Misplaced Pages

• I've revdeleted the edit summary as disruptive material. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:46, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Good call. While we should have regard for NOTCENSORED, nor do we want to become a showcase for toilet humour... not because of any POV against it, but just because it's a distraction that could easily grow if not discouraged effectively. Andrewa (talk) 23:16, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
    • For your future reference WP:NOTCENSORED applies only to articles. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:41, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm in trouble. EEng 05:00, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

I'll visit you in gaol... would you like me to bake a file into the cake, or would you prefer a dildo? Andrewa (talk) 05:19, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

😳 Um, I think I'll just take the opportunity for some quiet contemplation and self-improvement. Thanks for asking though. EEng 06:04, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Specifically, not censored for "content". A random vulgar edit summary does not qualify as content. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 23:50, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, very good point as was the more general one by BYK above. But I think the spirit of the policy is, we shouldn't revdel a contribution just because of a vulgar edit summary. The letter may not cover this but I don't think it needs to. We have better things to do, and to do so just risks feeding the trolls anyway. Andrewa (talk) 05:09, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

I believe you may have misunderstood NYB's comment above. I read it to say that he rev del'd the edt summary, not that he did anything to the edit itself. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:43, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I did misunderstand... I confess I didn't realise revdel was quite that surgical (having never used or requested it myself).

And it's an excellent use of it. It seems to me to satisfy WP:CRD criterion #3 Purely disruptive material that is of little or no relevance or merit to the project. This might even be a good example to list on that page. Andrewa (talk) 20:04, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Megavillain vandal (Rangeblock needed)

Some of the IPs involved:

• 98.219.220.18 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
• 2601:482:1:A3B1:9D63:A6E9:AEA6:BA2A (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
• 2602:306:CDE6:A6C0:D401:DE2C:44EE:E620 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
• 2602:306:CE10:18E0:1DD:C001:90D:ABEC (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
• 2602:306:CE10:18E0:5057:77B1:ACD9:A779 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
• 2601:545:4403:5D30:DC2F:C107:C28E:C32D (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
• 2601:545:4403:5D30:1058:9680:55F3:8777 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
• 2601:545:4403:5D30:F1CA:E7E8:2702:936E (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
• 2601:545:4401:A01E:98BC:DF3F:5336:AC1 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
• 2601:545:4401:A01E:8DC9:A3EA:2EC3:6389 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
• And there's probably a lot more where that came from!

The report: I actually took this to SPI a while back, but they couldn't do anything because the user discards their IP addresses, with the exception of 98.219.220.18 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) (which is almost certainly a shared address). For over a year now, this user has essentially vandalised Misplaced Pages nonstop, with their primary M.O. being to blank information and change the words "superhero"/"supervillain" to "megahero"/"megavillain". They have been warned repeatedly to stop, but have refused to respond or do so. Not only that, but much of their vandalism will go days without even being detected (such as their recent disruption at List of Batman Family adversaries). For this reason, they are starting to become a genuine threat to the Wiki and I believe that there is a serious case for rangeblocks in this instance. DarkKnight2149 22:32, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

This should be a trivial edit filter or Cluebot modification. Acroterion (talk) 03:50, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

I have blocked the current IPv6 address, 2601:545:4403:5D30::/64, and the IPv4 address could have been blocked had they received any warnings about their disruption. The other IPv6 addresses are stale for blocking purposes. I suggest leaving some warnings on User talk:98.219.220.18 if they resume the same pattern of editing, then taking them to WP:AIV.

Also, as Acroterion points out, this is something that can be handled automatically if the block doesn't work. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 14:13, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

98.219.220.18 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) will be easy to keep an eye on. I left warnings on some of the most recent (at the time) IP addresses when I came across them. I didn't really pay attention to which specific IP ranges I warned, as it's obviously the same disruptive user. Regarding Acroterion's suggestion, an edit filter or Cluebot modification could be useful if this keeps happening. DarkKnight2149 17:13, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

South Beach Diet redux

In mid-December I filed this ANI case which got no traction here. It did stop the disruption at the article, briefly. Their history, the edit warring, and the content being edit warred over is described in that case.

Today Anmccaff re-appeared at the article and took up right where they left off, again deleting MEDRS-sourced content with an edit note that misrespresents the source, rolled back the restoration, and defended the use of rollback by calling the restoration "vandalism" on the talk page. Their justification there on the tall page is incompetent or tendentious; here on the talk page they present their interpretation of older primary sources as trumping a recent MEDRS source; they also brought a recent secondary source that does not discuss this diet but again with SYN attempted to make it relevant.

This person should not be editing about health in WP. Jytdog (talk) 15:27, 4 January 2017

Jytdog appears to be claiming that a cite from 2016 is somehow older that a metastudy from 2014, citing a study from 2007. That's rather typical of his casual approach to chronology when writing about this topic. Anmccaff (talk) 18:29, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

(UTC)

update: here on their Talk page they dared another editor to take them to ANI. Please put an end to this long term disruption. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 15:31, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Damn straight. Misplaced Pages should not be run by by threats of administrative action, tag teaming, tendentious source searchs, or any of the other

• I looked into this the last time, but didn't get involved as the disruption died down before I could go through the source myself (I generally trust Jytdog to accurately represent MEDRS sources but as they say; trust but verify). However, I did eventually do just that, and so I'm willing to say here that the source unquestionably supports the statements and that Anmcaff's edit summary in this diff is a bald-faced lie. There is no amount of good faith which can let me read that edit summary as an honest mistake. Furthermore, I found a revert which this user performed and marked as minor. Absent this context one would presume it to be a mistake, but all things considered it's a mightly convenient mistake. That is disruptive behavior and should be stopped immediately. I would support a topic ban. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 15:46, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Strike that falsehood about "bald faced lies", please. The comment is sourced. The cite does not address long term cardiovascular effects of SB, and says so explicitly. Right on the second page, pretty prominently. • South Beach was only assessed in 1 long-term trial, which found no difference in weight loss versus usual care, and no data were reported on its effects on cardiovascular risk factor levels. Note that it does not suggest any problems with the diet, except that this study showed no difference from usual care - which is rather a different thing in post-bariatric surgery followup than in might be for a casual dieter. Note also that two paragraphs beyond it notes that the metastudy only looked for RCTs that mentioned particular diets by name, saying nothing about assessments named by objective description of the regimen. Anmccaff (talk) 18:29, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Finally, I believe this answers your other question: Does Twinkle treat rollback of vandalism as a minor edit? I do not see why it should, neccesarrily, but there's nothing "deceptive" about that, at least on my part. Restoring an inaccurate summation of a cite without substantive discussion certainly looks a good deal like vandalism.Anmccaff (talk) 18:29, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Strike that falsehood about "bald faced lies", please. No. I stand by it. You have changed how you characterized the study over time without demonstrating any evolving understanding of it, and your explanation above does not support your assertion. I think you may need to look up the Null hypothesis if you honestly believe it does. However, based on your comments about this issue here at ANI and elsewhere, I do not believe that you lack the necessary understanding to comprehend the difference between the implications of your argument and your edit summary. Furthermore, you've responded to meaningful complaints about marking your revert as minor by accusing well-meaning editors of vandalism, a blatantly untrue accusation. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 18:52, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

No, nothing so complicated. A cite which does not support the general claim made -it does not claim that the named diets do not provide cardiovascular benefits, merely that they appear to be boringly modest, and, in the case of Atkins, two steps forward, on step back. It explicitly disavows any particular conclusions about SB in particular, since the study it was based on did not provide the data. It is not a useful cite for the purpose, and should not be edit warred back in.

No, I accused Alexbrn of vandalism before the mistaken Twinkle setting problem, and stand by it. Not the drive-by graffiti kind, but the tendentious editing kind. Anmccaff (talk) 20:06, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

So you're doubling down on a false, bad faith accusation. Gotcha. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 21:45, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

No, not at all. I see his work on SB -amd several other related pages, as a distribution from Misplaced Pages, not a contribution to it. I see it as tendentiopus POV pushing, not at all unlike the trumped-up, so to speak, POV editing on Snopes. No bad faith involved. Anmccaff (talk) 00:39, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

The thing is, content editing, including edit warring, is not vandalism. Ibadibam (talk) 00:27, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

I think every single example given there can, if taken to an extreme enough degree, be so, and I'd put repeatedly reverting to an unarguably inaccurate cite in that category. That said, If you'd prefer to describe it some other way, like "tag-teaming ownership", I don't think I'd argue. Anmccaff (talk) 00:39, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

If you wouldn't argue, then don't. Read Ibadibam's link to learn what is not vandalism, why calling editors vandals is a personal attack, and why being confused about what is and is not vandalism is harmful to the project. If you disagree with a contribution, fine, but calling everything you disagree with vandalism is inaccurate and damaging. Ivanvector (/_Edits) 14:31, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Well, point taken, somewhat; if nothing else, it's vague. Anmccaff (talk) 21:06, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Proposed topic ban

• Support topic ban for all diet topics. As MjolnirPants says this is plainly disruptive, and it's been going on for a long time now. The editor only seems to have been emboldened by ANI not acting last time. Alexbrn (talk) 15:51, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

(Add) just to note that from Anmccaff's additions above and from this edit, it seems there is a complete lack of repentance and strong indication this is only going to continue. Alexbrn (talk) 18:41, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

• Note I have dropped a strongly worded warning on their talk page. If this problem continues a block and or topic ban may have to be considered. -Ad Orientem (talk) 15:58, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
• As mentioned above, I Support a topic ban. Ad Orientem, I respect your restraint, but in light of Anmccaff's response above, I strongly suspect a stern warning might not be enough. There are clear indications of a battleground mentality, here. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 18:52, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support topic ban With respect to Ad Orientem, this is the second time Anmccaff has been brought to ANI for this in a couple of weeks, and their behavior hasn't changed since then. I think a "strongly worded warning" is going to do jack all. Anmccaff's battleground style of editing topics such as this diet does not add anything useful to Misplaced Pages, so they should be restricted from it. Valeince (talk) 19:10, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

A report which led, rightly, to no action. As I mentioned above, Jytdog and Alexbrn have used threats of administrative action, repeatedly, to assert ownership over the subject. This was just another example of this. Anmccaff (talk) 20:06, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support either a topic ban from all diet topics or an indefinite block. Considering the previous ANI and the user's actions and demeanour since then, I agree the time for warnings is past. Bishonen | talk 20:13, 4 January 2017 (UTC).
• Oppose. I have been involved with all three of these editors on several different pages. While Anmccaff is certainly a difficult editor, banning him from all diet-related topics would be an overreaction. This particular clause has been contentious since it was added, and Alexbrn and Jytdog have taken turn reverting anyone who disagrees. I would encourage all three of them to stick to the WP:BRD cycle when editing, refrain from inflammatory edit summaries, and be civil on talk pages. Bradv 22:45, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Since when is a tag used to alert the readers? QuackGuru (talk) 01:29, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Not sure why this is here, but inline tags like Template:Disputed inline are specifically designed to alert other editors to the existence of a discussion on the talk page, according to WP:AD. Bradv 01:43, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

You previously wrote "The tag is alerting the reader to the above section." That's not the purpose of using a tag. QuackGuru (talk) 02:02, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

What's it for then? Bradv 02:04, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Letting other editors know there is a concern with the text. That was accomplished. Was there an attempt to rewrite the text? QuackGuru (talk) 14:54, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose – The editor's contributions are not limited to one topic area, nor are the patterns from which this ANI post arises. A topic ban will not accomplish anything here. Ibadibam (talk) 00:37, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

This is Misplaced Pages 101 stuff. The point of a TBAN is not to prevent someone contributing everywhere, but only to restrict them from participating where they are continually disruptive -- See WP:TBAN. The diffs here and in the earlier filing show that Anmccaff is continually disruptive on the topic of diets.Jytdog (talk) 01:05, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Ibadibam, am I correct in reading into your comment that you would prefer a site ban? MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:18, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Right. The editor is pretty consistent in their style from topic to topic. If a warning isn't sufficient, then a site ban is warranted. Ibadibam (talk) 00:05, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Ibadibam Since that is the case, might I suggest changing your vote to "support"? My rationale being: at this juncture, a site ban is unlikely (it hasn't even been proposed). The previous ANI had no effect on the behavior, possibly because it imposed no sanctions. The more "oppose" !votes here, the less likely a topic ban is to be implemented. Assuming you are correct that the problem exists in other areas, then an existing topic ban for this exact behavior in this area will serve as compelling evidence in a future ANI about bad behavior in other areas. If that is not to your preference, then might I suggest proposing a site ban below? MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 14:14, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

@MPants at work: above you wrote "a topic ban is unlikely (it hasn't even been proposed)" but this section is titled "proposed topic ban". Did you mean something else? Ivanvector (/_Edits) 14:37, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, thank you. I've corrected it. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 14:43, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Wellllll, I'm not sure I'd actually support a site ban at this time, given the escalatory way this dispute has been handled by the pair of editors who constitute Anmccaff's opposition (and subsequently elevated this to ANI). It's just that a topic ban isn't going to stop Anmccaff from being the headstrong editor that they are, site-wide. In this case, I might suggest probation and/or 0RR. Ibadibam (talk) 17:17, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• Comment. Did an editor delete a MEDRS compliant systematic review? Wow! I support a topic ban from AN/I for any editor who supports any other editor deleting relevant MEDRS compliant systematic reviews from articles. QuackGuru (talk) 01:10, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Even if the MEDRS cite was used against its meaning? Wow. Anmccaff (talk) 20:57, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

What could have been done is provide a quote from the source and try to rewrite the claim if an editor thinks it is not accurate or request a quote from the source to verify the claim. Deleting a review is never a good option. I have caught numerous editors adding original research. I have also caught editors and admin/admins rewriting sourced text that made it unsourced text. It has been months and I have still not fixed the mass original research. I am patient. If I have to wait over a year to fix it then that is what I am going to do. The admin or admins who replaced sourced text with original research know who they are. They did it intentionally. But I will still remain patient. QuackGuru (talk) 14:47, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support topic ban. Blatantly tendentious editing and the user seems unwilling to acknowledge any possibility of being wrong. Guy (Help!) 01:46, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Blantant tendentiousness is certainly there, but if you see some on my part, it should be boringly simple for you describe to position you see being pushed. What would you think that to be? Anmccaff (talk) 20:57, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support topic ban - I had been ignoring this thread, but after reading it, and looking into the contribs and the background, I have to support a topic ban from all health issues. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:55, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support The diffs and article talk show that the editor is pushing a favored line unduly. It has gone on too long. Johnuniq (talk) 03:45, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support The diffs show a pretty clear disruptive mentality, but even going so far as to delete MEDRS systematic reviews seems to indicate the topic ban is definitely needed to prevent further disruption. Kingofaces43 (talk) 21:05, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support I'm usually quiet on these sorts of matters, but the above example of deleting a systematic review seals the deal for me. RickinBaltimore (talk) 14:20, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
• OpposeComment - I'm not familiar with the full history of the dispute, but on a cursory review it appears that Anmccaff's complaint has merit, and the various tendentious editing is a frustrated response to being dismissed out of hand by other justifiably frustrated editors. I only have access to the summary of the study cited and its abstract, but rather than supporting the article's statement "The diet is promoted with claims it can improve cardiovascular health, but these claims have not been borne out by evidence", first of all the study did not analyze cardiovascular effects but only weight loss, and apparently since the review only identified a single study regarding South Beach that met their criteria, they simply stated no conclusion with respect to that diet, thus it does not support the assertion that "these claims have not been borne out by evidence". None of this justifies the edit warring but it should be considered in context. I recommend these editors try dispute resolution. Ivanvector (/_Edits) 14:58, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

It's not very helpful to support a claim as having "merit" when you haven't read the source (which is freely available). If you had you would see it states quite plainly that this diet is promoted to aid cardiovascular risk factors; the authors state "We included RCTs that examined the effects of Atkins, SB, WW, and Zone on weight loss and cardiovascular risk factors with follow-up ≥4 weeks"; and in their conclusion they state "Our study was designed to examine the evidence currently available from the literature to examine the efficacy of 4 commercial, popular diets on weight loss and improving cardiovascular risk factors " (all my bolds). So your statement that "the study did not analyze cardiovascular effects but only weight loss" is completely at odds with the source. The authors looked for evidence and there was none, hence the claims for SBD are not borne out by evidence, as we say. The reason why the weight loss element of this source is not included is because this aspect is already well covered in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexbrn (talk • contribs) 15:48, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

I see the PDF of the study now, it was silly of me to have missed it before. In it it does state quite prominently (page 2 inset) that "the efficacy of popular commercial diets at achieving sustained weight loss and improving cardiovascular risk factors remains unclear" as well as "South Beach was only assessed in 1 long-term trial, which found no difference in weight loss versus usual care, and no data were reported on its effects on cardiovascular risk factor levels." (underline added) I admit I don't have time to read the entire study at the moment, but under conclusions it states nothing explicitly about South Beach, but offers "... available data are conflicting and insufficient to identify one popular diet as being more beneficial than the others." I feel that "not borne out by evidence" implies a negative, whereas the source is merely inconclusive with regard to cardiovascular outcomes of this particular diet, thus the article could better represent the source. Might I suggest, "... but these claims have yet to be studied" or something more reflective of the literature? Ivanvector (/_Edits) 17:05, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

In light of this, are you considering changing your !vote? MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 17:15, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

@Ivanvector: In evidence-based medicine the assumption is that something does not work unless there is evidence to the contrary, hence a fair presentation of this content in a lay encyclopedia is negative. In any case, this thread is not about content, but about the repeated long-term POV-pushing, WP:UNCIVIL behaviour and deletion of content by Anmccaff.Alexbrn (talk) 17:19, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

No, at least twice. Were the cite to draw some conclusion, stating that a particular cite did not support the assertion would obviously be proper, but the cite specifically asserts that the the previous study it was based on did not record that particular data. Putting over something that does not investigate something as proving its failure is not acceptable.

What data that was recorded, however, showed all the diets to be efficacious, just not remarkably so, with the well-known exception of Atkins, which showed mixed results, for rather obvious reasons. It does not say they they failed, compared to usual treatment, but rather that they did the same, more or less...again, hardly a remarkable medical situation.

Finally, the study explicitly noted that it restricted itself to studies which explicitly cited diets by commercial name, rather than by regimen, which has it's own implications. Anmccaff (talk) 20:57, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

We don't say it's been "proved to have failed" (as if that were possible) but that the claims made for the diet are not borne out by evidence. Which is exactly the case, as we know from out good source. Continuing to misrepresent the situation does not help your case. Alexbrn (talk) 21:12, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

That seems fine, I wouldn't disagree with that outcome, but it did take a bit of discussion just now for me to get to the point of agreeing with you. Do you think it's a beneficial pattern to automatically accost every editor who attempts to intervene? (e.g. ) Ivanvector (/_Edits) 17:45, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support topic ban as proposed. Anmccaff does not appear to understand (or care) that the sources they continually bring up are with regard to other fad diets, or broad discussions about loosely related health topics, and using those to imply conclusions about South Beach is synthesis and not allowed. Their stubborn refusal to get this point has repeatedly turned the article into a battleground, and while other editors are not blameless, removing the source of frustration ought to significantly improve the situation. Ivanvector (/_Edits) 17:45, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

No, those would be side commentary on the equivocation used for "fad diet" by these two editors. Could you point out some example that looks otherwise to you? Anmccaff (talk) 20:57, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Comment. See "A wide variety of diets are available to promote weight loss and improve cardiovascular risk factors, such as lipid levels, blood pressure, and glycemia. Among them, 4 are particularly popular among North Americans. Millions of copies of Atkins, South Beach (SB), and Zone instructional books have been sold,1–3 and over a million Weight Watchers (WW) members attend its weekly group meetings globally.4" Later on the source says "Despite their popularity and their substantial contribution to a billion-dollar industry, the efficacy of these diets in promoting sustained weight loss and improving cardiovascular risk factors remains unclear."

Current text "The diet is promoted with claims it can improve cardiovascular health, but these claims have not been borne out by evidence."

More accurate text is "The diet is promoted as improving risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease, but the effectiveness for improving these risk factors is unclear." QuackGuru (talk) 15:21, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Unacceptable?

While making minor improvements to Meridian (Chinese medicine) today, I came under unexpected attack by User:Alexbrn and User:Jytdog, long-time editors by the way. Not sure whether details of my edits are relevant here (I removed a source inconsistent with WP:RS and rephrased a sentence in the lede), but my edit was WP:REVERTed by Alexbrn who accused me of "promoting fringe theories". While we were clarifying the matter, Jytdog stepped in and left me a threatening message, (not sure why about sources as I added no text that can be sourced), undoing my further edits (and restoring undreliable sources).

I have spent years contributing to medicine-related articles (mostly to neurology and genetics) and I am fairly conversant with what "science" and "medicine" is. From time to time I also try to restore neutrality to articles I come across where I notice bias and proselitism (whatever the direction). Please see the changes that were reverted: my correction of attribution (which is to a personal blog anyway) and replacing "belief" with "concept", the proper term in anthropology .

Why am I asking for intervention? Simply, if I am to keep contributing to this project, I would expect a bit of respect; not hitting "revert" on anything that's against the editor's belief; not threatening fellow editors with sanctions; and not throwing idiotic accusations at them. At least from long-standing editors.

However, this is my take on this, and I will be very helpful if you would share your view. Regards, — kashmiri  18:07, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree that the comment left by Jytdog on your page wasn't quite helpful, but the edits you are making do support the accusation by Alexbrn that you are promoting fringe theories. Mr Ernie (talk) 18:14, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

• "Promoting"? Is it about the word "concept"? "Concept", and not "belief", is used all over Yoga, Ayurveda, etc. I didn't know it is now promotional, very sorry. — kashmiri  18:33, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

• You can't expect your contributions not to be reverted out of "respect", especially when you make controversial edits and add content in a lede with a {{cn}} template added. You forgot to mention you reverted the revert - so beginning edit-warring. Finally you say I accused you of "promoting fringe theories" and put those words in quotation marks. Where are you quoting me from? I don't believe I wrote that - diff please! Alexbrn (talk) 18:18, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

• 1. Yes, perhaps I should have removed the statement altogether instead of removing only the non-RS link. Because what does it mean "Meridian... has not been proven." by the way? Proven to function as described? Proven to exist? Proven to be an object of belief? But I now see nobody can touch the lede in any way without being attacked with warnings.

2. See your labelling of my edit as WP:PROFRINGE in your edit summary.

3. If anything is controversial, then it is the article's reliance on non-RS compliant sources, like the personal blog quoted in the last section and labelled "evidence-based medicine". Shall we call it a "belief in personal blogs"? — kashmiri  18:30, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Right so you now accept your edit was problematic, and it turns out I didn't "accuse" you using those words, but characterized the edit as WP:PROFRINGE in my ES, which is a bit different. Granted the article has problems, but this rush to WP:ANI on spurious grounds and the idea you should be revert-proof looks like a problem too. Alexbrn (talk) 18:37, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

• The OP is kind of icompetent to edit about health matters. They edit war, remove well-sourced content, add errors to articles, and leave unsourced content constantly:

• • adds or leaves unsourced content that is often promotional: diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff (promo too), diff (adding content with a "cn" tag, oy), diff, diff, diff, diff,

PROMOTIONAL? Can you clarify what or whom I promoted? Naming the institution that is carrying out paryicular research is a promo? You must be kidding, or just doing anything to undermine my credibility. — kashmiri  02:06, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

• • removing well-sourced content: diff and edit wars to remove it again here (same diff as one above)

"Well-sourced" to a personal blog or an anyonymous website. Great. We sure need more such "well-sourced" articles.— kashmiri  02:06, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

• • made content too technical diff (see next edit that explains problems)

precision does not mean "technical". But why researching edits from years ago? Could find nothing newer? — kashmiri  02:06, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

• • made content inaccurate: diff (changed "distributes to periphery" to "distributes to peripheral nerves" which is dead wrong)

Check out the meaning of peripheral nervous system, boy. Nusinersen does NOT distribute to other peripheral tissues than neurons (in case you did not know, being an ASO, it does not cross BBB - that's the reason for its intrathecal administration by the way). "Periphery", which you copied from the label, stands for "peripheral nervous system". You sure want to edit or comment on medicine-related articles? — kashmiri  02:06, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

• • adds bad refs: diff (same diff as above), added primary sources that fail MEDRS

I can't believe you can dismiss an academic paper which summarised trial data, published in a respectable journal, as a "primary source" and "bad reference" - on top of that, a paper authored by several PI-s on that multicentre trial. One of two or three independent publications, i.e., authored by researchers other than Biogen's employees. — kashmiri  02:06, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

• • ignores MEDMOS: diff (same diff as above), added dosing information which we don't do; see whole article version) before I brought it into compliance with MEDMOS in these diffs; OP was the creator and biggest contributor up to that point per the history.

I added frequency of administration, per patient leaflet, which is fixed and identical in all patients, and not drug dosage. You removed it, I guess you thought this might serve as a medical advice to someone. A normal editing process, although it would be more polite if you discussed your doubts.

Moreover, you added INCORRECT information on clinical trial results (no, the data quoted on the leaflet did NOT relate to all phenotypes, it was the data from only one of the two separate trials) and efficacy (no, nusinersen can, and did, have zero or very mild efficacy in some patients - read your leaflet with more attention). You also added financial predictions - i.e., how much profit the drug will bring to the manufacturer - all whilst WP is NOT a crystal ball or an investment handbook (why promoting Biogen anyway?).

See, all this discussion should have taken place on the Talk page and not here, I regret you refused to engage and summarily reverted when I asked you to slow down. — kashmiri  02:06, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

The adding of unsourced OR to articles about health is especially damaging to WP.

Precisely that's the reason I questioned your edits, especially your unsubstantiated claims on efficacy of nusinersen. I removed them, but unfortunately you then hit the Revert button. Pity that you only see how much damage others do.— kashmiri  02:06, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Further, their jumping in to the Meridian (Chinese Medicine) article was very likely stalking/BATTLEGROUND, since they made their first edit to it (see their contribs to that article) at 14:44, 04 January 2017, after this message was left on my talk page at 04:17, 4 January 2017.

I am not looking for any kind of block or ban but this filing was not necessary and they should be warned to source content they add to WP and to follow MEDMOS/MEDRS when editing about health matters. Jytdog (talk) 18:58, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Talk:Nusinersen - No discussion about the edits on article talk page.

Hear this, @Jytdog:? It must be about you as I usuccessfully tried to engage you in editing collaboratively (on your Talk page).

Talk:Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis - No discussion about the edits on article talk page.

Was there, check the archives. Also, ever read WP:BOLD?

Talk:Spinal muscular atrophy - No discussion about the edits on article talk page.

How got? You sure are reading the same page? In my edition of Misplaced Pages, the majority of comments on that Talk are mine, with very few responses anyway.

Talk:Meridian (Chinese medicine) - No discussion about the edits on article talk page.

Average response time on that Talk seems to be well over 6 months, wasn't ready to wait that long and went BOLD. Is that a sin?

It seems like there might be a pattern here...of no one involved in this dispute discussing anything about these issues at all. TimothyJosephWood 18:59, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree with that. This filing was premature and we (including I) have not discussed these disputes at Talk pages. Please note that my disputes with Kashmiri were primarily at the Nusinersen article where I noticed the pattern of bad editing; I gathered the diffs above from looking at their contribs, to flesh out that it is indeed a pattern of poor editing. Jytdog (talk) 19:02, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Whether good editing or bad, Misplaced Pages requires users to collaborate on editing. Unfortunately, you refused to engage in any discussion. At the time when spinal muscular atrophy attracts particular attention of the media and patients, you destroyed consistency of the article, started live drafting, and saved unfinished draft versions with errors for hours. I politely proposed you to draft on the Talk page for discussion - but you refused. — kashmiri  02:13, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Just want to add that my warning at Kashmiri's talk about about unsourced content (diff) mentioned above, followed this earlier warning I left there (diff) which they immediately removed. That in turn followed my pointing out unsourced content in various edit notes like this and this and others. That template:uw-unsourced3 warning was not out of the blue. Jytdog (talk) 19:43, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

This looks a heck of a lot like trouts for one side for mistaking ANI for a talk page, and trouts for the other for templating an editor who's been here for 12 years, and mistaking it for discussion. TimothyJosephWood 20:35, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

I would also suggest trouts for anyone who complains about an editor getting a template for behavior that clearly needed to be corrected (older account age should be even more reason for a template in such instances, not less), but I personally prefer catfish. Kingofaces43 (talk) 21:53, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Just because a content dispute spreads across multiple articles doesn't make it not a content dispute. Being an experienced editor makes breaking basic rules more egregious, but it also heightens solidifies the expectation that you will engage in discussion before things escalate to the point where you are resorting to boiler plate templates. TimothyJosephWood 22:19, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Which is exactly why Kashmiri's behavior was problematic here (again, the burden was on them to pursue discussion if they wanted their changes to stick). They essentially acted like a new editor (though not all new editors act poorly) by ignoring various rules we have. Since it's apparent they were either not aware of them or ignored them, that's exactly what the templates are there for regardless of account age. Sometimes even an only slightly-less-than-sagely editor still needs to be reminded of policies and guidelines when they slip up. Even the WP:DTTR#AGF essay cautions against an absolute mentality of not using templates on regulars because sometimes even regulars don't act like experienced users. It almost always looks there's a petty underlying squabble and missing the point going on when someone complains about a template being used. Kingofaces43 (talk) 23:02, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

DTTR is an essay; WP:CON is a policy, and consensus doesn't happen without discussion. Discussion is not requested; it is required, and templating does not constitute discussion. It is not the presence of templates, but the absence of discussion that is the problem. TimothyJosephWood 00:09, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

I actually pointed out DTTR was only an essay because you were pushing that using the template was somehow problematic. Your posts are oddly sniping at those who were attempting in a pretty standard fashion to deal with Kashmiri's behavior and lack of discussion. It's sometimes common for editors prone to edit wars to skip talk page discussion after getting feedback in initial edit summaries, so it's silly to accuse editors dealing with that because they have nothing to respond to on the talk page in the first place; they wouldn't know what Kashimiri's problem with a particular revert/edit summary would be or if there were even follow-up problems in the first place until they got a response on the talk page.

When someone gets initially reverted, the person reverting usually gives reasoning in the edit summary. If the original editor (e.g., Kashmiri) wasn't ready to let the reverted edit go or the edit summary wasn't enough to resolve the issue, it would be up to them to transition the discussion to the talk page from initial edit summaries as the other editors already responded. That's how discussion progresses from an original edit that's later disputed in terms of WP:EDITCONSENSUS policy. I (and most editors) sure don't immediately post to the talk page every time one of us revert because either the edit summary is expected to be clear enough to resolve the issue or the editor will bring up follow-up issues on the talk page. Right now, you're trying to fault someone for taking one step in the initial discussion while Kashmiri failed to take the next. Kingofaces43 (talk) 01:17, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

• Close? I don't see anything for admins to do here as long as Kashmiri learns how to use the talk page when their edits don't stick (i.e., WP:BRD and WP:BURDEN) while using sources. If this had been more of a long-term ongoing problem, this would be a good candidate for a WP:BOOMERANG, but it looks like this at least rises into warning territory for now for Kashmiri instigating edit wars and adding unsourced content. Kingofaces43 (talk) 21:53, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

I would also add that at least some of the "unsourced content" appears to be content in the lead, which probably doesn't need further explanation here. TimothyJosephWood 22:24, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Sure per LEAD no refs are needed in the lead. But the content must be sourced in the body, and in these cases it wasn't. Jytdog (talk) 01:33, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

• Close lest we continue to fight a rhetorical war over who is more wrong in a situation where no one is right. TimothyJosephWood 01:37, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
• Apologies, had to step out for a few hours. I think what Jytdog did above requires more than a trout: taking out my unrelated edits, some from years ago, and suddenly complaining that they were "too technical", etc., sounds like a WP:BOOMERANG. Still, I am adding comments above. — kashmiri  02:06, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

As I have suggested on their talk, Kashmiri needs to undo their confusing-comments-within-comments edits, something they should already know not to do, and instead make a separate reply, if necessary. TimothyJosephWood 03:06, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Fram/Sander.v.Ginkel follow-up

I know strictly speaking, this doesn't require an admin's attention, but I know a lot of people made comment on this discussion. For info, there's now this discussion to move things forward. I'll drop a note on Fram and Sander's talkpages too. Thanks. Lugnuts 07:59, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Sock stupidity redacted, removed content here if anyone really feels the need to read it. ‑ Iridescent 19:14, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Request for review of my admin action regarding Monique Alexander

Pursuant to the discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Pornography#‎2017 AVN Hall of Fame inductees, I restored Monique Alexander on the basis that the subject being inducted into the Hall of Fame for their field, combined with an unusually high level of previous coverage from outside their field, makes this a fairly obvious case. The title hasn't been salted, and the article could therefore be created anew based on the subject's current state of notability. I would have taken the same action if a request had been made at WP:RFU, as was contemplated in that discussion. An editor has objected to my undeletion of the page, and I would like to know if I have overstepped here. Cheers! bd2412 T 16:40, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

In general, I tend to be fairly deletion, but I think this meets the criteria. I remember a film she starred in, Play Time, being shown on UK mainstream terrestrial Channel 5, although admittedly that was back in the days when the channel's philosophy was "football, films and f**king", although the latter was always tasteful(?) soft core Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:51, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

This is an urgent ANI matter? Can't you just have asked a fellow admin for a second opinion? EEng 17:02, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

It's hard to do that without being accused of cherrypicking the fellow admin you ask. bd2412 T 17:08, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

This board is way, way to crowded with minor stuff. If the complainer wants to take it to some appeal, let them. EEng 17:16, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Plus I think WP:AN would have been the better place. Sir Joseph 18:29, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

I think you're fine. WP:DRV is not appropriate for this process as no one is saying that discussion was improperly closed. This is a recreation of an article, informally asked for by Wikiuser20102011, who brought up new content and sources, potentially satisfying notability concerns. --NeilN 17:07, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

• As a non-admin looking at this, I think the complaining editor's signature is the most improper thing going on (and that's borderline), while simultaneously providing a ready possible explanation for the complaints (once the arguments on the OP's talk page are taken into account: before that point we must presume the complaints are earnest). I'm not saying this was disputed over a grudge, mind. I'm just saying that's a possibility, considering the circumstances and arguments. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 17:17, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
• Nah, you're fine. You're absolutely right that any editor could have independently recreated the article with new information that brings the subject up to GNG, at which point it would likely be necessary to do a messy history merge; you just saved the trouble by restoring the history first. I suppose it might have been better to restore as a draft to let the editors add the relevant info and then resubmit as a new article, but that seems needlessly academic considering the editors making the request are not newbies. And bringing it here when your action was challenged is also the right thing to do (maybe AN is better but no matter, this board is not "too crowded" to deal with simple administrative matters). Ivanvector (/_Edits) 18:06, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Spaming a POV over Talk:List of state leaders in 2016#Merge into List of state leaders in the 21st century

I see that User:Bogdan Uleia is currently spamming many individual user talk pages with his biased POV of the disagreement at Talk:List of state leaders in 2016#Merge into List of state leaders in the 21st century. This includes calling my actions abusive with I consider an unwarrented and personal attack.

It may only call for a warning but I am not sure what to do to prevent such thing from happening again. Thank you. tahc 19:47, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Firstly, you are wrong at the beginning. The articles refer to Lists of state leaders by years not by centuries. If you want to write articles about lists by centuries, is your right but open a separate list. If you don’t know, such lists is redundant because they are some specialized sites as www.rulers.org or www.worldstatesmen.org/ which are better as an wiki article, But it is your option. If you want to make a link between your article and the articles linked to years, you cam use section “See also” and they are no problem. Concerning the maintenance, if that is too hard to you, way you begin to wrote a such article?. Secondly, you have no right to redirect and destroy articles written by others persons without a consensus. Yes, a consensus, because no one is able to detain absolute truth. It is no me only, but some other persons consider it is necessary to exist a consensus to do it. On the other hand they are more others redundant articles (List of current presidents List of current prime ministers, List of current sovereign monarchs, etc) and no one redirected an destroy them. They are two similar lists List of current dependent territory leaders and List of leaders of dependent territories but, in order to unify them, not to redirect was opened a discussion. No one decides himself. I think you have the impression you and only you detain the truth and , in this sense you can do any thing you want to do, however you destroy the work of others. That it is an abuse. I informed all the contributors, in order to knew in what way is treated their work. And, by the way, way are redirected only the articles about the years 2016 and 2017?

Bogdan Uleia (talk)

Articles created by proxy?

I noticed that Margaretver and Inimfon made very similar edits to Inonotus obliquus, that their editing also over overlapped on the topic of Akwa Ibom State and that one of Inimfon's articles - Richard Zoumalan looks like the result of paid editing. I therefore asked Margaretver about socking and paid editing.

Margaretver replied that these accounts were not socks but that articles they created were the result of submissions to a web site, and that "Most of the pages i've created are from my mails i receive per submission". So far as I can see the Margaretver account has only created one article, Akwa Ibom State Governor, so I'm not sure what the others (implied by "most of") are or which account created them.

This seems problematic/irregular - could somebody take a look and suggest a course of action? Alexbrn (talk) 21:59, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: Please when i meant "Most of" i meant edits and page(s) created. Recently i started a WikiProject and i believe during the process i have created pages,categories and templates. Margaretver (talk) 23:16, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: Here's the link for content submission and every now and then we do Sponsored Ads on Facebook and Instagram to help promote the page in some targeted regions a Margaretver (talk) 23:46, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

1. ^ http://www.premiumherald.com/submit-wikipedia-worthy-content/. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

"we do Sponsored Ads": who are "we", Margaretver? -- Hoary (talk) 00:09, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

The first edit cited above by Alexbrn is this one by Margaretver. In it, Margaretver provides for the preexisting assertion

Though, according to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, "no clinical trials have been conducted to assess chaga's safety and efficacy for disease prevention or for the treatment of cancer, cardiovascular disease, or diabetes".

an additional source, viz:

{{Cite news|url=https://chichaga.com/chaga-mushrooms-a-cure-for-all-and-everything/|title=Are Chaga mushrooms a cure for all and everything?|date=2016-10-05|newspaper=CHI CHAGA|language=en-US|access-date=2017-01-05}}

and as an edit summary for this, writes:

added refs to medicinal research

I must confess that I haven't read the page to which Margaretver links: it's prohibitively prolix and badly written. What do I mean? Well, its first sentence reads:

Deviating for a moment to the Botanic fact that Mushrooms, in general, are developing higher contents and more complex healing substances than other medical plants.

So it starts by "deviating", has no main clause, has a bizarre use of the progressive in its subordinate (and only) clause, and has the capitalization of a twelve-year-old.

But a couple of reality checks. First, the string "Sloan" doesn't appear anywhere in the page; therefore, its reliability aside, this is not the source Margaretver presents it as.

Secondly, this is not "medicinal research", it's merely a page from some website hawking fungus products -- and hawking them to the kind of people who'd bother to read a page wondering whether such-and-such was "a cure for all and everything". (Tip: We won't know that anything is so till we have the first set of 130-year-olds who can credibly attribute their avoidance of death to its ingestion.)

I'm aware that I may seem "bitey" toward a new editor, but this is one who's already using HotCat and Twinkle and so I think we can expect competence. -- Hoary (talk) 00:06, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

@Hoary: When i say "WE" am talking about the 2 people in my department assigned to expand or add contents submitted via that page, both Nigeria related and non Nigeria related. I sincerely had no bad intentions when adding the link, neither did it occur to me it was spam or might be spam. Since the link seemed to be referring to "Chaga Mushroom" as is the significance of the page i added the link. That was a big oversight on my part and i apologize. .... added at 00:28, 6 January 2017 by Margaretver

So to clarify: there is a department (of a company, "Premium Herald"?) with two people who are taking content they receive from third parties and transferring it onto Misplaced Pages? Alexbrn (talk) 06:59, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: A department setup to add mostly Nigeria related contents which might may meet notability guideline. Margaretver (talk) 07:40, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Comment FFS, read the link. They ask for material to submit to wikipedia from anyone. They reject promotional material, spam, and unverifiable material. There is no paid editing. Internet.org just launched a free internet service in Nigeria with a partner. Misplaced Pages is one of the free websites to access. The official language of Nigeria is English. Consider where many of these people will come. This witch hunt needs to be dropped. What Margaretver and the premium herald are doing should be applauded. Are there issues? Certainly but they joined under 30 days ago. I am aware that so many of us take wikipedia and the internet for granted but in Nigeria, where in 2012 32% of the population had access to the internet and wikipedia, this has the potential to be a major educational tool as more people in Nigeria gain access to the internet. They want to create high quality articles with the utmost ethical standards set by wikipedia. So instead of tying a boulder to them and throwing them in the pond to see if they drown and prove they aren't a witch, help them out. They are here. They are willing to discuss. They wanna learn. They want to do right. While we represent American, United Kingdom, Australian, and New Zealand interests, we also represent the interests of the English speaking world. Nigeria is slowly joining us. This whole thing is bitey and it is piss poor form. CIR my ass. Hotcat isn't that complicated to figure out and it's also not hard to figure out that Margaretver has a target audience, Nigerians. They have been here for less then 30 days. Instead of banning them why not reach out and try to help them. Without the use of a robotic script. There's the tea house, adopt a user, and what else is there to assist a new user in acclimating to Misplaced Pages competently? We could do something crazy like give them the links and explain what they are. Any random admins that notice they opted for piss poor sourcing might offer to assist them with understanding sourcing standards. It's not as if they can't be banned later if attempting to actually help them proves fruitless. Actually attempting to help them first rally seems like the right thing to do.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 18:23, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

TLDR Close this bullshit and help them or clearly point to where they can get help because they are not doing anything wrong and they are trying to do great and beneficial things.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 19:36, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

So you're okay that (say) a banned user could use this to get stuff into Misplaced Pages? And you're okay that there is no mechanism to ensure the permissions to the content are known? Or that it's not paid content? And that in practice this has ended up with dodgy content? Alexbrn (talk) 03:49, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

More people need to start doing this in third world English speaking countries. I have no more reason to believe that they are being paid to edit wikipedia in a certain way than I do to believe you are being paid to edit in a certain way. Dodgy content? Yes, yes, there content looks almost as if they have been here for less than 30 days.. Oh wait they have been. They provided an unreliable source which is actually common to new editors. You ask those questions but I could apply most of them to you because they are unfounded and baseless. The world around you is spinning. Here are two articles for you Internet.org and Misplaced Pages Zero. Wikiedpia is actively trying to expand its access. Nigeria is one of it's target countries. This user and what they are trying to do is beneficial to that. In the end this user could be a detriment and it maybe necessary to ban them. Right now this isn't the case. Right now they deserve to be given an opportunity and every possible assistance to acclimate to wikipedia. Because in the end they could be a damn fine wikipedia editor and very beneficial to this project as people across Nigeria gain access to it.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 04:55, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Lots of high-horse waffle there; the aim is not to shut down the editors which is why I'm asking for input here. However it seems to me there are problems here with regard to the ToU. Alexbrn (talk) 05:03, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

There are a number of possible issues. They work for a online newspaper. The online newspaper takes requests to edit wikipedia. Do they receive payment for these edits? Do they make these edits during their work schedule and if they receive an hourly wage can this be counted as paid editing? Either of which as a yes would mean they need to make a declaration. Material submitted to them, what's the copyright status. If someone write the article or a portion of it and submits it what's the copyright status? There submission page should for example have some fine print that says something similar to By submitting content, you agree to the Terms of Use of wikipedia, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.. All properly linked so that the users can read what they are agreeing to. These are certainly things that should be looked into so that everything is above board. I'll see if I can find out about the paid part.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 05:46, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm wondering how an article like Richard Zoumalan (which looks like a classic paid-for piece) came to be added to Misplaced Pages. By email submission? Alexbrn (talk) 06:25, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

I have no clue. I'm not sure if Inimfon is the other editor that is working with Margaretver. I do notice Margaretver action was to place a BLP tag on it. At a glance Richard seems to be a notable person. You note it's fluffy and I note that its short. The only detail I know for sure is an otherwise new editor created it. You have the same details. If he is the other individual working with Margaretver then it seems that they may benifit from some help acclimating to wikipedia.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 07:01, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Supersonic jet troll

There has been a recent issue with an editor behind an IPv6 range making mass edits. This is what they're mainly doing, and their behavior has gotten many articles semi-protected in the process... As of recently, they're trolling an admin's talkpage, here and here.

Unfortunately, 2600:1002::/32 (block range · block log (global) · WHOIS (partial)) would be the only possible rangeblock (see the last two IP's that I've listed above), which is very wide. If any admin feels comfortable performing that kind of block, then it may be need to be done in order to prevent further disruption. Thanks. 172.58.40.158 (talk) 01:48, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

See the chart below, not the correct range...

Actually, my rangecalc suggests that 2600:1002:b100:0:0:0:0:0/42 (block range · block log (global) · WHOIS (partial)) can (probably) handle it. -- The Voidwalker 01:55, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

@The Voidwalker: Just curious, but which calculator do you use to calculate that? I just said /32 because I know that typically IPv6 rangeblocks are either /32, /48, or /64, didn't know that there were others in between... 172.58.40.158 (talk) 02:02, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

The tool I use is built into a private interface. I'm not actually sure what the equivalent is. However, {{rangecalc}} seems to work similarly. -- The Voidwalker 02:10, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Just for the record, these are all of the IP addresses that I have found: 172.58.40.150 (talk) 03:14, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Given that it's a pretty wide range and the vandalism is so specialized, maybe an edit filter would be better? NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 04:59, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

@NinjaRobotPirate: Yes, I believe an edit filter would be a much better way to solve the problem. Also, pinging Samtar and MusikAnimal, as they may be able to take a good look at this (and possibly create an edit filter). 2601:1C0:101:4626:159C:184A:6A69:7B89 (talk) 12:17, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Working on this at Special:AbuseFilter/821 — MusikAnimal 23:12, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Sultan Aji Muhammad Sulaiman Airport

An anonymous user removed the word "international" from the article. I have warned him to stop that but it seems he does not care. I need the admin to help in this issue before this leads to an edit war. Cheers. CWJakarta (talk) 03:04, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Both of the edit warriors are over at AN3 and the page is listed for SEMI protection. Boomerang incoming.--Adam in MO Talk 03:59, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

I've reverted to the stable version before the edit war and highly recommend that both editors discuss the matter on the article's talk page before making any further changes. However, I must emphasize to 202.67.39.21 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) that you must explain why an official name is wrong instead of declaring it as such. —Farix (t | c) 14:10, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Have requested page protection as the editor is now switching IPs to continue their edit war and refuse to discuss the matter on the talk page. —Farix (t | c) 16:27, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Multiple inappropriate non-admin closures by User:AKS.9955

Several multiple-editor, longterm and ongoing discussions have been raised with User:AKS.9955 since OctoberJune 2016, despite that, he still continues to ignore Misplaced Pages:Non-admin_closure#Inappropriate_closures point #2.

• diff https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:AKS.9955&diff=prev&oldid=758304901
• diff https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:AKS.9955&diff=prev&oldid=758276535

User:AKS.9955 just non-admin-closed controversial Kingsley C. Dassanaike AFTER having been warned about the consequences of his actions here, here, here, here, here and here. Years ago I had my rollback taken away, don't much miss it, but it sets me to thinking, can someone have non-admin closure rights taken away? If ever there was a candidate, User:AKS.9955 is the poster child. A trout will not make the message stick at this point.--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 04:30, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• That would be a topic ban. The criticism to his response to the criticism at DRV followed by closing a relist that had no further comments makes me think this might be the way to go. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:57, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
• AKS seems to be trying to declare Bronze Wolf winners automatically notable by fiat, and I do not agree with that at all. These AfDs have been largely dominated by scouting enthusiasts, and it's well known that Wikiprojects often try to drive notability requirements for their topic right down into the basement. Also have to say that I'm uneasy about OP contacting only the DRV participants who criticised the non-admin close. Reyk _YO! 07:57, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Reyk I contacted everyone involved in the DRV, what are you talking about? There's no "Scout-wing cabal" going on here, I'd rather put the issue to the test openly.--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 09:10, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Not so, you skipped Lankiveil for instance. Reyk _YO! 09:12, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Elisa Jordana (2nd nomination) and Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Raj Barr-Kumar (2nd nomination) are both examples of AFD discussions that AKS.9955 closed as "keep", when in my opinion it would have been better to have closed them as "no consensus". Does a lack of consensus make them a "close call" or "controversial"? I suspect that it does.-- Toddy1 (talk) 08:42, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

There is already a DRV for that article.--64.229.167.158 (talk) 08:56, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, we know that. This is an ANI to curtail the behavior.--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 09:10, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Not that often really. To be 'no consensus' means that there was no real winner in either votes or strength of argument. A lack of consensus is easy to spot. Its harder to judge a consensus when you have a stronger arguments on one side. As a no consensus and a keep at deletion discussions are the same result, its not a huge reason to overturn it. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:38, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

RE Elisa Jordana - the strongest argument there was from Kaisa who voted keep based on her individual accomplishments, while being minor in themselves, scraping into notability. The difficulty with people who write *for* reliable sources is that they often dont have reliable sources who write *about* them.

The second was *obviously* a keep. Being nominated anonymously via OTRS and filled with IP meatpuppets. Apart from Tiptoe, that AFD was entirely suspect. Even the nomination itself was filled with opinionated accusations of wikipedia editors. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:51, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Speaking to what I've been involved in:

1. The user's closure of Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Leslie R. Mitchell was inappropriate, not because the arguments for and against were particularly close, but because it was a protracted debate with very different rationales for keeping, and ones which have potential effects on other articles. It was therefore outside of the realm of uncontroversial closures required of an NAC.
2. Their response when two experienced users questioned the close, which was to blank the conversation on their talk page was more so.
3. Their response at DRV was more so, and showed either an inability or a complete unwillingness to consider the arguments made as anything other than a personal attack. For a touch of irony, their assertion that Timothyjosephwood is simply lying when he said that he discussed with me; no he did not., which actually is a personal attack, is at best a willful misrepresentation. There was no discussion...because they blanked the thread.
4. Their decision to close nearly the same AfD with nearly the same rationale shows a complete and utter lack of judgement. They are completely involved that that point, even while their previous identical close was still open at DRV. They should not have closed that discussion even if it were 100 to 0 speedy keep. That they don't seem to understand that means they probably don't need to be closing discussions.

Having said all that about the current situation, and without comment as to previous inappropriate closures (, , , ), I support a time limited topic ban from closing AfD discussions. Making mistakes and misinterpreting policy/guidelines is not a high crime. Editors do it all the time. That's what discussion is for. But a complete unwillingness to consider that you may have made a mistake, a preference to continue the same behavior even while under community review, and a willingness to drag the community through both DRV an ANI rather than quietly defer to an admin when issue is raised (even if you are right and even if only to avoid the appearance of impropriety), make the user's contributions a net negative for the project in this area at this time. They can come back after a while and demonstrate that they can do better. TimothyJosephWood 11:48, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

The Leslie Mitchell AFD was never going to be closed other than keep. We have an article on the award they recieve and the keep voters cited ANYBIO. As the major oppose was 'getting that award doesnt make you notable' which is a *terrible* argument given there is no way you could AFD the wolf award, it is unsurprising it was a clear keep with both the number and quality of arguments on the keep side. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:34, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Whether it is clear keep is irrelevant to the fact that a closing rationale of Winner of Bronze Wolf Award award, making him notable. has no basis whatsoever in policy. TimothyJosephWood 14:53, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

WP:ANYBIO section 1 is directly relevant to awards. He could have worded it 'Keep voters have stated subject has received a well known and significant award and oppose voters have failed to refute this' but at that point you are just quibbling over wording. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:59, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

And meeting ANYBIO 1 is meaningless if the individual in question does not also meet GNG, and the only significant coverage of them is passing mention of the award, which itself cannot be assumed to confer notability. TimothyJosephWood 15:18, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

And regardless making an inappropriate NAC is inappropriate even if the call was correct. Making an involved NAC is still involved even if the call was correct, which is the actual point of this thread, and not hair splitting over notability "criteria" which itself emphasizes that it does not confer notability. TimothyJosephWood 15:22, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

People who have been considered to satisfy the notability (ANYBIO) guideline for people are considered generally to pass GNG. As both are notability guidelines, neither takes priority, nor are people required to satisfy both guidelines. But I see now you have moved onto claming they were INVOLVED. On what basis were they INVOLVED? 16:02, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

See my original comment. TimothyJosephWood 16:10, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Closing multiple AFD's in the same topic area does not make one 'involved'. Being 'involved' means having a conflict of interest, or strong feelings in the area. Merely acting in an administrative capacity (closing a discussion falls under this) previously is explicitly not 'involved'. Have they been involved in content disputes in the scouting area? Do they have a 'SCOUTS ARE AWESOME' template on their userpage? Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:19, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

I disagree, especially when it was explicitly pointed out that his first close was problematic and immediately reopened and it should have been very obvious that the AfDs were related. Being involved doesn't mean AKS is involved with the Scouting movement, but rather he was "making a point" that the Bronze Wolf award is notable - something that the community has not agreed on. -- HighKing 17:56, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

This is indeed far from the first time, eg: this. Things do not seem to be improving. - Sitush (talk) 12:01, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

There is a growing trend over the past 2 years for non-admins to close more AfDs. I can only assume this is because people who would have become admins 10 years ago can't now due to rising standards, so more of a blind eye is turned to NACs. A similar situation here resulted in a lot of discussion, but no agreement that the AfD closing itself was bad. Having said all that, if AKS is making too many bad closes, he doesn't clearly have the confidence of the community, and should stop it now before he gets a topic ban. Ritchie333 14:27, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• There's also this recent NAC which he closed literally the next edit after being at DRV . Given, the article was short and it could be done from history so there wasn't really much difference, but closing an AfD as 'redirect' when no single person had !voted that way at AfD shows a lack of judgement in my mind. Especially given that this editor had just been at DRV, which should have been a hint that treading lightly with NACs would be a good idea. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:25, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Yup, this fellow speedily redirected Hindoo. See my: post on his talk page. That ethnic slur page had been around for five years, in its current form. Another editor, without any previous discussion on its talk page, or on WT:INDIA, proposed taking it to AfD in an edit summary, part of a back a forth with another editor, and a bunch of clueless Wikipedians (who didn't understand what the page was about) all agreed that it should be redirected to Hindu. All this happened during that time of year between Christmas and New Year when we are all watching with the eyes of a hawk. How do I restore the valuable content that has disappeared? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:38, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

The consensus at that AfD was pretty clearly merge, and it was done here . My issue was that closing an AfD as "redirect" when the word was never mentioned in the discussion immediately after having another NAC taken to AfD shows bad judgement on this area of work. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:44, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

:) Thanks, I didn't get that. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:14, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yeah, the close wasn't quite appropriate, and the hasty redirecting performed by the closer left the dab at Hindoo (disambiguation) stranded. I did clean that up, but I really didn't want to bother with trouting that user (I'm having my fair share of drama these days with the Saraiki dialect RM, and I really don't want to have more). – Uanfala (talk) 16:22, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• TonyBallioni and Uanfala (talk), did anyone of you check the article Hindoo before it was merged (I mean the contents)?? It just had ONE LINE (Hindoo is an archaic spelling of Hindu, and one whose use today may be considered derogatory). That's not merge-worthy at ALL (as a matter of fact Wikimandia also recommended similar in the AfD article). This is the problem, people jump to crucify others without even looking into all aspects. Just because someone is not happy with an NAC, does not make the closer a bad "editor and person" automatically. Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk) 16:49, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

AKS.9955, neither of us claimed you were a bad editor or person. Wikimandia's vote was Merge anything interesting with Hindu and leave redirect it was not simply "redirect". All the other editors !voted "merge" simply. I'm not trying to crucify you here. I'm just saying that a supervote that had no basis in the consensus right after getting taken to DRV on another NAC is probably not a good idea. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:24, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• TonyBallioni, lol. Perhaps you missed out on all the trouts, poster child and other adjectives I have been receiving. Anyway, that is not the point. I asked you, what was there to merge in the one line article?? Please thinks before you start accusing someone. I ask you to try and "merge" the contents. Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk) 17:35, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Uanfala did the merge here . Your opinion is a valid one, and I'm not disagreeing with it. You should have !voted it rather than closing it, since there was no one else arguing your view at the time. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:40, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

AKS.9955 If you really thought that Hindoo was a one line page, then you are merely showing your ignorance. The meat of the page was in the references. It was really an ethnic slur page, whose references spoke to the different forms in which (mostly) Indian-Americans experienced the slur in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Please don't be arrogant, when you are that clueless. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:52, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• Fowler&fowler, the article ONLY HAD ONE LINE; regardless of what you say here. Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk) 17:58, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

AKS.9955 and you don't see SIX LINES of notes below it, not to mention the references, or did you not care to notice them? You don't think I know what I created five years ago, after having made 20,000 edits on Misplaced Pages? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:06, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• The article main-space had precisely ONE LINE (16 words to be exact). Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk) 18:13, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

AKS.9955 And because it had only one line, now matter how much valuable content it has in the references, you think there is nothing of value in that page, and nothing salvageable? Nothing, then, in your view, deserved to be included in the lead of the Hindu page, as it now has been (courtesy user:Uanfala) along with the references? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:41, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• I never said a word about the value of the content. What you don't understand is that it was NOT ME who decided to "knock-off" the article; it was an AfD discussion; I just happened to CLOSE IT. Grow-up and get it right. Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk) 18:51, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

AKS.9955 If you weren't implying it, then how does it matter whether it had one line or twenty? You are the one who got worked up about the one line (in capitals), insinuating that others did not notice it, including me, who authored it. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:57, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• Comment. I am a bit surprised by the hostility and canvassing being done against me. Well, to discuss if a award is notable or not (which effects 300+ articles); what is the right place - a AfD or open a discussion in the article talkpage? There are multiple AfDs open on this subject, what do you suggest to do - keep all the AfDs open? Discuss centrally and then apply the consensus to all the related articles. Anyway, looking at the merits of the AfD alone, the article was surviving the AfD - period. It does not matter if someone likes it or not. There is very clear consensus for the article to be kept. I am NOT trying to declare any award notable; the community (Kintetsubuffalo, Jkudlick, Evrik, Naraht, Narky Blert and Timothyjosephwood) in the AfD discussion said that the award is notable. Then there where others who gave different rational for keep. Apart from the nominator, only one user voted for weak delete; please don't tell me that for closing an AfD, this fact should not be considered (I am not saying that only votes were counted). I hope people understand that the AfD closure's job is NOT to give his own opinion on the AfD but to arrive to what the community had decided, and I did exactly that. If people wish to discuss the notability of a particular award; please take the discussion to the relevant talkpage of the article - as far as this AfD is concerned, it was a clear keep and hence I closed it accordingly and stood by it. I would now like to reply to all the points raised in this discussion by all users;

1. I declared an award notable: I declared nothing notable. I merely closed and AfD based on consensus built by the community. User:Kintetsubuffalo, User:Egel, User:Evrik, User:Bduke, User:Naraht, User:Btphelps, User:Narky Blert, User:E.M.Gregory, User:Timothyjosephwood and User:Alansohn are the ones who said that the award is notable; NOT ME. I just went by what everyone said.
2. Claim that I ignored point 2: As I said above, the community (User:Kintetsubuffalo, User:Egel, User:Evrik, User:Bduke, User:Naraht, User:Btphelps, User:Narky Blert, User:E.M.Gregory, User:Timothyjosephwood and User:Alansohn) had already decided towards a clear keep. Apart from the nominator, one user voted for weak delete. Everyone had given their reasons very explicitly and this AfD was not at all a close call and point 2 was not ignored.
3. Zoroastrian Students' Association AfD: This AfD closure was non-controversial, was re-opened by Sysop Malcolmxl5 and subsequently the AfD was closed with no consensus. It appears that Kintetsubuffalo is deliberately posting only a part of the talkpage conversation and not the full conversation.
4. Wayne Woodward AfD: As Davey2010 and Bonadea pointed out (something I had missed there), I had closed the AfD right after relisting it. There were no disagreements / warnings given (as Kintetsubuffalo dramatically puts it).
5. This talk: was not a warning given (as Kintetsubuffalo dramatically puts it) and was just a discussion with NewYorkActuary.
6. List of Australian middleweight boxing champions AfD: User:Papaursa did not agree with NAC, I stood by my decision. He said he will take it to DRV, he did not and the AfD maintained. Where is the problem with this?
7. Leslie R. Mitchell AfD: Is the reason why we are having this discussion. This particular AfD is a very clear keep where no-one (apart from the nominator and another user) supported the AfD. More than 10 users opposed the AfD; where is the question of ambiguity??

What really surprises me is the hostility, name calling, aggressive behavior and judgmental approach. Without even looking at the facts, people have started talking about my behavior (see )??? Does User:Kintetsubuffalo not understand any Misplaced Pages:Civility that he termed me as a poster child and I ask him to explain his comment? As I was writing this comment, someone posted a message for another NAC done by me. Well the matter has been answered by RegentsPark, but the point is what am I supposed to do for all the "disgruntled" people who refuse to understand and accept that AfD can go against their wishes?? Folks, this AfD had clear consensus towards keep, I performed the NAC and am standing-by my decision in performing the NAC. The matter is already in DRV, let the community decide there. As far as the AfD is concerned, the community decided VERY clearly towards a unanimous keep and hence I performed the NAC. Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk) 16:23, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, let's not be too hasty, and end up losing a productive editor, his NAC actions were clearly in good faith, and I don't think anyone's disputing that. jcc (tea and biscuits) 17:19, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Re point 1, "Winner of Bronze Wolf Award award, making him notable" is AKS.9955's summary, which very clearly declares the award to be notable, even though this was quite a major point of contention during the discussion. It's not an appropriate statement for a NAC, considering the circumstances. If it is simply an innocent problem of language or communication, then it underlines the fact that maybe the editor shouldn't be closing contentious arguments. Sionk (talk) 19:08, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Just leaving this here:

• Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2016 June 30 - Relisted
• Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2016 June 25 - Relisted
• Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2016 June 7 - Essentially withdrawn
• Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2016 August 23 - Closure overturned and article deleted
• October 4 AN thread, same issues. The result was to reopen.
• Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2016 October 21 - Regarding Oooooooohhh... On the Video Tip – Vacate close and relist

TimothyJosephWood 16:29, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• Timothyjosephwood posted some logs up. Proves my point exactly about smearing, being judgmental and giving selective information. What he does not explicitly state is the outcome. Following;

1. Sweat Cosmetics DRV: Relisted with comment "Most contributors endorse the closure as such, because they don't consider the assessment of consensus to be in error, but they believe that more discussion would have been merited".
2. List of Australian middleweight boxing champions DRV: The DRV closing comments were "Keep" closure endorsed".
3. List of Australian Ambassadors to Venezuela DRV: This was relisted and finally closed with "no consensus". Another bureaucratic step. There were admins (like Lankiveil and RoySmith) who endorsed the close.
4. Speedy (musician) DRV: False information given by Timothyjosephwood. Result was "Endorsed - I seriously don't see the consensus in Keeping it but arguing over it is pointless and beginning to be a waste of everyones time, Best thing I can do is take it on the chin and move on!"
5. The Pioneer Trail (tour) DRV: Yes, the closure was overturned but it was because of copyright problems and had little to do with the closure. If you see the actual AfD discussion, you will notice that very experienced editors such as DGG, Shawn in Montreal, Kvng, Atlantic306 and Dane2007 voted very strongly for keep. So are we going to question there judgement now and call them names? As a matter of fact, no one voted for delete.
6. October 4 AN thread about Martin Sekulić: Again false information. This thread was never closed and the related AfD was left untouched.
7. Oooooooohhh... On the Video Tip DRV: Yup. Closing comments; "Vacate close and relist. The discussion in this review is as much a procedural review of the close as it is a re-arguing of the AfD, and I'm not sure there's any good way to tease those apart. So, I'm just going to back out the AfD close and let it run for another week. Hopefully that will result in a clear consensus one way or the other."

Trust this clarifies. Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk) 17:30, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

I think the problem is in part that even when you are right, you are right for the wrong reason. That is, your closure summary does not reflect the discussion. That certainly has been my experience of your NACs in the past and of your reaction to criticism of them. - Sitush (talk) 17:36, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support 6month-1year topic ban - In short the editor seems to continue to close controversial AFDs, Ignores editors help and advice inregards to AFD closures and last but not least they also refuse to reopen any AFD they've closed thus forcing everyone to open a DRV- Not necessary a bad thing however reopening them is I guess a way of saying "Yes I may have been wrong and will allow it to be reclosed" if that makes sense,

In short I believe they're closing way too many controversial AFDs and should probably take a step back for a while,

I admit I made the mistake a year ago of closing early (linked above) however I've listened to people and have changed ... unfortunately the same cannot be said for this editor who as I said seems to ignore anyone and everyone. –Davey2010 17:38, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• Davey2010, me and you clearly have a history here sp I understand the anger and vengeance you have. You really need to explain why this AfD closure was "controversial" and where was this taken up in DRV / AN? I don't recall this being discussed (pardon me if I missed). I have IN DETAIL explained every DRV / "so called controversy" above. You might want to update yourself on that. Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk) 17:55, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• If you honestly believe my comment was all because we've had our differences then you don't know me very well! - I don't hold grudges and the way I see things is "the past is the past", I've had many arguments with people who have been reported here and some I have vouched for and that's despite our differences so no this isn't anything to do with anger, vengeance nor our past. The AFD should speak for itself - It was controversial, Just because you wasn't reverted it doen't mean it wasn't uncontroversial - Some may of thought reverting your close would've been pointless I don't know - Only those who participated can answer that but from an outside view it was a controversial close. –Davey2010 18:04, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• Davey2010, pardon me but I don't want to know you. And Yes, you are taking this as an opportunity to get back at me. Had you read what I have written above, I don't think you would have said what you said. By the way, you still need to explain why did you call that AfD closure "controversial". You said it, you explain. Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk) 18:09, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• Your choice, Read what I've just wrote - I don't hold pathetic grudges, Because it was related to OTRS so therefore I believe it was controversial for that reason and that reason alone I've read your comments however I still believe a short topic ban is warranted (BTW If this was a grudge then wouldn't I have suggested it indef ? ...., Anyway I have no wish to argue over this and I'm currently sourcing an article which is more productive than us arguing. –Davey2010 18:19, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• Comment AKS.9955 has not even begun to accept any wrongdoing that he may have inappropriately closed AfDs. This is worrying. AKS.9955 is essentially saying that his closing of multiple articles is within the rules for NAC. Clearly - and you only have to see the comments here from editors who were all *involved* in the AfD's - he assumes a consensus too quickly and closes controversial AfDs and this is something that is not allowed under the rules of NACs. His judgement is being questioned, not the result. His defense of his actions above boils down to his belief that he reached the correct decision and he misses the fact that it is entirely beside the point whether an admin would reach the same conclusion or not. His subsequent conduct after his error was pointed out is the reason why the community has lost confidence in his ability to discern which AfDs can be reasonably closed by NAC. Also worrying, the longer-term pattern shows that he is not "learning" and in fact is pretty much unable to accept he erred. That is not good. I believe a (short) topic ban from NAC is appropriate to serve as provide him with a moment of pause to consider exactly the AfDs that fall under the remit of AfDs. I think a topic ban is appropriate, but I think it should be measured in weeks rather than months. A Topic Ban isn't meant to be a punishment, but rather an opportunity for AKS to have a rethink and figure out why the community lost confidence in him and then change that part of his conduct - and that is achievable (I believe) in a short period of time. If he doesn't learn, chances are he'll find himself back here again. -- HighKing 17:53, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• HighKing, actually what is worrying is a user like you, who nominates an article for AfD, refuses to accept the closure and wastes time of so many people in DRV / AN and does not stop in blaming other fellow editors just to get an article deleted. I have gone and re-opened AfDs if the reason was apt and also have agreed with other editors in the past about AfD closures; I seriously don't want to waste my time in digging them out; but if need be I can. This was a clear keep and I will stand by my decision. You have a clear bias on this topic, which is not my problem. Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk) 18:06, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• Wow, such spin and deflection! For the record, nowhere have I stated that I don't accept the result. Nowhere have I said it was a "wrong" result (even on that discussion you deleted from your Talk page) only that it was inappropriate for NAC. Nowhere have I "blamed other editors just to get an article deleted". I didn't open the DRV nor did I open this AN/I and ironically, both were opened by an editor that was looking for a "Keep" on the article. If you've gone and re-opened AfDs in the past, how many? And should that not have given you a clue (before we got to here) that perhaps you were doing something wrong? I reiterate - this is entirely about your inability to judge whether an AfD is appropriate for NAC or not. You are now compounding your poor judgement with inappropriate subsequent behaviour and personal comments. Your comment that you "stand by" your decision is very worrying. Perhaps Davey2010 is correct and your topic ban should be longer, not shorter. Editors who are unwilling to hold their hand up pretty quickly and acknowledge a mistake tend to learn slowly and need more time to learn. Endorse topic ban of 3 months. -- HighKing 18:25, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• HighKing, when did I say that you initiated the DRV / AN? I did not. I said you waste time of so many people in DRV / AN. Let's not forget that it was you who started this discussion; thereby the DRV / AN (which by the way is a clear keep). You should know that AfD is not a discussion forum; if you want to discuss the notability of the award; take it to the article talkpage (which impacts 300+ articles). That AfD (standalone) was a clear keep and I will maintain it such. Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk) 18:27, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• This is getting ridiculous. The only person who has wasted so much time is you, who can't seem to understand which AfDs are suitable for NAC and which are not. Read the rules, they're pretty straight forward. And if you're not sure, if someone comes to your Talk Page and points out that you've made a mistake followed by another editor, both of whom are experienced editors with more experienced than you, take the hint and accept you've made a mistake. If you had done that right at the start, you wouldn't have wasted the time of so many other editors at the DRV and AN/I pages. I've better things to be doing with my time. My advice to you is to step away from the keyboard because you are not helping yourself and you're now fighting with everybody on this thread. I don't think we're all wrong.... -- HighKing 18:53, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support warning only - I got pinged to this conversation per my participation in the Hindoo AfD. I would like to remind admins that we wouldn't need NAC if there were enough admins doing their jobs on maintenance tasks. Instead we have a huge backlog and have to rely on NAC, and now someone trying to be helpful is being brought to ANI. —Мандичка 😜 18:21, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support 6 month tban I support a six-month topic ban on AKS.9955 from doing non-admin closures. I would have been fine with a one month ban, but to me it seems that he needs some time to cool off. He's accusing other editors of acting in bad faith because they disagree with his actions, and I'm not sure that a shorter topic ban would allow him to distance himself from the emotions here. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:26, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• TonyBallioni, let me ask you this; do you think that this AfD was not a clear keep? Just answer the question straight (imagining that you are fresh into this discussion). Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk) 18:30, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

I endorsed the close at DRV. I'm supporting the ban because of your closes after that and your actions fighting with people here. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:35, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• What fighting TonyBallioni? Are you suggesting that I don't even defend myself on an AN???? For example, in case of Hindoo (that me and you were discussing), I just stated a fact that the article just had 16 words in mainspace; where was I wrong in that? I did not find it merge-worthy; someone else did and he did it. Whats the big fuss and why the remark about "fighting"? People have been accusing me for all sorts of stuff, I think I hold the right to reply, clarify and defend myself. Put yourself in my situation and think; what would you do if you are constantly being accused - first on DRV and then here. As a matter of fact, I never wanted to pick an argument (mentioned that on my talkpage), but then I am dragged into this. A simple DRV (without useless blames) would have solved the problem. There was no need to un-necessarily accuse anyone, had someone just opened the DRV without prejudice and vengeance. Look, I don't like wasting time here; like everyone else, I too like making positive contributions. Two days back I started Gandhi family article with the hope that I will spend few hours writing it today. And what did I do today for 4 hours???? Edit this AN. Thats not what I came to Misplaced Pages for. Anyway, I am actually sick and tiered of this AN discussion and would like to end this there. People can say whatever they wish to; I will only step in if I feel it is necessary. What a HUGE waste of time by an AfD nominator who refuses to accept the AfD discussion result. You have a good evening ahead. Cheers, Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk) 18:48, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• I think this AfD, related to this DRV is pretty emblematic of the problem, how the user closed, how they were unresponsive, and how they continue to show their rationale even here. So I'll let this suffice rather than hashing through every past conflict they've had, and people can click through the links if they want.

Two days before the close, it was pointed out that at the AfD that it was copyvio. After the close it was again pointed out that it was copyvio on the user's talk, they were asked to self revert, and they completely ignore this and are adamant that it was a snow close because look how many votes. Even here they want to defend the close in the same way emphasizing how many voted very strongly for keep, so surely we should be impressed. And surely it had nothing to do with the closure, since they missed the comment about copyvio, because after all, it didn't start with a bullet and a bold vote, which is apparently what they were counting anyway.

So I have no sympathy for complains here about time wasting, from someone who apparently fairly consistently thinks it's a waste of time to read AfDs they are counting closing, and who could have avoided this and many other debacles if they had simply listened to others for two seconds. TimothyJosephWood 19:17, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• I have hesitated about commenting here, partly because I am a largely inactive admin who has not closed a AfD for some time. Of course, I could not have closed the AfD in question, as I commented there. The real issue is not the keep closure, but the reason given. In several AfDs, the question whether receiving the Bronze Wolf Award makes a person notable has been strongly discussed. User:DGG started a discussion at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Robbert Hartog as an instance where there was essentially nothing else claimed. This turned out to be not the case but it points to a serious attempt to answer the question whether the award makes a person notable. This NAC closure and the total failure of the User: AKS.9955 to understand the issue has totally confused the matter. The fact that he then closed a similar AfD even after his action was queried is a large worry. I support instructing him to not close AfDs for a period of at least 3 months and hope he gets to understand the process in that time. --Bduke (Discussion) 21:31, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

As I was pinged, making a comment . Everyone makes mistakes and I don't think there was anything that bad as a number of admin have said they would have closed the main AFD in contention as a keep, missing the copyvio one was a mistake. Perhaps if AKS was requested to only close noncontroversial AFD in line with NAC where there are no prolonged discussions and keep / merge/ redirect are obvious. As someone has said NACs are filling a gap left by admin inactivity apart from some very hardworking regulars so more admins closing is needed IMO. Atlantic306 (talk) 01:42, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support XfD topic ban for either an indefinite or a finite duration. Thanks for starting this discussion - I was considering to do so myself. As an administrator who is regularly active at AfD and DRV, I have frequently noticed AKS.9955 making AfD closures and then reacting to challenges of them in a way that indicates a lack of the Misplaced Pages policy competence and social skills required to perform these functions. There is not a lack of admins willing to perform these functions, so banning AKS.9955 from them is a net benefit to the project because it avoids wasting the time of other volunteers with DRV discussions and discussions such as this one.  Sandstein  10:03, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support XfD closure topic ban of two months or so. This is clearly someone does not know what he's doing, and will not listen to people who do. Reyk _YO! 10:07, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

• User has apparently decided to retire from AfD per the header on their talk, but...have done so...even then...with such a flagrant misapplication of policy and principle that I think we're probably in safe territory to go ahead on a TBAN without worrying about the project too much: If people cannot be fair, appreciate my view-points, efforts, time, contributions (for maintenance), maintain WP:NPOV and are not free from WP:GEOBIAS, then I am not desperate to perform those tasks and waste my time. TimothyJosephWood 10:51, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

• Yes, just noticed that. I'm still fine with a topic ban here. Not as a punitive measure but as a preventing further disruption measure. 3 months is a good minimum, though I would still support up to six. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:09, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Same. I wouldn't support anything longer than six. But, I don't want to get in a situation where they decide to unretire in two weeks, and here we are again. I think they can be an asset, but they have to drop the attitude. There's a reason why there are at times two or three posts weekly here or on AN along the lines of "please review my admin action," and that's because that's the appropriate attitude to have when you make high-profile decisions that affect the community, even if you think you're right.

I would point out though, that there is also the issue of the actual closes of the two boy scout award articles. I still think these should be at least reclosed, if not relisted for the sake of form, even if the decision is, and likely will be, the same. There seems to be an attitude at DRV that the issue should be decided here, as the "higher court", and so if it is not going to be decided here, the close should specify that they are delegating the decision to DRV. TimothyJosephWood 15:27, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

My view as I try to expressed at DRV was that the behavioral issue should be handled here and the issue of the close at DRV. That is still my view. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:53, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

• Opposed to ban, but support some kind of corrective instruction. I've been watching this evolve over an extended period of time, and it's finally come to a head. To be honest, I think the DRV that precipitated this is absurd; I don't see any possible way the AfD could have been closed other than it was, I think people are just using the NAC aspect of the close as a procedural excuse to overturn a decision that didn't go their way. On top of that, there is an undercurrent of nastiness in many of the comments both in the DRV and here which has no place in a communal project.

All that being said, it's clear that there's been issues with AKS.9955's NAC activities. Over and over, people have raised objections to his closes, specifically that he's been overstepping the bounds of how far WP:NAC lets you wade into difficult situations. I personally don't think he's been overstepping the bounds. It's obvious, however, that the broader community does, and we live by community standards here. Once enough people have told you, I don't like what you're doing, it's time to back off a bit, whether you agree with them or not.

There is also a combative tone in many of the interactions I see on AKS.9955's talk page regarding these AfDs. When somebody questions a close I've made, I bend over backwards to try to see it from their point of view. That doesn't mean I'm a pushover. More often than not, I'll hold my position, but I try to be as polite as possible about it. I try not to have any emotional investment in any close I make. If an objection to my close has any merit, I'm happy to revert my close and let somebody else come along and reclose it. If nothing else, it defuses the situation and keeps everybody happy. I'm not here to prove anything, I'm here to make my own small contribution to one of the most amazing information resources on the Internet today.

Part of being an admin (and, performing NACs is effectively being an admin, whether you officially have a mop or not) is having a thick skin. People don't always agree on things, and you will often be put into the position of having to support one side or the other. Closing an AfD is a prime example of that. Don't get upset when people get upset at you. Be polite, listen to what they have to say, and try to see it from their point of view. Sometimes that means amending your closing statement. Sometimes it means vacating your close. Sometimes it means suggesting the person take it to DRV, but that really should be the last step in the process, not the first. And, yes, sometimes it means (tactfully!) telling somebody they're just wrong.

You have to try really hard to be neutral, and be open to suggestions that you weren't as neutral as you would have liked to be. At one point in the DRV, AKS asks, Why cant I have my own opinion? The answer to that is, you can, but not when closing discussions. If you have any opinion at all about a subject, you either need to totally suppress it (not always easy to do), or just pass over the AfD close, and move on to something else. There's plenty of times I start to close an AfD and during the course of weighing the arguments, start to form my own opinion about the subject. When that happens, stop closing, and add your argument to the discussion.

This has gotten more long-winded than I intended, so let me get to the real reason I'm getting involved: This edit where AKS blanked the entire discussion of his actions on his talk page. As I mentioned on the DRV, that's just wrong. Inexcusably wrong. The community process we use on Misplaced Pages is chaotic at times. And inefficient most of the time. And often frustrating. But, it's the process we use. It has served us well for 15 years. Part of that process is a culture of openness and public review of our actions. So, my recommendation is to censure AKS.9955 for blanking the discussion on his talk page, advise him to be more conservative in his future WP:NAC activities, be more open to constructive criticism, and in general be less combative in all of his interactions with his fellow editors.

-- RoySmith (talk) 15:38, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Sigh. I just looked at AKS.9955's (since reverted by an admin) close of Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Kingsley C. Dassanayake. The closing statement says, Multiple users agree on this AfD discussion that subject passes BASIC and GNG, yet there is not a single place in the AfD text where the words BASIC or GNG appear in conjunction with a keep argument. Sorry, that doesn't fly. I've struck my opposition to a topic ban. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:39, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm trying not do dominate this thread, at least any more than I already have, but I would point out that, as the person who opened the DRV, the original closure did in fact "go my way", at least as far as a keep versus a delete closure is concerned. So at least that much is not an accurate assessment of the situation. TimothyJosephWood 15:58, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

In which case, I'm totally confused why we're even here. You agreed with the end result, but not with the person who got us to that, ostensibly correct, end result? And because of that, we're arguing about banning somebody? Makes no sense to me. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:42, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

RoySmith: The multiple AfDs regarding recipients of this award are, in effect and mostly inadvertently, a way of stress testing whether the award is a good indicator of notability, probably leading up to an RfC on the issue using the AfDs (if mostly or all passing) as evidence to this effect. I'm not the architect or the chief proponent of this, but am keen enough to see that's where we're headed. Therefore, botched NACs interrupting this process, and worse, declaring that the award confers notability by fiat and contrary to consensus and policy, are disruptive on a scale that is much larger than an single article. TimothyJosephWood 18:13, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

@RoySmith: Edit conflict Whether he made the right decision when closing AFD discussions is not related to the question, should he have been making certain AFD closure decisions. He is not an admin, so he is restricted to straightforward, non-controversial decisions. Some people claim that some of the AFDs that he closed were ones that only an admin is permitted to close. In addition, there are cases when people claim that process he used to make the decision was poor, e.g. counting "delete" statements, or that the closure summary he wrote was a poor reflection of the key points in favour of the decision reached.-- Toddy1 (talk) 18:19, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

• Comment: I am not part of this discussion, in good faith and concerns related to discussion closures, I agree with The answer to that is, you can, but not when closing discussions. If you have any opinion at all about a subject, you either need to totally suppress it (not always easy to do), or just pass over the AfD close, and move on to something else. There's plenty of times I start to close an AfD and during the course of weighing the arguments, start to form my own opinion about the subject. When that happens, stop closing, and add your argument to the discussion and some admin should raise concerns on WP:Merge, as we don't have strict rules of non admin closures in those discussions too. Thanks.Junosoon (talk) 16:24, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support tban on NACs - as a frequent non-admin closer myself, many of these closes look worryingly inappropriate. Combatively sticking up for those inappropriate closes, and continuing to make them after being warned, is really inexcusable. So even though AKS has stated that he will not continue to perform NACs and such, I agree with Timothy that a tban is a good idea. @RoySmith: as to your addendum about "BASIC and GNG", the nominator does mention those as the main arguments for deletion, and as they are the most basic notability guidelines, it is not unreasonable that they would be met if the subject were demonstrated to pass a more specific guideline. But it is in any case not a very well phrased closing statement, which reads more like an argument than a summary. ansh666 02:04, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Reporting IP (possibly IPs)

I'm doing this first time, so I hope that this is appropriate place to report user.

User 188.169.7.238 is active in Georgian sport wiki pages (I mean Georgia (country)). For months he has been constantly removing tables, where Georgia national football team's and Georgia national rugby union team's head to head results against other national teams are displayed and replacing them with his own version of tables, that are way less informative, as there are not displayed neither how many matches Georgia played against other nations, nor goal difference and win percentage. Also he never cites sources for his tables, where did the information come from and sometimes removes references along with table. The tables that are constantly deleted by him, are pretty match standard on every other national football team's page. He has reverted back to his changes from 16 July 2016 to today several times: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 He has done same on Georgian National Rugby union team page, his edits have been reverted every time (this continiued several years already) and users have warned him several times as can be seen from his talkpage: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26

Also I suspect, that those IP addresses are from one person, as they edit similar pages and similar sections 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. It would be good, if national team pages were semi-protected to prevent every IP editing them.--Woodmana (talk) 11:16, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

213.74.186.109 / Human like you

User 213.74.186.109 (talk · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log)) should be blocked for persistent personal attacks.

Latest personal attack: "harasser copied from somewhere else & an unrelated warning" . "harasser" is a personal attack (and the statement "copied from somewhere else & an unrelated warning" is a lie - these were earlier warnings on his talk page ).

Background: This user repeatedly violated wikipedia rules, in particular this user seems to be engaged in long term POV pushing and soapboxing and repeatedly made personal attacks. Therefore I left warnings on his talk page. This user contacted other users and acted as if the warnings were not justified and he was a victim. Therefore I restored the warnings for discussion with an explanation why I thought they were justified .

User 213.74.186.109 has a history of personal attacks: "sockpuppet" , "vandalism by delusional user" , "supporters of anarchy and terror" , unjustified accusations of "vandalism" , "Where did this sock puppet come from? Are you good at yakking too?" , "mouthpiece of a terrorist" , "An evil intention hides behind your "civil" facade" ).

This user has been warned repeatedly for personal attacks: , , , in particular most recently by user User:Editor abcdef.

Looking at the edit history it is very clear that since September 2016 this IP is operated by the same user (same topics, same edit pattern). 2003:77:4F1D:B929:CC3B:3956:435B:2E58 (talk) 10:35, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. It is particularly problematic that he constantly direct personal attacks against other users on talk pages and not a single action can be taken yet since he doesn't like people adding stuff to his talk pages. Any charges against the IP should instead be redirected to user:Human like you since for the past 2 days the latter is the account he uses to edit. Editor abcdef (talk) 11:12, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

User 213.74.186.109 just confirmed that 213.74.186.109 and 'Human like you' are the same user. It seems that as user Human like you (talk · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki) he is playing the same game again. The same pattern of POV pushing, soapboxing , and again acting as victim when someone notices this behaviour . In particular, this user continues to make personal attacks over and over again ,,, most recently he got warned by user User:EricEnfermero. 2003:77:4F1D:B929:CC3B:3956:435B:2E58 (talk) 13:35, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• I endorse this complaint. I see an ongoing pattern of disruptive edits, including POV pushing, false allegations in edit summaries, and failure to respond to concerns raised on their talk page (except to namecall). I do also hear an obvious WP:QUACK. What I don't know is whether there's a larger context or longer history in play. IPs similar to the IP of the above complainant have engaged in some talk page back-and-forth with User:Human like you/the problem IP (e.g., see recent history at Talk:The New York Times, and have now posted to my talk page; they clearly know their way around the wiki. Regardless of that, I think a block of Human like you for persistent disruption is probably warranted at this time—failing that, a stern warning with an admin or two keeping an eye on things. Rivertorch_WATER 15:27, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
  • This user also posted at the Teahouse asking "how to get rid of a stalker". White Arabian Filly 20:21, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• I also endorse this complaint. I have witnessed (and sometimes been targeted by) the disruptive POV editing and aggressive poisoning of talk page discussions by the reported User 213.74.186.109 (talk) aka Human like you (talk) over several months and articles, in particular Syrian Democratic Forces and Rojava (see talk pages and talk page archives of the articles). -- 2A1ZA (talk) 02:44, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

TBAN request

Made by

ATS

Affected party

Ronz

Topic

Grace VanderWaal and all related articles

Reason

WP:POINT

Evidence

Talk:Grace VanderWaal, particularly §§ "ELs again", "Having two Youtube sites is nothing worth noting" and "Vevo link"

Statement by ATS

User Ronz has been engaging in repeated, belligerent disruption at Grace VanderWaal and its talk page. In particular, the editor has continued to remove data (these are just the most recent examples; 758122056 claims in the edit summary a consensus in direct opposition to any actual consensus), dishonestly citing BLP, EL*, SOAP and REFSPAM (none of which applies) in order to instead enforce IDONTLIKEIT. (Invocation of BLP is particularly dishonest in light of BLPSOURCES and BLPREMOVE, the actual policies under which data is to be deleted.)

When called on his actions, Ronz invokes CHOICE and FOC (the equivalent of answering "Stop disrupting the article by deleting content!" with "You need to focus on content."), while berating anyone other than himself for failure to gain a consensus.

The user also has been properly upbraided for at least one outright lie.

Most recently, Ronz has played the victim card, complaining that he's entitled to explanations that already have been provided.

I believe it is necessary to invoke a mandatory TBAN to stop the disruption since the editor is refusing, and with trademark belligerence, to self-impose.

—ATS 🖖 talk 18:15, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• ATS is spamming external links in contradiction to WP:ELNO and WP:ELMINOFFICIAL. Her youtube and vevo channels are linked from her official website and the additional links contain nothing extra. Only in death does duty end (talk) 18:59, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

The ELs include unique videos that are not easily linked off her official site (in fact, last I checked, they're not linked from gracevanderwaalofficial.com at all, and the site is down for the moment). Only in death is demonstrating a terrible lack of knowledge of what constitutes "spamming". —ATS 🖖 talk 19:06, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Telling Ronz to "Go FOC yourself" and, referring to him quite clearly, "fuck the vandal" is a pretty bad idea. It taints your edits.Doug Weller talk 19:09, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

That's all you read out of that, eh? Unfortunate. The user's activity—which is the purpose here—was monumentally frustrating to at least four other editors. That is the takeway. —ATS 🖖 talk 19:17, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

You don't get to dictate the direction of the discussion. Once you post a complaint here, your own behavior also comes under scrutiny. As you've been here 10 years, you should already know that. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 02:46, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Actual progress is being attempted with respect to the actual report and possible outcomes of the actual report. Contribute, or don't. —ATS 🖖 talk 03:00, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

They are not required to be linked directly. Her official youtube, vevo, twitter etc are already all linked from her website. WP:EL explicitly addresses this. Its certainly *not* down as I can access it and one of the youtube links takes you to the EXACT same page as the one linked from her official website. And I know they are because my PC is currently playing the same damn song in stereo. So no, no unique content. Linkspam. Only in death does duty end (talk) 19:11, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

It's working for me now, and it has changed. This does not address the user's actions. —ATS 🖖 talk 19:17, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

And Jesus Christ, the only reason the Vevo link you have put in as an external link is different to the Vevo link from her website is that you have put the external link to the 'videos' section of her channel instead of 'home' as her official website does. Claiming that is 'unique' content is duplicitious. Only in death does duty end (talk) 19:19, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Someone needs to check the edit history—and, no, that someone is not Jesus Christ. —ATS 🖖 talk 19:21, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• In addition, the editor is denying any responsibility for his part in the "war". —ATS 🖖 talk 20:57, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
• I agree with ATS. Ronz has been trolling, deleting useful information and otherwise vandalizing the Grace VanderWaal article since she began editing there. I fully support the proposed TBAN against Ronz. -- Ssilvers (talk) 20:56, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
• I noticed the fuss at Grace VanderWaal and have been trying to help but unfortunately Ronz has got under people's skin and we are seeing the tactical blunders mentioned above. For example, referring to Ronz as a vandal is an own-goal at ANI because WP:VAND and commonsense dictate that being misguided does not make one a vandal. Also, retorts merely cause third parties to assume Ronz must be on the right side. The fundamental issue concerns a couple of external links. It's easy to provide a sea of blue links showing how such links should be discouraged, but in this case Ronz has been quite needlessly harassing contributors over trivia. Consider the benefits that would arise from removing one external link, and balance that against all the ill-will caused as good editors have tried to develop this article. Ronz drops in every few days to post another condescending set of blue links while never engaging with the content issues that others try to raise concering why links should be retained. Ronz should be told to leave the article alone—there are plenty of puff pages needing attention (I noticed this and this yesterday). Johnuniq (talk) 00:07, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
• Ronz has repeatedly engaged in edit warring and editing against consensus. I support the proposed TBAN. Somambulant1 (talk) 01:09, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
• commentI support Johnuniq's comments here. Ronz has been involved in four discussions on the talk page since October 29 and started 2 of them. I believe it was Einstein who offered doing the same thing and expecting different results is madness. We have multiple consensus making processes. In addition to a RFC we have WP:ELN. There's no real issue honestly in what he's done (trying to apply EL policy and/or guidelines) but how he has done it. I do not support a topic ban here. I think this can be simply solved by telling Ronz to stop this behavior. Ronz, not just in this article but in all articles, if you can't take an action that will lead to a consensus (such as an RFC) then drop the stick because you are beating a dead horse.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 01:53, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

• I would have no argument with telling Ronz to stop this behavior as long as any consequences have teeth. His latest edits to the talk page indicate a continuing unwillingness to accept any responsibility for his own actions. —ATS 🖖 talk 02:09, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Let me try something crazy. @Ronz: It's reasonably time to stop this fight over EL. I would like to request something of you. I certainly feel that it's reasonable. It' in regards to the article at Grace VanderWaal. I would like to ask you stop all activity there in regards to external links unless that activity can be reasonably expected to end in a consensus (such as an RFC). Basically constructive actions. The request is that you no longer remove the links with out first gaining a consensus. You no longer open a discussion on the talk page about the external links (unless its an RFC). And if you do upon an RFC that you limit your discussion about the rfc to necessary comments to make your case. In short I would like to ask you to respect the current consensus or take action that would result in a broader consensus. This seems reasonable.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 02:39, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Nothing crazy about it: I'm happy to avoid making any edits to the article related to this topic while we get this dispute resolved. 20:16, 6 January 2017

I hope that's enough. Maybe we can get others to agree to the same? 0RR on video and video-hosting links basically--Ronz (talk) 03:01, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Sorry could you be more clear @Ronz:? Are you saying that you are going to open a neutral RFC to resolve this issue once and for all? Before they agree to a 0rr it might be best that they know what thy are agreeing to? An RFC and then you live with the results?-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 03:26, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Demanding that one side of a content dispute stop trying to enforce guidelines because the editors who violate it also make useful contributions seems... incredibly weird. Though I do agree that Ronz would be better off just abandoning this article. Let the page accrue external links to its authors' content. Spend your efforts somewhere that doesn't generate so much angst over something so silly. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:34, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

It's not a demand and it is a request, well on my part. And as far as enforcing the rules we are talking about a guideline. More than a few of them have held that this guideline doesn't apply. In the end this whole matter involves a content dispute.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 03:44, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Indeed. —ATS 🖖 talk 03:48, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Yeah that's great but back on the ranch... The details are not completely clear yet but Ronz would like to end this someway constructively. And he has asked one small thing. Until it concludes you add no more links. My understanding is the current links that you want stay in the article and you add no new ones until this matter is resolved in a consensus in some constructive and fruitful process (I assume an RFC).This doesn't sound unreasonable. What do you say?-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 03:57, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Honestly—and this may come as a surprise—I don't care which ELs are there and which are not. I care about an honest effort to seek and find consensus, as opposed to a forced consensus-of-one wrapped in guideline-dressing. We specifically forbid "but I'm RIGHT", do we not? —ATS 🖖 talk 04:06, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

So you're just trying to "prove a point"? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 04:22, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

At Grace VanderWaal, everyone is editing constructively except User:Ronz. S/he has, at every turn, made it more difficult for everyone else to develop the entire article and dominated the discussions on the talk page with repetitive demands, accusations and disruptions of numerous kinds. There are experienced editors working on the article, and we have resolved all disagreements and reached WP:CONSENSUS on all the issues. Only Ronz disagrees with the consensus. Ronz should be banned from the page so that we can get on with developing it. This subject, Grace VanderWaal, only came to national attention recently, and Ronz has stood in the way of our ability to develop it to follow the subject's fast-moving career because of Ronz's obsession with deleting ELs. The article has only 4 ELs. Ronz wants to delete 3 of those. Those 3 links have been discussed extensively at the Talk page, and the consensus is to keep them. Here is why: VanderWaal is notable mainly for three things: (1) her YouTube videos; (2) her new EP; and (3) her appearances (and win) on AGT. The three ELs that Ronz disagrees with are of key interest to any reader of this article. The first is a link to the subject's main YouTube channel. The second is a link to the "videos" page of her GraceVanderWaalVEVO channel that features her EP and the songs on the EP. The third links to the appearance on AGT that made the subject notable and famous and which has been viewed well over 100 million times on social media (both YouTube and Facebook). -- Ssilvers (talk) 04:34, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Honestly I don't see that any of that matters. In the end you are personally arguing for a WP:CONLIMITED while he's arguing that specific policies and/or guidelines apply. The greater issue on part of @Ronz:, as I see it, is wp:stick. Without attempting to end this discussion constructively with some consensus making process they are beating a dead horse. After two months at this point this is simply disruptive especially considering how little the issue actually matters in the grand scheme of things. They should either drop it or move on to some constructive form of consensus making. In the event they fail to do either a tban should be considered. Above it seems that they have agreed to move on to some form of constructive consensus making process. As such there's no need to tban them. They seem to have asked one simple thing of you. That you add no more External links until this constructive consensus making process that they opt for is complete.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk)

• Administrative review is requested of Baseball Bugs' activity hereinabove (and below). Thank you. —ATS 🖖 talk 05:02, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I am rather sensitive to the issue of spamming, and your excessive linking looks like spam and promotion. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 06:28, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

@Serialjoepsycho: I had already started what could be used as the start of a dispute resolution activity. Personally, I was thinking WP:ELN, but if editors think an RfC is better, I'm for it. Do you think that it is a good start? Personally, it's not that we haven't worked on constructive consensus-making, but that editors do not respect the consensus when it doesn't go their way. I've certainly compromised, and even provided arguments for the material that I disagree about including. ATS says he doesn't care which links are in the article. I think Somambulant1 has been responsive to discussion. That leaves SSilvers. Will he respect new consensus? I hope so, but don't think his answer should sway us from trying to get this settled. (I'm unlikely to have much time to respond further today.) --Ronz (talk) 16:43, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

@Ronz: ELN is not very accurate. An RFC will be more expedient. It's time to put this baby to bed. Honestly I'd rather you move on but if you must a RFC would be better.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 21:15, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

• No editor who continues, especially through a "resolution" process, to assert that he alone is right and everyone else is wrong, and who starts and propagates an edit war on that basis, will ever be "on the right track". This was the genesis of the disruption, and the editor refuses to address it. —ATS 🖖 talk 18:42, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Edit-warring by Only in death at Grace VanderWaal

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

Belligerent misapplication of EL* in violation of consensus at article talk. There is no "spamming". —ATS 🖖 talk 19:02, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

You will know when I am belligerent. You are spamming youtube links into an article that already has 4 youtube links in the refs (including at least one to her official channel). WP:ELMINOFFICIAL is also very clear. Do not external link more than one official website when they are already linked through an official website. This is basic SEO refspam. Only in death does duty end (talk) 19:07, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) We are spamming nothing. Unique content is unique content. —ATS 🖖 talk 19:12, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

(ec)There's no consensus to keep those redundant youtube links. And saying stuff like "Go FOC yourself" doesn't serve your argument well. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 19:08, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

"Go FOC yourself" – He's telling someone to Focus On Content, right? "Go focus yourself on content" – what's wrong with that? EEng 19:59, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Glad someone got that ... —ATS 🖖 talk 20:09, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Oh, I got it immediately. It was a joke. Or at least a tiny sliver of one. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 22:53, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

—ATS 🖖 talk 23:08, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Read only that, did you? Unfortunate ... —ATS 🖖 talk 19:12, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

It sounds like it's you that needs to be topic-banned. You've been here a long time and should know better than to do the stuff you're doing on that page. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 19:51, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Stunningly, horribly, tragically wrong. —ATS 🖖 talk 20:09, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Since when is a content dispute about external links a "tragedy"? And is not the case that you've been here for 10 years? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 22:30, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Interesting how you missed the tragedy and got the joke ... —ATS 🖖 talk 23:10, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Calling a minor edit dispute a horrible tragedy is also a sliver of a joke. Don't give up the day job. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 23:11, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

One, two, three strikes, you're out. The tragedy is the shoot-the-reporter shitfest that this has become. —ATS 🖖 talk 23:17, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

In short, the joke's on you. Boomerangs happen. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 23:27, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

No—boomerangs return on their own. —ATS 🖖 talk 23:29, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Oops, I commented on this in the thread above at virtually the same time. Doug Weller talk 19:10, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• Those links don't belong. Please don't edit war to restore them. --John (talk) 19:31, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
• I notice this complaint about edit warring from an editor who is currently sitting right at 3RR (and is less than 2 hours from violating it) due to their insistence upon reverting at least two other editors. I notice that this editor has reverted 6 changes to the article in the past week (and seems to have an unusually high number of reverts overall for someone not engaged in bot-assisted anti-vandalism). I notice that this user has used edit summaries like (rvv), ‎(rv vandal) and ‎ (rv 100% bullshit edit: 67% because the vids are there, taken directly from the channel; 33% for blatant misuse of SOAP and BLP to cover IDONTLIKEIT) in response to good-faith edits. I notice that this editor made certain unqualified statements about the article subject's official website and what links it contains that were quickly proven false.

Therefore, I draw the conclusion that there is, somwhere in the vicinity a a certain sub-equatorial type of throwing stick fluttering around, looking for a face to run into. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:20, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Your blinders are showing ... —ATS 🖖 talk 20:25, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

When one man calls you a dog, ignore him. But when three (or more ) men call you a dog, check yourself for fleas. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:36, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Hilarious that it applies only here, not to the genesis of this whole thing. Your blinders have taken you over. —ATS 🖖 talk 20:40, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Please review the first rule of holes. While it's not an actual Misplaced Pages policy, it might help forestall an escalation of this problem. I understand that this advice might be frustrating and unwelcome, but these additional links really are not unique content and really do fall afoul of our policies for external links. David in DC (talk) 20:45, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Because of recent, and likely fluid, changes to the subject's official presence, this point I have already conceded—and if I wasn't clear before, let me be so: I'm conceding this point. The issue is the behavior as noted above, to which others have been all too happy to apply a boomerang effect. If this is how we investigate things here, the project is fucked. —ATS 🖖 talk 20:49, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Only in Death, please stop edit warring. These links have been discussed extensively at the Talk page, and the consensus is to keep them. The subject is notable mainly for three things: (1) her appearance on AGT; (2) her YouTube videos; and (3) her new EP. Only in death keeps trying to delete three ELs that are of key interest to any reader of this article. The first links to the subject's main YouTube channel. The second links to the "videos" page of her YouTube channel that features her EP and the songs on the EP. The third links to the appearance on AGT that made the subject notable and famous and has been viewed well over 100 million times on social media (both YouTube and Facebook). It is also suspicious that this person began edit-warring in support of Ronz on the same day that this TBAN request was made. Their edit summaries have some of the same tics of grammar/usage. Is Only in death a sockpuppet of Ronz? -- Ssilvers (talk) 20:56, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Did you actually read WP:ELNO, WP:ELOFFICIAL or WP:ELMINOFFICIAL? I suggest you do. You have linked to her youtube channel, her other vevo channel - both of which are linked through her official website, and a youtube video which is *already linked to* in Ref 21. So thats 3 extra links that all fall foul of the above. None of it is 'unique' content and at this point my opinion this is link/ref spamming is increasing. Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:37, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Absent any material in the article relying upon those ELs as a source, they literally add nothing to the encyclopedia. Which means they don't belong. Full stop. While the talk page certainly looks like Ronz is editing against consensus, it's very clear that he's been editing within policy, and refraining from incivility and personal attacks. On the other hand, that talk page is chock full of personal attacks and incivility towards Ronz, and the consensus there is to violate WP:ELNO with no rationale given. I'm all for ignoring policy in favor of consensus when there's a good reason for it, but the reason here boils down to WP:ILIKEIT. Which is a pretty crap reason if you ask me. If it was a good reason, I'd have written two-page book summaries and linked dozens of pieces of official and fan art to The Dresden Files. I think those articles are shamefully short. But I can't justify adding all that, so I don't. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 21:39, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

(Addendum) I'd also like to point out that ATS's responses to every bit of criticism in this thread has been a mild personal attack. I'm a little surprised no-ones pointed this out before now, but there it is. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 21:41, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

No surprise, this ... —ATS 🖖 talk 21:45, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Whats more interesting is that considering the length of time both you and Ssilvers have been here, you both do not actually know what vandalism is at all. Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:54, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Referring to and ?-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 22:01, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Yup - and the above accusations on this page. Now personally I'm quite happy to go to 3rr and stop when its blatantly 'We're going to spam youtube links' againt guidelines. Frankly given the above responses which show they have absolutely no ability to read and understand clear English, I guess its not surprising they also do not know the difference between vandalism and removing unencylopedic content. Also ATS, this is how you know I am belligerent - I stop actually trying to explain things to you. Only in death does duty end (talk) 22:08, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes it all seems aimed at escalating this needlessly tense situation. They have what at the most amounts to a local consensus and questionably so. If they wish to IAR or they think the guidelines and/or policies do not apply in this situation they should have no issue justifying it on the articles talk page and seeking a consensus thru RFC or related process. And if they wish to continue here they should simply be banned. It will allow them time to cool down a depersonalize this.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 22:27, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Frankly given the above responses which show they have absolutely no ability to read and understand clear English, I guess its not surprising they also do not know the difference between vandalism and removing unencylopedic content. Also ATS, this is how you know I am belligerent - I stop actually trying to explain things to you. And that's all that need be said about that. —ATS 🖖 talk 22:31, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Belligerent misapplication of EL* in violation of consensus at article talk. There is no "spamming". I'd go back to the comment that was a response to. But this tit for tat bores me. Good day.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 22:48, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Comment Pardon my French but this is all pure grade A USDA choice bullshit. This has been going on since October. It's time to stop. What I would suggest is that all of you external link warriors open an RFC and get a consensus. After the rfc closes go to WP:ANRFC and seek an official close from a neutral third party. In the event that they can not seek a consensus thru help from the greater wikipedia community ban each one of them. Ronz, ATS, and Ssilver for edit warring. This is a content dispute. Move it along.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 21:49, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

... this is all pure grade A USDA choice bullshit. That much is certain. —ATS 🖖 talk 22:11, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

I was referring to your actions just as specifically as Ronz. I can't note that Ronz is a edit warrior without noting that you are as well. I can't see banning Ronz without banning you and I can't see entertaining your behavior when it only seems aimed at further escalating a needlessly tense situation.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 22:21, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

If you say so. —ATS 🖖 talk 22:34, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

There is a consensus at Grace Vanderwaal on every issue. Only Ronz disagreed with the consensus No further dispute resolution is warranted. -- Ssilvers (talk) 20:40, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Proposal to ban FoCuSandLeArN due to undisclosed paid editing

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

This has become slightly academic since FoCuSandLeArN (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has retired today, but given that this user has racked up 70k edits, I think it is important that the community is aware. As I discussed at length on their talk page two weeks ago, I had noticed numerous examples where they'd written articles within days of users uploading photos on commons that were obviously PR shots. They disputed my allegation that they were paid to create them, but User:Doc_James has confirmed through off-wiki communications that at least one of those articles was indeed paid for. What first alerted me though was a major rewrite of Andrew N. Liveris, the CEO of Dow Chemical Company (also majorly rewritten) to which User:Earflaps had added a PR shot (Earflaps ANI for context). Due to extensive use of huggle and drafting articles in their sandbox, it's not easy to work out what they've edited, but I have collected various articles and diffs in User:Smartse/notes. Amongst them:

• Bill Koenigsberg (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) CEO of Horizon Media which is currently being drafted. An early version of the bio contained PR-copy that I am unable to find online.
• Securities and Exchange Commission v. Banc de Binary Ltd. (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) an attempted POV-fork of Banc De Binary whose representatives are already banned and which User:Nagle described as having "some of the worst COI problems in Misplaced Pages history".
• Paul_Singer_(businessman) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) rewrite removes His business practices have been described by detractors as having the characteristics of a vulture fund, a characterization which Singer rejects. As noted on the TP, they made repeated attempts to gain consensus to remove the use of "vulture" e.g.
• Alcoa (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) Rewrite removed any critical content in Environmental record. Article was previously edited by Mark at Alcoa (talk · contribs).
• Arconic (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) Company split from Alcoa.
• Kinross Gold (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) Major rewrite downplays financial losses and expands Corporate responsibility section.
• RadiumOne (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) Major expansion, article previously attracted COI:
• Bog standard paid editing at CreditEase, Spur Corporation, Dual Universe, Ludovic Le Moan and Sigfox

This represents only a tiny fraction of their edits, but at least to me, I don't see any possibility other than them being a paid editor. Considering they'd been rumbled and I'd warned them that they'd be bought here, it's no surprise that they've retired. While it's purely ceremonial, I still think that we should ban them. It's going to take some fresh thinking to decide how to go about cleaning up. SmartSE (talk) 21:40, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Comment I agree the ban is justified. At this point the Misplaced Pages position is very clear. No ned to risk them coming out of retirement to make a dollar.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 21:57, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support. I've done some cleanup on Kinross Gold, and many BdB related topics. There's no doubt many of these including the gold mine company have been targeted for major PR wikiwashing. Doc James's discovery of an undeclared off-wiki commercial nexus comes as no surprise. Ceremonial or not, we have to send a clear signal that use of Misplaced Pages as a corporate PR vehicle is not tolerated. - Brianhe (talk) 22:02, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support I didn't realize they'd actually tried a POV fork at Banc De Binary. For those who came in late, here's the previous Banc De Binary mess on Misplaced Pages, from 2014: Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive844#Banc_de_Binary.2C_Round_2. There was an intense paid editing effort, including an offer of $10,000 to anyone who could "fix" their article on Misplaced Pages to omit details of their illegal operations in the US. (They lost in US court, and had to stop operating in the US, refund every US customer 100% of customer losses, and pay a sizable penalty.) Since 2014, it's gradually come out that Banc De Binary, and most of the binary options industry, is a large scale scam. There are multiple reliable sources for this.. It's become politically embarrassing to Israel's government. Due to a loophole in Israeli law, it's legal to scam non-Israelis from inside Israel. Israel's securities regulator is trying to fix that, but as yet, it's still legal.. There's also a big SEO effort to hide bad stories about binary options, involving a large number of dummy sites promoting binary option companies. What we see on Misplaced Pages is spillover from all this. John Nagle (talk) 22:47, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
• Note: based what appears to be pretty damning evidence here, I will revoke their autopatrolled and new page reviewer rights. BethNaught (talk) 23:15, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support ban, since an editor can "unretire" at any time. Miniapolis 23:43, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support ban for undisclosed paid editing. Personally I think any articles they have created which have not been significantly edited by another editor should be deleted as well. The only way we will ever get a hand on UPE is by making sure that their edits do not stick. In principle this is no different than how we handle edits by already blocked/banned editors but, since their entire history was in violation of the ToU, it should reach back. Edits in violation of the ToU are more damaging to the project than edits made in violation of a block/ban so should be treated at least as severely. Jbh 00:05, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
• Comment I had rewritten the Kinross article a few years ago, and last year (or maybe earlier) found it had been effectively taken over by someone (not you Brianhe) who I thought might have a COI on the other end of the spectrum (i.e. wanting to make the company look bad, turning the article into a giant financial statement, and misrepresentation of sources). It is such a minimally followed article there wasn't much talk page discussion. I didn't have any issues with the rewrite (not to say it couldn't use more work). I won't be commenting one way or there other on a ban suggestion. --kelapstick 01:12, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
• I support the ban. And I personally agree that retrospective review and deletion of the articles is appropriate. I think the ToU fundamental policy within which enWP operates. There is a specific provision in the ToU that any WMF project may choose to vary the terms with respect to paid editing--for example, Commons has done so. As we have not, it's an implicit endorsement. And of course even without the ToU, this is covered by our general policy against disruptive editing. DGG ( talk ) 01:24, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
• Note that I have combed all of the articles involved (including the ones listed above) and it seems we're only encountering the ones in the past 4 months until the last final article contributions, hence it's not a large case here. SwisterTwister talk 02:20, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
  • @SwisterTwister: I'm not sure what you mean - the dodgy photo uploads started in 2014 and as of yet, we haven't determined the scale of the problem. If there were many problems in the last 4 months, that's probably because that was the time period I looked at. SmartSE (talk) 12:20, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support ban and support deletion of all articles that are promotional and not worked on by others Based on both on WP evidence of promotional editing and off wiki evidence of undisclosed paid editing. Their stuff on microorganisms is okay. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:39, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support ban and the investigation should go further I have only been aware of FoCuSandLeArN's activities at the BdB article, but that's enough all by itself for a ban. That article has been the worst example on Misplaced Pages of a company inserting material that is harmful to our readers. They've been doing it for years now, e.g. the article was recreated by a sock of Morning277/Wiki-PR. I believe there's a connection with the OrangeMoody paid editing scandal as well. The firm has been banned from soliciting their victims in the US by the SEC *and* the CFTC. They are in the process of being regulated out-of-existence in Israel (where they are based but can't accept customers). Also there are many news articles coming out recently about how the whole binary options industry outside the US is a scam. A rough summary: these "brokers" run fixed online "slot machines" (60 or 30 second minimum time between trades) marketed as "investments". The odds are fixed by the "brokers" who are betting against their "customers" - victims - directly. They try to lock in their victims to make a large numbers of trades. If by some miracle a customer manages to make money, they simply refuse to give their money back. Published reports from reliable sources say that 80% of the customers lose money, but I think that's just being conservative (by about 20%). And finally the "broker" or their software provider have the ability to determine the output (win or lose) of the "slot machine". Average loss for each customer over the life of their trading - something like $20,000.

Sorry if I get a bit emotional about this - but allowing those folks to market their "services" on Misplaced Pages is just offensive. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:23, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Smallbones is right about that. Read this sixteen-part expose of the binary option industry in the Times of Israel.. We're past the point where we have to worry about crusading on Misplaced Pages as being not NPOV; the mainstream press has done the crusading. There is negative mainstream press coverage from Israel, London, France, Canada, the US, and even Romania. Misplaced Pages keeps getting hit by the binary option industry because it's one of the few sites that outranks their many SEO-promoted fake news/review sites. Incidentally, it's an affiliate business; most of the industry, several hundred brands including Banc De Binary, are affiliate brands of SpotOption. So we need to watch for other brands as well. It just keeps getting worse; here's a new scam involving up-selling Banc de Binary customers to get them to put the rest of their net worth into affiliated scam operations. John Nagle (talk) 20:18, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support. The only reason an experienced editor with a huge editcount would make undisclosed paid edits is if they had been compromised. KATMAKROFAN (talk) 00:42, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Deletion of articles

Now that this user is banned, let us discuss what articles should be scrutinized, and deleted if necessary. 70k contributions is quite a lot to go through. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:58, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

While it may seem counterintuitive, I do not think that Banc De Binary should be deleted. With the civil suits by the CFTC and SEC there were enough facts reported that something like a neutral article could be written. More sources have just become available. Since the original revelations the BdB editors have been trying to get the article deleted. I don't think we should accommodate their wishes on this.

Rather we should look at articles that have not had other editors contributing to the articles.

Perhaps we could alert other editors to look at the articles edited by F&L Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:14, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

I've started a discussion at WP:COIN (permlink) and created an article survey list at Misplaced Pages:Conflict of interest/FoCuSandLeArN. Suggest we mark up that list with the stuff that doesn't have substantial edits by others. - Brianhe (talk) 01:56, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

User:Timmyshin

User:Timmyshin is making hundreds of high speed edits (without a bot flag) in violation of the Misplaced Pages:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality guidelines. I politely informed them that they were violating the guidelines and asked them undo their edits. They said they were aware of the guidelines and had no indention of undoing their edits. I then politely asked them to stop making such edits. However, they are continuing to make such edits in violation of the guidelines. Specifically, they are using gender-based categories as diffusing categories rather than non-diffusing categories and also creating numerous such gender-based categories that should not exist, per the guidelines. Kaldari (talk) 05:30, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

For anyone unfamiliar with why we have these guidelines, please do a search for "Categorygate". Kaldari (talk) 05:36, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

If "Categorygate" refers to this, then creating male writer categories and moving their articles out, which is what I've done today, reduces the controversy. Timmyshin (talk) 06:22, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

FYI: The user was warned by an admin and appears to have stopped. Kaldari (talk) 05:56, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

For your info, the thousands of articles in Category:Canadian short story writers, Category:Indian short story writers and the likes were moved several months ago by User:Bearcat, User:Roland zh and others from what I can see. I have discussed these categories before, have you talked with anybody before you moved every article out of Category:Belizean women short story writers and others and tagged them for deletion, Mr/s. Polite? Timmyshin (talk) 06:11, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

For the record, given that I was pinged I'm going to clarify that Timmyshin has misinterpreted what I and Roland did. In the case of Canadian and Indian short story writers, the parent categories have indeed been cleared of individual articles — but that's not because of the gender categories, it's because the short story writers have been diffused by century (i.e. Category:20th-century Canadian short story writers, Category:21st-century Indian short story writers, etc.) If somebody wants to create parallel by-century categories for Denmark, that would be permissible — but as of right now they don't exist yet, so Denmark can't be treated equivalently yet and the non-diffusingness of the gender categories still controls the parent until such time as Category:20th-century Danish short story writers and the like actually exist. Bearcat (talk) 06:21, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, that makes sense. I can create Category:20th-century Danish short story writers and their equivalents, that's no problem at all. Timmyshin (talk) 06:28, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

User:Miler5255

At the Rainbow Ruby article, I removed the bits claiming the show was a co-production with CBeebies (because actually, it's not), but User:Miler5255 is keep adding it back. Also, the user is deleting the things including CPLG and the UNESCO bits without giving any justifiable reason. I did throw some questions at the user, but the user ignored them and gave no answer. What I tried to do was giving improvements to that article, but the user is keep destroying it for no reason. I believe Miler5255 should be blocked from editing anything on Misplaced Pages. --58.123.222.52 (talk) 08:21, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Not commenting on what should be done yet, but IP couldn't you have asked your questions on the article's talk page rather than the article itself, as is usually done?TheGracefulSlick (talk) 08:35, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

For the record, I left the questions at the user's talk page, NOT the Rainbow Ruby article itself. --58.123.222.52 (talk) 08:42, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Well you do ask a question with this edit "Francophone Canada: Anyone sure Yoopa did air Rainbow Ruby?", but you also did direct questions to the user on his talk page.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 09:15, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Personally, I think you made well-intended edits IP, other than for edit warring. Could you please fix your sources though? At the moment, they are bare links.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 09:19, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Okay. --58.123.222.52 (talk) 09:22, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Miler5255 blanked this report but was reverted. That's not the best way to address concerns of disruptive editing. I left a warning on his talk page. Hopefully, that will be enough. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 13:29, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

NinjaRobotPirate it is not too promising when they immediately blank your warning and have yet to comment on their actions here or elsewhere.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 19:06, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, and I'm also concerned about the IP's claim that he been adding false information. I've reverted an edit he made that changed sourced content on another article, but I really don't know anything about the topic area. At any rate, the blanking seems to have stopped. 58.123, let me know if there are further problems. I'm getting a bit tired of disruption in children's cartoons. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 22:23, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Javed_Malik_and_Haider_Qureshi

Someone really need to see this discussion. its getting messy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.98.39.124 (talk) 13:05, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Page move ban

I hate to do this, but IMHO, it is time that Dicklyon (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was banned from moving pages. His moves of railway related articles are often controversial and challenged, yet he continues to move pages without discussion.

Evidence of this can be seen at

• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_UK_Railways/Archive_37#Recent article moves removing capitalisation of 'line'
• talk:Woodhead line#Page move
• Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject UK Railways#Foo Line or Foo line?

and elsewhere. The most recent I'm aware of was this move of the Harz Narrow Gauge Railway article which was reverted 3 hours later. That article has been at its current title since April 2009, when it was moved from the German title to its English equivalent in accordance with WP:UE.

Therefore, I propose the following editing restriction:-

Dicklyon is permanently banned from moving any page. He may request page moves through WP:RM, allowing for discussion and consensus to be reached. Mjroots (talk) 14:21, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Dicklyon has been notified of this discussion. Mjroots (talk) 14:24, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Support The MOS:CAPS (and MOS:everything else) army have driven enough editors who were far more productive than them away from Misplaced Pages already; we could probably do with them giving it a rest. Black Kite (talk) 14:57, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

If I had any idea who or what you're referring to I would respond. This is ridiculous. Dicklyon (talk) 21:00, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support but it's not enough. The in-article changes are as much of a problem as the page moves. This needs to be broader.

This has particularly been a problem with automated search-and-replace changes, enforcing MOS changes onto the titles of cited books or external businesses. If MOS can be enforced automatically, then have a 'bot do it. If it can't be done so easily, then it needs care. Dicklyon just doesn't see this, he thinks all text strings must conform to some arbitrary MOS rule, no matter the context or consensus. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:16, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

That's not what I think. If you have a complaint about what I do, make it explicit, as did you before and I promptly apologized for my mistake and fixed it. Dicklyon (talk) 21:00, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't give a damn what you think. What you think is clear, and it's so far from what a significant number of other editors think that we are now here at ANI, discussing whether or not to formally prohibit you from continuing to edit in the way that you think. This is no longer about what you think any more, it's a matter for other editors to decide. You might try to influence us that such changes were right, or that you're no longer going to cause a problem with them, but it's now out of your hands as to whether you'll still be permitted to make them. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:30, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

I was pushing back on your assertion of what I think. I agree that what I think is not very relevant here, and can't be objectly discussed or evaluated, so why would you insert your opinion of what I think into this discussion? Dicklyon (talk) 23:47, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

• And now you've found a new target, Talk:L1A1 self-loading rifle#Requested move 7 January 2017, to push this same agenda that a simplistic style guide always overrules all subjects, no matter what the context. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:38, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

So now I'm not allowed to express an opinion and share book evidence in a requested move discussion? What happend to WP:BRD? Dicklyon (talk) 23:47, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Express away. But if you're trying to make a case that you can express judgement over renames rather than a blind compulsion to impose one rule, over all others, then it's not really helping you. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:08, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

• I don't see the problem here. At a glance, and as a person unacquainted with these matters, Dicklyon seems to want to bring capitalization of titles in line with Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Capital letters, which says that capitals should be reserved for proper names. That seems unobjectionable to me. It's of course possible that this (like other MOS issues) can give rise to heated disputes in individual cases, but neither the request nor the links provided appear immediately indicative of any serious conduct problems concerning Dicklyon, let alone problems warranting a ban.  Sandstein  15:20, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Dicklyon doesn't seem to understand what a "Proper Noun Phrase" is, which is why the Bittern Line article was moved to Bittern line, despite it being heavily marketed as the Bittern Line by the TOC, Broads Authority and Tourist Information Board. There are many other examples of such moves, most of which have been challenged. Mjroots (talk)
• Support indef Dicklyon was unblocked under the standard offer with the condition that he did not return to carrying out controversial page moves. He has previously been prohibited from carrying out page moves. WP:ROPE... Keri (talk) 15:37, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  No, he was not prohibited from carrying out page moves, that restriction was from "large scale, potentially controversial actions such as mass page moves" (my emphasis). Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:50, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  "...such as..." (my emphasis.) Keri (talk) 16:00, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  (EC) Agree here, the restriction was on controversial actions, not on mass page moves, that was just an example of a controversial action. Normally just moving a page to a hyphen-dehyphen would not be controversial, however Dicklyon knows perfectly well it is, has been told before not to do it without discussion, and I think this is the second report in as many weeks about Narrow Gauge hypenation? Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:06, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  @Keri: - that is not the proposal on the table. Let's discuss the page move ban, and if enacted see how things go from there. Should it prove necessary, a CBAN discussion can be raised at some point in the future. I hope it won't come to that. Mjroots (talk) 16:21, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  I hear you, but the page move ban is effectively already in place. Dicklyon has ploughed on with controversial page moves regardless (see eg the comment below from Bradv). Keri (talk) 16:26, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  Yes, but he was *not* "prohibited from carrying out page moves". Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:42, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  If you are referring - which your quote suggests - to the 3rd link in my comment, it is quite explicit: "I'm imposing a six-month ban on page moves except through WP:RM" (my emphasis) Keri (talk) 16:46, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  @Keri: You are correct, and I apologise for my mistake. In April 2015 he was indeed prohibited from page moves for a period of six months. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 20:21, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

• Comment: I went to Dicklyon's talk page to complain about an inappropriate page move, and saw this thread. Bradv 16:03, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose: RM is the prescribed process for determining page names (a content dispute), and these moves mostly go the direction DickLyon proposes. Many of them are edge cases or grey areas, and the reason we have RM process, instead of people moving pages at whim and moving them back, is to have consensus discussions about what the page should be named, based on what policies, guidelines and evidence, and for a body of such discussions over time to make these areas less grey and less edgy, so debate about them ceases. The fact that some of the move proposals don't succeed doesn't somehow mean that DickLyon is being disruptive, it means that DickLyon is not infallible and that the process is working. What is really going on here is that WP is beset by a large number of overcapitalizers (especially for WP:SSF reasons) and people who don't understand the difference between hyphens and dashes. They are naturally, as an aggregate class, going to be irritated by someone who focuses on cleanup of excessive capitalization (against WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CAPS) and incorrect use of horizontal line glyphs (under MOS:DASH), and who like to gang up on him at RM and, periodically, ANI – frequently making uncivil accusations about him in the process. Their own behavior needs to be examined. ANI is not a venue for circumventing RM or any other WP:PROCESS; we have those for a reason. The particular locus of this new dispute seems to be rail transit fans, who are a "particular" lot. But they cannot agree even amongst themselves; our transit and transport articles display a wide variety of conflicting styles, even with regard to the same transit system (e.g. Van Ness Station versus Fruitvale station in the San Francisco Bay Area), and the train fans, highway cataloguers, and other topical camps in the general category frequently contradict each other. With very few exceptions, these editors have no linguistic, professional copyediting, or other background in language and style matters, nor in philosophy (where the nature of what proper names really are is also debated at length), and incorrectly insist that everything they ever see capitalized for any reason in any kind of writing (e.g. signage) is a proper name, and/or that anything with any kind of label, designation, or categorization has a proper name, or both, and they are flat out incorrect. These RM discussion need to happen, with sufficient input and in sufficient number that an actual consensus emerges. Or hold a site-wide RfC on the matter at WP:VPPOL. ANI is not the venue for settling content disputes, and this is entirely a content dispute. This type of content dispute (cf. 2014 huge RfC about capitalization of common names of species, for example) can get heated, but most of the invective about it is hot air and it will dissipate once a consensus emerges one way or the other.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  17:41, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

FTR, Van Ness and Fruitvale are stations on different systems. I would have thought you of all people would know that. EEng 17:50, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support WP:RM#CM is clear: "The discussion process is used for potentially controversial moves. The move is potentially controversial if any of the following apply:" when point three applies: "Someone could reasonably disagree with the move." Lugnuts 18:28, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose per Dicklyon's explanation below, which, if an accurate reflection of his page moves, seems reasonable. Paul August ☎ 20:30, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support I challenged Dickylon's move of the British narrow gauge slate railways article. He doesn't appear to be interested in following Misplaced Pages's conventions, or even his own conventions. He is only interested in imposing his own specific interpretations of grammatical rules, no matter the context or the rationales involved.

A few examples. He first claimed that "narrow gauge" should be converted to "narrow-gauge" because Google n-gram search (a notably unreliable mechanism, per Misplaced Pages's own article) showed that the hyphenated version was the more common. Then when I demonstrated that the common usage in British railway articles was unhypenated, he dismissed that evidence because it was from the specialist press, citing WP:SSF. Okay, so I demonstrated that the usage in the general British press was "narrow gauge" and he dismissed that because newspapers "don't count". He's never explained why newspapers don't count, even though WP:SSF explicitly says they do. All this is at Talk:British narrow gauge railways. He won't accept any evidence that contradicts his personally held beliefs, even when his own guidelines disagree with him. This makes it impossible to have a rational debate with Dickylon. The only rules he wants to follow exist in his mind.

Much worse though, he started to move articles that contained the word "narrow gauge" to their hyphenated version. I politely asked him to revert he changes while the debate continued on Talk:British narrow gauge railways. My understanding is he should at least have waited for the debate to finish before imposing his own interpretation across Misplaced Pages. Instead he continued on his crusade, ignoring my objections and those of others. I asked him again to stop, pointing him to the debate he had already taken part in. Yet he continued moving pages.

Even when the debate on the talk page was completed and he had failed to generate consensus, he continued to move pages, including the very page under debate.

How is this okay? He is imposing his personal interpretation against consensus, and against guidelines. Far from following policies like ] he is riding roughshod over the spirit and letter of Misplaced Pages at every turn. It's hugely frustrating and a massive waste of time, energy and goodwill. Railfan23 (talk) 23:49, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Can you link where you say you challenged my move of the British narrow gauge slate railways article? I think you're mistaken there, along with much of the rest of what you say about me, like what I'm interested in (which is neither true nor relevant), or that I "first claimed that "narrow gauge" should be converted to "narrow-gauge" because Google n-gram search showed that the hyphenated version was the more common". I did not; the n-gram search was about evidence, not about a reason; if you see a place where I said something inappropriate, link it and let others see, too. And if these "narrow-gauge" moves are so bad, why have practically none of them been reverted? The narrow gauge slate railways this morning was the first, I think; and the other one this morning at Harz Narrow Gauge Railways, which I had not known about before this AN/I complaint, since I was sleeping. At the RM discussion, you were the only one opposed to the hyphen, with your silly Br/Am theory that I disproved; nobody backed you up on that pushback, because it made no sense. Bermicourt tried that later in a different context, but then resorted to a much more plausible rationale for the Harz, saying it's the official company name (even though the official company name is actually German and the article is about the lines, more than about the company, and even though it appears lowercase a lot in English-language books, but those are points I'll bring up if we do an RM later; for now, I've been reverted on that one, so next we discuss). So only two reverts out of all these horrible moves, and both while I slept this morning, is reason to ban me from page moving? Dicklyon (talk) 00:46, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

First, apologies, I got the detail wrong. I objected to your mass move of articles and only to your proposed move of British narrow gauge slate railways here. Your first justification of the hyphenated version in Talk:British narrow gauge slate railways was this one at which you explicitly cite the Google n-gram search. You gave no other justification for why the hyphenated version should be preferred. You may have intended that to be "evidence", not a "reason" - but a reasonable reading of what you wrote, is that you are saying the n-gram search is the justification for your proposed hyphenation.

It was only WP:SSF was the justification for changing "narrow gauge" to "narrow-gauge". Though of course you only apply the very small bit of that guideline that agrees with your personal opinion, and continue to ignore the rest. If you won't stand consistently behind the guideline, don't quote it at all.

I did not revert your page moves because I believe it is better to discuss instead of imposing my opinion. I asked you, twice, on your talk page to revert the moves. I thought that was more productive than just reverting you, and also believed I clearly expressed my wish for them to be reverted. Will you really only respect the outcome of a discussion if you have been reverted first? My objection was just as clear as reverting would have been, while being less disruptive and more respectful. You just continued on making changes over objections, while the debate was still running. Railfan23 (talk) 01:42, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support The Manual of Style isn't something to blindly obey, it's a guideline. Using it as an excuse to unilaterally push through page moves that don't have any consensus, and refusing to accept that you may be wrong even when the specific things you've done wrong are pointed out to you, is evidence enough that this editor does not have (or does not use) the expertise required to perform page moves. Exemplo347 (talk) 23:59, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

See the many relevant RMs; I'm generally careful to stay with consensus when making moves. Dicklyon (talk) 00:46, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support Mainly because I was already watching the discussion Railfan talks about above, and its clear Dicklyon has no real interest in evidence that doesnt support his preferred version. Only in death does duty end (talk) 00:32, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Come on, Only, there's no policy about what things I need to have a real interest in. If I did something wrong, say what; or at least say what evidence you think I've done the crime of not being interested in. Dicklyon (talk) 00:35, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

I believe the term is 'moving the goalposts'. Only in death does duty end (talk) 00:39, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose—Largely per Sandstein, above. This is an abuse of the ANI forum by partisans: very sad to see. Mjroots, you write: "Dicklyon doesn't seem to understand what a 'Proper Noun Phrase' is" (I presume you didn't mean to capitalise it)—tell us, what exactly does it mean, and how is it different from a proper name? Tony (talk) 00:38, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. Dicklyon may occasionally come across as overly pedantic but he is a constructive editor following our policies and guidelines and this is a gross overreaction to a disagreement over whether those policies and guidelines should be followed (on which Dicklyon is, as usual, on the correct side). —David Eppstein (talk) 00:42, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support. After taking the standard offer, users really need to be on their best behavour from that point on. Yet barely a year later, here we are. I agree with Black Kite's impressions regarding the negative effect of the overly-pedantic MOS editors. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 00:48, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Black Kite had no actual complaint about me. But you, like him, think I should be banned for what some unspecified other group of editors has done in the past? Gee, thanks. Dicklyon (talk) 01:31, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Response from Dicklyon

Quite a Saturday morning surprise here, after a long spell of routine work with relatively little pushback from editors of the affected pages. Yes, I move a lot of pages, largely for style and punctuation reasons. In the last 12 months I've probably moved nearly 3000 pages, that is, an average of nearly 10 per day, with bursts as high as 30 moves on a busy day. None of this is done "in mass" using tools; it's almost always done carefully, checking sources and history, though there have been exceptions where I made mistakes due to insufficient care.

The current complaint seems to be all about the railroads, where there was a cluster of British line articles where caps were widely applied to generic words, and compound "narrow gauge" when used as a modifier was lacking the hyphen that would help a reader parse it. I usually follow WP:BRD, doing a bold move, and discussing it if it gets reverted. But very few have been reverted.

Mistakes

Yes, I've made a few mistakes, like moving again after not noticing a revert in two cases that I'm aware of.

• Take a look at Talk:Woodhead line#Requested move 17 December 2016, where I confessed to that mistake and opened a discussion. The move passed, and generally reaffirmed the idea that "line" should be lowercase except in cases where sources support interpretation as a proper name, such as Midland Main Line and East Coast Main Line.
• On Bittern Line and Wherry Lines, I immediately apologized, self-reverted, and cleaned up all incoming links when Mjroots reverted one and gave good evidence that these are treated as proper names. See Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject UK Railways#Foo Line or Foo line?
• In a couple of cases I got interrupted or forgot what I was doing, and didn't finish checking replacements via search-and-replace, and left some very wrong styling in the middle of book titles that I didn't intend to touch, as Andy Dingley pointed out on my talk page. I apologized of course, and make no excuse for such occasional lapses of care, but it's not the usual thing or worth a complaint at AN/I.

Downcasing line

I started a big multi-RM back in November on this: Talk:Chester–Manchester line#Requested move 2 November 2016. Closer Bradv concluded that "there appears to be a consensus to avoid capitalizing the word 'line'. This consensus matches the original proposal, so we can move them all as proposed." This was after a no-consensus close at Talk:Settle–Carlisle line that approved the en dash between place names but left the line case undecided. In all cases, my opinions, and subsequent moves, were aligned with the consensus, and with the guidelines of our MOS.

Narrow gauge

One editor, Railfan123, told me that it's British to not bother with the hyphen when using "narrow gauge" as a hyphen, as in Narrow-gauge railway. He didn't revert me. I showed him that he was wrong, that in books, the hyphen there is about equally more common in British English as in American English. Other editors supported that, both on my talk page and in an RM about something in which I said that if we going to move it, or not, we should fix the hyphen to help the reader parse it. Given the obvious support in sources and among editors, I went ahead and did a bunch of these, with almost no pushback. Another editor, Bermicourt, came later to my talk page with the same Br/Am theory, and I pointed him at the other discussion, and he agreed to disagree, ignoring the evidence.

A huge number of my edits (as opposed to moves) in this space were in articles that obviously never had the attention of anyone who understands typography or style, wikipedia's otherwise. Tons of spaced hyphens needed to fixed to unspaced or spaced dashes, or unspaced hyphens, depending on context. This took a lot of work. Similarly, the titles had been made by the same editors and never really looked at for style or otherwise in so many cases. I'll willing to be reverted and discuss when someone disagrees, but there were very few reverts or talk items in this area, and the ones there were were based on the made-up theory of Br/Am differences in hyphenation.

British narrow gauge slate railways

See Talk:British narrow gauge slate railways#Requested move 30 December 2016 where we talked about the hyphen extensively. The non-admin closer Bradv said "The result of the move request was: not moved. Consensus to keep this where it is, as some of the railways listed are elsewhere in Britain, and it is felt that there isn't enough content to write separate similar articles for Cornwall, Scotland, and England. (non-admin closure)." This comment about British vs Welsh had no relationship to the other part of the discussion, which was not part of the proposal, to hyphen "narrow-gauge" in that context. Given the apparent consensus to do so, and given the closer's lack of any comment on that question (not to mention that this non-admin doesn't know the difference between no consensus and "consensus to keep this where it is"), I went ahead and did the less controversial hyphen move. This pissed him off and he reverted it, which is fine, then he came to my user page to threaten me about it, and now he's here. Was this reverted bold move really an actionable offense, or suitable for a non-admin to be threatening to have me blocked? Seems to me re-opening a more focused RM discussion there would be the right path now.

Recent RM discussions I opened

I've opened a number of move discussions when things got controversial. Please review recent ones and see that I'm generally trying to follow WP:BRD, and acting quite sensibly.

• Talk:Huddersfield Line#Requested move 6 January 2017 – currently open; classic case of specialists wanting over-capitalization; so we talk.
• Talk:Volcanic Explosivity Index#Requested move 4 January 2017 – currently open; similar deal.
• Talk:Woodhead line#Requested move 17 December 2016 – closed in favor of my proposal to use lowercase, after I had been reverted.

Few of my British line moves got reverted, and the discussions (e.g. at Woodhead line) reaffirmed that we follow WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CAPS; so I kept at it. I also started moving Japanese lines when I noticed a similar cluster of over-capitalization there, but those all got reverted, so I immediately stopped and left it alone; will start discussions there at some point, since sources support lowercase.

The complainer

Mjroots is the author of the ridiculous proposal at this edit to ignore one of our most longstanding guidelines about title capitalization, so should not be taken too seriously; he wrote there:

Proposals

1. That all railway line articles are housed at the title that has "... Line" in capital letters (Foo Line, Foo Branch Line, Foo Main Line etc).
2. That all such articles are moved protected at Admin level.

Respond below; please don't insert comments inside my comments. Dicklyon (talk) 20:03, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

My proposal is ridiculous? Maybe it is in Dicklyon's eyes. It it doesn't gain acceptance then I won't dwell on it. What I am trying to do it prevent further instances of arguing over page moves, both with that proposal and the one up for discussion here. Regulars here at ANI will appreciate that it is rare occurrence when I start a thread here. I try not to let it get so bad that such action is necessary. The impression I get from Dicklyon is that he is firmly in the WP:IDHT camp. So here we are with the page move ban under discussion. Mjroots (talk) 21:55, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

I do hear loud and clear that you do not like me changing "Line" to "line" in any article titles, and that you'd prefer all such to be capitalized in titles, whether proper name or not. I just think that proposal, being contrary to WP:NCCAPS, is way off base. And when it got no traction in discussion, you surprised me with an AN/I complaint, which seems equally extreme. As for arguing over page moves, that's what we do routinely at WP:RM; we can do more of it or less of it, but cutting it off by ignoring longstanding titling policy and guidelines seems like a non-starter, doesn't it? Dicklyon (talk) 00:31, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Editor making hoax articles and additions about an actress

Hongseol1298 originally created an article about Baek Shin Ji, an actress that does not exist. She was claimed to star in multiple TV shows, but all of them were in 2018 or later, and google turned up nothing. This user has made many socks, to put this false information into multiple articles. So far, here are the socks (some found by Chrissymad):

• Hongseol98
• 112.215.151.142
• 112.215.170.206
• 112.215.45.18
• 112.215.170.128
• 112.215.200.123
• 112.215.151.24
• 112.215.201.192
• 112.215.152.228

Can admins keep an eye out for edits relating to Korean actresses that don't exist? Thanks. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 16:31, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

 Note: Hongseol1298 blocked indef by Widr -- Samtar 16:45, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

I had to read that twice. Keeping an eye out for edits about non-existent actresses is necessary. However, keeping an eye out for non-existent actresses sounds like a sign of mental disorder. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:13, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Added a couple, will update with more shortly. Chrissymad ❯❯❯ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

From the deleted contribs, here's a couple more:

• 112.215.171.89
• 112.215.152.91

-- Samtar 17:12, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Range Information

Here is the relevant IP Range information for interested administrators --Cameron₁₁₅₉₈ 20:14, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Sorted 10 IPv4 addresses:

112.215.45.18

112.215.151.24

112.215.151.142

112.215.152.91

112.215.152.228

112.215.170.128

112.215.170.206

112.215.171.89

112.215.200.123

112.215.201.192

--Cameron₁₁₅₉₈ 20:14, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

From what I can see there doesn't appear to be an IP range that would be blockable for this particular vandal. I'm going to ping KrakatoaKatie, DeltaQuad to take a second look since they are more familiar with ranges but here is the info regardless. --Cameron₁₁₅₉₈ 20:18, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

You can't block any range there without hitting a crap ton of collateral. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 21:00, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. Way too much there to rangeblock. Katie 21:03, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Sportsfan 1234

User:Sportsfan_1234 reverted my edits repeatedly without a valid reason at .

• Sportsfan 1234 claimed that I needed to "Wait for an engish source." (https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Figure_skating_at_the_2017_Asian_Winter_Games&type=revision&diff=756925140&oldid=756919398) even though non-English sources are allowed (WP:NONENG).
• when I restored the ref and asked "Which Wiki rule says that sources have to be in English?", Sportsfan 1234 reverted my edit again. (https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Figure_skating_at_the_2017_Asian_Winter_Games&type=revision&diff=757319650&oldid=757287621) This editor then replaced my reference (an official source from Japan) with a fansite.
• I restored the official source due to WP:NOENG and WP:RELIABLE, source should be "of equal quality".
• Sportsfan 1234 reverted my work a third time, saying "Who determines if its equal value? The website is of equal importance if anything. Start a talk page discussion please." (https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Figure_skating_at_the_2017_Asian_Winter_Games&type=revision&diff=757402380&oldid=757394650) No explanation as to how a fansite is of equal value to an official source.
• In fact, I had already started a discussion on Sportsfan 1234's talk page but they deleted it
• Sportsfan 1234 claimed it was "extremely sloppy and lazy" (https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk%3AHergilei&action=historysubmit&type=revision&diff=757410827&oldid=757406227) that I didn't fill out a particular field in a citation, even though there's no obligation to fill all of them out.
• In the past couple of days, this person has nominated seven of my articles for deletion.

I feel this is harassment to keep targeting me like this, in such a persistent manner. There's been a lot of discussion about Gender bias on Misplaced Pages. Well, aggressive behaviour like this is one of the reasons why there are so few women editors here. Hergilei (talk)

I said wait for an English source because from my experience working with Thai ad Japanese sources, there usually is an English one that comes out shortly after. As for the source in question I did add it back . I was unaware the English source I added is a 'fan site' but it does get the information across in the English language. As for this example you falsely put the wrong title (in English, versus the actual Thai title). To me that is sloppy and lazy. Please refer to the respective deletion threads for reasons why they are nominated. Please stop playing the victim here. You have gone ahead and added references to three of the articles nominated for deletiom (which to me shows they do not meet criteria to be on Misplaced Pages prior to the addition of these references). Sportsfan 1234 (talk) 19:48, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

I didn't "falsely put the wrong title". I undid an edit because "Wait for a english source." (https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=2017_Asian_Winter_Games&type=revision&diff=755876534&oldid=755868580) was not a valid reason to revert Golf-ben10's edit. An English source may come along but it might not. Misplaced Pages is not a crystal ball. Since non-English sources are allowed (WP:NONENG), there's no reason to keep reverting when other people try to include them. Hergilei (talk) 20:09, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

And I didn't revert that edit. I removed it for being incorrectly formatted and I added a source in Thai (which by the way was properly formatted). Sportsfan 1234 (talk) 20:11, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Funny business with some articles

While reviewing something else I noticed an interesting edit pattern. It seems like there exist at least two articles where many different accounts and IPs exclusively edit. It appears to be that these are throwaway accounts.

This alone is of course not the problem here but I will document several of these accounts and their odd edit pattern below. By no means is this exhaustive evidence.

Evalueserve (article marked with {{advert}}

1. Saran.kondapaturi (talk · contribs) - 6 edits on ~18:50, 8 July 2016
2. Iulia.rotaru (talk · contribs) - sporadic 22 edits between 21 July 2015 and 24 November 2016
3. Alexradavoi (talk · contribs) - single edit on 15 May 2015
4. 193.226.164.171 (talk · contribs) - 8 edits on 2 September 2015
5. Inkuku (talk · contribs) - sporadic 13 edits between 26 November 2010 and 26 August 2015 + two edits to Uslar
6. Ajitreddy (talk · contribs) - 1 edit on 9 March 2013 + two edits to Manik Sarkar
7. Fabian baeza (talk · contribs) - 1 edit on 28 August 2013
8. Anastasia moga (talk · contribs) - 2 edits on 6 November 2012 + 3 other edits relating to the article which implies an employee is making these edits.
9. IAash275 (talk · contribs) - 9 edits on 17 March 2012
10. Madhesia (talk · contribs) - 1 edit on 16 July 2007 + 3 edits on own userpage (the one below) + this one edit which is a strange post to say the least

User:Madhesia Userpage edited by a large number of ips and usernames for some reason. There is some overlap with Evalueserve.

1. Pradip Kumar maddhesiya (talk · contribs) - 2 edits on 23 September 2016 to User:Madhesia
2. 126.229.146.219 (talk · contribs) - 2 edits on 21 September 2015 to User:Madhesia
3. Akashforce (talk · contribs) - 1 edit on 16 March 2015 to User:Madhesia + several edits to User:117.192.24.57/sandbox earlier which was blanked by 203.200.48.18 (talk · contribs) whom edits a wide range of topics with few edits. 117.192.24.57 (talk · contribs) has no contribution EVER themselves despite having a sandbox.
4. Arvind.8405 (talk · contribs) - 3 edits on 9 January 2015 to User:Madhesia + 2 other edits to Kandu
5. 14.102.116.162 (talk · contribs) - 9 edits on 2 November 2014 to User:Madhesia as well as several topics including significant contribution to P. C. Alexander, Geevarghese Ivanios and Joshua Mar Ignathios
6. Madhesiyacontact (talk · contribs) - 16 edits between 16 and 25 January 2014 to User:Madhesia + one edit to User talk:Madhesia
7. 122.161.122.65 (talk · contribs) - 7 edits on 8 November 2013 to User:Madhesia + one edit to Risotto
8. Madhesia (talk · contribs) - 3 edits between 16-24 July 2007 + 1 edit to Evalueserve (above) + 1 more (as previously discussed)

I suspect these are single purpose throwaway accounts either by a PR firm or employees of a certain company editing with severe COI. It feels like a poorly coordinated marketing attempt at a glance to me. What I find most strange is how most of these accounts exclusively edit one and only one article with one of them editing for years but making only few edits and only to one article. There needs to be further scrutiny IMHO before an action is taken.

-- A Certain White Cat 21:23, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree with White Cat's Analysis. From my own review I concur most likely outcome is it is probably some sort of PR firm. --Cameron₁₁₅₉₈ 00:06, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

User:SpidErxD edit to Economy of Iran

There is a serious problem with this editor, He/she is disrupting this GA article or pretends not to see my remarks on [[User talk:SpidErxD|his/her talk page like here: Possibly a trap by an agent?

Example: 1. He/she says he "only added links" (and updated numbers). This is patently a lie. Please read his talk page and interactions with other editors on his talk page for more insight.

Kind regards, 47.17.27.96 (talk) 23:37, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Please Admins look into this matter. 47.17.27.96 this ip address first reverted all my edit without giving reasons. then he reverted all edits after giving reasons. so i restored mistakenly removed paragraph on Economy of Iran and ask him to remove only mistakes not all my edits. But then again he reverted all edits although i have restored that paragraph. I think his original account is User:SSZ but he is using 47.17.27.96 ip address for putting warnings on my talk page. Please solve this issue. you can see ] i just updated the article with latest IMF Oct 2016 report and CIA World Factbook values and removed old figures. SpidErxD (talk) 23:57, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

I'd like to note that Spider has reverted the article 4 times in the past day and is showing severe WP:OWNership of the article.74.70.146.1 (talk) 00:19, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Please admin look into this issue. Two ip addresses 74.70.146.1 and 47.17.27.96 reverting all my edits without valid reason. 2 days ago i spend 2 hours reading and researching about Economy of Iran and then i made 8-9 edits in which i mistakenly removed one paragraph. instead of fixing my one mistake 47.17.27.96 reverted all my edits. and put warnings on my talk page. I think both ip addresses belongs to User:SSZ. and he is using these ip addresses for putting warnings on my talk page and reverting my edits without valid reason. Please ask these 74.70.146.1 and 47.17.27.96 ip addresses to use their original accounts to put warnings and notice issues on wikipedia. Please admin look into this issue. SpidErxD (talk) 00:41, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

History deletion at Talk:2016 United States election interference by Russia

Access to a lot of page history at Talk:2016 United States election interference by Russia was recently removed. See . It looks like a mistake. Requesting that an administrator look into it. --Bob K31416 (talk) 00:46, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

No mistake, Comrade! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vladimir P. (talk • contribs)