what I propose.

1. Accepting that Wiarthurhu has a problem with the authors listed on his RfC, and the authors accepting that they've had problems with him in the past, Wiarthurhu and the editors listed on his RfC agree that they'll mutually avoid each other except through an interlocutor, a mediator, or a neutral third party for a period of no less than three months. Violation of this condition will result in a 72 hour block for any violating party, Wiarthurhu or otherwise.
2. Wiarthurhu agrees to immediately cease and decist in any action deemed to be in violation of WP:CIVIL or WP:NPA against ApolloBoy, Mmx1, SteveBaker, Karrmann, or any other editor that has joined in dispute resolution mechanisms against him in the past. Violation of this condition will result in a one week block for Wiarthurhu - and any editor baiting Wiarthurhu will be subject to the same.
3. Wiarthurhu will avoid any article within the scope of WikiProject Aircraft or WikiProject Automobiles for three months, as he has suggested himself, or be subject to a one week block.
4. Further, a mentor (or several mentors) from the community will be assigned to Wiarthurhu to help him out wherever necessary or possible.

If Wiarthurhu is honestly sincere about becoming a better editor, and can change his Wiki-ways to conform with our standards, practices, the Trifecta, and Foundation goals, then I have no issue with allowing him to return under these pretenses. If he is not, then he shouldn't be allowed back, as the way it stands right now, there is more than enough evidence that I've seen to support a community permablock without question. CQJ 19:37, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As someone who signed the RFC, and peripherally involved but not closely enough to be emotional about it, I think his proposal is missing the point. Regardless of whether some of the RFCers were more active and emotional, Wiarthurhu's fundamental problem is not that he's being wikistalked. The username change won't help with that, and will help obscure the user history. If he's really willing to reform, he can do it under that username just fine as far as I care. If other editors or admins do start really wikistalking him then that would be a separate issue to be dealt with later, but I hope and suspect that if he does in fact reform he will have very few problems. Georgewilliamherbert 00:10, 28 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wiarthurhu has e-mailed me, stating that he agrees to CQJ's terms, but the issue of him retaining his username or not still lies in question. Should he just use his current account, or should he be allowed to use a new one if his account is unblocked? Cowman109^Talk 02:06, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am unblocking Wiarthurhu shortly given confirmation that he accepts the terms CQJ stated above, and CQJ also said he will help keep an eye on Wiarthurhu to get him back on his feet (I guess being a mentor would be the word). I have also suggested that he follows the one revert rule and that if he feels he is being harassed, to come to me or another administrator about it instead of responding in the interest of not sparking more fights. His account will remain under the same name. Cowman109^Talk 21:32, 1 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have unblocked him per CQJ's terms:

1. Accepting that Wiarthurhu has a problem with the authors listed on his RfC, and the authors accepting that they've had problems with him in the past, Wiarthurhu and the editors listed on his RfC agree that they'll mutually avoid each other except through an interlocutor, a mediator, or a neutral third party for a period of no less than three months. Violation of this condition will result in a 72 hour block for any violating party, Wiarthurhu or otherwise.
2. Wiarthurhu agrees to immediately cease and decist in any action deemed to be in violation of WP:CIVIL or WP:NPA against ApolloBoy, Mmx1, SteveBaker, Karrmann, or any other editor that has joined in dispute resolution mechanisms against him in the past. Violation of this condition will result in a one week block for Wiarthurhu - and any editor baiting Wiarthurhu will be subject to the same.
3. Wiarthurhu will avoid any article within the scope of WikiProject Aircraft or WikiProject Automobiles for three months, as he has suggested himself, or be subject to a one week block.
4. Further, a mentor (or several mentors) from the community will be assigned to Wiarthurhu to help him out wherever necessary or possible.

I have asked Wiarthurhu to come to CQJ or me if he has any difficulties. It would be best to keep an eye on him. Cowman109^Talk 04:41, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm extremely upset that (as one of the aggrieved parties) the first I get to hear about this is when I see the 'unbanned' notice pops up on Wiarthurhu's talk page in 'my watchlist'. I should have been given notice - and given the opportunity to at least say something about the terms and conditions before the unbanning - why did nobody tell me about this via my Talk page or something? I believe unbanning this user after so little time is a serious mistake. Whilst he may be out of my hair for a while longer, I don't see anything in the restrictions imposed upon him that prevents him from terrorizing another neighbourhood as he has in the past with Aircraft and Automobiles. Giving him a fresh identity would just make that even harder to recognise if/when it does happen again. Notably, you are requiring me (an innocent party in this) to involve interlocutors or face a ban myself! I edit widely in Wikipedia - the odds of running into this guy again are rather high and I'm not going to risk a week long ban because of him. I have never been consulted about these terms - nor do I particularly think them appropriate. To expect me to abide by them without my prior agreement is asking a lot. IMHO, Wiarthurhu should remain banned forever - the destruction he has already caused to the encyclopedia in terms of wasted productivity and in people forced to take Wikibreaks in order to avoid the stree by far exceeds all of the contributions he is ever likely to make. We gave the guy a one week ban and he was back causing trouble within a day of it being lifted. Now we're telling him that even an 'indefinite' ban is over in a few weeks. We should have stuck with the ban for at least a year. I'm most unhappy at this decision - and especially how it was (not) publicised to the aggrieved parties. SteveBaker 16:33, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Steve's got a point. We really didn't consult him or any of the other editors that were involved in the situation beyond our involvement at AN/I and our fact finding, especially on the caveat that any editor that doesn't use an interlocutor can get nailed equally. With that said (warning to other editors: CQJ's infamous use of numbering points follows):

1. I have already voiced the opinion that this situation could develop negatively for the encyclopedia. If it does, then we'll take appropriate action when and if the time is necessary.
2. I agree that everyone involved should have had the chance to comment on the conditions of Wiarthurhu's return, especially when punitive action can be taken against a group of editors. However, given the discussion that I've had with Cowman in regards to the situation, and the fact that I'm now partially accountable for Wiarthurhu's actions since I've volunteered to be his "mentor", I will do my best to make sure that this agreement doesn't come back to hurt anyone within the scope of WP:IAR or the Trifecta, and that includes Steve and all of the other editors who listed in the RfC as well as Wiarthurhu himself. But I will not tolerate anyone, neither Wiarthurhu, nor any other editor involved in this dispute (and I won't mention names) spreading incivility and personal attacks on Wikipedia, and those editors know who they are.

As such, I propose modification of the "terms" to the following, and I encourage enforcement of these modified terms unless there is a grave reason to stick with the terms already agreed to. Saving contribs, copying the terms, be back in a moment. CQJ 18:26, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

1. Wiarthurhu agrees to immediately cease and decist in any action deemed to be in violation of WP:CIVIL or WP:NPA against ApolloBoy, Mmx1, SteveBaker, Karrmann, or any other editor that has joined in dispute resolution mechanisms against him in the past. Violation of this condition will result in a one week block for Wiarthurhu - and any editor baiting Wiarthurhu will be subject to the same.
2. Wiarthurhu will avoid any article within the scope of WikiProject Aircraft or WikiProject Automobiles for three months, as he has suggested himself, or be subject to a one week block.
3. Further, a mentor (or several mentors) from the community will be assigned to Wiarthurhu to help him out wherever necessary or possible.

Is this acceptable? CQJ 18:34, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but I don't know if I am in full support of this. He would often treat me like I don't belong on Wikipedia just because I am 14, and claimed that he is a better editer than me simply because hes older, without even looking over my edit history. He would take pictures of toys, and plaster them all over Wikipedia in places they don't belong, then called me a "Prolific teen vandal" when I took them down (Though I left them where they belonged, like in the Johnny Lightning or slot car articles) I am sorry, but I do not want him to come back.he was a major headache to all of the Wikiproject automobiles, and I felt a LARGE weight was taken off my shoulders when he was banned. I also don't like the idea of giving me a week long ban for getting into a conflict with the guy. I get severly pissed when people claim that I am not as good of an editer as them just because I am 14. If you look at my edit history, you can tell that I am up with par with the older editors. The guys would do crap and age discriminate me, and call me a prolific vandal when I would take down any of his toy car pictures, or remove his POV from articles. I also had a large headace with him combating my liking for the Ford Taurus. In a deleted article, I wrote an entry for the Taurus, which I admit, sounded a little pro Taurus, and he acted like it was pure POV, and rewrote it with stuff like "Many people would be su[rised to hear that this low key fleet special sold 7 million units, but it did" and stuff like that. He claimed he toned it down, but instead, he just turned it around ot make it all anti-Taurus, thus not solving anything. He also based his behavior off of a "nice list" If you were on his nice list, he would treat you like a person, if not, he treated you like crap. And just look at whot he would do with RfCs and AfDs, he would totally interupt, making it sound like none of our opinions mattered. I am sorry, but I am NOT in favor of bringing him back. If it were up to me, I wouldn't just block him, I would set his computer on fire too. Karrmann 19:25, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, it looks like I forgot to change some things in there - basically what I mean to say is that Wiarthurhu is the one who will be watched, and he is agreeing to avoid you guys for the time being while remaining under the same account should he be watched. Others indeed should not be subject to blocking for this, but nonetheless provoking him is innappropriate and people will be warned if they do so. So, here's a revision of the terms.

1. Accepting that Wiarthurhu has a problem with the authors listed on his RfC, and the authors accepting that they've had problems with him in the past, Wiarthurhu agrees that he will avoid the other editors he has had trouble with in the past and will speak with them through a mediator.
2. Wiarthurhu agrees to immediately cease and decist in any action deemed to be in violation of WP:CIVIL or WP:NPA against ApolloBoy, Mmx1, SteveBaker, Karrmann, or any other editor that has joined in dispute resolution mechanisms against him in the past. Violation of this condition will result in another block for Wiarthurhu.
3. Wiarthurhu will avoid any article within the scope of WikiProject Aircraft or WikiProject Automobiles for three months, as he has suggested himself, or be subject to a one week block.
4. Further, a mentor (or several mentors) from the community will be assigned to Wiarthurhu to help him out wherever necessary or possible.
5. Also, other editors are warned to not provoke Wiarthurhu, and warnings will be handed out if that occurs.

There, I admit that I somehow completly overlooked the application of the earlier agreement towards the other parties involved - I guess I was too busy focused on the Wiarthurhu part to realize that. Does this sound more appropriate? Cowman109^Talk 19:36, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Let me be frank here. I understand your concerns, and Steve's concerns, and everyone else's concerns as to allowing Wiarthurhu to come back. The behavior you cite above was taken into consideration when Wiarthurhu was blocked in the first place. He was warned for WP:CIVIL violations when calling you a "Prolific teen vandal". We understand why you were making the edits that you were making, and believe me, I'm very familiar with the timelines and who started what, who said what, and when they said it.

Cowman's modified things above (while I was writing this...grrrrr). Wiarthurhu's essentially agreed to leave you guys alone as much as possible, and if he can't, then he's supposed to get a hold of Cowman or I and we're supposed to come help out. At the first hint of impropriety, then we'll cross the bridge of further action. Until then, well, I'd suggest that you not state that you're going to set another contributor's computer on fire, regardless of how you feel. Relax. The situation is well at hand, and neither Cowman or myself or any other administrator or editor that cares about this encyclopedia as deeply as we do will allow things to continue in the manner in which they have in the past. CQJ 19:50, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Since Wiarthurhu is to be allowed to return (against my better judgement...but whatever) - I have no problem with the present (or previous) requirements on both him and his former victims. My main problem was that I had not been consulted - and now I have, that's OK. For Wiarthurhu to have any chance at a fresh start, far from the people whom he's upset so badly, it is obvously necessary that none of us inflame the situation by chasing after him - so "don't feed the trolls", and "if you do you are in trouble too" are not a bad set of principles (so long as you tell the hypothetical troll feeders first!). Since Cowman and CQJ are both going to be on watch for bad behavior, the rest of us should be able to relax and pretend that life is still good (and if it's not good - it'll get good again within the time it takes someone to type the word "blocked" in the right place). You guys are definitely going the extra mile for Wiarthurhu - I sure hope he appreciates what you are doing for him and adds more value to the encyclopedia than he subtracts from it! Let's all hope this works out. Thanks guys! SteveBaker 20:42, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As it currently stands, the image categories for deletion, such as CAT:NS, CAT:NL, CAT:ORFU, CAT:NR are backlogged from between 5 days and 9 days in the case of NS. In short, for those which are 7 days old, they can be deleted under WP:CSD, if they have not been rectified by the addition of source info, copyright info, used in a a fair use manner or had a fair use rationale supplied. User:Kimchi.sg aka User:Awyong Jeffrey Mordecai Salleh has been the mainstay recently with 16,000 deletes in his 2 months of sysophood, but he is currently busy in real life. Anyone care to lend a hand? Blnguyen | rant-line 04:11, 28 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

CAT:ORFU really needs help, there are thousands of iamges (I?ve been trying to clear it for a week) and they are all speedyable (2 or 3 not really orphaned anymore for each hundred, those are just delisted, all others removed ;) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drini (talk • contribs) 05:22, August 28, 2006 (UTC)

They're all backlogged heavily. So is PUI and IFD. Kevin_b_er 06:26, 28 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

With the advent of image undeletion, would it be acceptable at this point to blindly delete whatever is in the category without checking for the 2 out of 100 that are mistagged, and then mopping up afterward? That strategy worked rather successfully with the Category:Images with the same name on Wikimedia Commons where thousands were cleared to zero, with relatively little collateral damage.I think we need a way to get rid of these much more quickly. Dmcdevit·t 06:52, 28 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. It would probably be easier to deal with the handful of false positives by hand than the accumulated days of backlog. -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ 11:39, 28 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree fully with this strategy. One of the things that makes image deletion ponderous (for me) is the manual nature of having to check and count the 7 day period. Given that we can undelete images, I think it's time to update the policies so we can speedy these, making a notification period a valuable, but not required, courtesy. Nandesuka 12:27, 28 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't take time to do it properly. You use Recent Changes and that tells you which ones have been altered since it was tagged and you can see if there was an incomplete detagging by checking about 10 edits. Then you can swamp the rest.Blnguyen | rant-line 06:54, 28 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Use related changes/recentchangeslinked on the individual categories too, will alliviate the need to extensively check history of each image. Kevin_b_er 15:31, 28 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, at least we're better off than Commons. Commons has a backlog for unsourced/unlicensed images dating back to June 19! —The preceding signed comment was added by Angr (talk • contribs). 13:28, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Time for a bot? Yes, I know that admin bots aren't very welcome around here however some of these image categories can be blindly deleted without any human intervention whatsoever. A bot which deletes the day's worth of unlicensed and/or unsourced images (and while we're at it, expired prods) would save a lot of admin time. MER-C 10:04, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Expired prods warrant a human checking to make sure they are not legitimate articles tagged. —Centrx→talk • 06:33, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We block hundreds of accounts with either nil or just one or two edits. Many of these are blocked at creation either for inappropriate usernames, or just trolling 'User:jimbo wales sucks' 'Doc glasgow on wheels' etc. I've been concerned for a while that there is a whole cottage industry of people going around creating userpages for these accounts, and taging and categorising them by whose sock they are thought to be (most are willy impersonators)- or which admin they are impersonating (although they are attacking rather than impersonating). Per WP:DENY I've been tryign to discourage this practice.

I always thought the taggers were simply misguided wiki-criminologists with an obsession with pseudo-law enforcement. However I'm now very suspicious that the same people creating these troll/vandal accounts are involved in tagging them. Many of the taggers are brand new accounts with no edit history e.g. User:ZIN, User:UJonk. Others have been specifically confirmed by checkuser to be creating socks as well e.g User:TheM62Manchester. I'm sure checkuserers could shed more light on this, but as a more general fix I’m proposing the following policy:

Userpages should not be created for indefinitely blocked accounts with an insignificant number of edits. Administrators may delete any userpages so created.

I'd interpret significant as 10+, but that's details. I intend to enforce this policy immediately, unless there are factors I have failed to consider. Thanks. --Doc 13:21, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest that be 10 good faith edits; a user who manages to blank ten pages doesn't need a userpage any more than a user who blanks one. Otherwise, I wholeheartedly support the idea per DenyRecognition; the criteria for speedy deletion can be tweaked, so an entirely new policy wouldn't be needed. // [admin] Pathoschild (^talk/_map) 13:26, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:DENY never had a consensus of the community and is still just an essay and not a policy so I'm curious as to why you are calling it one. I'd prefer this to become a policy through our normal process before people start enforcing it. pschemp | talk 13:27, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

DENY is a principle not a policy - but usual process is to codify good ideas that work. So I'm putting this forward now as a response to the immediate situation. What other process do we have for policy. If there are reasoned objection, I'll wait and discuss. --Doc 13:31, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the policies on Wikipedia were principles or common practices before they were written down. In fact that's why they were written down: so that we could let new users know what principles and common practices the existing users were enforcing. WP:DENY merely describes what many of us are already doing since it is a matter of common sense and best practice. As with previous policies many of us are enforcing it long prior to its codification. And I am curious as to why you believe that WP:DENY doesn't have a consensus. Surely we can't know whether it has one or not until we ask the community. -- Derek Ross | Talk 08:01, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea. I think {{indefblockeduser}} should only be used by admins or for the blocks of real editors. All usernameblocked vandals' pages should be deleted, there is no reason to have pages with vandalistic titles. Kusma (討論) 13:28, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think one of the main issues related to this, is that if someone creates an account along the lines of "Bobby Boulders on Wheels loves General Tojo who killed FireFox", somebody will have the great urge to tag the userpage with masses of tags covering all angles of the username. This has certainly been an issue in the recent past, at least. — FireFox ^(talk) _{13:30, 29 August 2006}

Creating the above bolded language as a policy has my full support. Leaving these pages up just gives incentive to these vandals for "upping their count". Yes, they'll come up with more creative ways of gaining notariety. But each time they do something like this they provide us with more and more information and bring us closer and closer to identifying them. Bastique▼^parler _voir 13:40, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I support the principle of WP:DENY, let's not give each and every internet malcontent their 15 minutes of fame on Wikipedia by creating their own generic Sockpuppet Template. That much is good, but this is not a policy Doc, it's only your idea for a policy. At the moment, it's only a personal policy. Fine, run around deleting these pages at will if you must, I'm not going to complain, but let's have some semblance of discussion on this. I think it would be useful to keep only the generic {{indefblockeduser}} for userpages, whether applied by admins or not. We don't all have checkuser access or immediate responses from any informal requests (wherever or however those are done). Keeping the generic template would help in the fight for the "non priveliged". This debate should probably go to WP:DENY. --Cactus.man ✍ 13:41, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't mind getting rid of userpages, but I think the separate categories are useful when dealing with onslaughts of socks and should stay at least while socks are active so efforts tostop thme can be organized and apparent and so other admins don't come behind you unblocking socks. After a particular vandal has gone away, it is fine to get rid of them. pschemp | talk 13:45, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not suggesting the deletion of any template or categories at this stage - and yes it is a personal policy. Actually, I've been doing it and there's been no objections. But I'd like to encourage others to do the same, and I'd like a little consensus so I can point it out to the taggers when I discourage them from their activity. This is more a case of me saying 'any objections?' in an open way. Call it policy, guideline or whatever you like. --Doc 13:48, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:DENY suggests the deletion of categories, so if that is what you are using, you are suggesting that. Besides, its the tags that help organize socks with their respective categories. (I'm talking about the generic sockpuppet tag, not user specific ones. Those should go)pschemp | talk 13:50, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't tell me what I'm suggesting, rather let me tell you. Yes, I like WP:DENY and I'm certainly happy to ask people to consider it. But what I am suggesting as a policy here is simply the words that I bolded in my initial post. Nothing more. --Doc 10:16, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No objection from me. I think it's a good idea. --Kbdank71 18:32, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

All these stupid pages show up in Google. Why should we have 250 Google hits for "Jew Aardvark"? Especially for usernames that attack other usernames or real people, I prefer to have nothing offending showing up. I support the tagging of real vandals that have actual edits, but username stuff just encourages the impersonators. Kusma (討論) 13:49, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Cactus.man that users blocked without a significant edit history should only have either of three templates applied to their userpage:

• {{subst:indef-user}} for username blocks
• {{subst:indef-vandal}} for vandalism only blocks
• {{subst:impostor}} or {{subst:impostor-m}}, whichever is appropriate

Someone needs to write a bot to replace substed sockpuppet templates with the appropriate username block template. I might have a go if this is the community consensus.

(edit conflict) I apologise - I was responsible for about half of those Blu Aardvark sockpuppet templates. MER-C 13:54, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I once put "kitten vandal" in the block summary and regret giving them recognition ever since, I don't make any userpage for them and am peeved when others do unless noting 'proxy' or 'sock by checkuser'. Block summary - "vandal only account", subst: the usual vpblock on the talk page, next please. I support Doc's view here. --Alf ^melmac 13:55, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry I think the sockpuppet tag is useful when dealing with a current onslught of socks and suspected socks so that checkuser can easily find them in one place to run. The category it creates is useful at the time. after that sure fine, delete it, but removing a tool useful in the heat of battle is silly. pschemp | talk 13:57, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The checkuserers I've spoken to say otherwise. --Doc 14:01, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The checkuser I worked with on EnthusiastFRANCE (Mackenson) used the category a lot to identify open proxies and go through and tag. That would indicate it is useful. Did you ask Mackenson specifically about that case? pschemp | talk 14:04, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. The pages could still be deleted after the vandals have been checkusered and their proxies blocked. Kusma (討論) 14:07, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

When the onslaught is done, deleting is fine, then there is no permanent memorial. Certainly these categories are easy enough to find later to delete. pschemp | talk 14:10, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Another option is to simply blank the page. The sockpuppet information would still be in the article history. --Deathphoenix ʕ 14:17, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I support not tagging vandals with specific user names or templates, and deleting such that exist. Blanking is a viable second option. Vandals should not be rewarded with notariety, should not be googleable. FWIW, Mackensen has weighed in at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Willy on Wheels 2 on a similar topic. Thatcher131 (talk) 15:34, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The divider for me is: does this glorify the vandal (and at most only incidentally help the admins deal)? Lose it. Or does it help admins deal (and at most only incidentally glorify the vandal). For now, it seems to me that tagging accounts with names that attack or disparage may not be productive (although I tag them with the base {{username}} when I spot them, is that something that is perhaps not productive as well?) but that tagging accounts as socks often is ( perhaps not for WoW or WiC, perhaps but for some of our other sockfesters like PoolGuy for example). It seems that placing them in the category requires that either the userpage or the usertalk page not be deleted (so that the category has a place to be put). But that doesn't mean the page needs more than that category tag. On balance I think DENY ought to be considered to become policy, perhaps with some tinkering but agree it's not yet. Nevertheless it's a good practice. Qualified support of this idea. ++Lar: t/c 17:24, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, some are useful in the short term (and it should be short term), we just need to apply some common sense. Many of these tags are basically irrelevant. On the point of policy regarding WP:DENY, I think it should also be noted that there is no policy saying we plaster tags over the userpage of every user who is blocked... --pgk^(talk) 19:23, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think Doc Glasgow's proposal is reasonable. WP:DENY is a good idea in principle, subject to implementation. As pgk suggests, it doesn't require a policy change to not add a template, or to blank a userpage, maybe leaving the category. I'm going to start doing this whenever it makes sense. Tom Harrison ^Talk 20:26, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

arbitrary section break for editing purposes

Note Werdnabot will orphan this subsection when it auto-archives unless the latest time stamp is the same as the last time stamp in the section above. Suggest refactoring when the discussion cools off or switching to a different archival bot. Thatcher131 (talk) 15:55, 30 August 2006 (UTC) [reply]

ah ok, didnt know that limitation... I'll come back and remove this if the discussion lapses Syrthiss 16:07, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone recover the deleted WoW long term abuse page so I can export it to my MediaWiki installation?? --Whitmarewood 08:49, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, normally I'd consider such a request, as I do userify deleted pages on request, but um... in this case, click on the user and you'll know why I'm declining. ++Lar: t/c 15:41, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

An example right here of where a LTA page was helpful. Admins with no prior knowledge are reluctant to block what was an obvious sock: example. Getting rid of all this stuff is going to cause more confusion. pschemp | talk 14:02, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that LTA pages may need to be kept for more subtle vandals who require investigation as in your example. So far though we're mostly talking about Willy, Squidward, and other types of flagrant abuse. Thatcher131 (talk) 14:11, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And Doc has expressed his opinion that all of the pages and categories are useless and this proposal is the first step. The next one will be to get rid of all of them. I don't have a problem with getting rid of WOW crap. What I fear is that this will be expanded to everything. In fact I'll be extremely surprised if it isn't. That's the direction off-wiki discussions about this are going. pschemp | talk 14:18, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If this proposal goes so far as to get rid of a useful page like the MasgotGuy page (which, if you review it, will clearly demonstrate enormous utility to admins trying to deal with the problem, and no glory to the vandal) then it's going too far. I'm having trouble figuring out where to address this concern though as it seems there are many places where parts of this are being discussed. ++Lar: t/c 15:15, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If there are off-wiki discussions going on, imo they should be brought back here (or some centralized location). I hate to think that people are being denied input because they don't use IRC. (reply to pschemp, not reply to lar ;) ) Syrthiss 15:24, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Note that there are related discussions to this at WP:ANI#WP:DENY-driven deletion spree and Wikipedia:Categories for discussion#Category:Wikipedia blocked imposters and all subcategories. Syrthiss 15:29, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's a bit too early to be deleting vandal pages as there isn't any consensus to delete them. Furthermore, some of them contain useful information, like which IP range do you block when Blu Aardvark shows up? If the relevant vandal page gets deleted (which it hasn't because it's in my userspace), admins are going to have to sift through the checkuser evidence while he vandalises away. I reckon such pages should be moved to Essjay's wiki where they are of use but don't give vandals recognition and have been trying to do that, but Essjay seems to be on a wikibreak. MER-C 09:37, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Modern Library List of Best 20th-Century Novels

Is this list, prepared by a Random House and published here with a notice "Copyright 2003", exempt from copyvio? To the best of my knowledge, a list, with its precise ordering of information, is a creative effort, and hence fall under copyright. Or am I wrong in this? --Ragib 07:26, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If the list is objective like best selling books or tallest buidings or oldest people, then the list can not be copyrighted in america regardless of the effort used to create the list. This is the law we go by even tho other nations may have different copyright laws. If the list is subjective such as based on a poll of a few select people (as opposed to a poll representative of public opinion thus representing objective fact - you can't own a fact) then the list as a whole can be copyrighted but specific facts about it like what was number one on the list can not be copyrighted (like you can not copyright the individual words in a sentence but the sentence as a whole might be copyrightable). WAS 4.250 13:23, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So, can anyone look into the article I've mentioned above and see if it's a copyvio or not? thanks. --Ragib 17:51, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am most certainly not a lawyer, but there appear to be two lists on the source page: one for "the board's list" (which sounds more like the poll of a select few) and another for "the readers' list" (which sounds more like the poll of a larger number of people). The article here only contains "the board's list". In my view, this is not something at all like a list of the hundred tallest buildings, and should probably be removed. —ptk✰fgs 18:13, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Copyvio, plain and simple. It's an "expert compiled" list and unless it's been released into the public domain/GFDL it's under copyright. Factual lists may be free of copyright in the US, lists like this are not and have been deleted on numerous occasions. --kingboyk 18:19, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Even poll results that purport to represent the opinion of everyone is copyrighted--taking a poll involved formulating questions, performing statistical correction and such other activities so that a poll can not be fairly considered a fact in the way that the number of people living in Ann Arbor is a fact. Thatcher131 (talk) 00:41, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good spotting. Source is marked as copyright; I suggest listing the article on Wikipedia:Copyright problems. -- Infrogmation 01:12, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the clarification. I've listed the article in Copyright problems. --Ragib 04:51, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, can anyone direct me to the Wikipedia policy page on such external lists, and the associated copyright issues? I tried looking it up but can't find it. Thanks. --Ragib 02:00, 2 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If this is copyvio, then we should either notify all these libraries http://www.google.com/search?q=modern+library+best+novels+%22reader%27s+list%22&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official or figure out what exception they're using in order ot be allowed to publish the lists on their sites. Mateo LeFou 00:00, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I submitted a move request regarding moving Prime Minister to Prime minister, per reasons given on Talk:Prime Minister#Requested Move. After the standard five days, there were three other users in agreement with the move and no objections. Thus, I performed the move. Jtdirl moved the page back saying the move is fundamentally incorrect and against policy because prime minister either has both of its words capitalized or both of its words not capitalized. He added that "it was decided long ago, on this and similar cases, that there was no option but to use the title in uppercase" and that "indeed if the RM proposal had been spotted in time, admins would have aborted it as the vote is invalid under WP rules," but I saw no discussion of this on Talk:Prime Minister. Is Jtdirl indeed correct about this discussion or can the page (as I and, presumably, the other supporters believe) be moved to Prime minister and a {{lowercase}} template (if necessary) be added to the article? -- tariqabjotu 01:47, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This issue has come up a few times all over the place. There are certain titles involving a number of words which can be lowercased or uppercased, but which must be done in unison. A mixed upper-case/lower-case title for certain offices is fundamentally wrong in English. (It is the equivalent of writing United states or George w bush, or indeed President of the united states.) Because of this the requirement for full uppercasing or full lowercasing was explicitly spelt out when it comes to prime minister/Prime Minister in the Naming Conventions and elsewhere. In the past, when the page was moved to a mixed upper & lower case, the move was instantly undone by admins under the IAR rule, on the basis that to put an office under such a illiterate form of name would be to bring ridicule on Wikipedia, because it is such a fundamental error. (It is the sort of error that students, if they replicate it in exams, are instantly failed on. It is what is known in the academic trade as a "nuclear error" because if you do it, nothing else counts.) While the RM procedure normally functions smoothly, the wisdom of Wikipedia's rule about decisions not being based on votes is shown here.

Where there is a valid argument for either uppercasing or lowercasing, for technical reasons we cannot an entirely lowercased version. Rather than make ourselves a laughing stock, it has long been precedent in these and other cases to use the only other alternative then available, using the uppercase version of the title. As with precedent in this and similar cases, to avoid embarrassment to WP and going by the rules laid down in the MoS and NC, I used IAR to overrule the RM vote and reinstate the page to a correct format. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 02:02, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Even if you are correct here, Fear, you are exaggerating significantly. I certainly don't appreciate the suggestion from an admin that I am making Wikipedia a laughing stock and attracting the ire of the international media by a simple article move. I hope the hyperbole was intentional.

Nevertheless, the advertisement for the WP:RM backlog is impossible to resist here. -- tariqabjotu 02:16, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Something to consider is that the input of three people might not be sufficient for a move of such gravity. For example, in cases where only a few people have weighed in on an AfD it is relisted in the hope of attracting more attention. In this instance, a note on the village pump, or at WP:PEER, or anywhere else where interested parties lurk would not have been amiss. Mackensen (talk) 02:19, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That might have been a good idea in 20/20 hindsight, but there was no reason to believe that was necessary as no one objected to the move or mentioned this precedent. Many move requests don't get much input and, as Wikipedia:Moving guidelines for administrators says, In general there is a consensus that there is no minimum participation, unlike with AfD. -- tariqabjotu 02:28, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Correct, as far as process is concerned everything was by the book. This doesn't change that fact the more people should have been consulted, and that the article ended up in the wrong place. Mackensen (talk) 02:29, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Alright; I'll keep that in mind for the future. -- tariqabjotu 02:34, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I support Jtdirl's interpretation of the situation. Had I been aware of the proposed move, I would have objected in the strongest terms. Mackensen (talk) 02:07, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On a further note, the title "Prime Minister" became an official one in the United Kingdom in 1905 or thereabouts, when Campbell-Bannerman took office. It could be argued that prior to 1905 the office was a notional one in the UK, and that the First Lord of the Treasury (or Foreign Secretary in the case of Salisbury) was the monarch's "prime minister." Of course, this ignores the Continental usage, where the office was established in law far earlier than that. Mackensen (talk) 02:12, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think, Tariq, you realise how big a mistake it is. Saying it would make WP a laughing stock is if anything understating how ridiculous it would look. It is the equivalent of writing United states, of calling Berlin the capital of France, or of writing about a "Prime Minister of the United States". It is the sort of mistake that would lead readers to ask "how could an encyclopaedia make such an elementary mistake?" If the article had remained at Prime minister I can pretty much guarantee that the mistake would make the Sunday newspapers in Britain next Sunday with "and they call this an encyclopaedia?" articles. It is a cringemaking mistake that a first year politics student would get pulled up for. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 02:26, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is about the capitalization of a letter right? And there is still a redirect to the article, which wasn't demolished, right? It is the equivalent of only the first thing you described, "United states", the other two are plainly different and it is ridiculous to equate them. "United states" doesn't look that bad, by the way, and "united States" was the capitalization used in the united states declaration of independence. —Centrx→talk • 03:05, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No. It is about accuracy. The office can either have both words uppercased or both lowercased. It can never ever ever have one uppercased and one lowercased. That is idiotic, akin to writing President bush. As WP cannot for technical reasons have both words lowercased the only option is to go with the uppercased version. A RM vote (of 3!) decided to ignore the rules of grammar and all the rules of Wikipedia as laid out (and the case of prime minister/Prime Minister is explicitly spelt out as an example where half-upper and half-lower is not an option) and move to a made-up name that is quite simply illiterate bullshit. As admins have done in the past (on this article in particular) I used to IAR rule laid down by Jimbo to overrule the application of a move which would make WP a laughing stock. And yes, Centrx, Prime minister. as Mackensen and anyone else who deals with current affairs, political science, history etc will tell you, is illiterate nonsense. It is one of those elementary faux pas taught to students as a "you must never ever . . ." It also features in style guides worldwide as an example of what never ever to do. BTW united states, lowercased, means an informal, unstructured group of states. United States, uppercased, means a formal country by that name. United states, mixed, means either that the person who wrote it had been drinking, or had an English teacher so bad they should sue them for incompetence. Prime minister means the same. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 04:13, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I certainly hope you are joking. —Centrx→talk • 04:20, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is beyond ludicrous. First off, to quickly deal with User:Jtdirl's utterly ridiculous example: "United States" is a proper noun, a name; "prime minister", isn't. If you have a reality-based example, bring it out, but this isn't one. If you can't tell the difference, don't spout off nonsense about "illiterate bullshit".

Second, since "prime minister" is the proper form for the job, Wikipedia page titling -- and standard English orthography -- demands the page be called "Prime minister", just like every other two-word title would be in every other similiar situation. Since this is absolutely standard, the only people likely to be confused by this are morons -- and while I realized that Wikipedia is not edited for the protection of minors, I didn't realize it was edited for the protection of morons. Make "WP a laughing stock"? Only among complete idiots.

It also features in style guides worldwide as an example of what never ever to do. Fine, give an example, one that explicitly says that using "prime minister" at the beginning of sentences demands that both words be capitalized. --Calton | Talk 09:28, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In order to stop this ridiculous wikilawyering, should we propose the move from Prime Minister to prime minister instead? In that case, morons will be protected as well and everyone happy. (Yeah, I do know what will be the page's title in that case, in case mor someone didn't get the sarcasm.) Duja 11:25, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've moved the page back to Prime minister, in accordance with both Wikipedia's naming conventions and the consensus on the talk page. —The preceding signed comment was added by Angr (talk • contribs). 12:33, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Style wars are silly. Find something more useful to do. --Tony Sidaway 12:16, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I will be reserving a spot at Wikipedia:Lamest edit wars. If this continues this way, we will be having some administrators blocked, a couple of RFCs, and a lot of stress for a single letter. -- ReyBrujo 12:42, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Glad I brought my hip waders today, as I'm going to get knee deep in it here... I don't have my Canadian Press stylebook handy today, but I know that in referring to Stephen Harper, when I'm not using words that aren't repeatable in polite society, I capitalize Prime Minister, and I have one style reference that says that it should be capitalized depending on the importance of the person being referred to - suggesting that as federal government policy. [1] Here's another guide that suggests it's capitalized in conjunction with a name, but not otherwise. [2] This guide says only capitalize if it's after a name when referring to a head of government. http://www.yorku.ca/gcareers/grammar/capital_letters.htm#RULE%206:] A discussion we had at the office here last week on titles brought forward that if we're putting it before a proper name, it should be capitalized all the time, but if it's after, we can use lower case. Personally, I'd still capitalize Prime Minister if I'm referring to Harper or Blair, but that's the joy of being an editor - you can bend things occasionally. However, we might also want to look at our own manual of style, which, under the second section on Titles discusses capitalization of prime minister depending on various uses. All in all, I think we should follow the initial suggestion: move to "Prime minister" and add the un-capitalized note at the top. Tony Fox (arf!) 15:40, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I made a long-winded comment on the talk page. Basically, it comes down to a pragmatic decision about what does or doesn't "look funny" that has to be made in some pragmatic way. If it's a question of what is technically correct, then we should write "prime minister" throughout the article except when it begins a sentence. The title of the article should then be "Prime minister" because it is our publisher's house style always to capitalise the first letter of an article's title. Surely, though, we make some pragmatic exceptions to this, don't we? Metamagician3000 10:00, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To be clear, that doesn't mean that I think the circumstances justify a pragmatic exception being made here. I have no opinion about that. I just think that it would be good if both sides realised that the other side has a point. In one case it's grounded in consistent application of house style; in the other it's grounded in the risk of public misunderstanding. At the moment, consistent application of house style seems to be the majority approach, and I can certainly live with that. Metamagician3000 23:21, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:Kirbytime makes a personal attack but it was only one and that is not why I am posting the situation here. He states, Are you done being a tool of Scientology already? [3] So, I attempted to get into communication with him. But leaving a signed message on his user page causes a "you've got a new message" to appear and when clicked that then redirects the unsuspecting user to this page: [4] This "gotcha" template which appears when a person gives him a communication and signs it with four tildes is why I post here. I believe administrators should be notified because it is a mis-use of a user's discussion page. Terryeo 00:53, 2 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Terryeo, I think it is intended as a joke, sort of like R2-45 was, so I suggest you lighten up and stop your pouting.--Fahrenheit451 01:24, 2 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some editors disfavor the practical joke new messages, but their use is widespread and not something over which to quibble. In any event, there is no nefarious process by which Kirbytime leaves the new messages message for users who have written on his talk page; in fact, the template appears on his user page, as it does on the user pages of many editors. The question of the propriety of Kirby's initial remark aside, this ought to be quite far down on the list of on-Wiki items about which one should be concerned. Joe 03:02, 2 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've given him a warning about the attack on Terryeo (which in my opinion was particularly blatant). The so-called "practical joke" seems to amount to wikilinks at the top left of Kirbytime's user and talk pages, which are presumably intended to resemble the "new messages" notice in some skins. Childish but not particularly problematic. --Tony Sidaway 15:17, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've been trying to protect this page only against moves, since a minor page-move war is going on, but think I've stuffed it up. Sorry to admit my technical incompetence. Could someone check and fix this? Some clearer instructions on how to do it in the guide for admins would be welcome, too, if anyone has a moment. To me at least, it's not intuitive. Metamagician3000 07:36, 2 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I fixed it. If you want to have different settings for editing and moves, click on "unlock move permissions". Then set each to the appropriate level of protection. I think they tie them together as the default because pages are usually blocked due to editing and not moving, and if no one can edit the page, it does not make much sense to allow the article to be moved. -- Kjkolb 12:05, 2 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your help. Metamagician3000 07:01, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to have a clarification about the wikipolicy that material that could be construed as critical, negative or harmful about living persons should be removed immediately. [5] @ Talk:Controversy over racial characteristics of Ancient Egyptians, one editor wrote that Hawass is a "liar": "Hell, if liars like Zahi Hawass can pronounce to the world [...]" [6] I removed the word "liar" [7] but it was reinserted immediately with the comment: "restored. do not alter my posts. And if you're going to refer to Wiki policy, provide a relevant link. Hawass is a public figure; he's fair game" [8] Comments? CoYep 12:11, 2 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The ascription of liar to a biographical subject is probably less-than-helpful, such that one might reasonably strike it out, I suppose, but this situation seems quite insignificant relative to those that BLP seeks to address; not only is liar almost surely not potentially libellous, but such appellative is mentioned on the talk page of a and quite plainly a subjective assessment not advanced as unsourced fact (toward which, see mistake of fact and opinion; of course, neither unsourced facts nor personal opinion be introduced into articles [or appended to talk pages], but it is worth noting that there are, at the very least, no legal issues here). The fair game formulation does seem to reflect a misunderstanding of BLP (although perhaps the editor means to refer to the distinction in United States law as regards libel between those who are public figures and those who are not [New York Times Co. v. Sullivan], but I imagine that a note on his talk page as to BLP would suffice, even as such note might not be necessary. Joe 15:56, 2 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't quite understand the above explanation, but I've refactored to remove the epithet and left a note on User talk:Deeceevoice. Regardless of law, we don't allow unsourced negative material about living people, out of sensitivity to them for one thing. Talk pages are on search engines. Tyrenius 01:05, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would doubt that talk page comments are a big deal legally (I sure hope they're not). But, this seems like an issue we might want clarification on from the Foundation (they might wanna consult their PR people or lawyers). Until such clarification is made, I'd think we want to be conservative on issues like this. Since such invective is irrelevant to working on the articles, removing unflattering opinions of living people seems harmless and might help save somebody's ass. Even if it's legally alright, it could turn into bad publicity for the project. Friday (talk) 02:49, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Talk page comments are the same deal legally as comments posted anywhere, unless you mean these particular comments, which are cause for prudence, not panic. Tyrenius 02:52, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have protected this high-profile article due to an edit war. The issue is that despite good references that he is Jewish, people keep removing this information on grounds that clearly violate WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:NPOV. There is evidence of sockpuppetry. Can an admin not previously involved review this please.--Runcorn 17:00, 2 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

1. First there is no proof if there is show it the only "proof" is a russian article where they themselves only go by his name
2. Why is the alleged religion mentioned at the very top of the article why isnt Arnold Schwarzeneggers religion mentioned at the very top or Bill Clintons or Bill Gates or Richard Nixons or Jimmy Wales of their articles.
3. Has he had a bar mitzvah is he even a member of the religion?
4. Even the article about Einstein dosent mention the religion at the very top at the very beginning of the article.
5. So why is the alleged religion mentioned at the very start at the very beginning of the article. When it is extremly hard if not impossible to do so with the vast majority of wikipedia articles about persons.
6. And what is the most interesting is that the Admin has himself violated the 3rr rule which if anything proves that the alleged religion shouldt be mentioned at the very top at the very start of the article and why even mention it at all

Ramand 17:32, 2 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've been looking into this situation. There appears to be some heavy-duty sockpuppetry/meatpuppetry going on here. Kelly Martin (talk) 18:33, 2 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also, for what it's worth, Jewish is a lot more than merely a religion, it is also a heritage and culture. Although I am atheist by "religion", when someone asks me what I am, I am likely to respond Jewish, because that is my culture and my heritage. Grigori Perelman is clearly Jewish in this regard even if he doesn't have a personal belief in a deity. --Cyde Weys 00:48, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There was repetitive removal of a properly referenced statement (from The Daily Telegraph a reputable UK paper) of his Jewish origin ("Jewish family", meaning immediate family), because of a POV assertion that this didn't count, according to the removers' criteria of Jewishness. Several of the removing editors were blocked as socks. In the meantime Runcorn got blocked for 3RR restoring the material. Tyrenius 00:43, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I welcome everyone to take a gander at a new essay entitled RBI. These games we've been playing with the vandals have long since gotten tiresome and it's time to simply revert, block, and ignore. Remember, we're here to write an encyclopedia, not play cops and robbers. --Cyde Weys 00:50, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah I think we tried that on the PWOT mob. Strangly talking to them worked better.Geni 01:32, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comments posted on talk page of the essay. Newyorkbrad 03:03, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Looks similar to Wikipedia:Vandalism is not a game.--Andeh 07:31, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This case is now closed and the result has been published at the link above.

• Ericsaindon2 is required to choose one username and edit only with that name.
• Ericsaindon2 is banned from Wikipedia for one year due to a variety of disruptive activities.
• Ericsaindon2 is placed on Probation. He may be banned for an appropriate time from any article or set of articles which he disrupts.

For the Arbitration Committee. --FloNight 06:05, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ericsaindon2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has been blocked for one year as per ruling number 2. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 06:53, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Since administrators are the ones who fulfill or deny requests to delete user talk pages, I wanted to make sure that they are aware of the discussion about modifying the policy here. -- Kjkolb 10:27, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just a minor issue, Hi,

 this is srujan.Iwant to get little information about the following,like,

how can i know about the university and how to apply for the university.even i wanted to know how islife when i come over ther and wht would be my expenses for my staying and my tution fees,can u pelse help me whith this information .

                                        Thanking you ,
                                                        yours faithfuly,
                                                         Srujan Pudhota has been reverting good faith edits of mine on New Lanark without comment and I beleive he holds a certain sense of ownership for the article. I'm just off for a couple of weeks holiday, so would appreciate it if somebody could keep an eye on thigs. Thanks/wangi 11:49, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This case is now closed and the result has been published at the link above.

• Heqong is placed on Probation. He may be banned for a reasonable period of time by any administrator from an article or set of articles which he disrupts by tendentious editing. Should Heqong violate a ban he may be blocked for a reasonable period of time. All blocks to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Heqong#Log of blocks and bans.
• Heqong is banned for one month for personal attacks.
• Heqong is placed on personal attack parole.

For the Arbitration Committee. FloNight 14:25, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked for one month per above. JoshuaZ 14:31, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This case is now closed and the result has been published at the link above.

• CoolKatt is banned for one year from articles which relate to US television stations. He may continue to comment on talk pages.
• CoolKatt is placed on Probation. He may be banned from any article or talk page which he disrupts. After the expiration of any ban imposed by this decision that ban may be re-imposed should he resume tendentious or disruptive editing. All bans are to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/CoolKatt number 99999#Log of blocks and bans.
• All of CoolKatt's subpages that do not comply with Wikipedia:User page#What about user subpages? shall be deleted.
• Should CoolKatt violate any ban imposed on him by this decision he may be blocked for an appropriate period. All blocks are to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/CoolKatt number 99999#Log of blocks and bans

For the Arbitration Committee. FloNight 18:05, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pages by prefix link. I'm not sure how we determine which subpage violate that guideline though, since they could all be "a work in progress". Or is the idea just to delete everything that looks like an article? --kingboyk 18:09, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Does he finish serving out his 3 month block for violating the preliminary arbcom injunction? Also how does this ruling address his incivility and behaviour that exists outside of TV Station articles, like where he went on a spurious campaign of labelling everyone and their dog a sockpuppet for speaking out against a particular pokemon article (and went so far as to put obviously false sockpuppet tags on user pages to further that campaign), would that be considered a disruptive behaviour?--Crossmr 18:23, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Several files have been mysteriously deleted from my user space recently.

• User:Geo Swan/working/Guantanamo articles that have been nominated for deletion
• User:Geo Swan/shadow/Guantanamo articles that have been nominated for deletion.

I am not aware of anything in these pages that was a violation of policy. But, if, for the sake of argument, someone else felt that they were in violation of a policy I think that whichever administrator felt they had the responsibility to delete them should have at least left an explanation on my talk page.

Cheers! -- Geo Swan 18:55, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like they were only redirects. You still have a complete page at User:Geo Swan/working/Guantanamo related articles which have been nominated for deletion.

Deletion logs: [9] [10]

--kingboyk 19:00, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi everyone, we've come to a fork in the road where WP:DENY is being fully implemented and most of the Wikipedia:Long term abuse subpages are being deleted.

So, before Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Universe Daily gets deleted we need to figure out whether to shut down the linkspammer once and for all at the risk of forcing him to change tactics and risk making it harder for us to track him.

"Universe Daily" is an abusive SEO who is known to have posted redirect-spam links Wikipedia to 40 known domains of his in the past. For example, stephenhawkingsuniverse.com (whois) is one such domain which has been linked to at the Stephen Hawking article. His links aren't noticed for some time because they are actually an invisible frame redirecting vistors to an official site. In this example, stephenhawkingsuniverse.com was a redirect to Hawking's official documentary site at PBS. After having establishing an external link in any article for some time, "Universe Daily" would then either turn on his own ads in his domain's frame or redirect his domain to an ad/link farm as he did with universetoday.net at Universe Today (their official site is .com).

This spammer has continued doing this since May of this year and has been banned many times for using sockpuppet accounts and random IPs as well as the odd open proxy. There's also a debate as to whether we should blacklist all of his known domains. If we blacklist all his domains, we run the risk of him purchasing a whole new set of domains to start all over again and it may become even harder to pick up his trail again.

"Universe Daily" has also switched to a new tactic where he is directly redirecting his sites back to the revisions of the Wikipedia articles that he inserted his own domains into. Could it be possible to oversight every reversion of every article he's ever edited to sabotage whatever SEO technique he is trying to use?

I just don't know what the best course of action dealing with this spammer is anymore. Through my investigations, I have noticed that the Registrant's contact details are publicly available. Is there anyone from the Wikimedia Foundation has the official capacity to ask him to cease and desist from spamming Wikipedia? --  Netsnipe  ►  19:19, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As an aside, and a significant one, this person left 469 hate mail messages in my e-mail box on Friday, two days ago. Four different messages, advertising an anti-semitic hate site he built himself, and bragging that his vandalized version of the Israel article could be found there. He must have spent a lot of time at his computer copying and pasting the hate-mail text into the little box and hitting "send". Unbelievable. (I deleted them all with about six mouse-clicks.)

He's not just a spammer: he's a fierce anti-Semite, and is the most hateful single person I've met in two and a half years of vandal-patrolling.

I know his real name, and he edits from a library terminal in Queensland, AU.

I think he needs to be shut down for good. No question about it. Antandrus (talk) 19:26, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:DENY really only applies to people vandalizing Wikipedia. If someone is abusing Wikipedia for other reasons, in this case to make money, WP:DENY doesn't apply, because denying attention is irrelevant; he's not editing to get attention. However, it's probably a good idea to move it into private all the same; if we try to put together our defense against him in public where he can read it, he can easily stay one step ahead of it. --Cyde Weys 19:28, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Block his links, then he can't spam them. Agathoclea 19:37, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Has he been spamming lately? I knew all of his linkspam sites, and I kept that list private until he started putting his pages as framing to real websites. He sent me close to 2000 mailbombs from wikipedia email until I sat down and noticed it and put an autodelete filter on his emails. I know his real name too, including several details about his spamming activities that is not on the LTA page. That being said, the issue with the LTA page is WP:BEANS, where we don't want to help him improve his activities. However, the links almost look 'useful', because several of them are just framing to actual (and useufl) websites, but at any time they could go back to his phpbb fourms he's spammed so much. Kevin_b_er 19:41, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be happy to place all the sites on the blacklist. You can either email me or leave a message on my meta user talk page. Naconkantari 21:08, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Naconkantari's option is the way to go. It's simply denying him what he wants. There is an issue here, however: the URLs we have for the foul-mouthed little mailbomber are all liable to change, so this isn't a permanent solution as we will have meta admins AGFing and not adding his filthly little sites to the list without many and several hoops being jumped through. And rightly so. But this is the way to go if we want to stop Wayne and his spamming activities on our side. On his side, we're going to need Oz Wikipedians to get in touch with his ISP if it can be found; Canadians to talk to Doteasy Technology, his registration agents, and the Foundation to talk to Google (his ultimate aim) about a hard blacklist.

The one thing Mr Smith should not expect is for Wikipedia admins to be put off by mailbombs and persistance. We've all had bigger things than him free with our breakfast cerials of a morning, and his death-threatening mailbombs are usefully futile, amusing... and slowing the idiot down. :o) ➨ ЯEDVERS 21:32, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have added all of the links provided to me to the blacklist. Naconkantari 21:34, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

domians cost money. Shut them down fast enough and what he doing becomes finacialy unviable.Geni 23:26, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Naconkantari. Could you also add fuckisrael.org to the blacklist as well? I forgot to add that link to the LTA report, but seeing as it also belongs to him, we definitely don't need it on Wikipedia. --  Netsnipe  ►  00:47, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Disrupting Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Following Follows. Tracker/TTV (myTalk|myWork|myInbox) 21:37, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This case is now closed and the result has been published at the link above.

• His excellency is placed on personal attack parole, should he engage in personal attacks directed at individuals he may be briefly blocked, up to a week in the event of repeat offenses. Should he engage in attacks directed at ethnic groups such as "The Jews" or "The Kikes" he may be blocked for extended periods of time, up to a year.

• His excellency, having made one personal attack directed at "The Jews" and another directed at "those kikes" is banned for one month for the first offense and 3 months for the second offense, to run consecutively.

• His excellency has continued to make anti-Semitic attacks on other users [11] during this proceeding. An additional ban of 6 2 months is imposed to run consecutively with other bans.

• His excellency is placed on Probation for one year. He may be banned by any administrator from any page which he disrupts by edit warring, incivility, or other disruptive behavior. All bans are to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/His excellency#Log of blocks and bans.

• Timothy Usher is placed on Probation for one year. He may be banned by any administrator from any page which he disrupts by edit warring, incivility, or other disruptive behavior. All bans are to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/His excellency#Log of blocks and bans.

• Traditional Muslim usages such as "Salam, brother" or (PBUH) may be used on talk pages at the discretion of the user; however, care should be taken to not create a hostile atmosphere for non-Muslims.

• Violation of bans imposed under the terms of this decision may be enforced by blocks appropriate to the offense involved. All blocks and the basis therefore to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/His_excellency#Log_of_blocks_and_bans.

For the Arbitration Committee. FloNight 21:43, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Question: does that also apply to his second account, Amibidhrohi (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) ? If it does (I hope so) it should be blocked too... -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 22:09, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

All arbitration remedies apply to the person, in any guise, unless the remedy says otherwise. The remedy is intended to address the problematic behavior. --Tony Sidaway 22:15, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, thanks for the quick answer :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 22:28, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Recently it was brought to the attention of the Arbitration Committee that administrator Everyking (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) has posted to an external site in the process of trying to determine the contents of inappropriate material, sensitive personal information, deleted from an article. Everyking looked up the deleted material using his administrator privileges, and offered to post the deleted content publicly. He stated:

I looked for you, but when you look at deleted revisions it doesn't show you the changes (or if so I don't know how to access them). I guess I could just post the full text and you could work out the differences yourself. [12]

It is already known that the user who posts at that forum under the name "everyking" is in fact Everyking because he has confirmed it in email to the Arbitration Committee previously. We view this as a serious misjudgment and a betrayal of the trust the community has given him in adminship. As such, Everyking has been immediately desysopped. Dmcdevit·t 23:43, 3 September 2006 (UTC) Fred Bauder 00:45, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is shocking and I call for it to be overturned. I didn't actually post anything (being worried that SlimVirgin might get pissed) and even if I did I don't see how it could be a betrayal of anything. Everyking 23:46, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your cooperation with Wikipediareview is questionable enough. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:50, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You may not like it that I post there, but since my speech is severely restricted on WP itself I choose to post my views there instead. It violates no policy to do so, and I don't believe it would have been in violation of any policy even if I had posted the text there. In any case I had not posted and about two or three days had passed in which I did not deliberately didn't follow up on it because I thought better of it. Everyking 23:54, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I was just thinking that, Zoe. Plus, there he had once advocated unblocking Amorrow. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 23:52, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't remember ever arguing for him to be unblocked on WP, and I certainly wouldn't want that now. Everyking 23:54, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I should think that advocating the unblocking of a user is not grounds for any sort of sanction, else we would have had to toss Danny out for advancing the notion that User:Mike Garcia could be reformed. Phil Sandifer 23:55, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Garcia was bad. Morrow is scary bad. --Golbez 00:02, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The point is moot because I do not think he should be allowed to edit. I'm well aware of his harassment of our female editors. I did argue he should be allowed to post his crap on WR, because I support the notion of it as a free speech forum, but that is not pertinent. Everyking 23:57, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In this case he was cooperating with banned troll Wordbomb to uncover sensitive deleted information. Thatcher131 (talk) 23:57, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tell me how. Everyking 23:57, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The legal implications of allowing someone who is willing to post personal information removed from an article by an administrator access to sensitive deleted content should be clear. You made it clear that your continued adminship was a liability to the project. Dmcdevit·t 23:59, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What the? Personal information? I didn't even know what the content was. I still don't know. I sure as hell would never post anybody's personal information. Everyking 00:00, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is it clear that EK recognized what the nature of the deleted content was? Or are we now adopting a policy against posting delete pages, period? Phil Sandifer 00:02, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is a reason personal information is removed and viewing of it is blocked. Legal reasons. Everyking clearly attempted to get around those reasons. User:Zoe|(talk) 00:04, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I explicitly did not know and made that clear in my comment (I stated that I couldn't determine the differences in the revisions). Now I gather that it was personal information, and I take offense at the notion that I would be willing to post that. Nothing in the thread was there to tell me it was personal information. Everyking 00:05, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would be inclined to agree with Everyking. This seems to me to be a startling failure of WP:AGF. RyanGerbil10(Kick 'em in the dishpan!) 00:09, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I will say, given the clearly stated suspicion on the page that the subject was a Wikipedia editor, some more care might have been in order. But honestly, I'm skeptical that this is in and of itself grounds for an emergency desysopping. It seems more like a case of the arbcom seeing an opportunity to justify a penalty they've wanted to put out for quite a while. (After all, Everyking's willingness to support real life harassment of users should hardly be news to anyone who has followed my own case.) Phil Sandifer 00:09, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That Everyking was willing to "post the full text" of a deleted page without knowing why it was deleted or what it contained is somewhat worrisome. Prodego ^talk 00:11, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But did not actually post anything. This is a critical point. What I read there gave me the impression the admin action was done wrongfully, and I was at first willing to help out, assuming that to do so would be OK with policy, but then decided not to because I was worried there could nevertheless be ramifications (as there were anyway, obviously). Everyking 00:14, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Have you said anywhere you wouldn't post the content of deleted pages ever? Or apologized for saying you were willing to do so? That would certainly be a start, but without any assurance from you that you won't ever do this, your desysopping should stand as you are a liability. pschemp | talk 00:19, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, I didn't know there was anything wrong with doing so. But given the trouble it has apparently caused, I will make that assurance now. Everyking 00:22, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Could you please directly address pschemp's questions? She did not ask if you knew there was anything wrong, and your assurance is in response to a sentence. I'm not picking hairs here, please answer the questions. Teke ^(talk) 00:31, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is outrageous. Retrieving/posting deleted material is a basic right under the GFDL (but one that should not be exercised if the material was deleted for legal reasons or contains sensitive detail, of course.) When are people going to understand that Wikipedia does not own content? It's not OK to copy something I (for example) write into other Wikipedia articles just because I posted it here, without giving me attribution. It's not OK to accept my (for example) contributions under the GFDL then delete them and deny the Commons access to them. What if another site wants to publish it? What right have we got to deny the use of GFDL material to anybody? Absolutely none. I am genuinely shocked and outraged at the suggestion that Wikipedia has any right whatsover to material posted here above and beyond the rights assigned to it under the GFDL. --kingboyk 13:01, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed - Wikipedia would be hard pressed to persue legal action against someone who posted deleted page content. Hence the lack of takedown effort on Wikitruth. However, the GFDL does not constitute an obligation to make content available, and the GFDL offers no protection outside of legal protection - whether someone is an admin on a website is wholly outside its purview. Phil Sandifer 13:55, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The answer to both of the questions is no. However, I assure everyone that I will never again offer to post the content of a deleted page anywhere (much less actually do so), no matter what the content. Everyking 00:34, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I guess the basic lesson to come away with from this is don't get too cozy with banned trolls anywhere. --Cyde Weys 00:21, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This was a gross and obvious violation of Administrator trust. Let us all remember that we have the power to do great harm, and we must resist the temptation to do so at all times. Private information is not ours to disclose; we only have administrator powers for one purpose: to improve Wikipedia. We cannot usually do that by publicly compromising private information. --Tony Sidaway 00:40, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Many administrators including, if I'm not mistaken, you at some point, Tony, have offered to post the content of deleted pages to those interested under certain conditions. Everyking made an offer to post the content of a certain deleted page and then thought better of it. Haukur 09:25, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I did not disclose anything. How is it a violation of trust? Everyking 00:41, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You offered to do so. That you didn't follow through is beside the point: you made the offer. --Calton | Talk 01:04, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What does the offer matter compared to the act? Isn't the question whether the material is made available? And it was not made available, because I decided not to make it available. And furthermore, the offer is merely a helpful gesture. I thought going through with it might anger SlimVirgin but never imagined that it could get me desysopped, because I never imagined it was a violation of anything. As it turns out, I didn't do it and still got desysopped. Everyking 01:19, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The disturbing thing is this, as said by you "I didn't know there was anything wrong with doing so." If you weren't capable of understanding that revealing deleted personal information was wrong at the time you made the offer, then you shouldn't be trusted with such information. It shouldn't take a desysopping to make you understand what was morally wrong with that offer. pschemp | talk 01:27, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're missing a key detail: I didn't know it was personal information. I would never have made the offer if I had known that. I take a very strong stand against compromising personal information. Everyking 01:28, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If that's the case, you're also a liar. We know from long experience what your attitude is to "compromising personal information". Rebecca 01:57, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

With such long experience, you should be able to recall a few examples to support this claim against my integrity. Everyking 01:58, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps I could post that charming email you sent me after the WR folks started stalking me, or the congratulatory post you made to WR about Kelly Martin after the same, or...shall I go on? Rebecca 02:06, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to see that e-mail, actually... Phil Sandifer 13:55, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You offered to post deleted content without even knowing what it was? That's even worse.pschemp | talk 01:38, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, if you read what I wrote originally on the board this would be obvious. I clearly stated that I did not know what the content of the deleted edit was, and I was offering to post the full text so others could figure out what it was. And when we are talking about what is better and what is worse, we should be mindful that I decided not to do anything at all. Everyking 01:41, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I did read it. Nowhere there did you say you weren't going to do it. pschemp | talk 01:44, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're missing a key detail No, you're obscuring the key detail, given that the subject is your powers of judgment -- or lack thereof: you offered, without investigation, understanding, or thought of the consequences and/or liability -- to reveal something which had been deleted. Your lack of judgment being in question on the issue of whether you should be allowed to have powers that can be abused, it's perfectly relevant to discuss the things you say you're going to do, not just those which you succeed in carrying out. --Calton | Talk 01:45, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nice rhetorical twist there: "succeed in carrying out". What do you suppose kept me from succeeding in this diabolical mission, so that several days passed in which I posted no deleted content, until this desysopping hit me like a bolt from the blue? Everyking 01:50, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Rhetorical twist? No, a reality check. And given your history of nitpicking wikilawyering, to accuse someone else of twisting words is a bit rich. Project much? --Calton | Talk 02:16, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Come on, man, tell me why I didn't "succeed in carrying it out". Everyking 02:18, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest everyone abstain from replying for now, since this discussion is rapidly deteriorating. Prodego ^talk 02:23, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Prodego. Nothing is to be settled here, at least until the emails and other communications stop flying. This was a notice; while commentation is encouraged I think Everyking and all the other users need to walk away for a day. Teke ^(talk) 02:48, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, I didn't say that, I just abstained from replying to the thread any further. Everyking 01:50, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Regardless of the situation at hand, I do want to remind everyone that deleted content - especially deleted revisions of an article - are deleted for a reason, and that special concern needs to be taken when viewing and discussing the material. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:49, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Special concern, yes, but withholding GFDL text from the commons if it doesn't contain sensitive info, absolutely not. If Everyking didn't post such info I don't see what the problem is. Furthermore, am I to remove {{user recovery}} from my user page?! --kingboyk 13:05, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Special concern, definitely. But I do want to point out - again, disregarding the situation at hand - that Wikipedia policy is sometimes more restrictive than outside law. In other words, even though something may be legal, it may be prohibited under Wikipedia policy. However, I do reiterate that I'm not commenting on the situation at hand. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 16:21, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Last I checked, Wikipedia doesn't own the internet. In the past, deleted content was retrieved and posted elsewhere. The highly controversial Brian Peppers fiasco came to a close when Jimbo deleted the article and the article was transwiki'd in full on the YTMND Wiki, and remains there to this day. There should be no reason why in this case posting deleted content outside Wikipedia is against Wikipedia policy. The content is outside Wikipedia, not in it. Stuff that is unsuitable for Wikipedia isn't to be censored and banned from view by the entire world. What Everyking did may have been wrong morally, but to impose a sanction on him before he actually did it without warning is just as bad. I say resysop him and let the community vote to see if there's a consensus to take him down. I don't think showing deleted content is a breach of trust on us. Rather, I think quite the opposite. Refusing to allow people to view things, especially if they wrote them, is a breach of trust. I don't know exactly the situation completely, but I do think that there should have been less unilateral action. Sir Crazyswordsman 02:04, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's funny, but the question of a warning, or some sort of prior contact, hasn't been mentioned before. There were three days that passed between my suggestion and the "emergency" desysopping. If somebody believed even after that interval that I still might post the content, and felt strongly that I should not, then the obvious first option should've been to simply say to me: "Hey, in case you were still thinking of doing that, please don't; I believe it may contain personal information." In this case the response from me would have been: "I wasn't planning to post it, and now that I know it contains personal information I am very happy that I did not." Everyking 05:06, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The deleted content apparently contained personal information. In the past, such personal information has been used to harass editors, etc. Revealing that information would not be like letting an editor simply view a bad vanity article he wrote, it would be exposing rather private information to some persons who have in the past used such information in threatening ways. —Centrx→talk • 05:25, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We should be glad that this did not occur, then. Everyking offered to post the contents of a deleted article, which is a common enough occurrence, but as he says, he did not realise that it contained personal information. The key point is that the personal information was not posted. The over-reaction is akin to taking away someone's driving licence for speeding when a driver says that he will travel at a certain speed. Even if he is aware that the speed limit has been lowered on that road, there is no act to warrant punishment. Seems to me that policy is being made on the fly here.

I'm all in favour of desysopping for misbehaviour, but let's leave it until we have a clear case, because if we start desysopping for what people think but don't do, then we might as well say goodbye to a whole swag of admins. --Jumbo 06:30, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

bainer's reply to thread

I ought to mention that I also responded to that thread, having checked the contents of the deleted revision. I made this reply, saying that the revision was deleted because it contained "what appears to be personally identifiable information". I did not say what that information was. My intent was to establish that the revision was properly deleted, and to defend the admin in question.

On one or two other occasions in the past I have responded to posts on Wikipedia Review, having checked deleted revisions, with the intention of defending other admins' actions. I have not actually publicly disclosed the contents of any deleted revisions. I ask the community to advise whether these actions were acceptable. --bainer (talk) 00:37, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think you should definitely discontinue that practice, though I don't think any action should be taken against you in the circumstances, since you were apparently motivated by loyalty to WP and your colleagues. I can't say the same for Everyking. We have every reason to lose confidence in an admin who would even contemplate posting deleted information on another site. It's not a matter of whether there's a specific policy against it; it should go without saying - a matter of basic common sense and team loyalty. Everyking is entitled to have certain ideals of free speech, or whatever they are, but if he is at all inclined to pursue them to assist Wikipedia Review then the honourable course for him is to avoid any conflict of interest between his ideals and his corporate loyalties. The way to do that would have been by voluntary relinquishment of his admin powers. This desysopping should not even have been needed. Metamagician3000 01:19, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would have made the offer just the same on WP itself if the question had come up and nobody else addressed it. There is no "conflict of interest". Everyking 01:24, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just a note: The signpost will be covering this this week so some names maybe mentioned in the article. ForestH2 t/c 01:39, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In this case, I would like to read the article before it is published to ensure that nothing inaccurate is said about me. Everyking 01:44, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. I'll show you the article when it is done. ForestH2 t/c 01:45, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Discontinue the practice? Defending admins on Wikipedia Review, while probably futile, is hardly harmful; if Bainer finds this a useful pursuit, why shouldn't he keep it up? — Dan | talk 02:38, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm inclined to agree while I would urge Bainer to excercise caution letting them know why something was deleted might help matters. JoshuaZ 16:55, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

... Checking in both the user rights and a log search shows that Everyking still retains his sysop powers. Anomo 02:01, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't. My rollback, delete and protect buttons are gone. Everyking 02:02, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Did you check the meta rights log? Desysoppings show up there, not on the local wiki. --Cyde Weys 02:07, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I checked the user list and it doesn't show sysop anymore. Anomo 02:03, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest that nobody get involved with Wikipedia Review in any capacity. It's not even worth it to show up there to try to defend yourself or other Wikipedians. Just ignore them. --Cyde Weys 02:08, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As a personal matter I agree because frankly most of the people there are trolls or worse, but if a user or an admin wishes to slum, we shouldn't stop them (I am strongly not endorsing Everyking here. To even think about posting deleted material without talking to the admin who removed it is appalling. To do so for known trolls and banned users is unacceptable). JoshuaZ 16:55, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is a good place to talk about Wikipedia freely if you aren't allowed to do so on-wiki, as in my case. The downside, obviously, is that certain people monitor your every word and look for something to use against you. Everyking 02:10, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately your action — that is your words — have lost the trust that is necessary for working together, not to mention showing a lack of awareness of possible consequences. If there is a fault with wikipedia, and you can't talk about things that are necessary to talk about, then that should be addressed here, to improve the project. I think you're going to have to build up trust again. Tyrenius 02:18, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Almost every administrator who is outspoken or active in any way has lost the trust of a substantial portion of the community. My biggest offense was to offer to do something in ignorance, never mind my decision to not actually do it. Everyking 02:23, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See, if you are that ignorant, you shouldn't be a sysop anyway, however I'm not really buying the ignorance defense. pschemp | talk 02:32, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Two and a half years and I seem to have done OK with sysop tools. When the worst thing a person can come up with is that you offered to do something that you in fact refrained from doing, it's almost a compliment. Everyking 02:33, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dude we rely on admins being ignorant to get through the day. Aside form that admins are ignorant of all sorts of things. Copyright law. How to do range blocks how to use the whitelist. The fact there is a whitelist. How to close an AFD. What the exact CSD criteria are (they keep changeing for some reason). No admin knows everthing thing.Geni 02:36, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If this was a reply to pschemp, pschemp's not a dude :) Anyways, admins are supposed to be rational in every decision they make. I don't really have a stance towards either side, but considering EveryKing has a prior history of blocks, I didn't surprise me that he was desysopped for something like this. How to close an AFD is one of the most basic admin activites. If an admin candidate doesn't know how to do that, I would be surprised if the RFA passed. Admins don't know how to do everything perfectly, but they should have a general idea of what to do in a situation. — The Future 03:05, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I reserve the right to call anyone dude. In case you forget AFD in it's current form didn't exists when many of us were promoted.Geni 10:28, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bottom line: don't try to hunt with the hounds and run with the hare. Metamagician3000 03:07, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. The defense that an action was performed in ignorance is hard to take seriously. Everyking was certainly not in ignorance of the fact that he was taking that action apparently on behalf of a community riddled with disruptive, destructive elements. It's impossible to believe that an individual of good judgment would blithely assume all was well with the request, considering the venue. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:01, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The people at thge other end could have had no idea what the deleted material was.If it was harmless then there was no need to allow uncertianly that could be used in attacks to continue

I think wikipedia review isn't a good place to criticize wikipedia. There's criticizing to improve and just being anti-wikipedia and wikipedia review is sort of the later. They are really picky on registration and it seems they only allow in vandals and those that they want to corrupt (like wikipedia admins). I don't think it's wrong to complain about wikipedia, it's like complaining about your tap water quality or TV programming... you sort of need it, but you can always want it to be better. Maybe someone can host a wikipedia criticism forum that is more inline with wanting to help wikipedia. I don't want to, though. For those who do, there's lots of free forums like network54 and stuff. Anomo 06:06, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Right, well, when you have the arbs putting ten draconian restrictions on what you can say, you tend to relish the opportunity to talk about WP freely, even if you do have to do so among a bunch of people who are broadly anti-Wikipedia. Everyking 06:26, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps if you didn't have such a long history of bullying and personal abuse you wouldn't need the only wiki-restraining-order in the project's history to keep you from doing it. Rebecca 07:12, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Rebecca, I'm glad Everyking is desysopped. He seemed to be the worst POV-pusher around at Ashlee Simpson. I think he should be blocked for 1 year, in addition to his desysopping, as is the norm with such ArbCom block decisions. He's not the first - remember Karmafist (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) - now blocked indefinitely, but still sockpuppetteering. No doubt Everyking will do that here, and we'll have to use ((some template)) to list his sockpuppets. --Langwath 09:32, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've never even seen your user name before. Everyking 09:42, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have a suspicion the Langwath is a troll user. Anyone object to blocking Langwath? Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:00, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please go right ahead. A genuine newcomer doesn't jump straight into things like this. AnnH ♫ 10:15, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Um, well, I would kinda prefer it if he got a warning first. His talk page is still a red link. Everyking 10:24, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked. Appreciate your openness Everyking, but I don't think that this is a good faith contributor. Starting off by making a taunt against you at such a sensitive time is highly inappropriate and removes any vestige of assumption of good faith I might have against Pelican Shit. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:27, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Langweth is unblocked after posting an apology here, but please keep an eye out for him. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:36, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Langwath is blocked again for being a lying vandalising troll. The cluster of sockpuppets I have so far are Langwath; Dukaks; StephenColbert X-Line; Piperuniverse; WolfStar2; WolfStar3. I have absolutely no doubt there are more. DHCP only covers you so far - David Gerard 22:07, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is ludicrous. I can see no point to engaging with Wikipedia Review. But there is no reason whatsoever to desysop people on this basis. There is no claim that any confidential, harmful or even just plain deleted information was disclosed. Whatever people might think of Everyking overall is irrelevant to this case. I strongly urge ArbCom to open a case on this and give the matter full consideration instead of what looks like a knee-jerk reaction. The Land 11:51, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bearing in mind that two ArbCom members are the ones who pushed forth the desysopping, an ArbCom case would be fairly pointless at this point except to satisfy process. Most probably Fred Bauder and Dmcdevit consulted with other ArbCom members secretly and obtained their approval. Captainktainer * Talk 12:00, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Doubtful not if they were acting at that speed. 2 arbcom members is less than 20% of the Committee.Geni 12:09, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Even ArbCom members might benefit from a few days' reflection on the matter. The Land 12:23, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with The Land on this issue. Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:54, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I support this action, and gave my support in private before the action was taken. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 17:16, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We're into denying admins the right to freedom of speech now too are we? This is getting beyond a joke. --kingboyk 13:07, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What makes you think we ever had freedom of speech here? We routinely block users for harrassing and personally attacking other users. Free speech is a government censorship issue. Here on Wikipedia we do what is necessary to foster a productive editing environment, and someone trying to push the limits of "free speech" is liable to get blocked. And frankly, offering to abuse admin tools to aid a banned user is a lot worse than just a "fuck you" anyway. --Cyde Weys 16:45, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. This is the first time I have ever said this about the community here- I am disgusted. RyanGerbil10(Kick 'em in the dishpan!) 13:53, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the desysopping was an overreaction. What Everyking said was "I guess I could etc." and then, upon further consideration, he didn't. Haukur 13:57, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The reason why Everyking didn't do it wasn't because he had reflected and decided not to, it was because he couldn't get to the material that he wanted to provide to WR. User:Zoe|(talk) 17:43, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't even understand your accusation. Why couldn't I "get to the material"? Everyking 17:47, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Implications

Hummm, after reading this, I wonder what the long ranging implications of this will be, aside from the stern warning to the community in general. One important issue is that it is all a matter of timing. The information was available for some time, and in that time, it could have been cached by a webcrawler (google, answers, whatever), and be available permanetly outside Wikipedia. Or it could have been stored by a visitor and made publicly available (all allowed under GFDL). The conflict here is between the openness at one hand (everybody can at a specific time get all available information and store it off-wiki, regardless of libel, Copyvio, personal information etc), while at the otherhand desysopping for just offering to do the exact same thing. For me at the moment, that does not compute, and I would like to have some input on this from others on the timing aspect before making up my mind on whether the desysopping was good or not. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 15:12, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I have to set the question somewhat more pointed: If I had stored the information in question on my harddisk between being posted and being deleted and would now make it available externally, it would be ok under GFDL and I would not lose my sysop powers, while if I would use my sysop powers to retrieve the deleted version and make it available, I immediatly would lose my sysop powers? -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 15:32, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Kim van der Linde, it is a matter of User:Everyking offering to use his admin tools to assist a banned user to gain access to information. Copyright status of the material is not the issue. FloNight 15:47, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And since when has that been an offence, and an offence punishable by summary desysopping? --kingboyk 15:49, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Since when has it been an offense to assist a banned user with the use of administrative tools? Since when has murder been illegal? --Cyde Weys 16:41, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

depending on the legal system that is quite a complicated question. While you are deciding which legal system you mean you might want to consider why comparing everykings actions to murder is not an entirely logical course.Geni 17:48, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, so the criteria is the usage of the admin tools. So, if this information is available, it is ok to post that somewhere else under the condition that it is not retrieved using admin tools. Good to know. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 15:58, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Appears to me that Everyking was acting as a surrogate for banned user User:WordBomb. My dealings with WordBomb make me think that EK's actions need a full arbitration case. EK willingness to assist a banned user in general, and WordBomb in particular, needs to be addressed. Knowing what I know about WordBomb, this is broader in scope than EK's use of his admin tools. FloNight 16:13, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am not familiar with the case in sufficient detail have an opinion about that. I am more interested in the implications, and especially when information added to wikipedia is under GFDL, and when the same information is not. Because what happens here is that information can be at the same time under GFDL and not, depending on how it was retrieved. That is a legal impossibility. Either it is under GFDL, or it is not. If it is under GFDL, I would think that people can actually request or sue the foundation for it if they want to have it, while we at the same time desysop people for doing the same thing. That just confuses me. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 16:33, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody can require the foundation to provide any piece of information simply because it was edited into Wikipedia. The foundation can hardly be required to publish or distribute information to which it does not even hold the copyright simply because another individual has released it under the GFDL. (This ignores the fact that much personal information is not subject to copyright, and that therefore the GFDL has no bearing on its publication.) The Foundation would certainly exercise judgment in releasing deleted revisions. Everyking lost his sysop bit precisely because he appeared uninterested in demonstrating such judgment. Christopher Parham (talk) 17:22, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like few, if any, are sad to see Everyking lose the sysop tools. But, the excuse used for removing them was fairly sad. Maybe a generic "exhausting of ArbCom's patience" type reason should be used in cases like these. Friday (talk) 16:51, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Where is all this discussion heading? Everyking was emergency desysopped apparently because of a sworn desire to make deleted content available to non-admins. Whilst this is occasionally appropriate, it is most definitely not appropriate to post it to Wikipedia Review. However, Everyking has made clear above that he has no intention to make such content available to non-admins, and unless we doubt his word, why does he not have his sysop bit back? Emergency desysoppings are not permanent unless they get ratified by the ArbCom or under WP:OFFICE, as far as I understand it. - Mark 17:01, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just want to point out that I had no "sworn desire", otherwise I would have posted it instead of choosing not to. Everyking 17:08, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Were you planning on posting the entire GFDL wording, as is required by GFDL, when you posted the deleted information on Wikipedia Review? Or did you not care about the copyright status of the information? User:Zoe|(talk) 17:46, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't planning on doing anything, as you can see by the fact that I posted nothing. Everyking 17:49, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Presumably because the circumstances of the incident have brought his judgement into question to such an extent that the ArbCom feels his retaining the bit would be a liability to the project? I doubt this can be boiled down to a simple question of promising not to do someting in particular (e.g. not make deleted content available to non-admins); the broader issue is whether someone who considers—even fleetingly—using his sysop tools to help the nice folks at WR can be trusted with access to them. Kirill Lokshin 17:47, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I frequently use my admin tools to help people.Geni 17:50, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why were assisting an user banned from Wikipedia? WordBomb is not welcome on this site for a very good reason. You should assume good faith towards the admins that blocked WordBomb. WordBomb has openly expressed contempt for Wikipedia. There is no valid reason for your actions. Period. FloNight 17:51, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't assist him; how could what I wrote have assisted him? And I don't determine whether I assume good faith just based on whether someone is an admin or is banned; I assume good faith at the outset as a general principle and withdraw the assumption if I see good reason to. Everyking 17:57, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Acting as a surrogate for WordBomb by looking at deleted information shows no respect for Wikipedia users and admins that are being harassed by WordBomb and sock/meatpuppets on an ongoing basis . FloNight 18:17, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This would be more meaningful if WordBomb had gained something from it. All he got was me saying I looked at it and couldn't determine anything about it. Everyking 18:24, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And it didn't occur to you to talk to the blocking admins at all? Do you realize what a lapse in judgement that is? You seem to be saying that you knew that the user had been indefinitely blocked by community consensus and you still assumed good faith without asking the other admins for any input? What about that doesn't strike you as wrong? JoshuaZ 18:15, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I know that user is blocked, but not how that came to be. I guess I would have said something to SV about it if I was going to actually post it, considering my concern about her reaction was significant enough that I decided not to continue with the matter at all. At the time, however, my assumption was that the content had just been deleted as part of some crackdown against an individual, so I was less concerned; had I known the information was sensitive I would never have even suggested the possibility that I might post it. Everyking 18:22, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

sensitive information? Haven't been able to find any in there yet.Geni 18:24, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

People here tell me there's sensitive personal info in there, but I still have no idea what it is; I'm just assuming they are correct about that. Everyking 18:28, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm inclined to agree with Everyking on this matter. He should not have been punished just because he intended to give out confidential information, which he never actually did. --Ixfd64 18:44, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Even "intended" is too strong; I put the offer on the table, thought about it, decided not to. Everyking 18:46, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

While I'm sure we're all glad that in the end Everyking decided to not start posting said information on WR, that fact that it was ever an option is disturbing. Admins are supposed to be trustworthy. If I started muttering on WR about providing the IP addresses of fellow sysops, I suspect I'd find myself desysoped, uncheckusered, and at the wrong end of an IP block for the forseeable future–and rightly so. From his recent post above, Everyking is displaying at best questionable judgement. You'd been a sysop for a long time–longer than I have. Why did you even have to think about it? Mackensen (talk) 18:50, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

certianly. Because checkuser was provided on the understanding that you would never give out IPs. Admins frequently provide information about deleted articles.Geni 20:33, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

They do? to blocked users? Show me where. pschemp | talk 20:36, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A couple of hours ago someone on IRC asked me to post the text of a page deleted by Dmcdevit. I did. For all I know the person I was talking to is a banned user on enwiki (though I think that's quite unlikely). This happens all the time. As long as the content is harmless it's fine. Everyking was in a dodgy forum and he implied he might post the contents of a page without reviewing it carefully first. That was a mistake. Then he decided not to do it and let the matter drop. That was the right call. Haukur 22:13, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Without knowing that the content was sensitive, it seemed just like any case of making the contents of a deleted page available to an interested party, and I'm not aware that's considered a problem. I thought people did that all the time. Everyking 21:55, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

While you may not have thought about whether or not the information was sensitive, you should have. There is a difference between providing the contents of a deleted page to an editor (a vanity bio, promotional page, or some sort of facruft, say, that a newbie didn't realize was inappropriate for Wikipedia) and providing the contents of a deleted revision. Deleting individual revisions from a page history is more effort and inconvenience than reverting an edit or deleting a page, and admins only tend to do it when there is a good reason for that extra effort. Straight vandalism gets reverted; revisions are only removed in special, exceptional circumstances.

When any editor asks for a copy of a deleted page revision, it should prompt careful questions and investigation before releasing the material. When a banned sockpuppetting troll (WordBomb) asks for a deleted page revision – surely out of innocent curiosity and a sense of civic duty...*cough* – that should trigger very loud alarm bells in the mind of an admin.

Before offering to release the information – before thinking about releasing the information – you might have asked the deleting admin why the revisions were deleted. That could have cleared things up nicely. Choosing not to release the information not out of respect for another admin's judgement, nor out of respect for the privacy of the involved individuals, nor because you didn't want to be used as a tool of some trolls...but rather because you were "worried that SlimVirgin might get pissed" does not inspire confidence in your ability to handle admin tools.

I've had run-ins with you before over your interactions with other editors, particularly other admins. I've been concerned about your occasional lack of civility. However, I've defended your contributions. I've never suggested that you should be desysopped; I have in fact argued against such suggestions in the past. Aside from a few regrettable mistakes during the Ashlee Simpson edit wars two years ago, I've never seen you misuse your admin privileges. But this is beyond the pale. If the only thing that stops you from handing out deleted page revisions to banned trolls bent on harrassing SlimVirgin and other admins is your fear that you'll piss off SlimVirgin, your judgement is no longer sound. I don't know whether it's because you're mad at Wikipedia, or mad at SlimVirgin, or mad at me (now, at least) or what—but this sort of offer shows a contempt for the Wikipedia community and for your Wikipedia colleagues. You've done a great deal of good here, but I just can't see how you can be trusted with admin privileges now. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:06, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Out of all this, what you are really saying is that I should have consulted SlimVirgin before suggesting I might post the contents of the page. I have said that, in the unlikely instance that I chose to actually post the contents, I would have said something to her about it first—but this is not good enough for you, I need to consult her before I even make the suggestion. At some point it begins to look like you're grasping at straws here. Everyking 06:36, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You completely missed his point. The point is there is a huge difference between deleted revisions and an article that was just deleted for mundane reasons such as meeting the speedy criteria, AfD, etc. Deleted revisions require extra effort and are only done to keep that information away from non admins. The fact that you didn't even know what the information was you were offering to post is a problem, in addition to all the other problems people have noted here. - Taxman ^Talk 14:10, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

TenOfAllTrades did you ever read the deleted edits?Geni 12:28, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This reminds of a suggestion I brouhgt up a while ago- to have an open log of what admins accessed what deleted pages when. It might help deal with this sort of situation somewhat. JoshuaZ 20:50, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How could this have prevented anything? We'd find out that Everyking looked at the deleted content, a fact we already know. --Conti|✉ 20:56, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be useful to not hide non-sensitive deleted articles from non-administrators. Deleting articles because they don't fit editorially should be factored from deleting articles or revisions that have personal information etc. Almost all articles deleted via prod or AFD could be viewable by anyone. Then it would make sense to log viewing articles that truely need to be hidden. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-09-04 21:17Z

Also stewards can truly delete sensitive edits now, of course. The problem I imagine is that many of those still remain unnoticed in the deleted articles tables. I wonder how many deleted articles we actually have?! --kingboyk 21:20, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If we make deleted articles generally visible unless specifically set otherwise, we're going to have to use that setting a lot. Huge chunks of our material is deleted because it's a copyright violation, and allowing that to be publicly visible defeats the entire point of deleting it, which is no longer to publish the material... Shimgray | talk | 21:20, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There wouldn't be a default in either direction. There would be two possible actions, both equally easy to do: 1) hide from non-administrators and 2) editorial removal without hiding, similar to blanking a page, but makes it a redlink and otherwise appear as a non-article. There's no problem if either one of these two ends up being used more than the other. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-09-05 14:57Z

I believe it is fine for admins to give out a deleted article if it's been AFD'd as non-notable. Right? Even though in the instance where SlimVirgin deleted specific revisions those should have been kept secret. Right? Anomo 23:00, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, it was clear that Slim Virgin had her reasons for deleting a quite specific revision. It was also clear that digging around to try to discover the content of that revision for the purpose of making it available to a banned user with an evident grudge against Wikipedia was something that a good colleague on the admin team would never even have thought of doing. When Everyking says he never actually did it, that's a relief. But he's still questioning (as of yesterday) whether there would have been anything wrong with it if he'd gone ahead. I can't trust him with the admin tools in those circumstances, no matter how good an editor he is otherwise. This is definitely not like userfying an article that was deleted because it was on a non-notable topic or userfying a userbox that did not belong in template space but had no particular tendency to disrupt the project or bring it into disrepute. We are expected to have good enough judgment to make such distinctions. Metamagician3000 00:46, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Specific reason? The only thing I could find was stuff about a case settled out of court.Geni 00:51, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Asking an admin for the contents of an article that was AFD'd as non-notable to put it on another website and the admin giving it is still acceptable, right? Anomo 11:58, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I may not be an admin, but it seems that we all experience lapses in judgement from time to time. Everyking made an intemperate post -- it's all too easy to post first and think later when it comes to message boards. Lapses happen. A single, and in this case, harmless, lapse is not sufficient cause for a permanent desysopping, else we'd likely have no admins at all. I anticipate, at least, that an arbitration will be forthcoming to decide whether the desysopping is permanent? Powers ^T 13:42, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not as far as I know. I believe they intended it to be permanent right from the beginning. Everyking 19:33, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I personally am concerned, you have eroded all the trust placed in you by the community and this was the straw that broke the camel's back. There's no prohibition on you standing for RfA and I doubt the Committee would overrule community consensus were you to succeed, but I know I'd oppose. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 19:40, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the tiny part of the community that is me still trusts you, James. You were always responsible and did a large amount of valuable work as an admin. I'll gladly renominate you for adminship any time you want. Haukur 21:17, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The emergency desysopping was understandable, but is no longer necessary. I may disagree with some of his actions, but in this case, the thread doesn't show a deliberate attempt to abuse the sysop tools. He looked at the deleted revisions and commented on them. He did offer to post it, 'tis true, but if he had known it contained personal information, he wouldn't have done it. While the emergency desysopping might have been warranted because of the potential for dissemination of personal information, I'm sure this will serve as a lesson to be more careful when dealing with banned users, and as such, the emergency desysopping is no longer necessary. --Deathphoenix ʕ 15:49, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Deathphoenix here. But unless I've missed something, nobody was suggesting that this emergency desysopping was in fact temporary. Friday (talk) 16:12, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm aware that nobody suggest that this is a temporary desysopping, but I'm suggesting that it should be. --Deathphoenix ʕ 17:03, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it should be, but the way people get adminned or de-adminned seems to be changing quite rapidly in recent days. I think we at least deserve to know who's on the special list of people that get to make such decisions. Friday (talk) 17:10, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom and Jimbo. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 17:25, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, Everyking is an excellent vandal fighter. I'd support a speedy restoration of his admin priviledges. --Ixfd64 16:13, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unless there's more to this issue than this one incident, I would agree. And if there is more to this issue than this one incident, then an ArbCom case needs to be opened if this "emergency" measure is to be permanent. Powers ^T 19:24, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I also agree with Deathphoenix, and LtPowers. Any emergency desysopping should either be followed by resysopping after a suitable explanation (which is the case here in my opinion), or an ArbCom case to determine the appropriate long-term action. If the current situation continues, then Everyking has been punished without a trial. I realise that Wikipedia is not a democracy, but there does need to be some process here.-gadfium 01:06, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is exceptionally stupid. Say I pick up someone's valid credit card and someone else asks me to give it to them. I tell that person "I'll think about it". Then I throw the credit card into a fire and nothing else comes of it. Do I get arrested for identity theft? ugen64 04:39, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, but if you were a police officer who offered to pass the credit card to a conman, you'd lose your job if caught, whether you actually went ahead and did it or not. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:19, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Implications redux

This WP:COPY may be interesting reading. IANAL but I am not reading an obligation for us to make material (licensed by others under GFDL as all text content is here) available forever. GFDL infers redistribution rights (or imposes making material available for redistribution, subject only to reasonable charges for media and costs) but only if we ourselves are using it. If we're not using it (that is, if it's deleted) we don't HAVE to make it available to anyone, the seeker should go to the source. Availability is then up to the original author to determine. If that author chooses to make themselves anonymous or is a troll, and thus we are not quite sure who that is, it's sort of not our problem to help the seeker determine who it was. Therefore to the points said above, I'm not seeing a need to make deleted content available on request, in general, despite it being GFDL licensed. We're not. after all, still using it. We can do so if we choose to but we don't have to. Again IANAL and I may be all wet but I found that implication interesting. ++Lar: t/c 18:15, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is no obligation to make available any GFDL content at all or for any length of time; only, if made available it must be able to be read or copied. —Centrx→talk • 05:31, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Personal information?

After looking at the deleted version (NO, I am not going to reveal its content), I actually question whether there is any personal information revealed in the post. I personally would have reverted the post as vandalism but not have deleted the revision. If this post is an example of revealing personal information, a hell of a lot of revisions should be deleted from various other articles as well. So, could some admins shime in on this? without revealing anything of the content. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 15:16, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please, I can't deal with this; I'm not a lawyer and I can't really understand much of what this user is writing. The user has left me a variety of messages which I have moved to User talk:Mets501/Hans Henning Atrott for convience, and has threatened to bring in a lawyer. I do not want to anything wrong, so I don't really want to act. The only thing I have said to this user is remind him that by submitting any information to the English Language Wikipedia, he is publishing it under the GNU Free Documentation license (GFDL), and that cannot be "withdrawn", as the user wanted to call it. Thanks in advance for anyone's help. —Mets501 (talk) 02:26, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Legal threats = not appriciated. First admin to see this, I would block the person making legal threats for a little while. — The Future 02:29, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

kick it upstairs. Legal threats are mostly for the foundation to deal with.Geni 02:31, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User is currently blocked due to sperate issues.Geni 02:32, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Which user? I noticed a User:Merryhobby mentioned something about a lawyer on Mets' talk page, and he is not blocked. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 02:34, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

yea, I think the one who was talking about this whole legal thing was User:Merryhobby. I would suggest a temporary block on Merryhobby, FWIW. — The Future 02:35, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ah I was talking about user:172.176.81.14.Geni 02:38, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

By the diffs provided in the history of Mets501's talk page, Merryhobby was the one who posted the things found on User talk:Mets501/Hans Henning Atrott. — The Future 02:41, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Merryhobby made the legal threats, but User:Joerg Atrott (his son) also wrote on the talk page, but not with legal threats, as did 172.180.82.139. —Mets501 (talk) 02:51, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Per previous incidents, I've deleted most of it which was unreferenced (apart from a couple of points referenced only in German) and reduced it to an acceptable stub, so that solves the immediate problem. Anyone making legal threats gets to be blocked indefinitely, till they withdraw them, as we can't function with another editor in those circumstances. You might like to warn the complainant of that. The article will need to be built up carefully and closely referenced. Tyrenius 02:49, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Does a representative of WP:OFFICE monitor this page? If not, someone should bring this thread to their attention quickly. Newyorkbrad 02:56, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No need. There's nothing (as far as I know) contentious left in the article. Besides, the preferred option is that problems are tackled by editors/admins. Tyrenius 03:07, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Copied from my talk page: Since Mets501 said that Merryhobby was the one who made the legal threats, and you said that anyone who makes legal threats should be blocked, could/should you block Merryhobby? — The Future 02:57, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If the user is making legal threats they should be blocked from editing immediately. However, I suggest that as they are in the sensitive position of complaining about BLP, it might be politic in the first instance to explain the article has been amended, and ask them if they withdraw any legal threat, or else we will be forced to block them. Perhaps Mets501 could have a go there. Tyrenius 03:07, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That would certainly be the appropriate reaction to an off-hand probably-not-meant-seriously legal threat, but this does not fall into that category. It's a serious situation that needs to be dealt with by very senior admins or by the office. Tyrenius, you have mail. Newyorkbrad 03:14, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've just dealt with something similar in another very serious situation. The preferred route is to deal with it ourselves. However, feel free to contact anyone you think should be contacted. No mail has arrived. Tyrenius 03:27, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mail just sent. I'm not an admin, so give my thoughts whatever value you think they deserve. Newyorkbrad 03:32, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Got it. I'll reply. Meanwhile I've left the message for the user and given them the options, so no problem. Tyrenius 03:35, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Article and talk page histories deleted to remove any and all possible defamation. Tyrenius 04:09, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I'm not technical, so bear with me: Keybounce, a legitimate user, has been autoblocked through a proxy-IP problem, or summin' like that. Anywho, he can't contact either administrator who wrote the program that blocked him, so I'm trying to help out. I've left a message on one of the admin's pages, but he and the other have not been editing lately. Help? --172.193.194.250 02:52, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:Advice to Tor users in China —Mets501 (talk) 03:37, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As I indicated on my user:talk page, I had to change my Tor configuration. And, I think it's a valid question: If an IP address is blocked because it's a single abusive user, that's one thing; if it's blocked for being an open proxy, why not let the test for "is the user logged in" override "is this an open proxy"? --Keybounce 00:17, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

DrGladwin (talk · contribs) is a single-purpose account whose main function on Wikipedia is to whitewash the unaccredited University of Health Sciences Antigua (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). DrGladwin refuses mediation: Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/UHSA. Per the emerging consensus in ArbCom, as expressed in the substantially similar case of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/St Christopher/Proposed decision (SPAs editing an unaccredited medical school in order to obscure problematic status)), single purpose accounts may be restricted from editing articles where they have a material interest. I therefore propose a community ban on DrGladwin from directly editing this article, the List of unaccredited institutions of higher learning and related pages, ban to be enforceable by blocking if necessary. Just zis Guy you know? 09:23, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unnecessary. My main purpose was to prevent Robo doc and Azskeptic from spamming the article with foreign links with disregard to the overall structure of the article. Since they both are gone, I have no problem now. --DrGladwin 12:09, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So you say. However, by all appearances and judging from your contributions history your actual purpose appears to be to prevent them highlighting the problematic status of the school with which you are associated (e.g. [13]). Guy 12:34, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not preventing anyone from doing anything. See the medical school entry now. I totally agree with what everyone has posted especially you and Leuko and a few others. There is a proper way of posting things and you should have seen what Robo doc did to the article - he started the good ol foreign medical school defaming here (using words like "fake medical school" "nigerian fraud" without citations) then completely changed the formatting! If you really think what Robo doc did is ok, then go ahead, block me. By the way, beginning next week, I'm no longer associated with the school so I will no longer post in that area; (I got accepted elsewhere). --DrGladwin 15:55, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Dr. has been adding criticism at the Quackwatch article. When it was specificed who these people are, and what their businesses are an anon. removed it.[14] Arbusto 21:24, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I did nothing wrong while adding criticism. That's what that section is meant for: Add criticisms. --DrGladwin 14:31, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

N.B., the user in question has made at least one legal threat: [15]. A.J.A. 22:33, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That threat is just a spoof. We both do that to each other on all forums for fun. Plus, I cannot "drag" him to court because he's a big, really heavy guy, and I have weak hands (That happens when you spend 25+ years in school). --DrGladwin 14:31, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Threats on Wikipedia are not "spoofs", they are taken seriously. Don't make legal threats, or comments which might be construed as such, ever. Guy 20:05, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please see this new policy proposal, feel free to edit it further... I've just started it. --Langwath 09:37, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

already covered by WP:SOCK.Geni 10:23, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't User:Langwath himself also "already covered by WP:SOCK"? Obvious trolling-only account. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:19, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am inclined to believe so. I blocked the account indefinitely, but since he apologized, I have unblocked the account. But please keep an eye on. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:41, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I nuked the article as WP:POINT, an attack on named users and redundant anyway. Guy 12:30, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Since the user's indefinite block has been undone, I've restored his userpage, which I'd deleted. We'll see how this goes. Metamagician3000 12:36, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And as always, the user campaigning to get himself unblocked to do "good contributions" has yet to do any. Such is normal it seems. Oh yes. --Lord Deskana (talk) 21:21, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Langwath is the M62 vandal/troll - David Gerard 22:15, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry if this is the wrong forum - I am very new to Wikipedia. The comment within the second paragraph of the Carreer section of the article on Kate Garraway is surely libelous - could somebody remove it?

AMPY 16:15, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Removed. Welcome. Haukur 16:28, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And in the future, if you see something like that, you can remove it yourself. You won't get in trouble. ;) --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 00:09, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Usually but in this case the article was semi-protected with the penis-vandalism in place. D'oh! Haukur 07:11, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The article about short tailed stingrays which has been frozen due to recent vandalism contains the statement that Steve Irwin was stung in the scrotum, when in fact he was stung in the chest. Thanks.

That's what we get for locking out the good as well as the bad. -Splash - tk 01:41, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, two threads in a row here. Haukur 07:12, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You know I'm usually with you Splash, but how much vandal reversion did you do on that article? I don't see any. All you did was unprotect the page a few times. If you are that big on not protecting articles that are on the main page, then help out and revert vandalism on those articles. You can't have it both ways. Have I removed sprotect tags from main page articles? Yes. But then I usually help out with the reversions a bit. --Woohookitty^(meow) 11:01, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is a war at Vic Grimes that doesn't technically fall under 3RR that needs attention by an admin. The story so far is: JB196 wrote an article gathering info from various sources and creditted hismelf as the author of the article in the body, this previously had been discussed back in April of 2006 and he was told not to do. I removed the line about him being the "author" of the article and he reverted it and over a few days I got frustrated and brought it to the attention of WP:PW. What happened from then is that JB196 is attempting to constantly revert the article to its state before his edits, removing all the information and updates, unless he gets creditted with being the author of the article. We've tried to explain that wikipedia is a people's encyclopedia and that anyone can contribute and there are no article "authors" but this has not let up.

Can an admin take a look at this and give a ruling? The result is slightly important as he has done this to several other articles and the ruling would be sort of binding to how we deal with it.

(The reason I didn't take this to mediation or informal mediation is that it's a fast moving situation and that a consensus would be pretty much impossible as it's an all or nothing situation in that either he is creditted for "writing" the article or isn't.) --- Lid 03:17, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Note to mod: I have tried to work this problem out with bullet yet he is intent on writing nasty replies about my integrity. At the very least, he has violated both WP:AGF and WP:3RR. I do not see how that could possibly be up for argument. My concerns have been fully documented on the Vic Grimes: Talk page. Could a mod please tell me how bullet's violation of these Wikipedia policies will be dealt with? I take great offense to his comments about my personal integrity and my intents in editing Wikipedia. Thank you.JB196 03:25, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Note to "ADMIN": Please see Talk:Vic Grimes. If any nasty replies made by me towards JB196 are found, then the right measures must be taken against me and I should be blocked indefinably for my so called "Blatant Vandalism". -- bulletproof ^3:16 03:30, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Constant reverting is disruptive and really not needed. Wikipedia is for everyone (as long as they follow the guidelines/rules). Reverting so much is simply rude and not needed. Hopefully something is done about this matter. The Vic Grimes page (or any other page for that matter) shouldn't have constant reverts, period. RobJ1981 03:33, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User 3bulletproof16 also continues to remove constructive comments from his talk page. I agree with RobJ1981's reply; that is why I am leaving it as it is until the admins get involved. Keep in mind that the majority of my edits did not fall under the definition of a traditional "Revert" (most of them included wrestling content editing as well) whereas bullet's did fall under the traditional "Revert" definition.JB196 03:36, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion has progressed towards being address on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Professional wrestling. There is no need to confuse editors by having an unorganized discussion. -- bulletproof ^3:16 03:40, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

JB196 partially blanked Texas Wrestling Academy [16], another article in which I removed an "author" credit because he compiled most of the information (not all). He claims it was "condensing" but it removed most of the article. --- Lid 03:34, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I made the TWA article. Your point doesn't stand, sir. To the admins: I think the main issue here is that bullet, Lid, and maybe even one or two others are applying double standards to their reasoning, and saying that when I make a revert its vandalism but when they make a revert its reverting a vandalism and therefore legal. That contention doesn't fly any more than my goldfish flies (bad joke but you get the point...). How do you know I didn't just make up all those wrestler names and that HBK didn't train any of them? You're arguing that I don't have integrity in my Wikipedia edits so by your logic I may've just made up most of those wrestlers. So I am warranted in removing the list and I am correct that "your point doesn't stand."JB196 03:36, 5 September 2006 (UTC)JB196 03:36, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What you fail to realize is just because you made an article doesn't mean that you own it. Please see WP:OWN -- bulletproof ^3:16 03:41, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User 3bulletproof16 continues to vandalize his talk page by removing constructive comments.JB196 04:33, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is basically the issue here. The article Vic Grimes was being reverted by JB196. This was the previous version of the article before it was reverted [17]. This is the version that JB196 made afterwards [18]. Please Note the major reduction of the article's quality made by JB196's reversion. Please read JB196's comments regarding his reversion [19]. "revert then; you may not use my bio if I am not going to be credited." -- JB196 14:20, September 4, 2006. It is because of his reversions and his comments to the article that JB196 was accused of WP:OWN and also of compromising the integrity of Wikipedia by deliberately attempting reduce the quality of the article. From WP:Vandalism -- "Vandalism is any addition, deletion, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia.". How he claims these accusations are false I have no idea. There you go Admins. The facts have been presented. -- bulletproof ^3:16 04:36, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You need to learn that when you present an argument you should stay consistent with your contentions. You've flip-flopped back and forth so many times I can't even keep track of what your current contention is. Nobody is arguing that WP:OWN applies here. I am in agreement with that. You're wasting time arguing that. Now what's left is for you to stop violating WP:AGF, Wikipedia: User page, and WP:3RR, and as a courtesy try to stay consistent with your contentions.JB196 04:52, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is the case that I presented to you. If you misunderstood it in any way shape or form I apologize. However I must thank you for agreeing that you do have an WP:OWN problem. -- bulletproof ^3:16 04:56, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• I blocked JB196 for 3RR violation, if he carries on then a longer block is in order. Edit warring over a vanity namecheck is ridiculously lame. Guy 11:41, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose we could cite the guy's name as per the style guide WP:CITE (e.g. Barber, Jonathan), if that would stop the edit war. --Jtalledo (talk) 12:39, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Then can I start citing myself in articles? I mean I did the research I want authorship rights. No rights? Then I retract all contributsions i've made to an article. This falls under WP:VAIN and shouldn't have even needed posting here but as this has been going on for months I felt compelled to move it to a higher forum. The simple answer is that giving him "credit" for something he caims is his and then revoking it because he doesn't like that wikipedia is a free encyclopedia and giving yourself author credits in articles is against the rules. --- Lid 13:15, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

lol Just trying to settle this crazy thing once and for all. Then again, you could make a slippery slope argument that this will encourage the user to do the same for other articles as well. --Jtalledo (talk) 18:31, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not trying to rag on the guy, but JB316 has done this to a number of articles. Either he doesn't get the point of Wikipedia or he doesn't care and thinks the rules don't apply to him. - Bdve 15:09, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Believe me, i brought up this issue with him whe he first arrived... note my additions to his talk page..... but he is relentless when it comes to this position on crediting himself within articles.. between us here we have written 100's of articles and contributed to 1000's more.. people cant go round and add there names to articles its rediculos... plus isnt his name on the pages edit history doesnt that give him enough credit!???... he has to be stop there is no question there --- Paulley 15:58, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

JB has changed his modus operandi and is now spamming ^{[citation needed]} tags through articles he himself has written. Examples can be found at [20] [21] (both articles done by JB in which he provided most of the material). JB tends to add numerous templates to articles when he doesn't get what he wants (see: 411mania, Extreme Warfare and Wrestling Spirit). Can an admin please intervene? This stuff has gone on for too long and he has shown no signs of stopping. –– Lid^(Talk) 06:18, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This case is now closed and the result has been published at the link above.

• Negative information in an article or on a talk page regarding Sathya Sai Baba or organizations affiliated with him which is poorly sourced may be removed without discussion. The three revert rule shall not apply to such removal. This includes links to critical websites which contain original research or which consist of personal accounts of negative experiences with Sathya Sai Baba or organizations affiliated with him. It is inappropriate for a user to insert a link to a website maintained by the user (or in which the user plays an important role).
• Information in an article or on a talk page regarding Sathya Sai Baba or organizations affiliated with him which is poorly sourced may be removed. This includes links to websites which contain original research or which consist of personal accounts of experiences with Sathya Sai Baba or organizations affiliated with him. It is inappropriate for a user to insert a link to a website maintained by the user (or in which the user plays an important role)
• Andries and SSB108 are forgiven any offenses they have committed by introducing unreliable information into the article and encouraged to edit in compliance with Wikipedia:Reliable sources and Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons.

For the Arbitration Committee. 03:54, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

This editor keeps obstgruction the development of this article. His latest attempt is to claim that google scholar cannot be used as a reference , thus he is is blanking out this paragraph from the impact section :

Hagarims is widely cited by many contemporary historiographers and historians of early Islam, such as: Bernard Lewis, Robert G. Hoyland, Reza Aslan, G. R. Hawting, Herbert Berg, Francis Edwards Peters, S. N. Eisenstadt, Ziauddin Sardar, Malise Ruthven,Richard Landes, Ibn Warraq and John Wansbrough.[22].

--CltFn 04:19, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A search link is not an appropriate reference. I think if you look at the history of the article you'll find that CltFn continues to remove as many cited criticisms as possible, and insert his original research (sometimes trying to weaken the criticisms) often with quite misleading edit summaries used for reverts. BhaiSaab ^talk 02:46, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Here are some diffs supporting my claim: [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30], [31], [32], [33], [34], [35], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40], [41], [42], [43], [44], [45], [46], [47], [48], [49], [50].

Read the talk page (and its archive) for background. BhaiSaab ^talk 03:01, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone please close the caffeine FA page? According to the caffeine talk page it's already been promoted to FA but the page is still open and people are still voting. Thanks. Anchoress 05:03, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not an admin specific task... And there is no closing template for FACs, they are simply removed from the main FAC page, which anyone can do after promotion/failure. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 11:53, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is requested that one of the esteemed sysops speedy close the pointless CfD debate over this highly-visible template. - CrazyRussian talk/email 05:40, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I see no reason why this debate should be speedily closed - indeed I've added my 'delete' argument to it. It is a debate worth having. See Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:Notability. --Doc 08:41, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Username says obviously offensive usernames (including Wikipedia community terms or profanity) should be listed at Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism but the latter page says it should not be listed if the user hasn't vandalised. Also, I can't put Template:UsernameBlocked on because I can't block, so I don't know what warning template would be appropriate. So I decided to take it here. Found these on Special:Log/newusers.

[51]

[52]

[53]

[54]

[55]

[56]

Please advise re: these usernames and what should be done in the future. TransUtopian 13:20, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• um, you can just send those to WP:AIV--AOL account 13:24, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks. Of course, it didn't occur to me to look at the Block log first. They're already blocked. TransUtopian 13:59, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

an anon with a dynamic IP is breaking 3rr on MySpace. He keeps reverting my good faith edit, saying I must discuss changes on the talk page, yet they make huge copy edits on their own with no discussion. You can't change them cause the anon will revert you! Can you protect or semi protect the MySpace article so that we're forced to discuss changes instead of just having some anon constantly reverting me? -- Chris chat edits essays 14:04, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Guidelines do not allow semiprotection for editorial disputes but we can protect a page. I have done so and am also willing to help mediate any dispute on the article. Best, --Alabamaboy 20:04, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do realize, though, this doesn't mean I support your edits or version of events. In short, there appears to be an edit war building up at the article and I think this will help stop it.--Alabamaboy 20:14, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

{{Usersign}} is new, and needs to be shown around some where. --Foilwarp 14:10, Tuesday September 5 2006 (UTC)

This template is redundant with ~~~~ and {{unsigned}} --Deathphoenix ʕ 16:32, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I was looking at the article Mercury Pookkal which was oddly written. I checked for copyright infringements and found it had been copied directly from an article about the star of the movie in another wiki article. When I checked into the contributions of the original author User:King Dracula, he has recently created this account, and has left behind a spray of articles that are copyright violations, or badly written / copied stubs. This is the same pattern I saw with User:Zhangshou working on Romanian articles (Dracula was possibly Romanian). I contacted Can't sleep, clown will eat me, who asked me to post a notive here for other admins to review. -- Whpq 17:13, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

After speedy deleting several of King Dracula's one-liner articles, I received a note to my talk page which was very weird indeed [57]. I guess some could consider his message to myself as a death threat. I brushed it off at the time but thought it best to bring it to the attention of others here. One to watch for sure. -- Longhair 01:30, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"7 days" is a ref to The Ring, which is so 2002-like. Hbdragon88 03:57, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See Image:WikiProject_Sharks_by_Lenny.PNG... it was my understanding that incorporating the puzzleglobe requires WMF approval. Is that correct or am I (ahem) all wet? Or worse, "trolling" because this isn't actually a fishy logo at all? If it is, where should such a thing be brought to? Meta? Thanks, if you know, please drop me a line, old chum... ++Lar: t/c 18:28, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Generaly the position we appear to be moveing towards is that the globe should only be used with the permission of the foundation.Geni 18:35, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, so what to do? take it to meta (where)? Tag it with a copyvio tag? nom it for deletion? ++Lar: t/c 19:32, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well it appears to have been speedy deleted but at this time "do whatever" appears to be the order of the day. I doubt there are that many problem images (ok that isn't quite true but most of the porblem images already have fair use templates on the).Geni 21:12, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

An additional images with the same problem from the same user:

• Image:WPS full size by lenny.PNG
• Image:Shark debait logo by lenny.PNG
• Image:New fellow project logo by Lenny.PNG
• Image:WikiProject Shark logo 2 by Lenny modified.PNG
• Image:WikiProject Shark logo 2 by Lenny.PNG (may also have tag issues)
• Image:WikiProject Shark by Lenny.PNG (may also have tag issues)

--TeaDrinker 23:59, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And one more, this one by a different user, but on the same theme: Image:Example wikiproject sharks logo v2.png.--TeaDrinker 02:35, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Made by me, it is not used anyway, please delete! I assumed that the globe was GPL, my misstake. Stefan 05:38, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

From User talk:Lar:
Is it possible that she was telling the truth about her in the pictures? [58] This thread apparently was created back in February long before she joined Wikipedia. This thread also gives a picture of her, which looks, seemingly, identical to the pictures posted on Wikipedia. Any thoughts? — The Future 20:22, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea. I'm not sure I'm the right person to bring this information to, though. ++Lar: t/c 20:25, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I'll cross-post this at WP:AN to see if anyone has any additional thoughts. Thanks! — The Future 20:59, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Any thoughts? — The Future 20:59, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Buried somewhere in the various threads, it has been pointed out before that the screen name "publicgirluk" has been witnessed online in various venues, including a number of sexuality related online groups. Unfortunately, this doesn't resolve the underlying ambiguity. Either the real publicgirluk contributed those photos, or someone familiar with that identity impersonated her and uploaded the images (which the real publicgirluk may have posted to some web forum). For the moment, I would encourage people the let the issue lie until we have an agreed upon policy for verifying unusual licensing claims. Once we do have such a policy, I intend to reach out to the person using that persona online in the hopes of ultimately resolving this issue. Dragons flight 22:49, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Eminently sensible, and thanks for offering to do that. ++Lar: t/c 00:01, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Of course she was for fucking real. Sadly we don't have the apparatus or the maturity as an organisation to accept that kind of contribution yet. So yes, the deletion was appropriate. --Tony Sidaway 00:25, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

All you would have to do to verify that it was her would be to have her take a picture of herself in front of her computer displaying the Wikipedia home page or her user page. Another option would be for her to hold up a sign saying "Wikipedia can have my pictures" or something. Don't have her write it on her body, that's just degrading.

As for not being ready for the pictures, don't we have pictures of guys masturbating and ejaculating on Wikipedia? So what, people don't want women involved? -- Kjkolb 01:14, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually we don't have actual photographs. Not in masturbation or ejaculation. Nice try though. Doesn't matter anyway, its the legal issues that are the problem. Those are getting worked on by our lawyer, so arguing about it is silly until then.pschemp | talk 01:20, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

commons:Category:Masturbation. ~ PseudoSudo 01:31, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

those aren't on the English wikipedia. That's what I'm talking about, and that's what Kjkolb said, "on Wikipedia", not "on commons". pschemp | talk 02:17, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, they aren't in articles, but there's some sort of blacklist in the project namespace somewhere that lists taboo images on wikipedia. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 02:51, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I must have seen them on Commons, not a big difference to me as all of my pictures are there. Anyway, my comment was taken a bit too seriously. ;-) Kjkolb 03:55, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You might like to check out this image linked from Autofellatio, and Jimbo's transition from "completely unacceptable" to "decent compromise" regarding it. Following discussion on Facial (sexuality), Publicgirluk's photo was similarly linked as a compromise. Tyrenius 08:54, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On the Talk:Masturbation page we are discussing which image to make the lead image. I have a Klimt drawing there currently, but I seem to be in the minority wanting it to remain there. There are several candidates of pictures of men or women masturbating. As for the "publicgirluk" photos, I've been concerned that it was not her, but her boyfriend who uploaded the image. But of course, there has been no way to tell. At any rate, it is just a matter of time before the no censorship policy results in explicit photos of people. We need to find a way to be sure that the real person does consent to the use of their image. The creampie article is another example of where that is avoided for the moment. Atom 03:17, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The issue as I understand it is not so much the explicit nature of the photos, but that nature combined with the fact that the subject of the photo was clearly identifiable. Wikipedia has plenty of penis and vulva pictures, but generally speaking seeing that doesn't really tell me anything about who it is. Once you can identify the subject, we have to worry about model release issues. Nandesuka 03:23, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I like the anatomically accurate drawings that some texts use. However, in some situations a photograph is best. When graphic pictures are used, I think that it should be either a very small thumbnail or a link. I have no problem with nudity or pornography, it just seems classier and it is easier to read an article without an explicit photograph right next to the text. This goes for non-sex articles with explicit photographs, too.

Nandesuka, I would worry about model release issues even when the person is not easily identifiable. Also, some photographs on Wikipedia that are unidentifiable close-ups identify the subject in the caption or on the description page, sometimes the person who is posting the picture and sometimes not. If the photograph is not of the person posting it and the subject is identified, it would be close to the same issue as you are talking about ("close" because, to me, being identifiable in the photograph itself is different than being identified in the caption or description page). It would be also be a problem if a poster submits a picture of someone else and claims that it is him or her, especially if the poster has a username that could be used to identify the real person or if the real person's name is given in the caption or on the description page. -- Kjkolb 04:40, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mughalstan, if a site is the only primary source for an information, and the site is no longer active, does Google's cache count as an acceptable reference? Note that the article in question doesn't have any other primary sources (only some web based forums/blogs, which in turn refers to the no-longer-existing site as their source), and the site that is supposedly the all-encompassing source is no longer active. So, in absence of any other primary sources of information, does google's cache count as proof of verifiability of the information presented? --Ragib 23:38, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If I was able to use the WayBack machine for some articles, then a Google Cache should be good too. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 00:00, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Google cache expires rather quickly. Wayback is commonly used and safer in this regard. Pavel Vozenilek 17:59, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This page was deleted without discussion, so I nominated its deletion for review. The result was that the speedy deletion was overturned (see here, but the page has not yet been restored. Could an admin please do so?--Lorrainier 23:54, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I redeleted it. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Blocked users with bizarre usernames. Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 00:00, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I really don't think ANOTHER speedy is going to help anything. When something was just undeleted by the DRV to be run through an XfD, re-speedying it is a violation of consensus that it go through full process. Please undelete, and reopen the discussion for the sake of process. --tjstrf 00:03, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I quickened it up as there was an overwhelming consensus to delete. It wasn't a full-speedy, it was a part-speedy as the conclusion is foregone conclusion to expedite WP:DENY ASAP. If you disagree, please come to my talk page.Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 00:05, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Remember, my offer to have the page userfied in my userspace is still open, so the ball is in yall's court to see if this is a good idea or not. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 00:12, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That MfD had a thumping consensus for delete and has been closed twice per the Snowball clause and Deny recognition. Please let's just allow it to die. No amount of wikilaawyering and handwringing will do anything to bring it back. --Tony Sidaway 00:21, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Interestingly (or not, depending on your perspective), neither of thsoe are actionable as actual, legitimate reasons to do anything. --badlydrawnjeff talk 01:11, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The fact of their being cited continuously to justify actions such as Tony's (and some actions with which you might even agree, such as closing failing RFAs to prevent unnecessary ill will) seems to contradict this assertion. — Dan | talk 01:55, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - I've yet to hear anyone who has supported this page's deletion explain how it glorifies vandalism any more than the rest of BJAODN, and, therefore, why it was singled out.--Lorrainier 02:46, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Reply Neither have I, and if a certain out-of-process admin would bother to stop enforcing proposed policies as CSD's, maybe we could actually discuss it. However, the fact remains that the page sucks, and bizzare is an absurdly POV judgment for categorization in the first place. --tjstrf 02:53, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I give up; I won't have it moved to my userpage. I am no way emotionally attached to that page at all, was trying to see if that was a happy medium people might like. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 02:58, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If no one objects, I wouldn't mind it in my user space if that is an acceptable compromise. I do however think that speedy deletion of this page was unwise and it isn't even clear to me if it even falls undery DENY anyways. I would however like it if users would stop focusing on the details of possibly questionable speedies and just get back to the article space(and this applies to those who feel a need to speedy so much as well). JoshuaZ 03:35, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, while I'm commenting: Speedy out of process deletions make sense when a page is producing divisions and distractions from editing the encyclopedia. If a discussion is otherwise more or less civil and is not actively disrupting the wiki such deletions are not helpful and will often harm more than help. That said, users who focus on out of process procedures, especially to defend non-encyclopedic material are being just as disruptive and unproductive as the admins who go out of their way to delete such material in out of process fashions. We should not forget that we are trying to write an encyclopedia. JoshuaZ 03:41, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Joshua: You are the wind beneath my wings. Nandesuka 03:50, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You make a good point: as far as I can tell, this does not glorify vandalism any more than the rest of BJAODN, which should be deleted for the same reasons as this page has been. — Dan | talk 04:39, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Blocked users with bizarre usernames was simply a list of usernames, very few of which were creative or funny (even knock-knock jokes take up more space than one of the bizarre userames). BJAODN, on the other hand, actually require some amount of creativity sometimes, they're not necessarily just your garden-variety User:Fatmanpoop or User:1800-kiss-my-ass. --Interiot 09:37, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've blocked this chap because he seems to have taken a bee in his bonnet about drini (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) to the point of campaigning for the removal of his sysop bit. talk:Tony Sidaway|Tony Sidaway]] 00:19, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is calling for the de-sysopping of an admin now a blockable offense? I don't think so. --Nscheffey 01:51, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are disruptive ways of doing it. Kelly Martin has informed me that she has discovered that the troll in question was an abusive sock master, and I understand that other administrators have blocked the socks she detected. See the notices on ShortJason's user page for more information. --Tony Sidaway 01:59, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Try reading this before jerking the ol' knee. --Calton | Talk 02:00, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I read that, and have seen those diffs before. Apart from this whole Checkuser deal, nothing ShortJason said merited a block. Describing an admin's actions as "wholly inappropriate" and calling for his removal should never result in a block, and it is a frightening precedent to set. --Nscheffey 02:16, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We have a Civility policy. Not having sysop access, and not having read up on this fellow's history, places you at a disadvantage. You cannot see all of the actions that editor took during his mercifully brief and unlamented campaign against Drini. --Tony Sidaway 02:20, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well can you at least tell me what he did, or is that a sysop-secret? --Nscheffey^(T/C) 02:27, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I read that, and have seen those diffs before. So your rhetorical question ("Is calling for the de-sysopping of an admin now a blockable offense?") was knowingly false, then? --Calton | Talk 03:56, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Knowingly true. The diffs show ShortJason calling for the de-sysopping of Drini. The worst he says is that Drini is a "bad admin". I do not consider this a blockable offense. --Nscheffey^(T/C) 04:14, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is most likey the method that the user used was the reason why he was blocked by Tony. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 05:15, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually just the demeanor and circumstances. Something about it wasn't right. I blocked and brought it here for review. Immediately afterwards someone investigated and discovered a whole slew of socks. I guess this was what is sometimes known as "copper's nose". I regret that I clean forgot to read him his miranda rights. --Tony Sidaway 05:30, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A very appropriate block. Nscheffey, this was the same user that made an attack userbox against Drini, that has since been deleted. Agree that his behaviour is akin to trolling, and I'm not surprised by the discovery of the socks -- Samir 05:45, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I do not agree that making a Userbox advocating recall of an admin is enough of a personal attack to merit an indefinite block. I think it is a dumb idea that won't advance one's goals, and I agree that such a Userbox should be deleted, but I don't see anything in WP:BLOCK that implies it should result in an indefinite block. I also don't think it is befitting of an admin to inform an editor, with many constructive edits to the encyclopedia, that they are blocked indefinitely in this manner. As to the allegations of sockpuppetry, of which I have seen no evidence, "block first, find reasons later" is not an acceptable policy, nor do I think editors should be blocked for setting off someone's spidey-senses. --Nscheffey 06:17, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I do agree with Nscheffey that the attack probably didn't merit an indefinite block. That's why I brought it here saying: "Please review and fix block, block duration, etc, appropriately." I felt that he was certainly up to no good but wasn't sure how grave a matter it was. Events developed from there. Judgement of whether someone is simply expressing concern or is actively seeking to disrupt Wikipedia is typically something an administrator does, although of course we make a point of reviewing one another's actions. --Tony Sidaway 06:35, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

AFAIK, he wasn't campaigning for my sysop removal, but for my removal (from wikipedia), as he never qualified his statement in a precise way. Still, he's the same user as Orange Rocks and TJWhite, both usernames being abusive sockpuppets (among many) and therefore he has been indefblocked, using a newaccount to circunvent blocking is a no-no. -- Drini 18:56, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Improv deleted my vandalizm page without so much as a warning or message to myself, passing it off as "garbage" in the edit summary. I've seen them all over the Wiki, so I assumed they weren't taboo. I brought it up on his talk page, and he responded with:

"I believed it to be patently inflammatory and harmful to the community. You may request review at WP:DRV if you wish. Other vandalism pages may also merit deletion."

But he didn't inform me he was going to delete it, nor was it listed as a speedy delete. It was done without so much as a message on my part, and I am unable to create pages to list this on DRV. I'm not angry with him, just curious as to whether or not that was really an acceptable move.

And it would be nice to have the page back. 69.145.123.171 ^Hello! Wednesday, September 6, 2006, 01:42 (UTC)

Sorry. Repeating "FUCK YOU CYDE" over and over again is not valid use of your User space. User:Zoe|(talk) 02:10, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to be operating under a couple of mistaken impressions. First, you appear to have been mistakenly informed that anonymous IP addresses have any sort of ownership over or claim to the associated user, talk, and sub-pages. They do not. Second, 'vandalism' pages may in some cases be tolerated – or perhaps just not noticed – but they're not encouraged and may be deleted if they are deemed unhelpful to the project's aims. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:14, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, all, I guess it's been longer than I thought since I saw the page. :( it was never meant to be a PA on Cyde or anyone else, and I did have guidlines. They got screwed up during of the edits. I didn't even realize that it had turned to such crap-I thought it was still the way it was when I left. 69.145.123.171 ^Hello! Wednesday, September 6, 2006, 02:27 (UTC)

Per WP:DENY we should get rid of all vandalism subpages. They're juvenile, they have no legitimate purpose, and although some people seem to think of them solely as jokes, they do normalize and encourage vandalism. "Sandbox" is a much better term to use. --Cyde Weys 02:58, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• I suppose User:Freakofnurture/Vandals should go as well then, I presume? ;) - Mailer Diablo 18:50, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Meh, the "DENY" thing is, IMHO, sort of a mixed bag. The less info that is provided about vandalism, the harder it is for new editors to deal with it and understand it. I don't like the fact that the long-term abuse pages are being deleted, it makes it harder for newbies to identify it. </rant> The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 19:15, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cyde, don't you think it would be a better use of your time to write some articles than to hunt down people's userspace pages? --Ryan Delaney ^talk 19:20, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Which can then be turned into "Don't you think it would be a better use of your time to write articles than criticize Cyde's deletion of blatant vandalism?" That's getting to be the Godwin's Law of Wikipedia. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 19:22, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How about just erasing the T1 content in the box? You don't knock down a building because it has ugly upholstery. If the box really bothers you, you can file an MfD. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 19:35, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I concur with Ryan on this one... unless you plan deleting all the vandalise this subpages to show that you actually mean it... start with freakofnurtures.. then maybe Shanel's... after that, why don't we delete anything in the userpages that actually could be remotely interpreted as funny as aparently they wouldn't have a legitimate purpose on Wikipedia. Because we're a deadly serious encyclopedia we are. Not laiden with drama, bureaucracy or any of that bullshit that could spoil it for all of us. Or we could just restore the subpage, delete the offending content and Let It Be. Sasquatch t|c 05:01, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This part added by user: Khoikhoi "The term Turk had negative connotations in Europe that were established during the Crusades and the period of Ottoman expansion. In medieval christian european circles, it was used interchangeably with the term Muslim and generally had such derogatory connotations as infidel and savage." I leave it to your judgement. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.232.51.9 (talk • contribs) .

That's not racism by User:Khoikhoi, that's racism by the medeival Europeans. Shameful as it may be, it's true, and WP:NOT a politically correct compendium of revisionist history. Why are you bringing this to the Administrator's Noticeboard in the first place? Just ask him to cite the claim on the talk page, and you're done. --tjstrf 03:27, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

sorry to see that its not only done by "medeival Europeans" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.232.51.9 (talk • contribs) .

Excuse me, did you just imply I was a racist for saying that if a claim about a prior usage of a word was citeable, it could remain in the article? --tjstrf 04:13, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I see nothing wrong with the article text and would caution the anon against incivility and personal attacks. The quoted text describes the existence of racism. It in no way endorses or encourages such. --CBD 10:53, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is a historical fact. If the claim is sourced, it has every right in the world to be on the page. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 11:03, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Turk is still used in for example the Netherlands as a degoratory term to say someone is stupid. The continued usage is just an unfortunate fact, neither a opinion of me, and nor endorsed by me. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 14:32, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, same thing's true in Russian language. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 14:41, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that a term has been used in a racist context, is not an excuse for continuing to use the term, and propogating the term, and/or the racist context. There are isolated cases of why a term that has a racist connotation by some might be used legitimately, but few. Under what situations would it be appropriate, and legitimate for an article to use the term "Whitey, Coon, or Kike?" In my opinion, almost none, unless it was directly quoting some source, and that quote had important relavence to the quality of the article. Atom 15:47, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, Coon and Whitey do point out the racist uses; "Kike" has nothing but racist use, so isn't comparable. We report what is here, not what we want things to be. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 16:11, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The negative connotations did exist (in Czech language the old colloquial phrase "Turkish economy" (turecké hospodářství) means something chaotic and defunct). During 16-18th century, at least in Czech lands, "a Turk" was a synonym of menacing threat (border of Ottoman Empire was very near). I have doubt whether Turks were widely known during crusades. And btw, labeling something as racist has devaluated to nothing but stupid offense. Pavel Vozenilek 17:54, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Biographies noticeboard seems to be a little bit slow on it, so I'm going to request it here. Emmalina is a non-public figure and her birthday should be rmoeved per WP:BLP. A message on my talk page [59] affirms that the subject herself has not revealed it for privacy reasons. In short, I'm requesitng an admin to delete the article and only restore the revissions that do not contain her birthdate. That means that all revissions from 2 July on (this [60] one specifically) should be deleted. Hbdragon88 03:53, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If she is notable enough to have an article on Wikipedia, then, if her birthdate can be proven, there is nothing wrong with including it in the article. If she is a non-public figure, then remove the article. User:Zoe|(talk) 04:12, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Let's see WP:BLP#Privacy of birthdays:

Wikipedia includes exact birthdates for some famous people, but including this information for most living people should be handled with caution. While many well-known living persons' exact birthdays are widely known and available to the public, the same is not always true for marginally notable people or non-public figures. With identity theft on the rise, it has become increasingly common for people to consider their exact date of birth to be private information'. When in doubt about the notability of the person in question, or if the subject of a biography complains about the publication of his or her date of birth, err on the side of caution and simply list the year of birth rather than the exact date.

I think this qualifies as a deletion. No, her birthdate cannot be conclusively proven either, it's not on any of the subject's profile pages. Hbdragon88 04:32, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See Talk:Emmalina#Date of birth. Maybe she forgot. The article has been taken to AfD twice before with both resulting in the article being kept. I don't think she's that notable either IMHO. -- Longhair 05:36, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Replied there. Please note that I'm not trying to take this to another AFD, just expressing concern about the birthday. And BLP clearly states that we should err on the side of caution. Hbdragon88 05:54, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to delete the edits with the birthdate. I thought that it had only been added today based upon an edit summary. However, it actually existed since the edit after EmmalinaL's edit at 05:54, July 2, 2006. I did not want to delete all of those edits without more input. However, I think I got the rest of the personal information out of the history, like the nude picture links (they all may have been removed in the first two deletions, though) and her email address. -- Kjkolb 08:04, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Note, alert, warning: I don't want to see Everyking depate reopened, at least not in my :-) paragraph.

If a user contacts me and requests a deleted version of an article, am I allowed to hand it to him? Some administrators have a notice on their user page stating that they "will make the text available" if "it's not a copyright violation, personal information, libel or similar", and further state: "Note that using the text to [...some things you're not supposed to do...] But that's your problem." Well, is it? If I give away some deleted content which I do not consider "copyright violation, personal information, libel or similar" (since text doesn't come with declaration saying "libel" I have to rely on my own judgement) and it ends up on, say, news.bbc.co.uk for all the world to see, is it really not my problem, as this note states? --Dijxtra 08:16, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The WP:UNDEL policy currently contains, "Non-sysops who wish to see the content of a deleted article, either to use its content elsewhere, or alternatively, because they cannot tell if it was wrongly deleted without seeing what exactly was deleted. (temporary undeletion)". The second clause about undeleting so non-admins can better judge whether it was deleted properly implies that this can be 'temporary undeletion' prior to a DRV and that is my understanding of the way it have been applied in the past... individual admins just temporarily undeleting and/or userfying deleted content on their own without any sort of more formal process. So, unless someone is gonna be out at the barn wall with a can of paint over this latest brouhaha I'd say it's ok, with the caveats (copyright, privacy, et cetera) you noted. --CBD 10:38, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The issue wit EK was (as far as I was concerned), providing deleted revisions to a banned user. If the user who has asked you for help is an editor here in good standing, and there are no personal/privacy reasons to keep the material deleted there should be no problem. Thatcher131 (talk) 11:17, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And if it is a newly created user who requests that info? --Dijxtra 16:44, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• I guess not anymore; The precedent is set. I think no one wants to run similiar risks if the newly created user might just turn out to be a sockpuppet (which is increasingly common these days). - Mailer Diablo 18:47, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's what I had in mind, if a newly registered user asked me for some deleted content, I'm 99% sure he's a sock. Now, about the precedent. Shouldn't it be formulated in some sort of a guideline? I mean, now, can we or can we not give away deleted content we assume is not libel and private info and stuff? --Dijxtra 20:58, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Regardless of the motives or the people involved, we must constantly be aware that any information on Wikipedia is subject to GFDL, and if we are going to reveal it to other people for publication elsewhere, we must make them aware that they have to abide by the GFDL requirements for republication. If it's an admin doing the republication elsewhere (as with the Everyking possible copying of deleted material), the admin must follow the GFDL requirements, as well. User:Zoe|(talk) 18:38, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To avoid such issues, I would recommend making the information available on wiki only, as a restored article or user subpage. What the user does is his own business; by keeping it on-wiki, the admin has no such GFDL issues and the situation is kept open to inspection. Regarding Mailer Diablo's point, one needs to use discretion and common sense, and if there are any questions, refer the person asking to the deleting admin. (In the Everyking case, one of the things that should have tipped EK off to the fact that this was going to be a sensitive issue is that he was afraid to deal directly with the deleting admin.) Thatcher131 (talk) 19:25, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

TheM62Manchester troll group/role accounts have left Wikipedia, permanently, under right to vanish. It was not one person, but a group of schoolkids who registered this username, creating sockpuppets and imitating WoW. Now they find Wikipedia incredibly dull after I told them that Wikipedia is not an online game. I'm not a vandal, and never will be, I'm just doing my duty and reporting them. I am a single purpose account.

These are the facts as I know them; I hope we can close this sorry chapter of Wikipedia history and move on; they did, with my assistance. --Polewood 08:47, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not that I'm not happy, but I don't understand what 'right to vanish' has to do with this. That has to do with established people who want to depart. --Golbez 09:34, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Anyway, this group (TheM62Manchester/Sunholm/et.al) have left Wikipedia and decided never to come back again, after me telling them that Wikipedia is not an online game. Most people here will be glad of this news; and anyhow, they're back in school now, and have moved on to the next craze no doubt... anyhow, they're not coming back again!! --Polewood 10:34, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But are they coming back again? --Golbez 10:38, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, they're not coming back again. No way, nada, not after a new WP:NOT that we should add to WP:NOT - Wikipedia is not an online gaming arena. Anyhow, I'm here to revert vandalism and help the encyclopedia. --Polewood 10:40, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Something about this thread leaves me a little worried. Looking at Polewood's contributions, it seems all the edits so far involved: this thread, getting an autoblock removed, and placing templates on the user's page. The first and last is what concerns me. Why would a newly established user come directly to here to report a user that left before this user joined? Also, adding templates and modifying them to fit their own needs was a favorite of TheM62Manchester (I can't provide diffs for this because the user's account page was deleted). I don't know, something seems a bit odd to me. Metros232 16:54, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Normally I'd say "AGF" but my spidersense is also going off. --Charlesknight 17:30, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Closure of RfCs. Guy 10:10, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aiko,_Princess_Toshi

This page has been clearly vandalised with an inappropriate graphic.

It's gone now. I looked, saw it, checked the page history, couldn't find the addition... went back to the page and it was gone. Peculiar. --Lord Deskana (talk) 15:46, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

An IP from the University of Maryland vandalized Template:Japanese Imperial Family. I would dearly like for someone to have a chat with their ITS department. Thatcher131 (talk) 16:58, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Upon noticing vandalism to the Grafton, Massachusetts page, I went to place a non-registered user vandalism warning on the talk page for 216.20.1.212 only to notice a large number of them have already been placed. Please consider blocking this IP address for a greater period of time (perhaps a year?) to eliminate it as a source for Wikipedia vandals. Thanks. --CPAScott 16:56, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Taken care of. --Pilotguy ^{(roger that)} 20:13, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm curious what others make of this new user, particuarly his user page and his first article. Am I being paranoid or is it a little off? Canderson7 ^(talk) 18:41, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's patently a troll. Indef blocked and deleted. Goodnight. --Doc 19:33, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wasn't sure why it looked trollish until I saw the user page history. Is it just me, or are editors with "wiki" in their usernames disproportionately problematic? Friday (talk) 19:38, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

hello, I am The Wiki Fan. First of all I am a girl not a boy, and secondly why am I banned? Thirdly, what is with the weird message I got about right guard? 84.9.74.146 20:15, 6 September 2006 (UTC) (The Wiki Fan)[reply]

Aye right, and you just happened to find this page - troll begone! (blocked) --Doc 21:07, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I looked at your contributions - if this page is a secret sorry but it's not very secret LOL 84.9.86.121 21:36, 6 September 2006 (UTC) (The Wiki Fan)[reply]

Aye right! A newbie who knows to lookup contributions! -- Drini 22:45, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've already done an English (and maths!) GCSE (I know you don't have them in Scotland, but I think they're the same here), and I'm sorry for having the brains to work stuff out, and anyway I've been lurking here for a while. But if you don't believe me, fine, screw you guys, I've tried talking nicely and I guess I'll have to tell my friends and teachers not to bother with wikipedia in the future. If you won't let me edit for stupid reaosns then it's more your loss than mine, I already know the facts I can add to articles, wikipedia doesn't. 84.9.86.121 23:28, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed this story as it was posted on another website. It said to see the edit summary so I looked over many contributions. I can't see any contributions other than making the right guard deorderant add so I don't know what they did in the deleted pages. However, Canderson7 handled the unblock horribly. He is supposed to make it unblock reviewed and give a reason. Instead he gave no reason and blanked the notice, only even saying denied in the edit summary. [61] Then The Wiki Fan not knowing Canderson was an admin and not say a vandal (the handling did look like it wasn't an admin to me), put it back [62], Canderson blanked it again and actually bothered to say in the talk it was denied while committing the horrid crime of protecting the talk page without good reason. [63]. Anomo 03:58, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What is this? Be nice to trolls week? Give me a break. --Doc 10:31, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Anomo, I'm always open to criticism of my actions, but I believe my handling of the unblock template was fully justified. There's no reason to tolerate a troll after they've been blocked, and The Wiki Fan was clearly trolling. However, there's no way to really understand that without looking at Wiki Fan's deleted contributions. I'm curious what site you read the story on. Canderson7 ^(talk) 12:33, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The site I found it on is not a liked site and I don't want to associate myself with it by naming it. But I'm objecting to the use of the unblock template. It looks like its first edit or two was to make on article on the real name of Linuxbeak, so it should have {{unblockreviewed| as something like "single purpose account, account exists for harassment/trolling, see deleted edits" and not just the notice blanked. It just looked like unfamiliarity with the unblock template. It is evolving all the time. Recently, I saw it has "NO REASON GIVEN." I didn't realize that could be done with wiki code and the whole thing of {{{1}}} being blank doing that is just lovely skilled code! So I'm just saying I think some text should have been written on the talk page as documentation, that's all. Anomo 13:10, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My goal at the time was to feed the trolls as little as possible. As for that site, I encourage you not to take anything you read on it at face value. I always welcome feedback; I'll keep your opinion in mind. Canderson7 ^(talk) 13:21, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This may be a bit of a long shot but I thought I'd ask... I need to go through the edit history of a page to identify 3RR violations for an arbitration case. Unfortunately it's an extensive and complex edit history involving multiple editors. Is there any way of automating things so that I can automatically identify instances where an editor has reverted more than 3 times in 24 hours? Is there perhaps some sort of script that would do the job? Any advice or pointers would be much appreciated. -- ChrisO 22:48, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't that have horrible risks of accidently blocking people for 3RR who were reverting vandals? --tjstrf 23:05, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, since it would merely identify who had done 3> reverts. No blocking is involved - all I'm after is data for an arbitration case. I'm only interested in edits performed by those involved in the case. -- ChrisO 23:13, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just set the history to grab a large page size worth of edits and process them with a suitable perlscript. Shouldn't take much more than half an hour to write. --Tony Sidaway 23:27, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In light of the recent foofara here I have initiated a discussion on "calm down" type blocks, and would really be interested in hearing other people's thoughts. I know this doesn't require admin intervention, but since much of what I'm talking about took place here I thought it'd be the easiest way to let everyone know. If someone strongly objects to this posting being here feel free to remove it. --Nscheffey^(T/C) 23:37, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not really sure what to do about this, but we have a user (with what appears to be a number of sockpuppets that have followed an almost identical editing pattern) whose sole purpose has been to revert the Ars Technica article every few days (or sometimes multiple to their preferred version. Mediation was called in, but Tatsuma has refused to participate, and as a result, nothing came of that. An RfC was filed [64] but nothing came of that either. There was a Mediation Cabal case filed back in July, too, .[65] I don't know if a block is called for in this case, but it's really getting tiresome. What can be done? Thanks. -/- Warren 02:48, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I know this guy from Fark (though I haven't had a lot of discussions with him). He's usually an exceptionally reasonable guy; I really don't think this is anything malicious at all. I have his email address and am sending him an email, asking him what's going on and explaining the consternation his edits are causing. Tatsuma could be a really helpful and knowledgeable editor (particularly on articles related to Israel); I think he just doesn't know about the talk page. If he has to be blocked he has to be blocked, of course, but I really think this is a matter of ignorance about Wikipedia policies more than anything. Captainktainer * Talk 04:25, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ali sina page has become a target of constant vandalism by anons/new users. They are not exactly evading 3RRs. basically because i cannot revert more than a few times. See an example. I request an administrator to keep this page on his watchlist, because an admin has unlimited reverts. I also request him/her to revert this last change. Thanks.nids(♂) 09:54, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody has unlimited reverts. You could take this to WP:RFPP and someone will perhaps lock it at the wrong version for you. Guy 11:04, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Following a report on AN/I about personal attacks on Talk:Asperger syndrome, Zeraeph was blocked for a week. There has been ongoing abuse by this user directed at SandyGeorgia for months - amongst other things, the allegations are that SandyGeorgia is stalking Zeraeph (in real life as well as on Wikipedia), using sockpuppets, and conspiring with administrators. There have been three mediation attempts, a request for checkuser which showed that the alleged sockpuppets were unconnected to SandyGeorgia, and frequent complaints to AN/I. Nobody who has looked at Zeraeph's allegations has come to the conclusion that there is any evidence for them at all, or that SandyGeorgia has done anything to provoke this. I've just extended Zeraeph's block to a month, because she was using her talk page to repeat the allegations despite being warned (by myself and Nandesuka who reviewed the initial block) that her only option now was to open an arbitration case or stop the abuse. Does anyone have any objections to a community ban? Zeraeph's article contributions are instructive. --ajn (talk) 10:37, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

i don't know how to say this politely, so I'll just say it. It's clear that editing Wikipedia is interacting poorly with, and perhaps aggravating, the particular issues this person has. A number of the things she or he says (particularly about being stalked for years by Wikipedia users, conspiracies reaching back into the past, multiple unrelated people out to "get" her) are classic symptoms of various problems that are very, very serious. Obviously, I don't think Zeraeph's editing is good for Wikipedia, but there's a more important issue. While normally I would say that this is the sort of thing that should go through Arbcom, I do not believe that any sort of formal proceeding involving a panel of strangers evaluating her behavior that will drag on for weeks and weeks is going to be healthy for this person. I think the most merciful thing we could do is to shut her down, and do it firmly and quickly.

For what it's worth, I feel that way about User:Doctor Octagon, too, although less strongly. Nandesuka 10:59, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The incoherence of the allegations and the inability to come up with even the slightest evidence for their reality is also typical. I've had to deal with this sort of thing in real life, and you're right about the best way to deal with it. --ajn (talk) 12:19, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In addition to the point made by Nandesuka, the user's threatening comments here are extremely serious and support this approach. Newyorkbrad 14:43, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've been dealing with Zeraeph on a more personal level, through email after an unblock request sent to the Unblock mailing list (for the record, I advised Zeraeph to take the block as an enforced Wikibreak and to be calm when the block is over). When conversing with me, Zeraeph has alternated between being quite calm and being very frustrated with the situation. I know that Zeraeph can be very calm and reasonable when approached the right way, and I also feel that Zeraeph very honestly feels that he (or she?) is being stalked online, off-Wiki as well as on. I think if I can look at what Zeraeph can present to me, I can either provide advice on actions to take, or possibly log an RfAR on Zeraeph's behalf if the information is valid.

As such, I'd like to volunteer to be a mentor (this would be my first time as a mentor), even during the block. I don't think a community ban is the answer. If you feel that Zeraeph will only cause more trouble in his talk page, the solution may be to protect the talk page so he can continue to converse with me. I don't think Zeraeph is ill-intentioned, but rather, feels that he has a valid complaint. I hope that if I can bring this off-wiki, and in private, we can deal with the situation without rubbing too many Wikipedians the wrong way. --Deathphoenix ʕ 15:12, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have no objections to your trying. You should also contact SandyGeorgia privately; apparently she has been receiving unwanted e-mails regarding Zeraeph, and suspects that A Kiwi (talk · contribs) is involved (see Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/A Kiwi, particularly the talk page). It could be (and this is pure speculation) that Zeraeph is being stalked online, but not by SandyGeorgia. My personal opinion is that this is going to be too complicated to achieve a workable on-wiki solution. Godspeed. Thatcher131 (talk) 15:20, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, your speculation had occurred to me too. For now, I don't think I need to be contacting SandyGeorgia via email just yet. I am open to on-Wiki communication if necessary. I don't want Zeraeph to feel like I am any part of this conspiracy, and for now I am just communicating one-on-one with Zeraeph. Currently, Zeraeph is being calm and reasonable with me (though clearly frustrated with the situation), and that may change if he thinks I'm carrying on any conversations with SandyGeorgia behind is back. I would like to wait until Zeraeph presents valid evidence that it is indeed SandyGeorgia that is doing the stalking. I can promise that I will keep an open mind, examine the evidence clearly, and not do anything rash or without thought. --Deathphoenix ʕ 15:34, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) :Last month, a situation arose that should have been addressed discreetly by senior administrators and with a minimum of public discussion. Instead, it became the topic of extensive discussion on-Wiki that caused egregious harm to vulnerable editors. Although the specifics here are different, this is an extremely serious situation involving allegations of an 8-year history of stalking, legal threats, potentially delusional scenarios, and psychological issues as mentioned by Nandesuka. I strongly believe in transparency on-Wiki, but there are limits. An RfAr under these circumstances would be a horror show and should not be suggested again. We need to be able to identify and deal with the(rare) sensitive situations like this that need to be investigated and resolved in a highly sensitive and confidential fashion. Newyorkbrad 15:43, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Nandesuka and Newyorkbrad. Zeraeph has been asked several times as part of mediation processes to put forward a coherent, evidence-based statement about what she thinks is going on. All that comes out is the typical conspiracy theory reasoning - the absence of evidence for the conspiracy is firm proof that the conspiracy is real and working well, there are special secret things going on that the "victim" can't explain (for reasons which themselves can't be explained), things are so obvious that a request for evidence is proof of the inquirer having underhand motives for asking the question, and so on. This is typical. I don't think Zeraeph is ill-intentioned, I think she is (literally) deluded. In any case, the abuse of SandyGeorgia has to stop, and on present form an arbitration case would just be used as a platform for further abuse, and would do Zeraeph no good at all. --ajn (talk) 15:54, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Zeraeph's talk page has been protected since this morning, by the way, because she was using it to continue the behaviour for which she had been blocked. --ajn (talk) 15:57, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's why I want to bring this discussion off-Wiki, so it doesn't hurt established Wikipedians. If I act as a filter, you can be sure that anything I present is, in my opinion, valid. I won't present anything that I don't think is valid. Right now, I have some pretty good dialog with Zeraeph. If I can keep this up, maybe Zeraeph and I can discuss this calmly. I would like for Zeraeph to eventually contribute positively to Wikipedia, but I also don't want for this situation to cause undue stress to Wikipedians. That's why I feel carrying on private dialog with Zeraeph without the threat of a community permaban (just the current temporary block) is best. --Deathphoenix ʕ 16:05, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you think things have got to the stage where Zeraeph is willing to use User talk:Zeraeph appropriately, feel free to unprotect it. I wouldn't be at all happy with an unblock unless there is an arbitration case which has gone "live". --ajn (talk) 16:12, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, for now I think it's in Zeraeph's best interests to leave the talk page protected for now. I don't want Zeraeph to get into a situation where he (or she) will get blocked for even longer. I'm not advocating an unblock yet (indeed, when Zeraeph submitted an unblock request to the mailing list, I suggested that he take this block as an enforced Wikibreak): I'm only opposing the community ban (which is an indefinite block) as proposed here. I don't think a community bad is the answer here. --Deathphoenix ʕ 16:19, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It could be (and this is pure speculation) that Zeraeph is being stalked online, but not by SandyGeorgia. I believe this to be true, based on the emails I have, but apparently it "takes two to tango": she has been stalked and has allegedly been a stalker as well. (Witness the threats against me: that she is going to have authorities deal with me in real life.) I'm not convinced that any amount of conversation or mentoring will be able to convince Zeraeph that I am not the stalker, because that person has an AOL account, and I have an AOL account which I use when I am in a hotel that doesn't have another internet connection. I appreciate your efforts, but I believe the other editors have valid points about dragging this out in public considering the issues involved: I, too, have encountered situations like this and have always believed that disengaging is the only way to handle them. I understand your concerns about contacting me privately in order to preserve your role as a mentor, but someone needs to look at these e-mails, and then deal with the AOL editors who appeared in the midst of this mess, complicating it even further. I have repeatedly encouraged those people to keep the off-Wiki situation off Wiki, to no avail. I am fairly certain at this point that the only person who is going to be damaged by all of this is me: yes, the edit history is instructive (and I'm having a lovely vacation :-). It also needs to be understood that Zeraeph's attacks on me began long before she thought I was "her stalker" and before I received the emails (the person emailed me to supposedly support me because of Zeraeph's attacks), so using that now as the rationalization for her behavior doesn't hold water. Best of luck to you, Sandy 16:31, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm... okay, if you feel that I should look at this emails, send me an email at Special:Emailuser/Deathphoenix. I'm keeping an open mind and assuming good faith, on both sides. --Deathphoenix ʕ 16:41, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

With all due respect, someone else needs to look at them. While I understand and accept that you have an open mind and are assuming good faith, and I applaud your effort, the reality is that you don't see this as clearly as ajn, Nandesuka, many others and I do, and your role right now is as Zeraeph's advocate and mentor. First, I believe strongly in guarding the privacy of e-mail, and wouldn't want the information in these e-mails to fall into Zeraeph's hands, even unwittingly. Second, your relationship with her as a mentor is likely to be compromised if she knows you have corresponded with me: she has expressed several times that she is convinced that I can manipulate admins. Third, if the person who sent me the e-mails holds me responsible for the information falling into Zeraeph's hands, I am likely to have not one online problem out of this mess, but multiple. In short, I am the one at risk here, having done nothing to warrant this, and I need for an admin who is not Zeraeph's advocate and mentor to look at the information. Again, Zeraeph's attacks on me began long before she had any reason to involve off-Wiki disputes or to believe that I was one of the people she has had those disputes with: I merely happened to cross paths with her because of a FARC. I concur with ajn and Nandesuka's analysis of the situation: unless there is a very fast cessation of these attacks and recognition that there is no reason to believe I am one of the people Zeraeph has had off-Wiki disputes with, as soon as I'm home, I will bring the ArbCom case myself. I am the one who best knows where to find all the pieces and the dates. Sandy 17:55, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright Violations by "Devios" is against the pillar of Wikipedia's Rules! http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Grapefruit_seed_extract&oldid=72495019 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Grapefruit_seed_extract&oldid=72467578

Compare the info which Judith Sims wrote and the illegal info Devios is putting and reverting to copyright info on wikipedia's website is considered VANDALISM!!! Read carefully. You will find copyrighted info on wikipedia's website. This is against the law.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g2603/is_0003/ai_2603000396 < Judith Sims

Thanks in advance for conducting an investigation into this violation. The current version of the grapefruit seed extract article still has some illegal copyrighted information left in it.