From the Wikipedia:Requests for page protection page:

72.49.167.8 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) AKA 128.40.48.53 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) AKA 24.1.70.42 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) AKA 195.92.168.170 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) AKA 195.92.168.173 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) (whom I reasonably suspect to be Paul Smith, overzealous author of the Priory of Sion debunking website, has repeatedly edited the content of the Priory of Sion and The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail to suit his clearly biased point of view while refusing numerous invitations to discuss a compromise on the talk page of these articles. I am therefore requesting a page semiprotection for these two articles. --Loremaster 03:21, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see enough concerted vandalism to warrant a semiprotection. You may want to take this one to WP:RFAr or even to WP:AN/I. · Katefan0 ^(scribble)/poll 13:12, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Understood. --Loremaster 15:09, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On second thought, can someone look at this user's most recent activities. --Loremaster 19:10, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked 24 hours. · Katefan0 ^(scribble)/poll 19:13, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. However, you should know that this man, who has dedicated his life to debunking the topic of these articles, has been engaging in this unWikipedian behavior for over 2 years now. So I doubt a 24-hour block will be effective... --Loremaster 19:18, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Quite possible. That's why I suggested an arbitration case, which may be able to enforce some creative remedies. Or, perhaps you might consider working up a TOS case to email to his Internet provider. Posting to WP:AN/I with specifics of what has been happening will also raise its profile and attract the attention of other administrators who can help watch the article. Of course there is only so much any one administrator is empowered to do, you should understand. · Ka

It may be just me, but doesn't it strike you as strange that this is happening less than two days before the film release of The Da Vinci Code? Will (^E_@) T 12:21, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's just a coincidence. As you can see in the archives of the Priory of Sion talk page, Paul Smith has been obsessed with editing these two articles and others to reflect his point of view since April 2004. --Loremaster 14:42, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Minutes after I add Category:Kurdish inhabited region to a half dozen articles [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6], User:Cool Cat nominates the category for deletion.

This is confusing, because Cool Cat contacted me via IRC to get me to create just such a category. Unless I'm misrembering (I _am_ getting old, you know ;-) this. --Uncle Ed 15:04, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Really? It seems that his objection is not in the category's existence but in its use. Thanks! --Moby 09:45, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 May 8#Category:Kurdish inhabited region

User:Cool Cat has a history of #POV editing, and has been enjoined from disruptively editing articles relating to Turkey or the Kurds.

He has vociferously sought the deletion of all categories related to Kurds:

Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 January 17#Category:Kurdistan
Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 March 3#Category:Kurdistan

plus the current votes:

Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 April 30#Category:Kurdish provinces
Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 May 6#Category:Kurdish cities

During the second CFD for Category:Kurdistan he stated: I dont care about this vote at all. I have no reason to keep nonsense like this on wikipedia, I will eventualy get it deleted, watch me.

Category:Kurdish inhabited region was created by User:Ed Poor as part of discussion on Category talk:Kurdistan where User:Cool Cat has been adamantly opposed to all efforts to establish consensus on usage of this category. User:Francs2000, whom User:Cool Cat asked to comment, ended up telling him that you need to change your attitude.

I agree, he needs to change his attitude. --Moby 10:56, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I do agree entirely with Moby's summary. Cool Cat's disruptions do it hard to write articles about anythings related to Kurds. And it is indeed not an extenuating circumstance that user themselve stated, as quoted above, that they intended to sabotage the Category:Kurdistan, as it during the debate for its deletion was clear that it would stay. I hope some action will be taken, since the alternative seems to be continuing of disruptive edit wars. Bertilvidet 13:27, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comment! --Moby 09:45, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The ArbCom verdict which you've posted above says that he should be blocked for up to 3 days if he engages edits disruptively in Kurdish related areas. We've got several people saying he has done so, therefore I block 2 days. -lethe ^{talk +} 13:58, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. --Moby 09:45, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify my position here, Cool Cat invited me into the discussion claiming that he was having POV issues with Kurdistan related articles, implying that he had received death threats from other users as a result of the discussion getting heated (see here). I got involved and made some progress with the other users in getting some agreement over the inclusion of Category:Kurdistan in articles, and this I believe has led to some of the sub-categories such as those listed above being created. I have since stepped back a bit due largely to real life events. I will say that although Cool Cat had some valid points in his arguements against the inclusion of material in articles about the disputed region, the way he went about making his point was unnecessarily aggressive, in my opinion. I also stand by telling him that he needs to change his opinion, after he stated (and I paraphrase) that he would be unable to negotiate a consensus on certain subject areas. -- Francs2000 14:10, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It appears to me that the comments you're referring to as death threats were targeting you (for reasons I have no clue about) and had nothing to do with User:Cool Cat or anyone else involved in the Kurdish categorization discussions; I certainly made no such threats. And thanks for your comment! --Moby 09:45, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've had enough of this. As Cool Cat's mentor I'm banning him from editing articles, templates and categories related to the kurds. He may still edit related discussion pages. This ban is initially to run for one week, to be made permanent subject to the agreement of the other two mentors. --Tony Sidaway 05:01, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The ban includes creation or nomination for deletion. See the announcement on WP:AN. --Tony Sidaway 05:24, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, too! --Moby 09:45, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• If this is to be kept it should be called Kurdish inhabited regions as per the naming policy to use plurals in categories. How long was this ban on Kurdish related articles for Coolcat? (Mgm - not logged in) - 131.211.210.16 07:30, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Use of plural makes sense to me, I'll suggest it on the CFD. Thanks! --Moby 09:45, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Here's a copy of a message I posted to Tony Sidaway:

While I agree, the best way for Coolcat to stay out of trouble is to edit other articles, I think he made a valid point when he nominated this particular category for deletion. And now people are voting keep based on his involvement rather than the merits or demerits of the category itself (which is in my opinion even more disruptive -- bad, bad!). The thing is the category is vague. Should London be considered a Kurdish inhabited region? And what kind of precedent will it set? American inhabited region, German inhabited region, French inhabited region?

I think Coolcat was right to nominate such a vague category and I don't think banning him for it is the right thing to do. If someone else had nominated it, this whole thing wouldn't have happened. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:42, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The nomination of Category:Kurdish inhabited region was the action that prompted me to start this discussion here, but the disruption has been on-going on pages such as Category talk:Kurdistan and Talk:Batman, Turkey for some time. He has removed Category:Kurdistan from many article (awhile ago...) and has been rather clear about his intent to oppose all efforts at categorizing Kurdish articles. Given his history, I would think a ban on Kurdish-related editing an apt remedy. An hour ago I left a note on his talk page and he screamed at me. I don't see him as willing to work with others on this subject. --Moby 10:52, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As mentors I see it as our main jobs to keep Cool_Cat (talk · contribs) editing effectively and to avoid another rendezvous with the arbitration committee. As always, it is not Cool Cat's judgement on content that is in question but the way in which he interacts with others on some subjects. Yesterday he was blocked for forty-eight hours by Lethe (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) as a result of the complaint by Moby_Dick (talk · contribs). In Lethe's view, Cool Cat has edited disruptively on the subject of the Kurds so arbitration remedy 5 is invoked.

This isn't the first time since the arbitration that we've had trouble with Cool Cat over Kurds. From early March he has made some unconstructive AfDs:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kingdom of Kurdistan
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mykonos (restaurant)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Turkish Kurdistan

and some unconstructive comments on others:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Genetic origins of the Kurds
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Stub_types_for_deletion&diff=prev&oldid=44203127

There is an ongoing concern, and I think a valid one, that Cool Cat permits his edits on such issues to be influenced too strongly by his sympathies with Turkish nationalism. He repeatedly attempts to promote the removal of categories, templates and content related to an ethnicity that, while not having a single national entity of its own, is significant enough to be treated seriously by an encyclopedia.

Editors who complain about his activities and his attitude thus have a solid basis upon which to do so.

It is for this reason that I announced the one-week ban.

However, User:MacGyverMagic is also one of Cool Cat's mentors, and although in this case I have acted alone I do not intend to take actions with which any of my fellow mentors disagree.

In view of MacGyverMagic's opposition, I rescind the ban pending further discussion. --Tony Sidaway 15:13, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for documenting these other activities; the scope of the issue is greater than I was aware (and I now understand the restaurant references).

While I disagree with User:Cool Cat's judgment on many of the Kurd-issues here, it is his attitude that is most troublesome. In his response below I see no sign that he sees any validity to the objections others have raised -- he appears to be simply digging in his heels. If no action is taken on this issue, what's to stop him from continuing to obstruct efforts involving Kurds in the future? Presumably this whole incident will have been noted by a variety of people, but I don't expect many to involve themselves in the issue (which I would welcome).

I understand that banning someone is a serious step and should not be taken lightly. I will avoid editing any of the Kurd articles and categories against consensus. If a clear direction on an appropriate course to take on Kurdish categorization comes out of this whole dispute I'll be pleased. --Moby 09:31, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Disruption of Batman, Turkey

A review of the editing on Batman, Turkey (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) over the last two months will reveal that User:Cool Cat has edit warred and generally disrupted all efforts by a number of editors, including myself. He has repeatedly removed categories related to Kurds, and sources and statements about Kurds, and he has been joined by anons that make the same redactions that he does. At the moment the article is protected due to an edit war (that I was not involved in) over the addition of a paragraph about the killing of a Kurdish child by Turkish Security Forces (I did add the paragraph and a source). While it was anons that edit warred with various users, it was User:Cool Cat that argued on the talk page against the inclusion of the paragraph . --Moby 10:18, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And you have declared the place predominantly kurdish when neither a census nor any other reliable source to base this on is avalible. You have also declared many other cities predominatly kurdish.

My 'disruption' is explaining that a census was not held even though the BBC claims the place is predominantly kuridsh (in a random news coverage)

--Cat out 17:53, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also regarding that incident, if I recall correctly davenbelle had it on his userpage... Something about a "bullet riddled child". Admins can check the delet history. --Cat out 23:11, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Furthermore, I think adding a cunk of 'sensative information' irrelevant to the topic covered is most certainly not in the best interest of wikipedia. It only leads to a revert war as we can observe. --Cat out 23:27, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You must be recalling some other "bullet riddled child" -- Fatih Tekin was killed recently.

According to the EU-Turkey Civic Commission Submission on Recent Violence, on March 30, 2006, Fatih Tekin, a 3 year old boy, was shot and killed by Turkish Security forces during a police raid on a civilian house in Batman during a series of violent clashes in the Kurdish regions of Turkey.EU-Turkey Civic Commission Submission on Recent Violence on khrp.org

--Moby 06:33, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Has to be a coincidence... Now what did I say about coincidences...

How does this "bullet riddled child" expand the article? How does it give the reader a better understanding of the city? As unfortunate and tragic the boys death is, wikipedia is not a memorial and the incident has no significance to the city to be on the article. It might have been an interesting wikinews article, though I am not even certain of that. It is equaly irrelevant to talk about that kurdish boy pkk shot and killed or that teacher that died due to a heart attack.

Recently two little girls were abducted, raped, and murdered in texas (IIRC). No referance to the incident is made in the article about the region as it shouldn't.

--Cat out 08:16, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cool Cat's response to all of this

It is quite pathetic when one has to defend himself to his mentor... I'll list the articles, categories, and templates I have placed for deletion below. I am going to include ones Tony Sidaway did not include as well.

I'd like to point out the reason why we do not do polls for deletion. All deletion processes are a concensus gathering process. However on occasions disruptive behaviour such as Vote Stacking do happen.

Hence I will explain all of the deletion votes I started or participated. I will try to be brief for all of them.

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kingdom of Kurdistan
  • Article was originaly talking about two countries that have supposively existed. One only lasted 2 years while another lasted less than 6 months. The article(s) barely occupy a paragraph and had two sections I believe.
  • Article at a point was comparing the british goverment with saddam as "the british goverment gassed the kurds".
  • I was in contact with Tony on IRC about this deletion, I do not recall the details but he did not say or imply such a deletion would be disruptive.
  • During the vfd the articles quality was improved sligtly
  • Perhaps article is much suitable to be a section on an article with the title "Modern History of the Kurds" as article cant grow much even when inflated with lists of cabinate members.
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mykonos (restaurant)
  • When I placed this article up for deleteion it was talking about an insignificant restourant which two kurds supposively had been shot. At the time the article barely could be considered a stub. After the deletion article was slightly inproved and renamed. It became a historicaly significant incident and hence became article worthy as an incident rather than info about the restourant.
  • I discussed the possible afd of this article with Tony Sidaway on IRC and he said it was pretty useless and that he said it wouldnt probably survive a deletion.
  • The result of my Afd is a better article with a better title.
  • This article should be a section at "Modern history of the Kurds" as article is too short and cant grow as the incident was quite minor and all details have been presented.
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Turkish Kurdistan
  • Other editors, one being Gruntness feels this article exists soely as a pov fork. Syrian Kurdistan was deleted for that reason
  • There was a case of vote stacking over 14 people were notified of this afd of which all but one voted favorably to the advertisier (user:Bertilvidet) with keep. My complaint about a vote stacking generated milimal response and no action.
  • Article currently gives a short intoduction to kurdish history which is a copy of History of the Kurds and a number of articles. Kurdistan is not oversized and we do have a Kurds in Turkey if we are to talk about the kurds. We can talk about Kurdish nationalism in its own article.
  • If we had a sensable deletion process this article would have been deleted. If you think otherwise please provide a rationale at what purpose does this article with pov titile, Turkish Kurdistan, serve that cant be achieved through Kurds in Turkey and Kurdish nationalism.
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Genetic origins of the Kurds
  • It is a strange article. I believe this article is nothing but pusedo science and promotes racisim. When I nominated this article for deleteion there was a VERY LARGE dna picture and it was less than neutral. it might be a nice addition to a section under Kurdish people. BUT etnicity is a cultural concept not genetic. Genetic would be race and last time I checked Kurds were just an ethnic minority.
• Category:Kurdish terrorists
  • I got this category speedy deleted.
  • I personaly believe Abdullah Ocalan is a Kurdish terrorist. Hence my nomination is in conflict with my personal views.
• Category:PKK victims
  • I got this category speedy deleted.
  • I personaly believe PKK is a Terrorist organisation and anybody they killed is a victim. Hence my nomination is in conflict with my personal views.
• Template:Kurd-politician-stub ^(vote)
  • I participated in this vote expressing why the stub category is pov. Stub types have very explicit guidelines.
  • I'd like to point out comments of some of the people voting keep... They are by far intruguing
  • I have not initiated this deletion
  • The "unless we consider kurdish a nationality and kurdistan a country which would be pov not shared by international treaties" comment tony highlighted is in parallel with stub guidelines.
    • While a Category:Kurdish politicians may be approporate. I would however prefer a categorisation similar to the format politicians in United States is covered such as Category:African American politicians. Tagging a Kurd in Iraq and Turkey under the same category would be problematic and confusing. However I do not intend to do anything about it as my block is proof wikipedia is not worth my devotion anymore.
• Template:Kurdistan-politician-stub
  • Speedy deleted as per vote mentioned above.
  • User:Retau created this
• Template:Kurdistan-bio-stub ^(vote)
  • Probably will be deleted as a back log as per stub sorting practice.
  • User:Retau created this
• Category:Kurdish provinces ^(vote) and Category:Kurdish cities ^(vote)
  • We do not categorise provinces, cities, or other landmarks based on ethnicity. I do not see why kurds are treated diferently from rest of wikipedia.
  • If demographic information about an ethnicity is avalible it can be presented in an article.
  • Who determines which article fits in these category or not? Kurdistan does not have defined borders nor are there any reliable data on Kurdish population.
  • Categories are navigation aids. The basis of such categories for provinces and cities is based on "who owns the place". Categories are not tools for territory grab. We do not tag every province and city in mainland china under Category:Taiwan just because the goverment claims it. Kurds do not even have a country to claim territory from.
  • User:Retau created both of the categories
  • See User:El_C's comment about User:Retau on the next section.
• Category:Kurdish inhabited region ^(vote)
  • Originaly intended to be a comprimise to Category:Kurdistan. I requested its creation from user:Ed Poor via email and/or irc.
  • I later changed my mind as categorising based on ethnicity still is a poor practice. No example of ethnic tagging exists in articles like New York or California.
  • It is more problematic as we do not have any reliable statistics regarding the Kurds. We do not know how many kurds there are let alone know what fraction of the population they occupy as no census about ethnicity was EVER held in the past 7 decades at least to my knowlege.
• Categories I haven't touched nor intend to touch Category:Kurdish people, Category:History of the Kurds, Category:Kurdish musicians, Category:Kurdish politicians, Category:Kurdish writers,... List goes on I am well aware of many other categories, articles, and templates related to the kurds. So I am definaltly not trying to delete everything related to kurds at random.
• My actions are infact reactions to mass creation of many contraversial categories all only exist soley to grab territory. I also raise concerns about tiny articles that have no way of growing. None of my actions have "distupted" the articles in question unless you consider improvement as disruption.

--Cat out 17:24, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On at least one matter of fact I must correct Cool Cat. He and I discussed the article Mykonos (restaurant) and I edited to add a reference from a Time article. I told him at 2007 UTC on March 1, 2006, that, as with all deletion candidates I edit, "I don't think it stands a snowball's chance in hell of being deleted." I had told him at 2000, "the case is obviously notable. It led to an international incident" -Tony Sidaway 20:36, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I actualy interprted that as the article has a chance to survive as much as a snowball in hell. In any case my nomination was for a non-notable restourant. Overal the nomination improved the article, not disrupt. For instance it was renamed as it was not about this random restourant. --Cat out 16:03, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I can see in retrospect that my wording was unclear. I can see how this unintentionally misled you on the subject. --Tony Sidaway 12:44, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No harm done, I do however owe you an apology for misinterpreting your words. I can also finaly understand why you kinda acted wierdly (from my perspective) at the time. Having said that, I am curious on what you think of the evidence I presented below? --Cat out 22:42, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Curiously, User:Cool Cat has responded here while blocked [7][8]. His post is interesting in that he has basically documented more of the disruptive behavior that I have objected to and for this I thank him. --Moby 09:28, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I would just like to say that I support Cool Cat on this matter. The Kurdish categories were deleted before by nominations because of the vagueness of the borders of the proposed "Kurdistan" region - which had lead to edit wars in the past, they were created again by the User:Retau (Who may be a sockpuppet of User:Xebat according to CheckUser [9] - who was banned recently for a year according to the Aucaman ArbCom [10]). I believe User:Moby Dick has turned this simple matter to something very personal which I regret to say that will not help the matter. -- - K a s h ^{Talk | email} 15:28, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've little opinion of the conjecture of a reincarnated Davenbelle, but there is a qualm in this editor's behavior. As per the above edvidence, this editor's initial confrontation with me conflicted over a userpage misunderstanding. This is a archived discussion on my talkpage which can be found here. After the I refuted the accusation, said editor took to being my shadow, which I noted after a number of appearences in locations across the encyclopedia which were in direct contact to my usertalk page (he has it consistently watchlisted you see). I made a final verification of this after he made a spell check on my talkpage, confirming he sees almost every comment posted there. [11] This has been prevelant ever since the allegation on AN/I, but I never gave it much heed and it didn't bother me, so I let it alone. There were no subsequent direct confrontations after this incident, so I assumed good faith, and didn't have a valid complaint anyway, since, despite his occasional trolling, Moby makes excellent contributions to article space, not to mention ground-breaking work. [12] Proceeding that incident, I took his talkpage off my watchlist and went about other things. I soon forgot the subject and the user, and made the presumption he had as well.

During some article expansion, I ran into two disruptive editors (BIG (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and 70.231.130.128 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)) on Talk:Colonel (Mega Man) and Ridge Racer during which said editors introduced/removed content from article space without any sources and any factually correct rebuttals. I made many reverts, for which I was subsquently blocked for [13], but respected due to the fact one must accept the consequences of his actions regarding the violation, despite the fact I was correct. I questioned the point of the blocks due to the fact, neither admistrator had taken the discussion on the talkpages into account and how each of the blocks were issued large timeframes after said violation (The first block occured 24 hours after the edit war was nullified and the page protected; the second several hours later, and after I had reverted myself to reach an comprimise). This incited a more active response from the editor, who had merely been watching my talkpage and contributions to this point. Druing the timeframe of my second block, He posted a note [14] on William's talkpage (Another one of my elaborate plans to take the wiki by storm) concerning an established contributor engaging in vandalism. I had extreme difficulty believing this post when I first saw it. I posted a reply rearding this shortly afterward [15] detailing my surprise at this bad-faith attempt to descend me into scurtuniy. William percieved this as a personal attack and threatened to block me shortly afterwards [16]. It certainly wasns't intended as a personal attack, but I removed the comment as I don't believe personal attacks accepteble on anyone. I complied and altered my comment as I deemed necessary [[17], after which William decided to block me anyway for being insolent. Not too much of a problem, since it was bedtime anyway.

The editor in question persisted. After a clearly confused william asked how it was relevant, Moby replied I circumvented my block and I was still up to something [18] (I was still plotting my master scheme, you know) and that I should still be punished. Now expasperated, I made another note on the talkpage and explained the situation in full. [19] which defused the matter. Around the ensuing timeframe, he proceeded to conflict in the Kurd-nonsense with Cool Cat, who was subsquently blocked. I'm aware that Cool Cat has a aggressive viewpoint on this subject and has encountered much opposition on this before, so I didn't comment on the matter, although it was quite obvious to the informed Moby didn't report the rfar violation in good faith. I took note of this after seeing his replies to various editors on subject on WP:AN/I, which gave me great cause for concern on his intent:

Revision as of 09:45, May 9, 2006 - "Thanks for you comment!"

Revision as of 09:28, May 10, 2006 - "..His post is interesting in that he has basically documented more of the disruptive behavior that I have objected to and for this I thank him."

I drew the line there. At wikipedia we report violations to enforce stability on article space and the workings of the site. Seeing this joy in the punishment of another user was very disturbing. One must really take into account weather this user is advocating the well-being of the article or muggery of those he disagrees with.

There certainly is a problem here.

At the current date, I was prompted by MONGO on my talkpage to accept an rfa [20], which I was hesitant, but felt I was ready for the additional workload. Before I accepted the nomination, I made note that I was being closely survallianced by Moby and I had no doubt a opposition would arise. I was correct in the assesment (I would have been honestly surprised had he not taken participation) [21], with said user agressively making the point of my image forgery and the rebuttal I made regarding his outrageous accusation. I was presently away from the computer, so when I returned I was atonished to find my rfa had already been withdrawn in an act of kindness by the nominator.

I stress that its not obtuse to believe Moby may be Davenbelle, as I'm still utterly baffled as to how a new user can simply migrate to a userpage, search the history extensively, and blow an ensuing argument about a misunderstanding out of porportion. It also strikes one as odd when a user immediately engages in long-standing conflict about aftermentioned article and makes reverts unusual for one so new. However, despite the sockkery or not, it needs to be known this editor has engaged in trolling and many contributions have been verified to be unwelcome at this encyclopedia. -Zero^Talk 16:23, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, look who showed up. Yes, I opposed your RFA -- what were you thinking, with blocks just last week?

As to being your "shadow" -- hardly. Yes, you are on my watchlist and have been since you deleted my legitimate comments from your talk page. Please do not feel that I consider your talk page surveillance-worthy -- it is mostly extremely banal chatter about video games. Your poorly-affected adult-English, however, does occasionally provide some amusement, as does your spelling.

I do thank you for your praise of some of my edits; hope you don't take offence -- In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex is a wonderful book.

Also, you did comment on the matter involving User:Cool Cat and Kurds -- remember now?

--Moby 10:34, 11 May 2006 (UTC) (who is not a troll, thank you)[reply]

You sound just like a pouty child trying to lie his out of a fix by pretending it's all Cool Cat's fault. Give it up. I'm not impressed. -Zero^Talk 11:04, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: While I believe that CoolCat hasn't looked especially open to compromise, it is unfair to declare that all of these actions are "disruptive" - it is unfortunate that he changed his mind about a compromise category but changing your mind should always be allowed. There is no general consensus about ethnic-geography categories. Indeed, these Kurdish examples seem to be the sole example of the type; presumably because most people find the idea of an ill-defined ethnic-geography category a bad idea. I am open to the idea if implemented properly, but the three ethnic-geography categories CoolCat has nominated were all, quite simply, dire. They had POV issues. They were poorly defined. The most recent one even had a grammatically incorrect name! I do not believe it is disruptive to nominate for deletion something that, in the reasonable opinions of many well-respected Wikipedians (and there are many who agreed with CoolCat - see the votes), does not belong on Wikipedia. CoolCat has not been mass-deleting Kurdish-related articles. He has not been attempting deletions of neutral, generally accepted, Kurdish categories. He has made a contentious attempt to expunge ethnic-geography cross-over categories, but these have widespread opposition from many sources so I don't think that it is genuinely disruptive. Nobody should be forced to compromise on the issue of ethnic-geography categories, since many Wikipedians reasonably disagree strongly with their creation - failure to agree on a compromise isn't necessarily a sign of disruption if you honestly believe (especially with something as "binary" in nature as a category) that something is a harmful or damaging idea. The fact that many of his nominations were speedied is an indication that he isn't being entirely disruptive, perhaps the restaurant and genetics AfDs were the closest to that mark. The thing that seems to be the real problem is that CoolCat isn't making a secret of his personal views. While sometimes he edits in a way that shows he is actually being a "Good Wikipedian" and going against personal preference in the interests of the encyclopedia (e.g. with the Kurdish terrorist category) when he is making a positive, useful contribution that seems "in tune" with his views, he looks like a disruptive POV-monger. Which in turn makes people vote against him unthinkingly... It would be better, perhaps, if he kept some of these topics at arm's length and merely brought these instances to the attention of Wikipedians known to be neutral on the Kurdistan question, to allow them to decide whether to make a deletion request or not. I simply can not believe that anybody would have cut any slack to Category:Hispanic inhabited region for instance: it would have been wiped off the face of the 'pedia without any second thoughts; however, the fact that it is CoolCat and the Kurds has meant that this category has a surprising number of keep votes. However, whether CoolCat wants to take this degree of extra care (and restrict his editing accordingly) in cases which are fundamentally non-disruptive should really be for CoolCat to decide, not any of us. TheGrappler 22:06, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Moby Dick (talk · contribs)

I believe in coincidences. Coincidences happen every day. But I don't trust coincidences.

1. User:Moby Dick has a total of 344 edits as of the preparation of this report.
   • I'd consider him to be new to wikipedia as he has been a wikipedian since december. This alone is not a problem though.
   • User:Davenbelle's last edit was on 03:20, 6 December 2005, User:Moby Dick made his first edit on 01:29, 23 December 2005
2. On 03:02, 26 January 2006 users makes his first edit into the wikipedia namespace and it is opposing my RfA [22]
   • He seems to have located my RfA conviniantly. It his his 84th edit. He also makes a very professional edit by incrementing the oppose counter. Its something often oldies fail to notice
   • We have not edited any articles in common meaning he did not know me at all.
   • He participated in a total of 2 RfA aside from my own. One for Megaman Zero (as oppose) and another for Khoikhoi (support). Both are figures I know. He is definately not a frequent voter.
   • User:Davenbelle had opposed my other previous two of my rfas.
     • One of these RfAs were filed by MegamanZero
     • User:Davenbelle managed to oppose it before the nominator, megaman zero, could support
3. On 07:57, 25 February 2006 MobyDick conviniantly discovered "forgery" on Megaman Zero's user page [23]
   • Long ago, on 20:05, 2 January 2006, User:Megaman Zero complained about User:Davenbelles behaviour on User:Davenbelles talk page. [24]
   • This is just 3 edits after him opposing my rfa. Mind the month long gap. It is strange to say the least.
   • User:Davenbelle gave User:Megaman_Zero the award.
   • This incident had made its way to the ANB. This is mobydicks first post to the ANB [25]
4. On 07:21, 10 March 2006, Moby Dick informs user:Aucaman about my RfAr [26]
   • It is possible that he could have learnt about the existance of the RfAr from my 3rd rfa nomination as I have mentioned it there. However a key question is why did he tell this to Aucaman. He has no edits in comon with Aucaman. Nor was he involved with anything related to the kurds.
   • This is his first post for 11 days, in the previous post he was complaining about megaman zeros award on the ANB. [27] [28]
5. On 02:41, 11 March 2006 [29] [30] user participated in his first deletion votes, both were initiated by Megaman Zero
6. On 05:09, 11 March 2006 this user oposed the copy vio nomination I made [31]
   • This is the first and last time the user participates in copyright matters
   • Davnbelle was involved with the Armenian Genocide article and was practicaly opposing anything I suggested. It can be said that was his entier contribution.
7. On 05:58, 11 March 2006 [32] user opposed the deletion of Category:Kurdistan which I initiated.
   • user had not been involved with any other issues regarding Kurds or any such deletion votes for that matter.
8. On 02:51, 13 March 2006 [33] user got involved with an article about kurds for the first time on Batman, Turkey article. He has repetively restored "Kurdish dominance" line by reverting my edit. This continued on
   • user:Bertilvidet is one other party desperately working to force "Kurdish dominance" to the lead.
   • Davenbelle also prefered to oppose me whenever possible. This might be too vauge to be considered as evidence but take a look at [34] and [35]
9. On 02:20, 1 May 2006 user created the KHRP redirect. [36]
   • There is nothing disruptive with that. however if you take a look at [37] you will see Davenbelle had initiated the article redirect leads to.

These are the coincidences I have found on frist sight. There are of course other cases I can post but I want to keep my report brief.

Among 6,829,843 many articles and 47,481,831 number of users, MobyDick's edits intersect with Davenbelle on more than one ocasion. Would make a great statistics research paper.

I wont come up with conclusions but I find the material I just posted very interesting.

--Cat out 14:21, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, I actually liked this evidence gathering. Interesting indeed. -- ( drini's page ☎ ) 03:22, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Too long, didn't read. Telex 16:53, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Too long, indeed -- however I felt obliged to read it. User:Cool Cat is making this false allegation in order to divert attention from the issue of his behavior and, it would seem, in order to entangle me in his arbitration case. It is also not the first time has has made this sort of claim: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Cool Cat. While the factual details -- who has edited what, for example -- of his accusation appear to be accurate (I've not checked), his spin and interpretation are entirely self-serving.

I believe I first encountered User:Cool Cat on the first CFD of Category:Kurdistan and did not like his obvious intent of limiting Kurdish content on Wikipedia. I have used Wikipedia as a reference for years and its greatest problem is inconsistent accuracy of information and it is the behavior of editors such as User:Cool Cat that is responsible for this.

User:Cool Cat's implied accusation (which he makes explicit here) can easily be explained by the fact that articles and users he refers to are all related; they involve Kurds or they involve him. He expresses concern that my edits are too "professional" for one so "new" -- as if this were the only wiki in the world.

I would add again that he does not appear to be interested seeking a consensus. He efforts here only serve to make the editing environment hostile.

--Moby 10:31, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting argument. What wiki do you normaly work for? Tonikaku, I may have been wrong on Amask's case but that has nothing to do with your case. Amask has participated in only two votes and one or two articles. Since the nonsense I had to deal with davenbelle, I had been somewhat jumpy... Lets consider your statistics.

• You have participated in a total of 3 rfas, the first one you have ever voted was my rfa and you voted oppose, just like davenbelle. After Coincidentaly the other two rfas are people who I know about. Of that MegamanZero is the person that told Davenbelle to stop stalking (See User Talk:Davenbelle). The other RfA you participated was for Khoikhoi who at the time in dispute with me. Lets call all that circumstential evidence and discard them.
• You have participated in a total of 8 deletion votes. 5 of them opposing me, 2 of them opposing megamanzero. So thats 7 out of 8 deletion votes we have in common. Again lets call that circumstential evidence and discard it.
• There is this hole case of you and megaman zero. You were complaining about something megaman zero recieved from davenbelle. MegamanZero at a point modifed the bycycle award to an exceptional newbie award long ago at 10:50, 18 January 2006. I Had to dig through the userpage history to discover the actual modification of the award and I knew what I was looking for.
  1. So we have an award given to MegamanZero by davenbelle.
  2. We have MegamanZero warning davenbelle to stop stalking me on a much later date. (a motive for davenbelle to seek "revenge") as MegamanZero and I had been close and still are close.
  3. We have megaman zero modifying the given award in 12 january (hey he can its his userpage)
  4. We have you detecting and "correcting" it on 25 february.
  5. We know you never met megamanzero on any article, meaning you didnt know him.

  So among 47,481,831 registered users, you found Megaman Zero at random. You also discovered "forgery" of an award on his userpage which required me to load a dozen diffs even though I knew what I was looking for.

• You make edits such as this or this. While to an untrained eye it is a simple vandalism reversion. Davenbelle was also very interested in the contravercy surrounding the Southeastern Anatolia Project ^([38]), an article I mostly wrote. Among 6,829,843 we meet on the same article as davenbelle edited on the same section.
• We also have you removing/objecting a copyright issue I posted concerning a letter and the Armenian Genocide [39]. It spikes my curiosity how on earth have you noticed that post? And if you are so concerned about copyrights why havent you ever commmented on another copyright issue?
• I noticed recently. So you have randomly discovered an edit of mine and since it is a redirect that is among 4,190,567 pages. You have reverted an edit of mine from 04:20, 12 April 2006.

You are complaining about me creating a hostile enviorment... How productive is you complaining about megaman zeros award? How would you describe your attitude?

Coincidences? Sure. A striking question is why would a user who had only edited articles about the novel featuring the whale Moby Dick suddenly start to edit articles related to Kurds, Armenians, and Turkey practicaly opposing me on every opertunity?

I said I wouldnt come up with the conclusions and I wont, however if davenbelle made edits like yours... he would be considered stalking in my view.

--Cat out 19:22, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh and before I forget comments such as the one below create a hostile environment. Not just that, it is also very incivil.

As to being your "shadow" -- hardly. Yes, you are on my watchlist and have been since you deleted my legitimate comments from your talk page. Please do not feel that I consider your talk page surveillance-worthy -- it is mostly extremely banal chatter about video games. Your poorly-affected adult-English, however, does occasionally provide some amusement, as does your spelling.

Wikipedia prizes itself for its coverage on topics such as hard science as well as video games and Anime episode descriptions. Founder of wikipedia had made his view on this issue quite clear.

--Cat out 19:30, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I, for one, consider an ethnic group of twenty-odd million people to be a bit more encyclopaedic than a bunch of doe-eyed adolescent cartoon characters. --Moby 10:28, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You are entitled to have your opinions. I for one consider all topics equally relevant and important. Certainly you appriciate fiction on wikipedia. You contributed a great deal to articles such as In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. I do not understand why you think so 'lowly' of articles about 'a bunch of doe-eyed adolescent cartoon characters'. The ethnic group of twenty-odd million people is no more significant than Chaos theory. --Cat out 23:08, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex is not fiction. --Moby 06:30, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Very well it isnt fiction and is 100% factual. --Cat out 21:46, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You think I'm stalking you? I want nothing more than to be rid of you. You are the one who seems to have studied every edit I've made, and who will spin any yarn it takes to minimise Kurdish coverage. --Moby 10:39, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do not blame me for 'exposing' you monitoring my edits. I merely reviewed your contributions. I never accused you of stalking, I told everyone I wont be making the conclusions.

First step of any kind of investigation is to determine a motive. Based on your statement you confirm that your intentions are simply 'to get rid of me'. Thats not exactly an example of a friendly enviorment. Davenbelle was also pretty desperate to get rid of me.

--Cat out 02:07, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please to not misrepresent what I said. I said that I wanted to be rid of you not that I wanted to get rid of [you]. The meaning of what I said is that I do not want you opposing everything I or others try and achieve on articles and categories related to Kurds; you spun it so that it sounds like I want to put you in a river. --Moby 10:18, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I frankly do not see the difference in your comment. 'to be rid of you' and 'to get rid of you' sounds pretty much same to me. So you want me to leave the topics you disagree with me? Are you suggesting that I can't disagree with you? --Cat out 17:43, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:Cool Cat has problems with Kurds and Kurdistan. I remember reading a comment by User:Cool Cat stating how Kurds had a president in Turkey and what else could they want. I've asked the user politely to stop contributing on the PKK article because this user had a political point of view. But told me I couldn't ask him this. Ozgur Gerilla 02:41, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ozgur you have a "I support PKK" userbox, so you have a POV too, in order to maintain WP:NPOV on an article both view points should be presented not just yours, please try to understand this. -- - K a s h ^{Talk | email} 10:42, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, you have got it all wrong. What you need to understand is that my support has nothing to do with WP:NPOV because I believe that could be controlled by a person. But I told User:Cool Cat that I did not contribute to the PKK article because I thought it will be wrong and asked him to not contribute too. Ozgur Gerilla 17:17, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh but he doesn't. You cannot possibly expect any editor to cease editting a article simply due to the withdrawal of your own insertions. I have a stupendous point of view on Keiji Inafune, but that does not interrupt my ability to leave my feelings at the door. However, it is known that Cool Cat is somewhat aggresisve on this subject, and a small amount of leeway for other subject matter would behoove him. This certianly dies not mean he isn't a valuble contributor to these articles. -Zero^Talk 17:36, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am the person who gets categories like Kurdish terrorists AND Turkish terrorists deleted. I will 'agressively' remove Category:Kurdistan from articles related to turkish provinces and cities (reasons have been discussed to death). In parallel I will also 'agressively' remove "terrorist" referance from Kurdistan Workers Party even though I belive it is indeed a terrorist organisation. I am impartial when applying NPOV. --Cat out 20:43, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Zero, I wasn't aware of a few rules or the way people behave on subjects such as this one because I was a new Wikipedian. I was making a point to User:Kashk despite its correctness. What I mean is, if there is information users want to add to the article no user should restrict the individual from doing it; I have only ASKED CoolCat to stop contributing because I saw this user making offensive comments on KURDS not the PKK.

CoolCat, I think you need to learn when to use your anger. Agressively removing Category:Kurdistan from articles related to Turkish provinces and cities isn't the right way to act in my thoughts because many unbiased books have used the term for the region. Ozgur Gerilla 21:15, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a classical "wrong version" argument there. Oh and btw, I am not an emotionaly motivated person. What offensive comment are we talking about? --Cat out 09:47, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Kurds Turks and others use the same fountains, they can elect their leaders and be elected, hell there was a Kurdish President, even Americans dont have a Latino or Black President." that's from you. That's offensive. I don't know where in Turkey you've lived and for how long but in east and especially in southeast Kurds are discriminated and there is evidence for this. So instead of classifying my comments try to understand other point of views on the issue. Ozgur Gerilla 12:42, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Which part? Forced labour camps or the Colored seats/fountains? Take a look at 1960s and the US will ya?

For all you know I could very well be a kurd. You can't criticise me for my opinions on some random talk page. I cant even remember when I made that comment.

--Cat out 17:55, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The part where you say "hell there was a Kurdish president" as if thats enough for the Kurds and they don't need anything else because they had a president. You probably visited Turkey for a month and you're talking from that experience I've lived there for years and I've seen how many Kurdish politicians or artists can be successful in Turkey. Yilmaz Guney, Leyla Zana and Ugur Mumcu some of those who were killed or jailed because they were Kurdish. Oh, you more likely to come out to be a MHP Turk then a Kurd with comments like those. I am free to criticise you on a comment because your later on actions are pretty aggressive on Kurdish articles. I can remind you when you've made those comments if you think I've made them up. Ozgur Gerilla 01:35, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Slur is not welcome. Calling someone a "MHP Turk" in my view is more than a violation of WP:Civil and perhaps WP:NPA too. Something tells me your intention was not a compliment.

FYI, I visited turkey for over two years and I was in the SE region. I am not affiliated with any political party in Turkey or outside. My comment was pointing out the obvious, a kurd was elected as president in Turkey. I find that it is fascinating for a member of the ethic minority supposively discriminated to be elected as president. If you are offended by that I cant quite help you.

You are under the impression you are free to do whatever you please. WP:ANB/I is not a place where you get to discuss politics. This is also not the place to criticise anyone. Take it to a talk page, not here.

I will not bother responding to your comments posed here further as per the warning on top of the page. Best to ignore.

--Cat out 10:16, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Go ahead ignore me. I am not here to discuss politics I am here to tell people that User:Cool Cat is disrupting the Kurdish categorization efforts. You've said, for all I know you could be a Kurd and my opinion is with that attitude towards the Kurdish articles you're more likely to be a ultra nationalist Turk. Ozgur Gerilla 12:46, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

'Aggressively' removing Category:Kurdistan from articles related to Turkish Provinces and Cities constitutes disruption in cases where Kurds are, and have long been, the majority. --Moby 07:53, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I beg to differ. Its probably the tenth time I am posting the same argument... but here it is:

Do you have a census to back that up? No. Do we have any 'traditional' borders? No. Then it is disrupion to add a Category:Kurdistan as it neither has defined borders nor basis. Every corner of the United States or North America is Native american territory with that analogy.

Kurdistan is a proposed political entity (country), kurds are a cultural entity (ethnicity). My problem is with the proposed political entity in the light of wikipedia policies and guidelines.

--Cat out 09:47, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Strawman argument again; no one is characterizing it as a proposed country -- Kurdistan is a geographic and demographic region. --Moby 10:05, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh really. So PKK isn't campaigning for a country called Kurdistan... Seems like a pov fork attempt to me. In any case, I will not be pulled into this useless 'debate'.

The questions still are:

• weather or not User:Moby Dick is stalking me.
• weather or not User:Moby Dick is a User:Davenbelle sockpuppet.

If both questions answer a Yes, then an admin intervetion is definately necesary and perhaps more serious mesures.

--Cat out 14:37, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Back to the stalking sock/question

I suppose I can understand people not commenting much on the evidence presented, as it's hardly short and simple. However I think Cool Cat deserves it to at least be assessed. I'm not at all familiar with this dispute, or the history of either editors editing. There is probably far more to this than I've had time to look at (although I have tried!), so I certainly don't feel confident enough to take any specific action. However, the evidence presented by Cool Cat with regard to "weather or not User:Moby Dick is stalking me." and "weather or not User:Moby Dick is a User:Davenbelle" does seem fairly convincing. It is a shame that for technical reasons the checkuser was inconclusive, so it can't be verified that way. There does seem to be far too many co-incidences listed above to suggest Moby Dick is a new user that had nothing to do with Cool Cat before registering, and does seem to be paying just that bit too much attention to his actions.

I also note that as Moby Dick as stated a desire to 'to be rid of' Cool Cat, and I can't imagine Cool Cat wanting Moby Dick to stay around him, I suggest that both users take each others pages off their watchlists, don't check each others contribs, and don't make any effort to interact with each other (and actively try and leave article disputes to other editors if you come across each other that way). Outside of this situation a quick glance at contribs suggests very different interests, so there should be plenty of editing to get on with away from each other.

Please note by me saying this I am not commenting on Cool Cat's behaviour with relation to the Kurdish related disputes. I don't know enough about that, however he came here with a request for admin review on this specific issue and I feel it should be addressed one way or the other. Petros471 09:19, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I do not monitor "User:Moby Dick", I wouldn't have had the time to prepare my evidence has "User:Moby Dick" didn't get me blocked and give me the free time. As per advice of User:InShaneee I have initiated an RfC Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Moby Dick as the matter is complex in nature and requires more than a short review here as you point out :) --Cat out 09:52, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

MobyPenis and PenisMoby

It would appear that someone created these accounts based on my username:

MobyPenis (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
PenisMoby (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

--User:Moby Dick 11:19, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Then report them in WP:VIP. I have gotten 44 such accounts blocked. Shanel had 212 such impostors --Cat out 13:32, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

both had been blocked already for several hours before Moby Dick even reported them here. ;) Syrthiss 13:37, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Probably by either my or Curpses script... --Cat out 13:41, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This userbox used by hundreds of users has been vandalized by Gmaxwell (talk · contribs) and Cyde (talk · contribs) and protected in the vandalized state by Freakofnurture (talk · contribs). An userbox of the size of a full article (full of heave calibre POV) is obvious vandalism to me. BTW, none of the two vandals uses this userbox. To add insult to injury, one of them added a rotating crucifix as the image (now deleted). A user Rexmorgan (talk · contribs) who tried to revert this obvious vandalism has been blocked for 24h by Freakofnurture (talk · contribs). Friendly Neighbour 15:36, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd hesitate to call anything here "obvious vandalism", but it does look like a silly edit war. FWIW, Tony Sidaway has dealt with this in a sensible way, putting the template back to a simple version and unprotecting. Friday (talk) 15:46, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not obvious? A userbox with the height of my screen? C'mon. Look the definition in Wikipedia:Userboxes: "A userbox is a small coloured box that allows users to add small messages on their user pages". Anyway, thanks Tony! Friendly Neighbour 15:56, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On the other hand, the other version was accurate :-) Just zis Guy you know? 16:06, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Although I agree this was absurd, I wouldn't call it anything worse than a content dispute. He certainly meant well, at the very least. --InShaneee 16:31, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A classic case of the wrong version :-) Just zis Guy you know? 16:49, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It was no mere vandalism. Changing a message hundreds of people have already chosen for their userpages is megavandalism of hundreds userpages. I believe long blocks are the only appropriate penalties for such mega-vandals. Friendly Neighbour 18:10, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Megavandalism, huh? The problem is, if people had just subst'd their templates, they wouldn't have known about this at all. --InShaneee 18:30, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is hundreds of people did't. Can they be vandalized because they never heard of "subst" (like me until very recently) or simply preferred the uncluttered versions of their pages (also like me)? Maybe we should also replace our userpages with uploaded screenshots of them, not to be the 3RR guilty party when a vandal gets the idea of a "content dispute" on our pages ;-) Friendly Neighbour 18:48, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This reeks of POINT and it certainly isn't civil. Furthermore, I am astounded that someone would actually block for this case of 3RR and not block Cyde and Gmaxwell. You shouldn't get to edit war by virtue of having one more person than the other side and get away with it.

Seriously, this was wildly inappropriate, disruptive, not done in good faith, etc even if I think it was hilarious. Kotepho 18:46, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have to concur here. I thought it was funny too, and I am the one that got blocked over it. However, "funny" is not really appropriate when it is affecting many users on The Project. With regard to InShaneee's comment - subst is not, as far as I know, official policy or even suggested guideline regarding userboxes at this point, so it is unreasonable to expect everyone to have already worked together to come up with that solution to the problem. Rexmorgan 18:50, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It may not have been the best move, but I still wouldn't call it vandalism. First of all, the simple fact is that without transclusion, you're open to whatever happens to the template, like it or not. Secondly, although the gif was a bit over the top, the new text was NPOV, and as silly as it came out, I don't think it's something he should be punished for; rather, he should simply be overruled on the talk page. --InShaneee 19:06, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Every time I see one of these userbox squabbles, it makes me want to tear out my eyes. Whether intended or not, they always end up waltzing with WP:POINT. Keep the blasted thing at Tony's version. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 19:22, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't call it "vandalism" necessarily, so much as a massive WP:DICK move. These are admins behaving like little children - very disappointing. Isn't there an encyclopedia around here you could be writing, guys? -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:34, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Gmaxwell started it again. This time a "compromise version". I reverted him once. I would prefer a better solution. Anyone ready to block the vandal? Friendly Neighbour 19:43, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is a talk page there. These things CAN be discussed. Blocking isn't always the answer. Neither is reverting a 3 word change and calling it 'massive vandalism'. When two users refuse to discuss a change, BOTH are at fault. --InShaneee 20:00, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We are not talking an article page. We are talking a message that multiple users link to their userpages (as userbiox policy allows them to) and some other users (who do not use it) want changed. The outsiders can always create their own template if they want. This is the difference between an article about a person/thing/idea and a template where a dissatisfied user can always create a new one. There is no need of template compromises. Really. Friendly Neighbour 20:17, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please see WP:OWN. You do not own that template, nor does anyone else. It may be freely edited just like anything else here. Compromise is not only needed, it's expected. --InShaneee 20:31, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You did not get my point my point. You can't "own" an article exactly because there can be only one on a given subject. You actually can "own" a template because anyone can create a new one (for example adding a number to the name). Friendly Neighbour 20:42, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, you can't own ANYTHING, period. Templates (such as userboxes) included. If you want your own userbox, subst it, or just create it wholly on your userpage. Once it's put in the Template space, it's subject to all the usual policies. --InShaneee 23:57, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good Job Friendly Neighbour, in your haste to defend against evil you managed to revert text suggested by someone who appears to hold your position. As InShaneee said above, compromise is a core aspect of wikipedia. Please discontinue your allegations of bad faith and join the discussion rather than attacking. --Gmaxwell 20:38, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just to qualify, reverting discussed, agreed upon changes can be considered vandalism. --InShaneee 20:43, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia Holy War

Saying this as a non-religious person, I am both appalled and offended at some of the actions being made by two administrators, Gmaxwell and Cyde at Template talk:User Christian. This far oversteps being disruptive to make a WP:POINT. They clearly have no interest in this template other than to offend, disrupt, and probably see to it that the template is ultimately deleted as a result of their offensive disruption. 207.200.116.138 19:49, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:AGF as soon as possible, please. --InShaneee 20:18, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

He should assume good faith when someone writes a whole article inside a userbox, ruining many userpages? There was no good faith, just admins vandalizing. Lapinmies 20:28, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you don't want anyone being able to change what appears on your userpage then you oughn't be transcluding templates. Please read up on WP:OWN while you're at it. Also note that calling an established Wikipedian a vandal because you disagree with them is far, far beyond the pale. Mackensen (talk) 20:30, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The point was not that they can't be changed, it was that they should not contain a whole article. Lapinmies 20:35, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There's no guideline stating that. As I said before, if anyone had a problem with it, the talk page is the first place it should be brought. --InShaneee 20:38, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There's no guideline stating that you should not stick peas in your nose. Lapinmies 20:41, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. And I, along with many of my fellow users, strongly support other user's right to do so, along with anything else they may choose to do outside of wikipedia, where we have no control over them. --InShaneee 20:57, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm appalled that anyone thinks this comment is anything other than trolling. Mackensen (talk) 20:28, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So we can assume good faith of someone who (as an obvious joke) replaces a userbox with an article, but we can't assume good faith of someone who considers that action a violation of WP:POINT? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:36, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We can assume good faith in EVERYONE, if I'm reading the policy correctly. --InShaneee 20:38, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that was sort of my point. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:50, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm appalled that anyone is calling an online content dispute a "Holy War". Millions of people have died in real Holy Wars. That's like calling the New Years Userbox deletion "The Userbox Holocaust". --Cyde Weys 20:30, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• For those late to the party, this is where it started. Thatcher131 20:32, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See Flame war#Holy wars --Carnildo 20:45, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, now that Mackensen has speedy-deleted the template under T1, I'm sure that everything will calm down. (rolls eyes) Everybody, brace for impact — it's going to be New Year's all over again. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:50, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It was dividing people in a big way...I'd consider that 'divisive'. --InShaneee 20:53, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

... nnnno it wasn't. Cyde and Gmaxwell having fun with the content at the expense of everyone who put it on their page was being divisive. There is absolutely nothing divisive about the content that was at {{User Christian}}. JDoorjam Talk 20:57, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah — the only divisiveness came about when Cyde and Gmaxwell started their joke. The same thing could be done to any userbox, not just political or religious ones. To take an example at random, Template:User male could be replaced with an essay on biological sex differences and the sociological deconstruction of gender. (Of course, I wouldn't do that, because unlike some people I respect WP:POINT.) I really think this was ill-considered. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 21:08, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Which, of course, comes back to the issue of userboxes. Should they be wiped off the face of the earth? No. Should they be subst:'d? Yes. After all, this is an encyclopaedia, and saying "This User is a Christian" is unencyclopaedic (although I find Cyde's version still too restrictive in its definition). As for size restrictions on userboxes - have a look at the one at the bottom of David Gerard's page. Now that's a userbox. Guettarda 21:17, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Listen, I agree that userboxes should be subst:ed. I just don't think that this is the way to go about it. If we're going to subst: all userboxes, then let's formulate an appropriate policy and do it. This maneuver (starting an argument, and then deleting the template because it's divisive) smacks to me of pushing someone into the mud and then condemning him for being dirty. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 21:32, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For historical purposes, it was RexM's fault for editing it to say "This user claims to be a Christian". Having said that, despite how hilarious the Gmaxwell & Cyde version of the userbox was (I miss the animated crucifix; I'm actually considering using the userbox in my userspace, although I really am a Christian), they were definitely violating WP:POINT. I won't go as far as WP:VANDAL, but this was definitely disruption (even if meant well, and done in an absolutely hilarious manner). Johnleemk | Talk 14:32, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to hear from Cyde and Gmaxwell why they thought a userbox was an appropriate place for an essay on Christianity, with a big animated crucifix gif, no less. Thatcher131 21:19, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Um, this is all well and good, but now that the userbox has been axed, shouldn't this debate move on to WP:DRVU? –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 21:37, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just like to point out that we still have Template:User Catholic, Template:User Protestant, Template:User Muslim, Template:User Buddhist, Template:User Jewish, and probably a lot of other ones. If "This user is a Christian" is division, then all of these are, too. Either we need to delete them all, or an infobox saying "This user is a Christian" needs to be reinstated. — BrianSmithson 21:38, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd just like to let folks know that I've substed the userbox on all the user pages it was used on. I can do the others too, if people want them gone from Template space. I've expressed my opinion on the edit war itself already on the WikiEN mailing list, so I won't repeat it here. It's not particularly polite, anyway. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 23:17, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly what should happen, frankly. Substed code on a userpage isn't subject to anyone's petty whims. I can't say I'm happy about the last 24 hours. Mackensen (talk) 00:09, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've listed the template at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Userbox debates#Template:User Christian. The debate can move there. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:24, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No legit T1. Nothing to debate.Geni 03:19, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Although the debate over whether the template should be kept on WP has moved elsewhere I think there is a larger problem that has been glossed over: Cyde and Gmaxwell were irresponsible and created a debate unnecessarily. Their claims that the changes were made to the templates out of "good faith" to preserve NPOV are laughable and I think that as admins they should know better. Can the fact that they seem to be getting out of this unscathed indicate that other admins are endorsing this sort of thing?Reverie 07:58, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've got to agree with Reverie here. At DRV/U, some users have pointed out that that page isn't the appropriate place for discussion of Cyde and Gmaxwell's behavior. Although many admins and other users have agreed that the affair was a WP:POINT violation, Gmaxwell is continuing to maintain that his sole intention was a concern for NPOV. I don't think that a heavy sanction is warranted (especially if he has the decency to apologise, as Cyde has done), but perhaps something should be done to show that this sort of thing isn't appropriate behavior. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 08:48, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is one administrator who does not endorse their actions. Paul August ☎ 01:45, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

[40] Is this a satisfactory way an administrator should respond like? Who has got the authority to judge whether or not there's such a need? — Instantnood 21:25, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

...I'd say it's perfectly good sense to not edit the archives, unless something had been archived prematurely. Even then, often simply starting the debate anew with a link to the old threat can be done. --InShaneee 21:27, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What I did was to add a link from the archive to where the discussion has continued. I was not responding on the archived page itself. I don't have much opinion on whether archived entries can be edited, and I'm in fact seeking for comment on whether user:William M. Connolley's response is a satisfactory one, as from an administrator. — Instantnood 21:35, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You could either

Take out a white glove and slap him across the face while loudly proclaiming your demand for satisfaction

or

Start a user RfC.

but asking a dozen different people to come pay attention to you on the 256k administrators bickerboard is not going to accomplish anything. SchmuckyTheCat 21:39, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not that the above comment is very productive either. 222.166.160.95 17:15, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say that WMC is beginning to lose patience with you Instantnood, and I'd agree with his statement (considering I too feel you've been trolling). --Syrthiss 15:25, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

He just did what he thought right, and has never shown any intention to look into the details. He then used the rollback button, an administrator's priviledge, to delete my messages at his talk page. He claimed I was trolling, and blocked me for three hours. Is that what people should expected from an administrator? Are administrators given such extent of discretionary power to do whatever they want to do, despite the fact that they should act according to what are stated in the official policies and guidelines? — Instantnood 18:34, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think WMC was within the bounds of acceptable behaviour. Stifle (talk) 22:10, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've protected WP:SOCK as it was undergoing a major rewrite to redefine "sock puppet" more tightly, and it appears that at least one of the editors involved in the rewrite, Team Shocker (talk · contribs), was a sock puppet of User:Zephram Stark. [41] I suspect at least one of the others was Zephram too. I've reverted to the pre re-write version. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 06:53, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good catch. Sockpuppets rewriting the sockpuppet policy. Great. FeloniousMonk 07:24, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I know. What a cheek. He was, of course, rewriting it so that sock puppets would be slightly harder to block e.g. he changed that sock puppet accounts may be blocked indefinitely, rather than should be, and that only "uninvolved" admins may do the blocking, and other similar tweaks in his favor. :-D SlimVirgin ^(talk) 09:13, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Special:Undelete/Von Neumann's catastrophe. It seemed like the right thing to do in this case. — May. 14, '06 [10:53] <freakofnur_xture|talk>

I'm curious why his block was changed from indefinite to six months. I announced a "community ban" a couple months ago on WP:AN and asked for anyone opposed to speak up; nobody did; is he somehow not worthy of a community ban now because...he's doing t even more? --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 14:47, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't realize it had been changed. He should definitely be banned indefinitely. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 14:48, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just an oversight, I imagine. Freak? --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 14:52, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've changed it back because it must have been a mistake. Zephram is banned for a thousand eternities. A Sunfazer (talk · contribs) changed the tag from indefinite to six months and reverted me when I changed it back, so now I'm wondering whether that's him too. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 14:56, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I dunno much about the guy, but I did notice that recently he asked that a certain article that's been used to attack another Wikipedian be unprotected; that raised my antennae. [42] · Katefan0 ^(scribble)/poll 15:37, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I dunno much about the guy either, but Sunfazer's very first edit was to apologize for vandalism, and CheckUser indicates he's been doing quite a bit of vandalizing and sockpuppeting since then. Perhaps this explains his similar interest in trying to weaken strictures against sockpuppeting. Jayjg ^(talk) 16:04, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, I wasn't paying attention. It's been fixed. — May. 14, '06 [19:31] <freakofnur_xture|talk>

I don't quite understand this. Are you reverting to the pre-rewrite version until you find what edits were made by the illegal sock puppets? If so, why didn't you just revert to the initial rewritten version by Dijxtra? This reversion completely messes up the new terminology and processes that are being used (besides making me a sock puppet again). --Philosophus ^T 19:49, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:PP-- "Admins must not protect pages they are actively engaged in editing, except in the case of simple vandalism." I don't see any potential for future vandalism attacks on WP:SOCK now that we know the rewriting was being done by Zephram Stark. Thus, there is no reason to protect the page. Ashibaka tock 19:58, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I see no reason to not keep it protected for the time being. It's not like it's a heavy traffic article. FeloniousMonk 20:06, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That doesn't mean that the protected page policy is suspended. That policy is what prevents admins from protecting a page at their favourite version. Ashibaka tock 20:10, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ashibaka has gone ahead and unprotected without even mentioning it to me, so I've reprotected. I don't want to start a wheel war, but I find that kind of intervention unhelpful. I was actively engaged in editing it only with a view to trying to undo the damage, and in any event, any admin can protect a page against banned users. It's otherwise not a page I've ever paid much attention to; if it had been, I'd have noticed the sockpuppetry earlier.

I'd like to keep it protected until we establish which other accounts, if any, might have been Zephram Stark. I'll make a request today and it shouldn't take long. As for which version to revert to, I believe the rewrite was instigated by one of the sockpuppets and it changed key parts of the policy; everyone involved in the rewrite was either a sockpuppet or a newish editor so far as I can tell, and I don't recall seeing any attempts to involve others in the rewrite. As the page is policy, a broader consensus would be needed for any major changes. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:16, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Protecting it to analyze and undo the damage is reasonable. FeloniousMonk 20:23, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've rolled it back to the pre re-write version, because I don't want to get into trying to judge which edits were okay and which not. If some of the changes were legitimate and if there's a broad consensus for them, they can always be re-added. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:42, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I requested a check user and the only two Zephram-related accounts are Team Shocker, confirmed, and Dragon's Blood, not confirmed but not ruled out by technical evidence. It was one of them who suggested the rewrite in the first place and both were actively engaged in forming it on various talk pages, so the new version should be regarded as thoroughly tainted. As both accounts are blocked, I'll unprotect shortly if no one minds. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:38, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

SlimVirgin resolved an editing dispute between herself and two other editors by calling them sock puppets and banning them without any evidence. That is the only thing that happened here. When people questioned her about her charges, she claimed to have requested a check user. No such check user request exists through the proper channels [43], nor is there anything in her contributions to suggest that she requested a check user anywhere else on Wikipedia in the three and a half hours between when she claims to have made the request and when she claims to have heard the response, "not confirmed but not ruled out by technical evidence."[44] Because there is no reason for my block, I, User:Dragon's Blood, would like to be reinstated, at which time I intend to launch a full investigation into the misconduct of User:SlimVirgin and User:freakofnurture (for deleting the article he mentions without an AfD). --4.238.85.76 19:08, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I see that the main reason for reverting of the WP:SOCK page is because it was rewritten by a sock puppet. That is not correct. It was rewritten by me: [45]. And I am not a sock puppet. Or at least nobody ever accused me of being one. Therefore, reverting of WP:SOCK has no real reason. The change was, BTW, announced on the talk page of the WP:SOCK and discussed for 2 weeks. If you have any objections to new version of the page, please state it. Reverting the effort of several users just because someone falsly accused me of being a sock puppet is not right. I am just asking for somebody to tell me what's wrong with new version of the page and all I get is an edit war. Have I lost my mind? What do I have to do to get an answer to my question: what's wrong with the rewrite I made? --Dijxtra 21:59, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Um, the rewrite of the sockpuppet policy was influenced by sockpuppets. FeloniousMonk 22:03, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In what way? In a disruptive one? Are you telling me that if a sock puppet says it's OK to breathe, I'm not supposed to do that? Again: what's wrong with the rewrite? This time please attack the content, not the contributor. Isn't that one of main principles of Wikipedia? --Dijxtra 22:21, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not when the contributor is a banned user. The line is drawn at that point. Mackensen (talk) 22:25, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I didn't get this one correctly. Your sentence "Not when the contributor is a banned user." is an answer to my "Are you telling me that if a sock puppet says it's OK to breathe, I'm not supposed to do that?" question? Or "Isn't that one of main principles of Wikipedia?"? Let me remind you that this is MY work. Not work of banned user. You are attacking ME. Would you please refrain from doing that? Would you, please, attack my work. Not me. --Dijxtra 22:31, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're reverting to the work of a banned user. I can't support that. I'm sorry if you're offended but that's just the way it is. Editing on behalf of a banned user is serious business. Mackensen (talk) 22:35, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Aham. And, if I revert to my last revision, nobody is going to revert it back? I mean, why reverting the whole rewrite? Why not just the part which was written by the evil guy? BTW, note that I'm not reverting. I reverted only once. --Dijxtra 22:41, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, for starters, I see little evidence that there's any consensus behind this change. Given the number of CheckUsers protesting the change, I'd say it's a bad idea. Given the number of senior administrators asking you to ease off because they think you've made a mistake, I think you should listen. Mackensen (talk) 22:43, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fine. I'm dropping it. Note: you have to do something with WP:SUSPSOCK. Dunno, delete it or something. --Dijxtra 22:47, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

LaszloWalrus has made three attempts so far to move Objectivism and Homosexuality to Ayn Rand's views on homosexuality. I feel that this is a bad idea because the article explicitly deals with the views of Objectivism, not just its founder. Moreover, this move has been made without any sort of consensus, which is unfortunately a pattern I've noticed with this editor in the past. In fact, he's edit-warred over this article in the past and been blocked for it.

I'd like to head off any move-war here, and this seems to be the right place to post a notice to get the attention of anyone interested in helping. Al 06:53, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Inasmuch as Alienus and I are the only ones currently arguing over this issue, building a "consensus" would consist only of us both agreeing. Further, Ayn Rand's psychological views are NOT part of Objectivism, only her philosophical views are. In fact, Alienus has been blocked for edit warring over this article and has a history of blocks for personal attacks. LaszloWalrus 19:23, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to seek the opinions of interested third parties, either through a simple RFC or a notice on relevant pages. Al 19:29, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've move-protected the page pending resolution of the dispute. That is not an endorsement of which location the page is currently residing at. Stifle (talk) 22:15, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Freakofnurture (talk · contribs) has moved more than a hundred pages related to Washington state highways[46] based upon his unilateral interpretation of what the "correct" article names should be.[47] His edit summary seems to indicate that he believes that this is some sort of game, the object of which is to "pwn" whoever he's determined his enemies to be. As User:Tawker notes, move warring on these pages while the matter is pending resolution is a blockable offense.[48] As before, if nothing happens I'll assume that means it's okay for me to move the pages back. Thanks. —phh (^t/_c) 15:13, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Move warring is a blockable offense, as is any other kind of warring (wheel, revert, edit). My personal preference would be to leave the pages where they are *now* pending whether the parties in that proposed arbitration accept the arbitration. The statement supplied by Freakofnurture with a slightly incivil edit summary can be submitted to the arbitrators as evidence on the side of SPUI et al. Moving them back would just be another salvo in the move war, however objectionable the current naming is to the other side in the dispute. Just my opinion. --Syrthiss 15:32, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Freakofnurture at least appears to have a solid reference to base the move on. Is this reference in some way suspect? Kim Bruning 15:44, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The reference doesn't strike me as neccessarily relevant. Imagine Nevada's state highways are officially named "Nevada State Route XXX", as opposed to Washington's official "State Route YYY". Wikipedia reasonably might still prefer to use a uniform name scheme for all US state highways, so one of the official nomenclatures would have to be ignored. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 15:52, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thats my read on the situation as well. --Syrthiss 15:53, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No one is arguing that the reference is suspect. The point of dispute is whether "correct" should be the principle to apply in deciding what the article names should be (WP:NC(CN) gives several instances in which it is not). Regardless, the facts of the matter are that Freakofnurture is aware that this dispute is taking place, is aware (if he keeps an eye on this page, as all administrators should) that multiple admins have said that move warring on these pages is a blockable offense, yet chose to aggravate the move wars anyway. —phh (^t/_c) 15:59, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Especially seeing the length of the dispute and the RFAR, moving the pages again was inappropriate. Snoutwood (talk) 16:14, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is getting somewhat tiring. Could everybody at least agree upon not moving hundreds of pages around until it's clear what becomes of the ArbCom case? -- grm_wnr Esc 15:57, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. For those of you who'd like a link, here is it. Snoutwood (talk) 16:01, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly suggest not moving the pages back, on the grounds that if moving them while mediation is pending is bad, unmoving them would be equally bad, and presumably you would like to take the high ground here (perhaps only minimally higher in this case, but still...) Thatcher131 16:06, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Don't worry, I wasn't planning on it. Snoutwood (talk) 16:10, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think that was a general "dont move them" to the assembly, not a "dont move them snoutwood!!1!!" ;) --Syrthiss 16:22, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. Thatcher131 17:45, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry... indentation confusion. :) Snoutwood (talk) 17:53, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree that moving the pages back would be equally bad—if anything, not moving them back is tantamount to rewarding bad behavior. Regardless, if I am being asked to "take the high road" by leaving them where they are for now, then I shall take the high road (a road I seem to be taking a lot these days, with no reciprocation from the other side… but never mind). However, I'd appreciate a clarification of the situation here, because I can only see three possibilities:

• Move-warring over these pages is a blockable offense, and therefore Freakofnurture will be blocked for having done it.
• Move-warring over these pages is not a blockable offense, and therefore anyone may move them with impunity, although they shouldn't.
• Move-warring over these pages is a blockable offense for PHenry, but not for Freakofnurture.

…and I'd really like to know which of these rules I can expect to be subject to today and in the future. —phh (^t/_c) 18:11, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Blocking exists only to prevent offenses, not punish them. If Freakofnurture isn't move warring anymore, then there's no point in blocking him - for the time being. And anyhow, the idea on Wikipedia is to take the high road. Someone has to do it, and it sure as hell won't be the other guy. Also, maintaining the status quo isn't meant to "reward" any kind of behaviour. It's meant to give us time to chill out and talk about the issue rather than bash our heads together repeatedly. The encyclopaedia won't die if people are directed to the wrong article for a day or two. Johnleemk | Talk 18:27, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Moving them back would be equally bad because it would start and/or perpetuate an edit war, and the only way edit wars ever solve content disputes is when one side or the other gets worn out and quits. I express the hope that some kind of dispute resolution process (article RFC, user RFC, a policy debate somewhere, or RFAR) will lead to a settled final answer and the articles can be moved to their final names then. In the meantime, names of the style Washington State Route 599 should all redirect to State Route 599 (Washington), so ordinary users of the encyclopedia should not be affected.

Problem is it's been 3 months and neither side has tired. Infact both sides have just become more determined they're right and now it's moved beyond the point where either side will budge per vendetta that they are "right". The only recourse at this point is a binding decision by the Arbcom that is currently in progress. JohnnyBGood t c 20:42, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Move warring over these pages is a blockable offense, for Freakofnurture and PHenry (and SPUI, and anyone else) IMO. I personally am not inclined to block FoN now because it is after the fact, though I might have blocked him at the time if I (1) had noticed it and (2) I had been cognizant of the RFAr related to such moves. Personally I would haved probably just asked him to stop, but thats me. I think it was a good faith move based on what he felt was compelling support, based on a possibly erroneous assumption (to be decided by the arbcom if all sides agree). I wanted to thank you for your forbearance in taking the high road. As you say, too often people feel that two questionable actions balance out at a reasonable action...when really they are equally questionable. --Syrthiss 18:33, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say to add him to the RfAr and leave them as is, assuming the previous names redirect. Reverting all those movies would probably be messy. --Avillia 18:55, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just because this bloody stupid move warring has been going on for so long, I'm inclined to block on sight any editor who renames any state highway article (that's not an obvious typographical error).

I would do this for the good of the encyclopedia—the editors involved are generally productive, helpful, positive contributors (mostly). It's a terrible waste to soak up their time and energy on such a bloody stupid set of wars, and I'd like to think they will appreciate an intervention from their friends and colleagues to help them break this bloody stupid habit. Is there support for such an intervention? We can save them if we make the effort! TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:17, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So you'd block me for doing this? Seems like disruption to me. --SPUI (T - C - RFC) 01:52, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What's so complicated about this? Most pages linking to individual, state-maintained, numbered highways will be other pages related to the same state. Within the boundaries of each state, such highways are referred to by their proper names, i.e. "State Route 599" or "SR 599". However, since other highways with the exact same name also exist in other states, the parenthetical disambiguation is used. In the infrequent event that these are referenced from an an article pertaining to a different state, then specifying forms "Washington State Route 599" or "Washington's SR 599" can be used for clarification to the reader. Furthermore, User:Atanamir has a letter from the Washington State Department of Transportation supporting this nomenclature.

What more do you need? Demanding that I be blocked and reverted on proceedural grounds is ridiculous, because:

• This is not a move war.
• I moved the pages once each.
• They had not been recently moved.
• The moves were based on newly presented evidence from WSDOT.
• This "moving a bunch of roads at once is a blockable" idea is something Rschen7754 came up with so he could block SPUI and Locke Cole, with whom he was engaged in personal conflict.

Suggesting that "not moving them back (to the wrong titles) is tantamount to rewarding bad behavior" is itself tantamount to rules-lawyering of the highest order. — May. 16, '06 [03:59] <freak|talk>

Uh huh. This "I'm right and everyone else is wrong, so nyaah!!" attitude is exactly why the arbitration case needs to be taken up, the sooner the better. —phh (^t/_c) 06:03, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(Translation: "don't cloud the issue with the facts"). Let me know if you have a satisfactory reason to moving the pages back. I have given several reasons to leave them at the titles I moved them to. If, however, you are firmly convinced that anybody agreeing with SPUI is full of shit, then it's a waste of time to even talk about this. — May. 16, '06 [06:53] <freak|talk>

God! Haven't you been paying attention? Or do you just not care what anyone says unless they agree with you? No one is arguing about the facts. The question is about the best way to apply the existing principles and conventions to these articles—a question for which there are valid arguments on both sides. But you've decided that none of this matters because you're right and evvv-erybody else is wrong, so you prefer to bludgeon everyone with your move warring rather than run the risk that the normal discussion process might arrive at a solution that you disagree with. —phh (^t/_c) 14:54, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You could go on all day about how you don't like me, but once again, do you have any rebuttal other than smearing my name? If so, spit it out. — May. 16, '06 [16:19] <freak|talk>

Well, I'm someone who doens't dislike you, and I think you made a very poor call, right or wrong, in moving those pages. The issue's been mediated, edit-warred over, and is in an RFAR. Moving those pages did nothing but exacerbate the problem. I do not understand how you can justify your moves by saying "I'm right." Wait until the RFAR is over, then follow the decision. My sentiments echo Tawker's below; however, I will also add that had I seen it happening I would certainly have blocked you for it. Snoutwood (talk) 20:06, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would be happy to provide a rebuttal other than smearing your name. However, to quote what PHenry has already said, "No one is arguing about the facts. The question is about the best way to apply the existing principles and conventions to these articles." WP:D is clear that parentheses is not the only way to disambiguate on Wikipedia, furthermore, it's not even the preferred way. To quote, "When there is another word or more complete name that is equally clear, that should be used." (emphasis mine). Thus, in these cases, the more complete name (Washington State Route 539) should be used.

Also, you state in your post: "However, since other highways with the exact same name also exist in other states, the parenthetical disambiguation is used." (again, emphasis mine) This may have been a grammatical oversight on your part, or you may be referring to your newly imposed standard for Washington. However, in the 28 out of 50 states (30 counting Washington and California), the articles are named with the state name first.

(AK, GA, HI, ID, IL, IN, IA, KY, LA, MD, MN, MS, MO, MT, NE, NV, NH, NM, NY, NC, ND, OH, PA, SC, SD, VT, VA, WV, and WI, plus D.C., Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S.V.I., since I know someone's going to ask.)

An additional two are named not with parenthetical disambiguation, but with local common names: Kansas with K-xx and Michigan with M-xx.

Now I'm not saying that just because it's 28-18 (leaving out Kansas, Michigan, California, and Washington), that must mean that I'm right and you're wrong, because that's not what it means, and I'm not saying that this constitutes some sort of official naming convention, because it doesn't. What this does mean, though, is that the "State Route X (StateName)" format doesn't follow any sort of naming convention either. To rephrase your statement more accurately, "Even though other highways with the exact same name also exist in other states, the parenthetical disambiguation is not used with any sort of regularity. -- Northenglish 00:33, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tawker's 2 cents

Blocking anyone for a week old event seems to be rather pointless and I am not suggesting anyone in any way shape or form does such. With respect to moving it back, it is best to simply avoid any more moves until a reasonable response to this dispute has been settled. As far as I am concerned there is no right or wrong naming scheme, we have a dispute and lets settle it like the mature human beings we are not 2 year olds in a sandbox -- Tawker 03:39, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I feel there is quite a bias against older people on Wikipedia. Many of the administrators on Wikipedia are university students, who are quick to call older Wikipedians insulting names. Older people are not used to these attacks and sometimes respond incorrectly, resulting in a ban. I know personally older people who have been banned, and sometimes for good, and think that it may be a culture issue. Are older people welcome on Wikipedia, or is it mainly the preserve of university students? wallie 19:53, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the university students tend to be among more active Wikipedians, but there are several older Wikipedians here (among them some of our most respected Wikipedians). In what pages do you see this sort of reverse ageism? --Deathphoenix ʕ 19:57, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Obvious ageist comments fall under WP:CIVIL. Violations of WP:CIVIL are easily acted upon; report them here. FeloniousMonk 20:01, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some of us admins are pretty old.  :) Can you give us some diffs to the problem edits you're referring to? User:Zoe|^(talk) 20:04, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Does this mean it is time to form the Wikipedia:association of geriatric wikipedians? (PS - that was a joke!) Raul654 20:06, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Beware of the beans.  :) User:Zoe|^(talk) 20:24, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Too late. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 20:39, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Better yet: Wikipedia:Association of Geriatric Editors (or WP:AGE for short) Raul654 20:25, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think we can safely sum it up (in our best Kanye West voice) as Jimbo Wales doesn't care about old people. We oughn't to piss older folks, though; Modern Maturity, IIRC, has the largest circulation of any magazine in the world (surely that's a description over which one may quibble, but AARP, I think, claims the title for MM). (Are we really without an MM article, or am I just missing it somewhere?) Joe 20:32, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've just discovered that the magazine is now billed as AARP the Magazine; nevertheless, we don't seem to have an article, as evidenced by the omission of any Wikilink in the bio of managing editor John Stoltenberg. I know, I know, I should start the article myself, but I wonder if there's anyone with more knowledge of the subject who might take it on (apologies for cluttering AN/I with this, but I thought I ought to correct my previous comment). Joe 20:35, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry to get here so late, my knees aren't what they used to be, now what was the question again? Do you have to already have a zimmer to join AGE or just remember when all this was fields? (Thanks Theresa, you've given me the best laugh all day) --Alf ^melmac 20:51, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This all seems to confirm the fact that you generally have to be young and preferably a student at a university to be taken seriously on Wikipedia. It would be interesting to get a statistical breakdown for administrators by age, and whether or not they are university students. wallie 22:22, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've been shaking my cane furiously at all these punk kids walking on my lawn for a year now, but they don't have any respect. I take a nap, and they're sticking tags and boxes over all my lovely articles! Geogre 23:19, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On a slightly more serious note, I'd just like to point out that of the hundreds of users I've interacted with here, I've only known the age of a handful. I'm sure I'm not unique in that sense. --InShaneee 00:30, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've never seen much ageism towards seniors, but I have seen some ageist remarks towards younger editors (like the 16-year-old User: Infinity0. If you are serious then some diffs would be helpful. I would be interested in helping illustrate this type of bias (btw, I'm a college student). The Ungovernable Force 00:45, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't seen much ageism towards seniors either, in fact the slurs I get from our less polite users, besides "bitchonen" and its cognates, are usually on the lines of "immature", "14-year-old", "junior higher" ("Jimbo, I know you hate junior highers like Bishonen and Schvatjester"[49]). I realize you guys don't know how funny that is — would you like me to tell you my memories of the French Revolution, anybody? Bishonen | talk 03:06, 16 May 2006 (UTC).[reply]

I agree. I've never seen a serious ageist comment made by a younger to an older contributor, but I have seen one or two ageist comments directed by an older to a younger contributor. Wallie, perhaps you could be a little more specific about what ageist comments you've witnessed? Snottygobble 03:17, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Same here. I have gotten patronising comments from older people, however - one of them is right on this page. (Although the age given there is off by two years.) If there's much of an ageist movement against old folk, I haven't seen it. Johnleemk | Talk 08:07, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've always written "old," and now that I am past middle age it just fits. As for "ageism," I keep saying it, and nobody seems to hear me: it is deeds, not persons, that matter in virtual space. As such, there is a very clear age skew among Wikipedia editors, but not in terms of actual agism. Instead, we have overly enthusiastic promotion of webcomics, web forums, pop songs, pop TV phenomena, and "memes" (ugh! anyone incapable of seeing the absurdity of that term is already a victim) and overly enthusiastic persuance of feuds, conspiracies, and campaigns. In other words, these things are the result of the age skew. Yes, there is a big, big bulge in the age curve at Wikipedia in the 25 and under segment, and it's self-limited by literacy requirements on its low end, but all of that could be written by desperate middle age folks. Our articles, our deeds, show the skew. Our articles and our deeds are a young skew. But, since it's always deeds, not persons, I think we can demonstrate the advantages of experience to the younger users or we can demand them. Demanding rarely works. Geogre 03:21, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and about the dismissals aimed at the young -- "ageist comments" aimed at the young -- no one knows anyone's age, so I take these as either clueless and stingless or as comments on the quality of the words. In the case of Bishonen, it's obviously absurd to think that she has been writing in an immature way, so I imagine that those insults were just the flailing arms of a drowning (and probably very young) person. Otherwise, if there is anything to them at all, the message is probably, "You are writing in too many generalizations/with too little knowledge of the context/with too much enthusiasm/too breathlessly/with too much self-satisfaction" but said in a hamfisted way as "immature." Geogre 03:24, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

O RLY? Junior higher. 03:27, 16 May 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Don't be a poopy head! Can't Win for Losing

George raises a relevant point, but this is a matter of systematic bias, not ageism. JoshuaZ 03:31, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wallie, I'm a university student, and I respect the editors who make great contributions. Unless I've seen someone's picture, or they make childish remarks (!), I usually have no idea how old editors are. ~MDD4696 03:49, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm curious what Wallie means by "older". I'm over 50 and said so when I ran for ArbCom; I've never gotten a comment that's indicated any other editors gave a damn one way or another. So maybe if there is a bias against aged editors, I'm still too young to qualify or something. I'll admit that I do sometimes make ageist comments: specifically, if I find myself needing to block a shared school IP for juvenile behavior, my reason for blocking will often be "schoolchild vandalism". It hasn't occurred to me so far to keep an eye out for bad behavior in, say, the 70-plus crowd. Maybe I should. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 04:51, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I believe quite a few of the Arbitration Committee are not young. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 23:49, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The "age problem" seems to crop up when an editor appears to conform to one an age-related stereotypes (e.g., the hackneyed "teenager living in his parent's basement", who seems to be at the heart of every USENET flamewar while at the same time having written the entire Linux kernel while skipping all of his classes). I'd guess that this is because there are so few clues from other Wikipedians about their age, forcing us to project our own expectations upon others.

I'll confess that there was a time when I thought I was the oldest contributor to Wikipedia, with 15-20 years on everyone else (yes, I am older than Jimbo); after having been to a few Wikimeetups, I was very happy to find that there were at least a couple of Wikipedians in my age group, which made me far more comfortable here. (And uncomfortable when I realize that I am acting like a hackneyed "teenager living in his parent's basement".) -- llywrch 23:31, 18 May 2006 (UTC), who edits from his attic.[reply]

This Wikipedian has has a long history of antisocial behaviour and abusive and wholesale reverts. As of a few minutes ago he has a) reverted, across several pages, week-old improvements resulting from many past complaints, a month of discussion, weeks of building consensus not to mention all the work to make the changes. What's more, after I cancelled the abusive reverts, the same followed me around page by page to revert again.

This is but the pinnacle of a long list of disruptive behaviour to many of the pages this user contributes to. It seems that this user sees Wiki as a place to concretize his/her knowledge and opinions, and this in spite of the contributions/questions of other contirbutors about/to his/her work. Never partaking in any constructive or preemptive discussion, this user simply reverts any edit not of his or her taste - and at best searches even the most trifling 'error' to 'justify' a wholesale revert - and if there is no error, 'insinuates' one. This behaviour is seen as arrogant, antisocial, and, most of all, discouraging to other contributors.

This is but the 'act' of it, but recent days have but confirmed this user's pollution of many articles with suggestive, selective and omissive informatons that would suggest a reality that is clearly unreferencable and a joke to those who know better. If you would like to see evidence of this please see to the Talk:Paris pages - there's tons of archives to this end. I have compiled a (long) selection of this user's abuses and misbehaviours over the last months and can provide them when the need be. THEPROMENADER 20:31, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Recent behaviour by Hardouin has indeed reched new depths, where Hardouin will take possession of an article and block any kind of further edit. This has been observed on a large array of articles, such as [50], Gare de Cergy Saint-Christophe, [51]. The sus nammed editor enages in an edit war, not justifying his other than what can be described as he doesn't like it. On many occasions was Hardouin confronted our comments dismissed, deleted [52]. It has come to the unfortunate point where no length of talks, justifications can make Hardouin refrain from blocking articles, even in the case of articles having reached featured status on portals Talk:Gare de Cergy Saint-Christophe. I have had to create a trollbox to keep messages left by Hardouin, these can be found on my talk page. Captain scarlet 06:30, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Amongst vague and general accusations (antisocial behavior?), ThePromenader is refering to a template which he recently created (Template:Major French Cities) and with which he intends to replace the template Template:Large French Cities which has been in existence for more than a year now (see Template:Toulouse infobox or Template:Bordeaux infobox for the original individual versions of the template, before they were standardized into Template:Large French Cities). I have questioned the motives for this new template, and exposed some of the misconceptions of ThePromenader about French cities at Talk:Paris.

Yet instead of clearly answering the points raised or acknowledging errors when I point them out, all I ever get from this user are baseless accusations and hot blooded messages. I can provide a list of ThePromenader's hot blooded and insulting messages that I have received over the months if an administrator wants to have a look at it. When I say insulting, I mean messages in which I am being called a "wily little creature" and other such niceties. Despite this, I have never filed any complaint against ThePromenader, and I believe the proper place for the strong disagreement between ThePromenader and I is mediation rather than incidents, but if ThePromenader insists on treating this at incidents I can bring clear evidence of his oft violent messages. Hardouin 22:11, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I come here after anulling User:Hardouin's third consecutive revert to weeks of work by many - one more and we're in WP:3RR territory. It's a pity that English Wikipedia's French pages still have so few knowledgable contributors that far-flung "concepts" imposed by one can remain unaltered, uncorrected and unsourced for so long, but this can be in no way an argument against improvement and change. The above insinuates much but says nothing, but the facts are this: Our collective work, discussion and consensus of the past weeks, involving, amongst others, a longtime Wiki administrator, has been singlehandedly reverted by a single opinioned contributor who can offer no clear justification for having reverted - three times - and the third after I took the time to bat down the last round of vague allusions that, under no circumstances could ever merit a total, wholesale and widespread revert. This user didn't even look at the template before reverting (proven), and didn't even read the talk page before reverting (now proven). Go figure. THEPROMENADER 22:55, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to point out that the infobox proposed by ThePromenader is not a "collective work" as ThePromenader falsely pretends, but is solely his responsability. Other users have participated in the discussion at Talk:Paris, but it is ThePromenader alone who designed his infobox and decided what to include in it, and what not to include. In particular, I am sorry if this is becoming a little technical, but ThePromenader insisted on including urban area population figures in his infobox alongside the usual metropolitan area population figure found in most other city infoboxes on Wikipedia. According to ThePromenader, the concept of metropolitan area doesn't accurately describe French cities, whereas the concept of urban area is better suited, says he. Unfortunately this is only personal opinion, and absolutely nothing shows or proves that the concept of metropolitan area is less suited to French cities than it is suited to, say, US or German cities. Absolutely no other user asked for urban area figures to be included in the infobox, yet ThePromenader included them anyway. To call this "collective" work is really stretching the meaning of the word "collective". Hardouin 23:23, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I did the graphic work - so what? It's my trade - go figure. I asked each and every person what they thought should go in it, and this personally on their talk page, and the result of this is there for all to see on the Talk:Paris Page. Do comments like "good work" mean nothing? This is not a discussion about the 'merit' of the metropolitan area - which is dumb because the MA info is there. You have absolutely no excuse for your behaviour, and if you are unable to find suitable sources or even build consensus for your unshared and unreferencable theories then tough luck - It wasn't time that was lacking - this has been going on for months! Enough already. THEPROMENADER 00:20, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In light of the nature of the disagreement between ThePromenader and I, I propose to move this thread to mediation. If no compromise is possible, then arbitration will be the last solution. Hardouin 00:52, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I proposed mediation six months ago, ignored and refused by you. I of course am for mediation, but to what end I'm not sure - it's editing habits that must change. The reason this thread is here is because of your inability to deal with fact/reason and other contributors. A bit late after your having broken the WP:3RR rule with no viable justification at all - all on your own. But whatever. I await the results of this. THEPROMENADER 01:17, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You proposed mediation six months ago and supposedly I refused? When? Where? Can you prove it? If you really offered mediation and I refused it, it shouldn't be difficult to find a trace of this with all the history functions on Wikipedia. If you can't find a trace of it, I'm sorry but you'll have to apologize for what you just said. Hardouin 01:39, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly. You want also my requests for Third opinion, IRC chats, and Admin requests for help/advice as well? I've got quite a file on you already compiled. In fact, I warned you about it around three months ago - I hoped I'd never have to use it. Even your sock-puppetry 'event' is there. THEPROMENADER 01:44, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You've got "quite a file" on me? Oh dear. Stalking, stalking... I certainly want to see that mediation offer from 6 months ago though, if it really exists. Hardouin 01:58, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Silly to put it like that, granted, but yes, I've made an archive of all your abusive reverts - for starters. Hold with the totally unjustified 'stalking' claim destined for once-only readers. Find the mediation link here - you of course blanked my message about this from your talk page. In that link you can also find the other forms of aid/mediation I'd initiated previously. THEPROMENADER 07:39, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your mediation link shows: a- that you posted that mediation request 5 months ago without leting me know of it (what a nice attitude!), and b- that I didn't turn it down, since I didn't know about it in the first place. You're making a fool of yourself now Promenader. Hardouin 20:39, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm an outsider to all of this (and not an admin). Not to make light of the troubles obviously involved here, but this is reading like a parody of a Wikipedia dispute (albeit highly entertaining and well-written). Hopefully you can find a mediator you both respect to at least advise on your interactions with each other, if not on the details of the content dispute. So much heat on an issue like this is not only unfortunate for those involved, but reflects badly on Wikipedia in general. David Oberst 08:03, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What THEPROMENADER is trying to show is that Hardouin's behaviour has come to tarnish the pleasure of other users on Wikipedia, blocking changes on articles and not participating in discussions when a member comes to suggest an update. At worst Hardouin's revert and edits show inaccurate and erronous statements which THEPROMENADER has no doubt a collection of. I suggest that THEPROMENADER does indeed show what a few of us believe so that this detrimental behaviour comes to an end, since no short warnings are taken into account and blanked, along with any kind of messaging on Hardouin's Talkpage. You say you are seeing this from an outsider's point of view, I can assure you it is only the tip of the iceberg. Replies have indeed been well written, because they are true, and researched and supplemented by facts, just as Wikipedia should be. Captain scarlet 08:22, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To better understand Captain Scarlet's point of view here, people should have a look at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive94#User:Captain scarlet and Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#User:Captain scarlet. No further comments needed. Hardouin 19:22, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well you have been blocked twice for breaking the 3RR rule, and no stirring trouble or personal attacks can take that away from you. This warning concerns our behaviour, and no one else's. Captain scarlet 23:32, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pinkboy7 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log): I spotted this editor because he changed Aktenzeichen XY... ungelöst and America's Most Wanted around to say that the former was inspired by the latter, rather than the other way around (Aktenzeichen was in fact on the air 20 years before Most Wanted). I then noticed he was adding Category:Crime Epics to a lot of real crime-related articles such as Bonanno crime family, a category which a) doesn't exist, b) probably never will and c) certainly isn't suited to real-life crime families - plus he wasn't only adding them, but replacing legit categories such as Category:Five Families.

I asked him to stop three times, the last time making it clear that I would block, then having had no response, I blocked him for an hour ~20 minutes ago in the hope of getting his attention. He's obviously not a vandal, but by replacing good categories with bad ones he was damaging articles, and when he kept doing it after three requests to stop without even trying to communicate, it was either block him or leave him. Please keep an eye on his contributions when his block expires. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 22:57, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have reblocked indefinitely. This is a return of Stoneboy3 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and Fearboy3 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Do NOT mistake this for some clueless newbie, this is a vandal. -- Curps 04:16, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You forgot Painboy3 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Kimchi.sg 04:41, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In hindsight, here's an even older sockpuppet: Carboy3 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Same general pattern: petty messing with category and stubs, never ever replying to any talk inquiries, a particular focus on crime-related articles, some minor deletion of content, etc. That particular sock stopped of its own accord, not yet having done anything serious enough to get blocked (but I've blocked it now). -- Curps 20:38, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please defrock this rogue admin a.s.a.p., see Template talk:User kon. Intentionally ignoring CFD, CDP, and DRV demonstrates a fundamental disrespect of the commnunity. -- Omniplex 23:53, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hold your horses. All he did was change the name of the category from "user con" to "Wikipedians who use the Yahoo! Widget Engine". Ashibaka tock 00:28, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Category:Wikipedians who use the Yahoo! Widget Engine actually, so it needs a rename either way. Kotepho 00:44, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed by removing the double Category: (obviously that part was accidental). Omniplex, is renaming Category:User kon to Category:Wikipedians who use the Yahoo! Widget Engine really so unreasonable?! --Cyde Weys 00:55, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's uglier than "User:kon" - I submitted it erroneously for the first CFD in March, and I still don't like it, but CDP says "use TFD", the DRV fixed my error, a 2nd erroneous CFD got no consensus, and ignoring CDP+DRV+CFD for this bogus category with a more ugly name makes no sense. -- Omniplex 08:30, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have to say, Cyde is really growing on me. — Phil Welch (t) (c) 00:42, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I need to be desysopped immediately for renaming a category. /me sighs. --Cyde Weys 00:53, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

renaming a category a category without community consensus that is. 70.48.250.138 00:56, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:BOLD. Read up on it. This category renaming was soooo obvious I didn't need to waste other people's time at CFD. --Cyde Weys 00:58, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yet If I boldly edit your userpage, i surely would've been banned. 70.48.250.138 01:37, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I dunno, it depends on what you put on there. Try me. --Cyde Weys 01:39, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is not the first case in which Cyde has closed on his own whim and against consensus; but if Cyde is going to get away with consistently being judge in his own case:

• Unblocking himself early because it was inconvenient;
• Closing his own TfD nominations 3 days early and against consensus;
• Blocking Salix Alba for notifying members of a cat he had put on CfD;

Then we certainly shouldn't do anything for this. Septentrionalis 01:43, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• It really bugs you that I can block and unblock myself and you can't, doesn't it :-P Cyde Weys 02:13, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Trolling again, Cyde? Septentrionalis 02:45, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Defrocked"? Cyde, do you wear frocks? User:Zoe|^(talk) 02:03, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• My frocks are all pink, lacy, and made by Gucci. And no one is going to be taking my frocks away. --Cyde Weys 02:12, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • You may be interested in Male Unbifurcated Garment.  :) User:Zoe|^(talk) 01:27, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• You'll be personally excommunicated by Jimbo. Ashibaka tock 02:35, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yahoo has no place on the internet. Move for lifetime ban immediately. -- Daniel Davis 02:41, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• As someone who strongly opposes and disagrees with almost everything User:Cyde does concerning userboxes, I can confidently state that the above category-renaming is an extremely reasonable and good one, and am honestly amazed that such a ridiculously trivial and clearly beneficial change is what we're discussing here, not something like the {{user christian}} debacle. Come on. Is this a joke? This must be a joke. -Silence 02:49, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How many userboxes has this user deleted in the last few days. And all of them against the waiting time which is specified for TfD. I would say that this gross breach of policy would be worth a very close look at. Its not acceptable to have an admin running around doing what they personally want while ignoring consensus and policy. Ansell Review my progress! 07:27, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to remind you that Cyde is also the author of this version of {{user Christian}} template who, by changing this userbox, embelished more than a hundred userpages with a spinning crucifix on top of an article-length rant. Friendly Neighbour 07:48, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And you're the one that violated WP:OWN and WP:AGF by claiming that the userbox was somehow sacred (pardon the pun) and editing it in a way you didn't like was vandalism. If you don't want a userbox on your user page to change, subst it. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 09:31, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please show me the edit where I claimed userboxes are sacred. You seem to mix up my (twice) reverting what I deemed (and still deem) a simple vandalism by Cyde & Gmaxwell (please note that arguing an edit is vandalism is explicitely allowed under WP:NPA) and my voice in discussion saying that templates should be treated more lentient than articles under WP:OWN because the persons who don't like a template may create an alternative one. Since when discussing WP:OWN is breaking it? Also, do you mean that arguing that what Cyde and Gmaxwell did was vandalism means breaking WP:AGF? I believe that WP:AGF is about accusing about bad intentions, not criticizing past deeds: "This policy does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary. Things which can cause the loss of good faith include vandalism, personal attacks, sockpuppetry and edit warring. Assuming good faith also does not mean that no action by editors should be criticized, it only means that one should not ascribe said action to malice.". Please show me an edit where I assumed malice. I can show you one where Cyde assumed malice on my part (like this one - please compare the tone of Cyde's edit with the one by myself he responds to). Friendly Neighbour 10:17, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What you're also doing is violating WP:CIVIL by bringing up this incidenct at every possible opportunity, on every page, in every context. --InShaneee 16:09, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nice try. None of the uncivility examples in the policy bears any similarity to reminding a user's previous tresspass on WP:ANI. You must be joking. Friendly Neighbour 18:13, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I support the discussion of admin abuse of powers, particularly in a situation where the admin in question has brought up their POV relating to userboxes on almost every template they can find, without at least letting the situation reach consensus and then cool down sufficiently. You can hardly call that civil if you believe that the discussion of the events are not civil. I call it an admin making a WP:POINT Ansell Review my progress! 12:03, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:Oldwindybear, an elderly, disabled gentleman who I have worked with previously brought the following matter to Requests for mediation. I've edited out some of the text which I felt was mediation-specific; I initally agreed to help put it in the required format for RfM, but on reading and looking into the surface of the matter, felt it was better handled outside mediation. Since I'm the one handling the mediation side of it, I don't feel quite comfortable undertaking an investigation; could someone, perhaps someone with a better knowledge of the situation, take a look and see what can be done? As I say, OWB is an older gentleman, and has difficulty with some aspects of electronic communication, but is an excellent contributor; he even goes to the Library of Congress regularly to do research for articles. I'd really appreciate someone looking into the whole situation. Below is the somewhat edited version of his comments on RfM; the full post can be viewed here (it's now been removed from RfM). Essjay (Talk • Connect) 06:10, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Notice has been filed on this user's talk page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Mytwocents I allege the following:

• constant unending personal attacks such as the ones on the alleged sock puppet charge, a charge he knows to be false, and yet made it solely to intimidate people from opposing him - which, if you check the other user's page, he has evidently suceeded at - that user will no longer edit in wikipedia due to the barrage of false accusations;
• falsely accusing me of sock puppeting;
• lying about me to editors;
• calling me names on an administers talk page;
• edits talk pages and deletes sections as though he is some master of the language - where are his credentials to do such? He has none except his vicious personal agenda against those who disagree with him;
• attempting to bully, harass and intimidate every person who dares disagree with him - I have gotten two private emails from other members applauding my refusing to be bullied by his vicious, unending, vile personal, attacks.
• why is it that every other user got along fine with the peer review on Bonnie and Clyde except this one? BECAUSE HE COULD NOT GET HIS POV WAY. He asked for a peer review, then whined, cried, moaned, and launched every vicious personal attack he could on me when others did not see things his way;
• he should NOT be on wikipedia in any capacity, and I beg the committee, once the check/user on the false sock puppet is done, and an examination of the edits, showing no similarity to my work, to punish him severely for the false accusation, and his unending personal bile;
• I am quoting directly from one of the emails: "this person is the most arrogant and meanspirited person on wikipedia, and hopefully after this phony sock puppet charge, they will finally kick him off." I will gladly forward the emails to you! Other people are tired of this vile neverending personal assaults that typify this user.

You know from way back that I detest sock puppets, and no more insulting attack coudl have been made on me - and I am just waiting for the committee to run check/user and assess the edits, and then I truly believe the committee should address teh fact that this guy used a wikipedia tool which is supposed to be reserved for real cases, to retaliate, and effectively drove a new user and contributor out of wikipedia by making it so unpleasant, he says he won't be back. As I point out on teh sock puppet page, while of course, I, like anyone, appreciate compliments on my work, the user in question was not even really involved in the peer review - all those folks and I got only great, we identified the issues in question, and except for Mytwocents were all happy in consensus with the result. He then called me names on an admin's talk page, made the charge that AnnH has said has no proof whatsoever, (if making the first comment on someone's talk page was proof, she, an editor, had done so also! - and which I did out of sarcasm after Mytwocents begin hinting I was using puppets in the review - which again, when you examine it, you will see is totally false.

Anyway, I am not the first person this user attacked. He needs to be curtailed, and the unending viciousness put to a stop.

I and others have witnessed the attacks. Honestly, I would have no problem with mytwocents being blocked for a short time for incivility and for violating no personal attacks. --Woohookitty^(meow) 06:35, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Before I'm blocked, I'd like a chance to delete, or line out any personal atacks or apologize for any incivility.Mytwocents 06:52, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why not get started straight away? Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 08:32, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Show me the diffs Mytwocents 16:02, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:Cyde recently engaged in some use of blocks to further a pattern of personal attacks.

I have been editing Cuba, and got drawn into an edit-war; a bit hot-headed on my part. I got carried away on reverting some POV-mongering by User:KDRGibby (7RR) and User:Drogo Underburrow. When I realized I made a fourth reversion, I emailed User:MONGO to tell him that in the interest of procedural fairness, he should place a 3RR block on me; later Drogo Underburrow filed a 3RR on me that was actually incorrect, having claimed several unrelated edits as reversions; but if the report had been more accurate, there was a 3RR in there.

Shortly thereafter (before MONGO had seen the email), Cyde started at some drastic misbehavior that is a concern to me:

1. Cyde has previously engaged in aggressive personal attacks on me on unrelated matters, and should recuse himself from this particular block. Moreover, he had not been following 3RR reports in the same timeframe, but simply noticed my name, and saw an opportunity to "get even" for an earlier RfC against him.
2. Cyde blocked me, User:Zleitzen and User:Myciconia, all without giving any notice of the block on our talk pages.
3. Cyde blocked Zleitzen entirely for editing in the same "direction" I had, even though Zleitzen absolutely did not violate 3RR.
4. Cyde refused to block Drogo Underburrow who had violated 3RR on the same page (but in the opposite direction as Zleitzen, Myciconia and I), even after being notified of the inconsistency.

Overall, it's obvious that Cyde is using blocks out of a vendetta and in contempt of 3RR guidelines. This sort of misuse of administrative powers have been pretty much a uniform M.O. by Cyde. LotLE×talk 07:06, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bah. Three reverts isn't an entitlement, and if there was an edit war all around blocking everyone involved seems not to be unreasonable. — Phil Welch (t) (c) 07:09, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Seriously, he didn't even bother to post anything at the WP:3RR board [53]...nor informed a single editor he'd blocked them...looks to me like he saw the 3RR report...went "gotcha", and hit the ole block button.--MONGO 07:44, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It might have been reasonable if Cyde's blocks had not, in fact, been purely one-sided. I let Cyde know in email that if he wanted to be consistent, he would need to include Drogo Underburrow (who actually violated 3RR, moreover). I don't think Cyde's actions were even motivated by the underlying politics of the edit matter (my hunch is he'd probably be closer to the NPOV Zleitzen, Myciconia and I were trying to maintain, even if we were too agressive)... I think his actions are pure vendetta at a personal level. LotLE×talk 07:31, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lotus-eaters claim that I violated 3-rr is complete fiction. Cyde is absolutely correct in not blocking me. Lotus-eater has no regard for civilty; he calls other editors contributions as "pov-mongering" as he did here, and he frequently call other editors contributions far worse names. Considering the amount of incivility he displays, he is lucky if he doesn't get blocked further. For examples of his incivility, look at his contributions to the Cuba talk page. Drogo Underburrow 07:50, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Request for block review of Lulu of the Lotus Eaters

Crossposting is bad, so I've moving this thread here to join it's other half at wp:ani. - brenneman{L} 08:04, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cyde (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) blocked Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters (talk · contribs) yesterday at 4:47 UTC for 24 hours for a 3RR violation on Cuba. Cyde did not notify Lulu on his talk page. Today at 00:29 UTC, MONGO (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) unblocked Lulu, saying that Cyde was an involved admin. I just reblocked Lulu for the remainder of his block length as an uninvolved admin, and as is my general custom, I request community input on this block. Ral315 (talk) 06:22, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like the preventative rather than punative question, if post the unblock Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters (talk · contribs) discontinued edit warring, then there is no need for any further time blocked. --pgk^(talk) 06:40, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lulu has indicated he's leaving Cuba alone. I've complained countless times that admins get a free pass on 3rr (see "Decision not to have a fellow admin blocked" above) when we are totally mechanical about the blocking of the peasants for it. Can we be a bit more consistant, please? - brenneman^{L} 06:49, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To reiterate, the reason I reblocked was because MONGO unblocked with the complaint that it was an involved admin, and I felt MONGO had problems with Cyde, making the unblocking more out of spite than anything. I've unblocked with Lulu's assurance that he won't edit the page, but my problem is that MONGO didn't ask for such an assurance. Ral315 (talk) 06:53, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I call bullshit...Lulu told me in email that he was going to leave the article alone, and I told him on his talk page to do so. Cyde failed to leave any comment at the WP:3RR page[54] and also didn't bother to tell Lulu he was blocked. My onblocking was almost at the end of his block anyway...and as noted on the 3RR page, Lulu had filed an Rfc previously about Cyde...you better get your facts straight before you go wheel warring with me.--MONGO 07:24, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

With all due respect, you cited your block reason as Cyde's involvement. I was re-affirming the block as an uninvolved admin. This wasn't wheel-warring, this was a genuine attempt to enforce what I believed a fair block. If you intended the block to stick, you should have left a summary that actually referenced why you made the unblock. Ral315 (talk) 10:05, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I should have done as I did...you shouldn't be so petty as to reimpose a block for a lousy couple of hours...ridiculous. Go write an encyclopedia article.--MONGO 11:43, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, MONGO did ask that, and I assured him. But some of it might have been in email rather than on my talk page. I actually requested that MONGO block me yesterday, in the interest of fairness (also probably in email), so I'm not really concerned about the block itself. But the fact that Cyde so unambiguously was blocking out of revenge rather than actual guidelines is a concern... i.e. his failure to notify and his block of User:Zleitzen who's only sin was editing in the same "direction" as I had on the Cuba article (and absolutely did not violate 3RR), while refusing to block an editor on the other side (User:Drogo Underburrow) for actual 3RR violation. LotLE×talk 07:20, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, I was blocked simply for sorting out the page after a banned user KDRGibby had been deleting paragraphs in frustration and adding duplicate material, as per discussion with administrators of that block. I edited three times on two different paragraphs. One of which was because I was under the impression that KDRGibby had been banned, but he popped up again to revert so I had to act again. I wasn't warned or notified of my block and received no apology from Cyde, who unblocked me after communications with the comment "long enough". I was able to get another administrator to add a disclaimer that my block was in error. Still, it leaves a rather unpleasant taste. And more than anything makes me wonder whether this is the online community for me. --Zleitzen 07:54, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cyde didn't block me because I didn't violate 3-RR. It had nothing to do with what "side" I was on, and everything to do with the simple fact that I didn't violate 3-RR. Drogo Underburrow 08:23, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pretty close...[55], [56], and attempted to add back one full paragraph from the other two additions [57] and all this after a report just days ago...[58]...nothing personal, just don't try to game the system.--MONGO 08:34, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I won't. And I didn't. Also the report is meaningless; a bogus filing that served to introduce me to the world of 3-rr reporting. I didn't violate the policy then, that report was filed by an editor who doesn't know what reverts are, and thought because I made four edits I had made four reverts. No action was taken against me, because I didn't do anything.

Lulu, on the other hand, had spent the entire day edit-warring, making edit after edit that reverted what other editors were trying to do. That is why he got blocked. Now, he makes up a lie that I violated 3-RR, probably intended to make Cyde look bad. Drogo Underburrow 09:00, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Drogo's correct that I don't like gross violations of NPOV by him and some other editors. But in terms of the 3RR issue itself, I reverted exactly four times, not any more than that. Which as I've said, means I earned a block, and which I recognize was wrong of me (and which is why I asked to be blocked). But Drogo's 3RR report, and his complaint above, is just a rambling list of edits to various sections of the article that he didn't like because it didn't advance his editorial position. In any case, the problems with Cyde's actions aren't the fact I was blocked (which was proper), but the fact that he did it, without any notification, and that he blocked non-3RR editors on a selective basis. LotLE×talk 16:39, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Don't know how relevant this is, but Drogo filed a frivolous report against me the other day in transparent retaliation for an accurate report about his own actual violation.Timothy Usher 06:24, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's not relevant. You say I violated 3-RR. You filed a report. No action was taken, not even a warning, nada. So much for your claim. I filed a claim against you as well, believing that you had violated the rule. No action was taken against you either. Why are you wasting space here on old 3-RR claims that no admin even bothered to respond to? Are you going to never drop this matter? No one cares but me and you. Drogo Underburrow 06:35, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Recently Template:User sumofpi was listed on TfD. The outcome was overwhelmingly Keep. The template was then deprecated by subst'ing and deleted anyway. I have just restored it. This same situation with templates being deleted following clear votes to keep has occurred on other templates. I have not restored those others because I think we need to settle this here and now rather than starting another silly war over little rectangles.

Do we have rules and procedures or not?

I don't really care one way or another whether there exists a userbox that lists the value of 'pi'... but if we have a policy which says that we have TfD's on whether or not to keep these then we have to abide by that policy. Not put things on TfD and then delete them anyway regardless of the outcome. Doing so amounts to going out of our way to antagonize the general users by blatantly demonstrating a complete disregard for the concepts of 'consensus' and 'policy' that we are supposed to be upholding.

If you want to be able to delete userboxes at whim then follow process to get a new 'speedy delete all userboxes' criteria added. Or rewrite the policies to 'admins can do anything they want and users just have to accept that'. However, so long as we continue to publically claim to believe in some sort of 'due process' and decisions by 'community consensus' this kind of behaviour cannot stand. --CBDunkerson 11:16, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes, we do. Next time I'd appreciate a friendly note my talk page before a complaint is brought here. We're both admins and we can both civil to each other, I should think. Mackensen (talk) 11:32, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Check your talk page. :] --CBDunkerson 11:34, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• People can disagree over whether or not they'd have closed the TfD in the same way as Mackensen did here. However, your post to AN/I like this, and your immediate action in undeleting and screaming about Mackensen's supposed abuse of process leads me to assume one of two things: a) you don't have a clue what you're talking about (I know this is not the case), or b) you're making a massive assumption of bad faith on Mackensen's part. Please, this is not appropriate. There's a DRV in progress. If you'd have closed differently, why not just mosey on over there and say "I'd have closed differently"? This sort of action only seems necessary if you think Mackensen is wilfully acting in bad faith ... fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 11:38, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • You're kidding right? You are actually claiming that there was some way to interpret that TfD discussion as a consensus to delete? Really? And to be clear... yes, I think Mackensen was willfully acting in bad faith. Closing a deletion debate you started is not a good thing. Closing it as 'delete' when there is no possible way to see that as the consensus is not a good thing. Mackensen, Cyde, and others involved are blatantly disregarding policy and consensus. --CBDunkerson 11:47, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Of course not. (My understanding of) The way he interpreted it was that, while everyone wanted the content kept, those arguing for deletion were saying it didn't belong in template namespace, while those arguing for keeping just didn't want the content to go away. I can see how someone, closing in good faith, would say "okay, we'll keep the content and remove it from the template namespace". I've made analogous calls myself, many times, on AfD, without complaint. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 11:55, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• • • If you think I'm willfully acting in bad faith...wow. In that case you're in the wrong place. You need to RfC me now and start working on an arbitration case because I've obviously gone off the deep end and need to be defrocked (is that the phrase that's popular these days?) Heaven forfend that any admin ever uses his judgement, or makes an unpopular decision. Note that I reversed myself when it became apparent people thought I was nuts. Mackensen (talk) 12:12, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• To save you counting, I'll add that the votes were: 23 for Keep (18) or Strong keep (5) and 4 for Delete (2) or Subst and delete(2). The "consensus" result was apparently Subst and delete according to Mackensen who did exactly that. I know that this "vote" is supposed to be rather a discussion to seek consensus. But if a consensus was found, it was the exact reverse of how the TfD was concluded. Friendly Neighbour 11:39, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Stop. TfD is not a vote. How many times do you need to be told that? fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 11:41, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Have you bothered to actually read what I wrote? Friendly Neighbour 11:43, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Of course; it's one courtesy I always try to extend. You posted a vote count; regardless of how sophisticated it was (and I admit, it's better than the standard "4 delete 3 keep" thing we see from the clueless on AfD) it's meaningless. The comments of each user were not included in your post, but the comments are important. People are better off looking at the TfD and making their own minds up than having you poke vote tallies in their noses. It's one thing to look at the TfD and say "I don't read it the same way Mackensen did", but quite another to look at it and say "I count this many votes for x, y, or z!" fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 11:47, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• I wrote that I know TfD is not a vote but consensus seeking and you reply with "TfD is not a vote". I'm glad we agree but why order me to Stop? My point was that if a consensus was there, it was not the same concensus Mackensen found. I do hope it is clear now. Friendly Neighbour 11:52, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Well, TfD may not be a vote, but it isn't "let's hear some opinions and then do what we wanted all along anyway" either. -- grm_wnr Esc 11:56, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What I want, more than anything else, is to see people assume good faith now and then. I acted upon what seemed to me three speedy keeps and closed in the best possible manner. What better way to keep the "template" than to subst it and get it out of harm's way? I'm trying to save the boxes at this point, damn it. Mackensen (talk) 12:03, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And what I want more than anything else is that people would stop automatically saying "AGF!!!" whenever someone criticisea their actions. For the record, I think you had the best interests of the encyclopedia in mind when you closed that TfD (against consensus, in my opinion, making it a good-faith IAR), but that doesn't mean I have to agree it was the right thing to do. -- grm_wnr Esc 13:22, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's all I'm looking for. From the above comments, I didn't feel I was getting even that. Mackensen (talk) 13:24, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Well, I thought I had found consensus. The only consensus I'm seeing here is that people believe I didn't follow policy/process. I assure that I believed, and still believe, that I did. In any case, the box has been undeleted and is on DRVU anyway. Mackensen (talk) 11:56, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• You believed, and still believe, that policy/process allows the person nominating a template for deletion to be the one who closes the discussion? Really? If so, then my apologies... the problem is not bad faith but lack of understanding of the process. However, I really have to strain the AGF muscles to believe that and that you thought there was a consensus to delete the templates so long as the content was kept. I don't see how you could have reached that conclusion, and obviously (based on the objections) it wasn't the intent of the participants, but if you really thought that was the 'consensus' you are again merely incorrect. I suggest that at best your view of the desired outcome colored your interpretation of the 'consensus'... which is why you shouldn't have been closing it in the first place. --CBDunkerson 12:35, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Now I'm confused. Cyde Weys just wrote that admins closing their own nominations is not controversial as long as the decision itself is not controversial (which I think I understand, and even possibly agree with). Who's right here, or is it all a matter of interpretation? -- nae'blis _(talk) 22:19, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Why bring up the tally at all? The TfD is there for anyone who wants to go look at it (and I encourage them to do so, and participate in the DRV). It's very ... annoying ... to see people referring to numbers as if they mean anything, not least because the less-clueful-than-you are likely to get confused. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 11:57, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• I count 8 keep votes (more if 'as above' votes are interpreted to refer to only the vote above, but I discount that) that specifically refer to the template being harmless/worth retention. I am not commenting on the relative merits of the arguments, but having read them IMO the keep votes have sufficient weight to at least suggest a 'no concensus' result. BTW, it strikes me that we'd all save a bit of time if an official policy re userboxes was reached and supported. Colonel Tom 12:55, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Couldn't agree more. Comments desired at WP:MACK. Mackensen (talk) 13:07, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Somebody just said they valued policy over product. Rules-lawyering and process wankery needn't be given the time of day. Recommend community ban or immediate archival. — May. 16, '06 [13:43] <freak|talk>

  Wow. Can't really make any other response to that. Just... wow. --CBDunkerson 17:56, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• I wonder what is the use of TfD these days when things like this happens. - Mailer Diablo 17:29, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I see Mack's viewpoint, but I also see the overwhelming consensus to keep the userbox. I do wonder what the use of TfD is as well. I think that the debate should've run the full course Will (^E_@) T 17:48, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• At this stage there's little disagreement on the matter. I also welcome your input at WP:MACK. Mackensen (talk) 17:50, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• no comment on good faith or bad faith but this template should have been kept because of the consensus Yuckfoo 19:04, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki-star (talk · contribs) has been uploading unsourced images for months now, despite many warnings. This diff [59] from his pre-blanking talk page shows a sample of the warnings left by OrphanBot and others. On several occasions other users have asked Wiki-star to provide sources for his images, but he simply replies that he is working on them; looking at his backlog of OrphanBot warnings, he hasn't sourced a single one, all the while continuing to upload new images without sources. Isopropyl 14:32, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• (Dare I show my face around here?) Well, I'd say that an administrator needs to warn him; if he doesn't respond in a reasonable length of a time a block is probably in order. Has he gotten any non-OrphanBot warnings? Mackensen (talk) 14:35, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have, here. He hasn't uploaded anything since I've talked to him (that I can see, anyways), but I don't know how long that'll last. Snoutwood (talk) 14:47, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Then I suggest we table the matter unless he starts up again. Mackensen (talk) 14:49, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have warned him on a number of occasions, with later warnings suggesting that he stop uploading images until he sorts the existing ones out. Isopropyl 14:59, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If the user doesn't follow this advice, indef-block until they commit to it. It would be useful if we could turn off a particular user's ability to upload files. Then again, being this sloppy with sourcing their file uploads may be an indicator for a lack of respect for the project that we can do without. Jkelly 16:55, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The idea's been kicked around before but it bumps up against the notion of being a wiki, to say nothing about being additional instruction creep. Mackensen (talk) 17:00, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Being a wiki doesn't give us the right to infringe copyrights. If he uploads any more unsourced images, block him until he promises not to do it again. If he does it again after that, block indefinitely. Enforcing our copyright policy isn't instruction creep. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:54, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I understand Mackensen's objections, but I wonder if a proscription against a user's uploading images (where he/she has continually contravened our policies with respect to tagging and sourcing) is much different from a proscription against a user's editing a specific articles or articles w/r/to a certain topic where the user has been disruptive on such article or topic. I imagine that we'd not want image uploading-specific blocks to be doled out only by the ArbComm, as almost every article- or subject-specific ban is, but I think that, where a user may be productive on the whole but disruptive relative to certain specific articles/categories/actions, it's appropriate that we take action such that the users productive edits may continue whilst the destructive edits cease. Joe 22:36, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be up for at least a short block on this user. Talking to him is impossible; you get mostly wild paranoia mixed with some patronizing comments. Isopropyl 22:58, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can do. OrphanBot currently inspects every image upload; it would be trivially simple to check for uploads by a given user and tag them for speedy deletion. --Carnildo 01:42, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

this keeps happennning: [60] [61] every time it is spam for uzhgorod.ua can someone please blacklist it thanks Yuckfoo 19:01, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The second one, 196.12.137.52 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), was an open proxy and I have indef blocked it. If he's hopping around, try posting over at m:Spam blacklist to have the URL blocked. --GraemeL ^(talk) 20:50, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have blocked 72.21.45.10 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) for a week for spamming (creation of spam pages at locations such as Talk:Cold fusion/w/index.php, Talk:Snowboarding/, Talk:Unbibium/, Portal talk:Lithuania/wiki/Portal talk:Lithuania/Guest book/ Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Danah boyd/index.php, Talk:W/w/index.php, Talk:W/index.php). 84.108.242.113 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) and 86.51.0.131 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) also seem to take part in the spamming (I haven't taken any action yet for them). - Mike Rosoft 21:35, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

84.108.242.113 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) is an open proxy and I have indef blocked it. The other two test clean. --GraemeL ^(talk) 22:04, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have blocked 195.93.60.132 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) for a month for ban evasion. The IP is static, and he admits in this edit that he is MutterErde (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), who was indefinitely banned by Jimbo Wales. Chick Bowen 00:49, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The IP is static... Is that a special kind of humour? Man man man, you have blocked AOL Europe. Why nobody tells you ? 23:44, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

http://www.ripe.net/fcgi-bin/whois?searchtext=195.93.60.132 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.93.60.33 (talk • contribs) .

Actually, whoever that up there is, he's right [62]. You should probably consider shortening the block, given that AOL IPs are almost always shared. AmiDaniel (talk) 23:50, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See this too. I unblocked the IP as well. Prodego ^talk 00:14, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am quite tired of MutterErde's manipulations. It may be a shared IP, but MutterErde is the only one using it here, and it is obviously not the usual AOL-style dynamic IP, because he always has the same one. I have blocked it again, albeit for a shorter duration. Please note that as an indefinitely banned user, MutterErde is not permitted to post here or at individual talk pages. Chick Bowen 16:24, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

AOL does seem to provide DSL service in Germany, but 195.93.60.132 seems to resolve as "cache-frr-ae04.proxy.aol.com", so it looks like it may be an AOL caching proxy instead of someone's semi-permanent DSL IP. No way of knowing how many people the proxy might be serving, but there might be at least the possibility of affecting other AOL editors there with a long block. The unsigned comment from 195.93.60.33 resolves to another proxy (cache-frr-ab01.proxy.aol.com), so MutterErde may either be able to access from a number of these by resetting his AOL connection, or have had a friend also on the AOL Germany network make the post. David Oberst 16:56, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, then I guess we'll just have to keep putting short-term blocks on whatever IPs he uses when he shows up. Since he's currently in the habit of signing his posts, he's not difficult to spot. I'm sure he'll be along to comment on this conversation sooner or later. Chick Bowen 17:07, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Hi folks, is there any reason why User:MutterErde´s user page is suddenly red? Who had this idea and for what reason? Greetings 17:30, 17 May 2006 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.93.60.33 (talk • contribs) .[reply]

See Pathoschild's comment here. Chick Bowen 23:48, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh thank you. Do I understand Pathoschild's lines correct? He has created a new category/template (As far as I know MutterErde was banned in September 2005 not in May 2006 - by Jimbo himself, nobody else) but this might involve problems with his new creation and so he has deleted the whole site? Reality bites? Seems very funny to me:-) .Greetings 10:21, 18 May 2006 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.93.60.33 (talk • contribs) .

The subcategorisation by date is new, but the template is not. The user page was deleted because the same template was placed on both userpages, which placed both User:MutterErde and User_talk:MutterErde in the category. Most of the blocks predating May 2006 are correctly categorised to Category:Wikipedia:Indefinitely blocked users/Prior or during May 2006. A few pages, such as this one, were protected and could not be edited by the bot. // [admin] Pathoschild (^talk/_map) 14:08, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As directed by Essjay, I am bringing this incident here. This request for user check was confirmed. But no action was taken and it is now closed. Prin continues to upload photos violating copyrights - see Prin log, Benzee log and Jath16 log. Anwar 01:09, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

All three users indefinitely blocked, and their uploads speedy deleted. Ral315 (talk) 02:16, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

One of his old puppets User:Jathu is still unblocked. Anwar 04:48, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The block log lists an indefinite block performed by Jayjg on April 23, which is confirmed by the IP block list. He's quite blocked. Chick Bowen 16:39, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh ok, there was no sp cat tag on his user page. So I was unsure. Now I have tagged the user page of all his puppets. Anwar 22:28, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Many admins will remember Robsteadman (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and his dramatic exit — talking about the "christian cabal", wanting his user page deleted (which I did), then claiming that edits made from his account weren't from him, getting completely hysterical at Deskana's RfA, using sockpuppets, and finally getting himself blocked indefinitely. Someone has alerted me to the existence of Robertsteadman (talk · contribs). As can be seen from the histories of Lady Manners School (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and Bakewell (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), there is some overlap with the contributions of Robsteadman. At a first glance, the contributions look inoffensive. But, if it is the same user, then there's a problem with a blocked/banned user coming back under a new identity. And if it isn't, then shouldn't there be a username block? AnnH ♫ 01:14, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have been direct and simply asked the user if they are Robsteadman (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), and if they're not exactly how they decided on that name. See User talk:Robertsteadman. --Lord Deskana ^{Dark Lord of the Sith} 10:08, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Robertsteadman (talk · contribs) basically refused to answer the question. What is to be done, then? --Lord Deskana ^{Dark Lord of the Sith} 18:12, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Frankly, that answer seems to confirm that it is Rob Steadman the indefinitely banned user. I'm willing to be the bad guy and block the account as a suspected sockpuppet of an indefbanned user. Innocuous edits aside, if it is Robsteadman he exhausted at least my personal patience in that last episode. I don't know about the community's patience. Syrthiss 18:24, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What has surprised me is that he's not totally flown off the handle like he normally did with intereactions with me. I don't oppose a block. I can't imagine anyone would complain. --Lord Deskana ^{Dark Lord of the Sith} 20:54, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

At risk of pointing out the obvious, maybe it's not the Rob Steadman you knew. Perhaps more importantly, does it really matter? If a habitually disruptive person makes a new account after being banned, that account will get banned eventually on its own merits, regardless of whether it's ever linked to a previous account. But if, say, Jason Gatrich decided to come back and be a model citizen, we'd never even think to do a Checkuser. This suggests that indefinite bans are a policy error. Al 22:13, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You may well be right. But it is a policy and as such needs to be upheld and be seen to be upheld. Is there no way back from being banned? Apologies? Commitment to changed behaviour? whatever ? If so then it should be offered to Rob/Robert. Frelke 22:20, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lots of things are policy, yet are often ignored. Perhaps this case is a good candidate. Al 22:54, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the link to the previous incident for anyone like me who needed to refresh their memory on the details [63]. The only strange thing that happened during that time that I didn't report is that I was e-mailed by User:Vhjh (a banned Rob sock) who claimed to be a student in Rob's A'level music class. She also said that she had e-mailed Jayjg as well but I never saw any response to this so I don't know if that's true. Is an automatic ban necessary as the account seems to have been active for a few weeks without problems? If anything this user has been pretty busy in article space which is always good. If Rob's previous account had a stupidly simple password it is possible it was hacked. Even I as an ex system manager only realised a few weeks ago how easy it would be to guess my password from my user page details and rapidly changed it. The telling point will be if the socks or vandal comments were made from his home IP - the check user could confirm this. If so then there is no doubt it was him that did it - but if it was all done from the shared IP (or unrelated IP's) then it is less clear and maybe AGF could be invoked? Perhaps putting the account on probation would be another way of giving them a chance but letting them know that any misbehaving and they're out? Just my 2 penn'th (this all assumes it's too much of a coincidence that two Rob Steadman's live in Matlock). Sophia 22:50, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I left a message on his talk page about meat puppetry, and he attacks me. I did nothing wrong but point out the policy on Meat Puppetry. He has many times removed warning tags, etc from his talk page. Ardenn 01:47, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

He also removed it from Talk:Queen's University. Ardenn 01:48, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What's the focus of the dispute? Where's the alleged meatpuppetry (mmm...meat) taking place? Mackensen (talk) 01:50, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's taking place at Talk:Queen's University. A new user, LeftCoast (talk · contribs) and Tykell (talk · contribs) who go to the school, popped up recently. Ardenn 01:52, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm just trying to ensure this remains a neutral, fair impartial debate. I did list it on RFC. Ardenn 01:53, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I warn him about 3RR, and he removes it from his talk page. Ardenn 01:57, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ardenne you need to stop being agressive and stop trying to bully other editors. You cannot behavwe in this manner. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 05:45, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Then start condoning the personal attacks and other complaints listed here. Ardenn 05:47, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Let's see - you try to bully him. He gets a bit upset over it. And you want me to block him? Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 05:57, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't try to bully him, please get that through your head. Are the rules less important to him than they are to me? I thought we all had to follow the rules around here. Yet he removes tags from his talk page, which is against policy, gets his buddy to violate 3RR, of which they go to the same school. If you want, I can put in for a CheckUser, but I'm sure it'll turn up what I suspect. Then suddenly today LeftCoast (talk · contribs) suddenly shows up, and his only edit is to that talk page. Sorry if I feel a little ganged up here. --Ardenn 06:05, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It was not my intention to make you feel ganged up on. But you have to understand that admins will not block people based on your say so. It would be so much more pleasent if you simply put your argument nicely on the talk page of the article and then let the community decide. The rules are there for one reason alone - to ensure that people cooperate rather than war over articles. You are trying to use the rules as weapons in order to win a war. That's why I accused you of bullying. I've seen plenty of real meatpuppeting to know that your template was wholly unjustified. Try to see it from thier point of view. How would you feel if people started slapping accusatory templates about you all over the place? How would you feel if people tried to get you punished for getting a little upset over being accused of something you didn't do? How would you feel if after removing wholly unjustified templates from your own talk page someone slapped further templates accusing you of vandalism becaused you removed them and then got into an edit war with you over it so that an admin had to protect your talkpage to stop the onslaught? Because you have done all that and more. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 21:52, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am writing about Padgett22 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). The user has been placing photos that were removed, both from the pages Trevor Horn and Janick Gers, back after I have marked them as unsourced. These images have had their copyrights called into question. The user does not give any explanations when they revert them back. I have left a comment on the users talk page about this, but I am bringing it up here, since I wanted to change it back again on the Janick Gers page, but that would violate the WP:3RR. I am hoping someone can of higher power might leave them a message as well, lettting them know they should possibly not be removing my unsourced image claims. Thank you. --MOE.RON ^{talk | done | doing} 02:31, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is a new user who seems to be placing improper deletion tags and warnings on numerous pages, including some "deleted" tags. Contributions: [64]. I've left a message, but perhaps an Admin can provide better guidance, or even block temp to make sure edits are done according to policy. --mtz206 02:39, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It appears he's apologized for this. Might be worthy of watching him, but it's fine for now. Ral315 (talk) 10:14, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am writing to report unsubstantiated deletions by user "moe.RON" regarding legally licensed images that I uploaded while following the Wikiepdia guidelines for image uploading. The first, Janick Gers, is the VHS cover photo of a foreign concert tape entitled "Dive! DIve! Live!" Video tape covers are listed as a viable option for photo uploads. The second, Trevor Horn, is the cover of the RECORD PRODUCER magazine dated 16 December 2002. Anyone familiar with RECORD PRODUCER knows that the front cover always is without text; the inside contents contains official text information.

Moe.ron has no proof otherwise and has been annoyingly removing these perfectly legal images. He demands that the user abide by his unsubstantiated image questioning techniques, which is unfair to Wikipedia users. I feel it is very dangerous for users and administrators to consider images "unsourced" without any proper evidence or cause. Thanks - Padgett22

I have deleted nothing. User:Meegs called into question the Janick Gers photo at this link. User:Meegs also put up the questioning of the other photo here. I was just merely reverting what User:OrphanBot edited here and User:Meegs edited here. --MOE.RON ^{talk | done | doing} 03:19, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(After edit conflict, it looks like Moe well encapsulates my views.) Notwithstanding that this likely oughtn't to be at AN/I, Moeron appears to have acted appropriately here; with respect to the first photo, the picture is almost certainly not an uncropped version of the VHS cover, and, with respect to the second, Moe's inference that the image wasn't the complete cover was wholly reasonable, and, even as I accept with good faith Padgett's adduction of Record Producer's having a text-free cover, I'd prefer that we be able to substantiate such contention (Google hasn't been of much help). In any case, Padgett seems to misunderstand our policy with respect to images; images are not presumptively included, they are presumptively excluded and must be accurately tagged with celerity, lest they should be deleted. Whilst each was tagged to provide copyright info, at least one tag appears to have been in error, and it was reasonable to conclude that the other was as well. Moe did not delete the images in question, and his commenting-out was consistent with policy; should proper copyright info be provided, the images can surely be returned to the articles. Finally, Moe wasn't acting as an admin here; he was simply commenting out unsourced images (likely) soon to be deleted, as any editor may and as any good editor should. Joe 03:26, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are only 105 hits for "Record Producer Magazine" which does make tracking the thing down rather difficult. However, it appears I did find a picture of one of the covers in a Google cache... in an ad that pops up after about three seconds. Lo and behold, there's absolutely text on the cover of the mag. JDoorjam Talk 04:14, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's the only image I find as well; it's difficult for me to believe that the magazine was previously published without any cover text, and I think we'd do well to err on the side of caution: to assume that the image is cropped from a magazine cover. Joe 05:05, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am have also been looking for somewhere that has a picture of [Image:Janick gers fot leszek jastrzebski.jpg], but I am coming up with nothing. I really don't think that the VHS holder from this video would just have the guitarist and no writing/other members on it. Just my $.02 on that picture.--MOE.RON ^{talk | done | doing} 05:09, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Am I able to revert these pages back with the "Unsourced Image" tags? This will be third time doing it in a 24 hours, though, so that is why I am asking.--MOE.RON ^{talk | done | doing} 13:25, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to ask help in clearing references to old posts from pages. Marlon Fire Thunder 05:01, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

John, I've already cleared out all of the edits that I can legitimately remove without controversy. The protected {{deletedpage}} articles have to remain, as you and your associates have tried to recreate them several, several times. The Village Pump comments will be archived (if they haven't been already). Other than that, there's nothing more that can be done--as I said before, it will take a couple of weeks before all of the major search engines re-index the site. Please, have patience! You're slowly wearing mine down. AmiDaniel (talk) 05:14, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:Butterbean has been repeatedly vandalizing multiple Christian userboxes (Special:Contributions/Butterbean) even after being reverted and asked not to on his talk page. Gateman1997 05:19, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What caught my attention is that it's a new account doing exactly the same thing Gosse (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) did. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 05:28, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

He certainly looks like another sock of this user. He should probably be blocked indefinitely. Gateman1997 05:33, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Aww Nigga ... see also the AFD here Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aww Nigga

Non-notable bio ... vandalism ... nonsense ... WP:SNOW based on the AFD ... whatever. My speedy template has been removed twice. Rather than have a 3RR-type issue I thought it better to say something here. If I'm wrong and this can't be speedied, ok. Either way, good night. BigDT 06:45, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do {{d}} or {{prod}}; Absolutely no need for the AFD. --Avillia (Avillia me!) 06:49, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's gone.--MONGO 07:02, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A user editing from IP user:62.171.194.39 has apparantly been trying to log in to my account. I've had 35 automated "password reminder" emails within a short interval. This is a shared IP from a school in the UK, which I recently blocked for vandalism following discussion at Wikipedia:Abuse reports. Any way to get him to stop messing with my personal account? --woggly 10:15, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Don't think so, but as long as you've got a decent password, you're supposed to just smile and enjoy the thought of the person's frustration. They can't do a thing to you or your account. Bishonen | talk 10:55, 17 May 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Seeing as how my password has been automatically changed 35 times in the past hour, yeah. But as for the enjoying the frustration part of what you said - I blocked the account to put an end to the vandalism, not to get a vindictive kick. There are a lot of people out there who are convinced wiki admins are out to get them just for the heck of it. Occasionally I think we should remind ourselves that we're not... Nonetheless, thanks for the support, and your response did make me smile. --woggly 11:09, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Keep in mind that your old password will still work even after a newpassword request. JoshuaZ 14:25, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

is there an upper limit of new password requests within an hour? Otherwise, I don't think you'd still smile if the troll used a "request a new password bot" and you got half a billion notification emails. dab (ᛏ) 14:30, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Rob Church implemented a throttle in Mediawiki on the rate at which password reminder emails can be sent. Maybe it hasn't been turned on here yet. Kimchi.sg 14:37, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Any way to activate it? I've had more than 70 of these emails, and it looks like they're still coming. --woggly 14:55, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can't you block e-mails from the address from where they come from? It wouldn't block e-mails sent through the e-mail user feature, would it (although you'd have to make sure you didn't forget your password). --Telex 14:38, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I could, but that would block all email from wikimedia.org. --woggly 14:55, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do it until the troll gives up (three or four days, perhaps even less). --Telex 14:56, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:John Gabriel Robinson has been blocked by a bot intended to block pagemove vandalism.

Please check the move log for this user and unblock if this was an error.

Please delete this message after the situation has been resolved.

This message was generated by the bot. -- Curps 13:29, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, umm nice catch curpsbot! Syrthiss 13:30, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good block. --lightdarkness ^(talk) 14:28, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User continues to add claims that various left wing people/organizations are murderers, anti-semites etc., previously blocked for personal attacks. Arniep 14:29, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Presumably pushes POV, pushing pro-monarchist moves, pushes a regnal number to a person who just was a pretender of a kingdom.

User Gryffindor made the following move: "14:10, 17 May 2006 Gryffindor m (moved Ernst August Prinz von Hannover Sr to Ernest Augustus IV, Prince of Hanover: what happened here?...."

Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(names_and_titles): Monarchical titles, rule 6: "Do not apply an ordinal in an article title to a pretender, i.e., someone who has not reigned. For example, use Louis Alphonse, Duke of Anjou, not Louis XX when referring to the legitimist pretender to the French throne....even though royalists call him so."

Simply saying, Gryffindor moved an article to a name which is clearly against the naming convention and which supports the idea that Ernest was a ruler, not a pretender.

Gryffindor has worked for months and months here in Wikipedia, participating (and pushing) talks about royal and nobility titling, and made a huge number of small edits to royalty articles. It is inconceivable that Gryffindor were unaware of the naming convention, and the correct way to name pretenders.

When doing that move, Gryffindor had already received an invitation to participate in general discussion what to do with Ernests, as evidenced by Gryffindor's user-talkpage's diff [65]. Gryffindor however went and moved the article page to a location which is against naming rule (forbids ordinals of pretenders).

Gryffindor knows very well that regnal number is forbidden and Gryffindor has repeatedly received admonitions -at least a year now- that royal titles and such paraphernalia should not be bestowed against facts of real life. I believe Gryffindor is a repeater of such POV offenses.

Now Gryffindor has made a move to push a regnal number to a pretender.

I request that Gryffindor be blocked for a couple of weeks' duration, to reflect her/himself the problems caused by overly monarchist POV pushing. Marrtel 15:19, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That is complete nonsense. Everyone who deals with Gryffindor knows him to be one of the fairest and most objective contributors to WP. Those particular pages are causing problems because a series of individuals all have the same name. Some individual unilaterally moved the pages from their previous location, without consultation or going through requested moves, to ludicrous makey-up non-existent names, breaking MoS rules on name usage. Royalty and nobility never ever use Sr and Jr. Calling Ernst Augustus Sr is a bit like putting George W. Bush at George II. It is absurd and nonsensical. All Gryffindor did was return the pages to their original location (where people can find them and where there links were) to enable a debate to take place on how to diffrentiate between the multiple Ersnt Augustus claimants. He broke no rule, just acted as any professional Wikipedian would act. Marrtel's claim is balderdash from start to finish. Accusing someone like Gryffindor of being a POV pusher is a bit like accusing Jimbo of being a sockpuppet and a vandal. It is nutty. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 15:55, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A review of Marrtel's behaviour shows that they have been moving pages all over the place without discussing it, using requested moves, fixing links or anything. If anyone should be blocked for a stampede of page moving it is they. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 15:59, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Guideline, not policy Will (^E_@) T 18:47, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have blocked Travb (talk · contribs) for 24 hours for violating WP:POINT after being warned not to. Upon finding his subpage User:Travb/Tactics of some admins regarding copyright nominated for deletion, he attempted to retaliate by nominating Wikipedia:WikiProject Fair use for deletion as well. (I blocked him before he got the MFD page written.) Note in particular his edit summary "I know it will fail, but I am trying to make a strong point." He had previously been warned for spamming user talk pages and vandalizing User:Ed g2s and User talk:Ed g2s. Angr (t • c) 15:43, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

seems reasonable.Geni 16:08, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunate, but not surprising. I support this. Mackensen (talk) 20:12, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In his defense I should point out that his vandalism of User:Ed g2s and User talk:Ed g2s consisted solely of changing the background color from salmon to green. Not exactly high-octane vandalism. Angr (t • c) 22:11, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have a lot of experience interpreting and applying the user page policy generally, so I thought I'd post this here: User:Hickory Grove Retreat has posted a full advertisement for a hotel in the Hocking Hills on its user page, which seems to me to be inappropriate, but I don't know if we can remove the content entirely, pare it down, etc. What are our options? Postdlf 16:08, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Beltz has replaced the content with "This isn't the place for advertisement. Wikipedia is not your personal or business website", and I think he's done the right thing. The user has no positive contributions and WP:NOT a free web host. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 19:08, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I was notified that I was named in an "advertising scam" but the notice didn't come from the accuser user "Arniep" it came from another user who was also named in the supposed scam. I'm not on here much and don't want to get messed up in a whole political mess. But I don't think it's right that some like this Arniep should go around making up his one rules and making false accusations without even confronting the people he attacks before hand. Icemountain2 17:52, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This goes back a month or so to the Rikki Lee Travolta debacle. I will explain on his talk page. Thatcher131 18:50, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A look at IceMountain's contributions Special:Contributions/Icemountain2 shows he was just another sockpuppet of the scam to add misleading info about Rikki Lee Travolta to Wikipedia, see removed discussion on Talk:Weezer [66]. Arniep 20:10, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh. Move along, nothing to see here. Mackensen (talk) 20:11, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This seems to have been part of a huge scam by University of Chicago student filmmakers to hype a film they are making, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Crime Fiction and Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Wikipedia_being_used_to_hype_a_student_film. Arniep 02:41, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User El Pingüino is vandalizing my userpage. Due to methodological similarities (altering picture) I strongly suspect this user is, or is in contact with, user Benlegrand, who received a ban for repeated vandalism of the same page. Could you look into this, please? Edward Grefenstette 18:46, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've warned pinguino with a test4 to leave your userpage alone. They are >< close to me blocking them as vandalism only. --Syrthiss 18:58, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:24.163.205.147 keeps inserting unsourced, POV, and non-notable material regarding supposed interaction between Brit Hume and someone named Todd Ouellette while refusing to respond to communications left both on the article's [67] and his user talk page[68] regarding the material. The material he inserts in the article has also included an unsupported (and false, I might add) accusation against me specifically [69] and other "wikipedia members" who he claims "have repeatedly censored this entry in an effort to protect Brit Hume's reputation"[70]. I believe his actions are in violation of WP:AGF and possibly other policies. I don't feel I have any other recourse other than to request he be banned from editing this article for a time. Lawyer2b 20:36, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:24.163.205.147 has violated WP:3RR with the following edits: [71], [72], [73], and finally [74]. I will add this violation to the banning request. I wish he/she would simply engage in a rational discussion regarding the material he wants to include in the article. Can we get a little administrative assistance here? Lawyer2b 04:05, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

He created another sockpuppet: User:Joe_Muz to get some advantage in Wii dispute. Considering their bad blood and reported past [75] isn't time to take this guy off? --Jason Five 21:58, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is your second edit, and you talk of sockpuppets? Hmmm... --Lord Deskana ^{Dark Lord of the Sith} 22:00, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I preffer keep this dennounce in anonimity to avoid harassment payback. What you suggest? Abandon this account and make another report with IP? If you want know, Yes I created this account only to dennounce him and keep my identity anonymous. Thanks. --Jason Five 22:08, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: [76] Comproved sockpuppets and counting..

The edit war continues at Gnosticism in modern times, with User:Ndru01 using another previously-created sockpuppet, User:Moonlight serenade to evade a week-long block Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR#User:Ndru01. Please block User:Moonlight serenade permanently as a sockpuppet, and I would suggest also User:Abba13133131 and variations beginning with 'Abba' (there was one similar one previously created). -- originally posted 07:49, 17 May 2006 (UTC) --Cedders^tk 22:55, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• As expected, has now used both the above socks to link to article deleted by 2 AfD votes and many speedies, precisely the behaviour before the block. --Cedders^tk 02:54, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Laura S alerted me to this page. It seems to have been vandalised in a very strange way - all I see when I go there is a massive black space that covers the whole page (even the title), and some coloured text saying "HacKeD By ~ s4m3k ~". The strange bit is that the wikicode looks fine, and there are no vandalistic edits in the history. This is the last good version (an anon reverting a redirect), and the two edits after that were by good-faith users (I can't see exactly what they did because the black space that appears on both edits even covers the diff).

I really don't know how to fix this - I could revert back to the last non-hacked version, but in doing so two presumably good-faith edits would be lost. Anyone got a better idea? --Sam Blanning^(talk) 23:14, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My guess is some obscure transcluded template got hacked. I believe I'm on the record saying these sorts of transclusions are a bad idea--for this very reason. I'll see what I can find. Mackensen (talk) 23:20, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Found it: Template:User-BSD. S4m3k (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) did something to it. I've blocked him indefinitely. Mackensen (talk) 23:23, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that was fast. I deleted his userpage and his edit to the talk page of that template, which were the same thing. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 23:34, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. Reminded me of the "gift" we got from Willy on Wheels Christmas before last. Mackensen (talk) 23:36, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

An anon coming from various dynamic IPs (all starting with 219.64.) is way over 3RR in the article about Dia Mirza, a Bollywood actress. He (or she) doesn't want the filmography in a table, for some reason, and insists on including a list of products in whose advertisements the actress has appeared. This strikes me as using Wikipedia for advertising (and it's becoming a problem all across the Bollywood articles -- I think some publicist has discovered us). While it would take a lot of time to do checkuser on all the anons to do a 3RR complaint, semi-protection would either solve the problem, or force the user to register. Zora 23:28, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In general, these requests should go to WP:RFPP. Joe 03:39, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to request clarification and feedback. A user (User:Locke Cole) apparently will be banned soon or plans to leave Wikipedia at some point. I don't believe I have ever encountered him before this matter. He has repeatedly requested his talk page be speedily deleted, citing m:Right to vanish as justification. However, it has been restored each time (twice by me, after discussing it above), since it appears to fall outside deletion policy. While I agree that user pages may be deleted at any time, I feel that user talk pages should not be deleted, and this is what I recall from previous discussions as well. In particular, the talk page is one in which others have had the majority of edits. Not only is it inappropriate, I feel, for a user to be able to control deletion in this manner, it removes those edits from the contribution history of others. I think it is important to keep these in the history; they may be relevant for RFA or RFAR (for those users), for instance. Furthermore, I think it's important to retain the history of comments to that user as well, especially since Arbitration Committee bans are not indefinite and users can come back from wikibreaks.

I don't believe m:Right to vanish applies. In the first place, I don't believe it is policy, though I have requested clarification there. In the second, it only applies for editors who have left a project; it is inappropriate for those continuing to edit to use it as justification. In the third place, it is intended for the removal of personal information. In the fourth, it applies to user and talk subpages, not the talk page itself (although Locke Cole has since reworded the statement). In the fifth place, I don't believe it grants users the right to have talk pages deleted, but suggests it as an option.

Deletion of the page clearly falls outside Wikipedia's deletion policy. It does not satisfy any criterion for speedy deletion. In particular, criterion U1 explicitly covers subpages, and G7 is for pages of which the requester is the primary or sole author. Clearly, for a talk page, this is not the case.

Locke took issue with my second undeletion. I considered the discussion at WP:AN/I#Locke Cole's userpage sufficient justification (the beginning is a bit conflated by discussions of user page deletion), but Locke believes I am wheel warring. It is not my intention to wheel war, so I'll reopen the discussion. For now, I have protected Locke's talk page to prevent him from re-adding the {{db|m:Right to vanish}} template to his talk page and a random administrator wandering in, unaware of the deletion history or this discussion, re-deleting the talk page without realizing that others have been discussing it or feel it's inappropriate. If someone reads this discussion and decides that deletion is appropriate, he may remove the protection and re-delete the page. I'd ask that anyone doing so mention it here. I don't intend to further delete or un-delete the page, but feel this is an important policy matter and am interested in what others think. — Knowledge Seeker দ 23:28, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I twice removed the speedy tag from Locke's talk page, and I agree with what Knowledge Seeker has said on the matter. Mackensen (talk) 23:30, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I deleted Locke Cole's user and user talk page once because I had read m:Right to vanish in Locke Cole's version, which is still there. I was unaware of the previous deletions (there is an extension that gives a "page log" button, right? I need to get that) so I was the "random admin wandering in". I should probably not have deleted the talk page, especially since Locke Cole hasn't vanished. I think we should always delete user pages (not only subpages) at the request of the owner, unless they contain {{indefblockeduser}} or similar (WP:CSD#U1 is only about subpages, but Wikipedia:User page allows {{db-owner}} deletion of userpages). Thinking about it, I agree with keeping the User talk page undeleted (possibly mostly blanked, but keeping the history accessible to non-admins) at least for another couple of months. I apologize for the deletion. Kusma (討論) 23:43, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Note: I unprotected the talk page so that Locke Cole can comment on these issues there if he choses. He cannot comment here because he is currently blocked. --CBDunkerson 00:12, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The concept behind 'right to vanish' is that someone should be able to remove all evidence of their participation in the project... change their username, adjust past signatures, and yes... delete all the pages in their userspace. If the user talk page must be retained (which certainly has not been the case in prior 'right to vanish' situations) then the person obviously cannot truly 'vanish'. There is a publically available record of many of their communications with other users. There is also just no need for this - if a 'vanished' user comes back the talk page can be undeleted. Any information needed for a RFAr can be retrieved by any admin. The record of that user's talk page (and indeed, everything they have done) still exists... it is just not available to the general public, does not show up on Google searches, et cetera. The person may then 'vanish' from the public eye... but none of the materials you suggest might be needed in the future are 'lost', we can still retrieve them at any time if need be. --CBDunkerson 00:12, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Jimbo Wales has just deleted Locke Cole's talk page, with the edit summary "I figure, let him go. Who cares? not worth fighting about". Kusma (討論) 00:20, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fine as long as he actually stays gone. Thatcher131 02:14, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Far be it for me to argue with that, but I also agree with Thatcher. Locke has to actually leave. Mackensen (talk) 02:16, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In cases like these, would it make sense to indef block the account? The user could always request to have it unblocked should they ever decide to come back and no problems with missing page histories in the meantime. .:.Jareth.:. ^babelfish 18:20, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In the thread above, he said that he will have the user/talk page undeleted if he ever returns. I do not see any reason to doubt he will, so I see no reason to indef block. - Liberatore(T) 19:06, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ed g2s (talk · contribs) has decided to delist a featured picture, despite its previous successful FPC, and his previous failed delisting attempt against it. Weigh in here (and please read my reply, which summarizes the whole thing). --BRIAN0918 00:09, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to still be a featured picture, despite what you said. Instead, ed g2s (talk · contribs) is attempting to re-run the featured picture candidate process again because he doesn't like the decision the first time, even though a pass through featured picture removal failed to get enough support. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 00:25, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've been bold and closed the faulty nom. Please contact me if you either disagree with my decision, or the way I handled it. Thanks. --Mark Neelstin ^{(Dark Mark)} 00:53, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Morven: No, if you check the history, I readded the FP tag after noticing it was gone. I'm not sure what happened to the original tag. --BRIAN0918 15:50, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ahh. Apologies, then. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 17:49, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am concerned that ForesterGamp (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is a reincarnation of indefinitely banned Roitr (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Please compare ForesterGamp's upload log with Roitr's; many of the images have the same filenames, and both are either untagged or tagged (fraudulently) with {{GFDL-self}}, without indication of source. If others concur, I will block ForesterGamp indefinitely. Thanks. Chick Bowen 00:12, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My checkuser request was denied on the grounds that Roitr's contribs are too old. Thus, it's up to you guys. Comments? Chick Bowen 01:29, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just to point out, you linked to ForesterGamp's contributions in both examples. The links for each user's upload logs are:

• Roitr
• ForesterGamp

Might be more helpful. :) Essjay (Talk • Connect) 01:46, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I wanted to reinforce how similar they were. . . or something. . . :) Chick Bowen 01:52, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User keeps reposting article on Joanne Lyscos, (at least 3 times in less than 24 hour span) and leaves threats on talk pages (i.e. "You should just face it. You'll never keep Joanne lyscos down. Her page will keep on being put up wether you like it or not so why don't you just leave it? Face, it and get over it."). User also demonstrates vandalism. Yanksox 02:18, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've blocked him for 24 hours for disruption and vandalism. Mackensen (talk) 02:24, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Uses reposted "Joanne Lyscos," under username: Shaquandique. Yanksox 02:38, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well now, doesn't that just take the biscuit. Mackensen (talk) 02:41, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sockpuppet blocked indefinitely. On consideration, I'm extending the block of the main user to indefinite. Mackensen (talk) 02:44, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry to be a bother, but user has done it again: Sharitz. Very, very, very annoying. Yanksox

I've protected the page as {{deleted page}}. That ought to be that. Chick Bowen 02:54, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And yet again, he is now Shaquandoofoo, and the page is now Joanne Lyskos. ॐ Priyanath 04:16, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bother. Well, I've protected that too, and blocked the user. Chick Bowen 04:23, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Shapoompoom, shaquandique, sharitz, shaquandoofoo. I suggest we keep a close eye on new user Shagudiga. Snottygobble 05:12, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So far at least Shagudiga hasn't touched Joanne L***os ;) Syrthiss 15:34, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See Füçk (talk · contribs). Mangojuice^talk 03:47, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Already blocked. Ral315 (talk) 04:57, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have extended Dschor's original probationary one-week block to reset starting now for evading the block and posting under an IP address. The evidence that the IP is him is this edit, and the offending edit is this one. If I have made an error, please readjust the block accordingly. (ESkog)^(Talk) 06:10, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A new user Neutral arbiter (talk · contribs) is making his very first edits and deletes massive parts of Movement to impeach George W. Bush.[77][78] I can't help but wonder if this is not the same user that aggressively wanted to delete this information as it was still a subpage? Deletes information he claims is untrue.[79] At least could somebody explain to him that starting your edits on Wikipedia like this is not helpful and might be considered vandalism? Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 10:14, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I might be wrong about the sockpuppetry, but the numerous edits to this controversial article could be open for debate. Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 10:25, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There may have been a false start but it seems the other edits are indeed better. Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 10:41, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Try running a sock-check here. - Mailer Diablo 12:16, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure if that is needed. This editor changed his editing-behaviour and even says on his userpage I am his first wikipedia friend. Not a likely action by Merecat, unless we interpret it as a clever trick by Merecat to fool us. But that sounds utterly paranoid to me, so hence my doubts. More importantly, I feel awkward filing a RCU when I am not entirely sure my suspicions are warranted. What do you think? Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 15:18, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Editing from the same point of view as Merecat is hardly a crime; I would probably look similar if I has the stomach to edit that article. If the editor is not disruptive or obnoxious I would judge him/her based on the quality of the edits and respond accordingly. Thatcher131 16:17, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I never suggested it was a crime. The question was out of curiosity, and if you read my comments I already said it probably was not Merecat. As to similar editing. You feel that my objecting to massive deletions is POV. That is your right, others might say that making massive edits to controversial topics is not smart. Beyond that, contrary to a disruptive editor as Merecat, this one is capable of decent discourse. Thank you for your observations. Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 16:23, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, I was answering your request for comment on filing an RFCU when you are not sure. I have not checked the editors contribs at all. Thatcher131 16:50, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, misunderstood. Thank you again. Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 17:12, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yesterday, a user tried to conclude a AfD as "no consensus" of an article that he created himself, probably as a pov fork. The conclusion seems contrary to the vote as well. I first thought that I was dreaming, but it really happened. The user has a very long history of disruptions, see for example his block log and talk page (Haham hanuka (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)). I would appreciate if someone can look into this issue. Best regards, gidonb 11:13, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Amzor (talk · contribs) has been blocked indefinitely for continuing to make legal threats against Wikipedia on their talk page once a 24 hour block for vandalism had been placed. They are claiming that Confucius is a copyright violation in its entirety, however have not provided any evidence of such, and a google search on the text provides only Wikipedia mirrors. There was other vandalism in addition to the copyright infringement so to be honest I think they were just trolling. Even if they have a genuine case however, they are barred from editing because they decided to be a dick over it. One to watch in case they come back under a different guise. -- Francs2000 11:21, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure about this. Did anybody notice this, are these names allowed? !!!! curps was a sockpuppet of Willy on Wheels (talk · contribs) !!!! Daniel Brandt was a sockpuppet of Willy on Wheels (talk · contribs) !!!! SlimVirgin was a sockpuppet of Willy on Wheels (talk · contribs) !!!! Quaque was a sockpuppet of Willy on Wheels (talk · contribs) Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 14:36, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]